My wait for windsurfing to find me finally ended! Every summer, a bunch of our church friends from all over Oregon and Washington got together for a week at Detroit Lake in the Cascade foothills near Salem, Oregon. It was a great week of water skiing, eating, fishing, swimming, hiking, river kayaking ... and windsurfing. I really enjoyed it all, especially the river kayaking and slalom water skiing. By the way, when our family lived in the Missouri Ozarks, I held the long distance record for Table Rock Lake, about 65 miles non-stop. Now this new sport of windsurfing caught my attention. Don and Claire Egge asked me if I wanted to give it a try and of course I did. Don patiently explained the basics ... he was quite good at it ... after all, he was the Assistant Superintendent of Public Education for the State of Oregon! I listened, quite sure I understood everything he was saying. After the instruction, I got on the board, grabbed the uphaul, stood up ... and forgot everything he said except, "Keep your back to the wind". Well, I spent 98% of my time either in the water or climbing back on the board. After about an hour of failing every which way I could, I'd had enough so I told Don, "You go out and I'll watch you".

As I sat on the beach watching Don and his wife and family having fun on the windsurfer, I tried something I'd learned about in college called "visualization". I watched closely and as I watched, I visualized myself doing what I saw them do. I imagined myself in exactly the same positions, making exactly the same moves and doing exactly what I saw. My muscles reacted to what they did and I actually FELT myself windsurf. Sports psychologists think that the human brain is incapable of distinguishing between something you actually do from the same action you imagine. When you visualize, it's as if the activity you've visualized has already happened. A little while later, I asked to give it another try. This time was different! I uphauled, got under way, crossed the lake, made a turn, and returned to the beach. Don couldn't believe it. "How did you do that? You were sooo bad before!" I just shrugged it off with a word, "Visualization!"

You can test for yourself how the power of your mind influences your muscles. On a plain piece of paper, draw a circle with a vertical and horizontal line though it. Attach a key to a string and with your elbow bent and stabilized, dangle the key so it's directly above the center of the circle below. Without moving your fingers or your arm, just imagine the key making a clockwise revolution around the perimeter of the circle. Now visualize it moving counterclockwise. You should see the key moving slightly in the pattern you imagine. Next, imagine the key moving like a pendulum along first one, then the other axis of the central cross. Even with no real action occurring, your muscles are responding to the power of your mind to visualize the key's movement.

Small children are natural born visualizers ... learning from their parents, siblings and others close to them during their growing up years. That should drive home the importance of developing good parenting skills! It should also be a lesson to beginning windsurfers NOT to watch other beginners who keep making the same mistakes over and over but instead, watch those who are doing well and making progress. If there's any windsurfing skill you're having difficulty with, watch someone who can do it well, visualize yourself doing the same thing, and practice imagining yourself performing it flawlessly as you think key words that remind you of the moves. Try it ... I'm sure you'll like the results!

>>>