It's A Miracle

I have a friend from Charlotte, Clayton Haslop,
who is a world-class violinist. I'm sure his freakin'
violin costs more than the median home does in
Gainesville, Florida these days. Clayton has been
concertmaster on a couple of dozen big Hollywood
soundtracks ranging from 'Titanic' to 'The
Incredibles'.

And the man is as gracious and personable as he
is talented.

Yesterday Clayton emailed me about a crisis he'd
been battling for awhile, and I couldn't help notice
how concentration helped carry him through to
new uncharted waters of success.

Read it and imagine what focusing better would
do for you and your shooting.

But rather than put words in his mouth I'll let
him tell you himself:

'A couple weeks ago ... I was alarmed by a rapid
worsening of the 'focal dystonia' afflicting my left
hand.

As most of you know, I had hitherto been quite
successful managing the condition with the
techniques I teach in my instructional courses.

Suddenly, nothing I did seemed to arrest the
downward spiral.

Whereas before it was mostly a matter of
controlling the moments of the fingers, now I
was having great difficulty lifting the 2nd and
3rd fingers at all.

In any case, I managed to stay 'up and running'
to the point of finishing the DVD instructional
material. Then the slide seemed to become free-
fall as we traveled to Arizona and Washington for
[his wife] Tania's concerts.

Well, yesterday something incredible took place.

In fact, I would say it was only a cat's whisker
from being a bona fide miracle.

I'm serious.

I had come to the point of thinking my playing
career was over. An hour into a nightmare of a
practice session found me contemplating the
calls I would make to the concert presenters to
whom I'm committed by signed contract. It's not
a place I'd want anybody in this world to be.

Well, as tears literally welled in my eyes, my
resolve to 'punch through' the wall before me
suddenly became ferocious. No, I didn't just
throw myself at the violin.

I willed my brain to create razor sharp images
of how I wanted my fingers to behave.

I breathed in and out like a dragon in heat.

I barked out my counts like a Roman oar master
shouting strokes to rowing slaves in the middle
of battle.

I also bounced back and forth from Paganini to
Kreutzer to the Mendelssohn Concerto I'm
scheduled to perform soon relentlessly searching
for the key to unlock my neural pathways.

Suddenly something seemed to release. I felt
strength return to my left arm. Control rushed
into fingers of my left hand. How I played the
24th Caprice a few weeks ago at our friend's
home wouldn't have held a candle to the clarity
and velocity bursting forth from my Storioni.

Tania and [our daughter] Clara were in an
adjacent room as all of this went down. After
the session I walked in to join them.

Tania said, 'Something happened in there.'

'Yep,' I said, 'I think I just experienced the
closest thing to a miracle that I have ever felt'.

And I meant it.

I'm sharing this with you today to open your
eyes to possibilities.

Focal dystonia results in the 'smearing' of neural
maps in the brain that control movement.
Seemingly it all takes place beyond the reach of
the conscious mind - unwanted muscles fire,
wanted muscles don't fire, chaos rules the roost.
Or does it.

What I learned yesterday, and brought forward
to today's practice, is that focus, combined with
visualization, combined with energy, creates
intention. Throw your very survival behind those
three ingredients and your intention will blast
through any blockage in front of it.'

If you're in a slump or something is blocking you
from becoming the shooter you want to be try
concentration, visualization, and counting like
Clayton did and see if your firm intention doesn't
produce breakthroughs for you too.

Shoot For The Stars,

Coach Dean - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

P.S. One of the beauties of concentration is as
you learn to direct and focus your attention your
body and mind both benefit. What you do in your
mind reflects in your body, and what you do to
build up your body, affects your mind.

Train for quickness in your body, and your mind
loses it's sluggishness too. Train for flexibility, and
your mind reacts to changes better and becomes
more open to ideas and creativity, etc.

That's one reason I'm so high on Coach Tony
Alfonso's new comprehensive basketball training
guide. Apply what you're learning about focus
while you're moving your body under Tony's
expert direction, and you will be strengthening
your mental game as well.

Get started on your 2 for 1 training today at:

http://www.deandelker.com/alfonso_order.html

Note: This entry is protected by copyright with all
rights reserved, but you do have permission to
copy and use it in its entirety as long as the links
are intact and the contact information is included.

Copyright 2006,2007 Delker Enterprises, Inc.

Coach Dean Delker
8413 SW 4th Place
Gainesville, FL 32607
352-494-6572

dean@deandelker.com
www.deandelker.com

Dinosaurs Walk The Earth

Dinosaurs still walk the earth. I had lunch with one
about a year ago, and lived to tell about it. Brooks
Kubik is his name.

During the day Brooks puts on his Clark Kent suit
and tie and does some of the best lawyering south
of the Ohio River, but when he goes home at night
he turns into DinoMan, a 5-time national bench
press champion who has turned from the iron
game and embraced the lost secrets of training
and development, and he's bringing a whole host
of athletes with him.

Take a minute and see what I mean at:

http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaur_bodyweight_training.html

I got an email from Brooks today and the message
was so powerful I had to pass it along to you
verbatim. I'll just let Brooks do the talking:

"I tried something new the other night in my
workout, and it was so tough I barely finished my
training session.

It was a simple idea -- not one that they write
about in the muscle mags, not one that the so-
called "champs" practice, not one that the self-
proclaimed "experts" preach. It was just an idea
that popped into my head one day. Something
that sounded like it might work.

So I tried it.

And it almost flattened me.

In a little under half an hour, I was dripping with
sweat, breathing like a race-horse, and wondering
if I would have the strength to make it from the
garage where I train to the house. At one point,
my left thigh cramped so badly that I had to hobble
out of the garage and into the alley in a sort of semi-
squatting position to try to "walk it off" -- except it
was more like "limp it off" or "stagger it off."

It was new, it was exciting, it was fun, it was
different, and it was a HECK of a workout. The
operative words are "new" and "different." New
and different [in this case] is good.

Remember, I'm 49 and closing in on the half
century mark - with almost 40 years of serious
physical training to my credit. By conservative
estimate, I've had over 10,000 workouts in my life
-- and yet, even after FOUR DECADES of serious
training, I was able to think of something new,
different, exciting, productive, interesting and
demanding that I had never done before.

There's a lesson there for all of you. Never think
you know all there is to know about physical
training. Never assume there's nothing left to
learn. Never believe you "know it all."

Life is growth. You are either growing, gaining,
and progressing -- or you are shrinking, losing
and diminishing. There is no staying in one place.
If you're not going forward, you're going
backwards.

Far too many trainees stop growing because they
stop learning."

Brooks' wisdom is true about any skill, especially
shooting the basketball. If you're looking for
something new to try on your quest to become a
hoops sharpshooter you'll find plenty to work on
today at:

http://www.deandelker.com/products.html

Shoot For The Stars,

Dean - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

P.S. I talked to Patrick Chylinsky and his secret,
underground report on how to become a big-time
scorer and average over 20 points per game is
ready. I just need to do my part now. Sorry,
but I've been helping my wife with a business
project of her own. Forgive me for frustrating
you like this again, but as always you'll see it
was worth the wait.

To Your Success.

Giant Badgers Run Uphill On Two Legs

Have I been reading the tabloids again?

No, but Coach Tim Kauppinen saw it in a home-
town sports weekly. They weren't talking about
those fierce little mammals though. They were
talking about the off-season conditioning program
of the University of Wisconsin basketball team.

They were doing interval training on the very same
hill Tim uses for his workouts. Tim does say they
could make fewer trips up, if they sprinted at full
intensity and get results in less time, but he's still
excited to see them doing the uphill training.

Me thinks if it's good enough for the Big-Ten's
Badgers who are well known for their toughness and
conditioning it's something you might well want to know
more about.

So I've made it easy for you to get the skinny on uphill
sprinting. Studies are rolling in from all over, but Coach
Tim can tell you all about it at:

http://www.deandelker.com/hill_sprints.html

Shoot For The Stars

Dean - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

Chariots of Fire Redux

Another line I love from 'Chariots of Fire' is when
the Headmaster at Cambridge is addressing the
incoming freshmen at their first dinner and says:

'Let each of you discover where your true chance
for greatness lies. Seize that chance and let no
power on Earth deter you'

Of course that chance came for Eric Liddel and
Harold Abrahams on the Olympic track in 1924.
Where will your chance for greatness lie?

If it's going to happen for you on the basketball
court you're going to need a good set of wheels.
Yes, a pair of strong legs is a necessity if you
want to be a great shooter. Every shooting coach
I've ever met talks about the importance of leg
drive.

You can always use more strength, stamina,
endurance, speed and explosiveness.

The NFL Hall of Fame rusher Walter Payton, who
was the personification of leg drive, had a big-time
training secret. In the off-season he did hill sprints
religiously. So did all-world wide receiver Jerry Rice, a
nd heavyweight champion boxer Rocky Marciano.

You've probably run steps before in your training,
but do you know the benefits of sprinting them? Do
you know what kind of edge that could give you on
the basketball court?

Coach Tim Kauppinen a top sprint coach from
Wisconsin can answer that question. You can see
what Tim has to say about it in print over at:

http://www.deandelker.com/hill_sprints.html

Make Every Shot Count,

Dean - The Dean of Shooting Hoops

P.S. Matt Furey used hill sprints to propel himself to
NCAA and World Championships in the martial arts,
and he recognizes Tim as a world-class expert on
these secret training techniques. Learn over 20
dynamic routines for both hills and stairs today at:

http://www.deandelker.com/hill_sprints.html

Copyright Delker Enterprises, Inc. 2006