Mindfulness and the Art of Winning NBA Championships
Posted by George Shears | Filed under Applied Mindfulness
With the recent 81-79 victory of the Lakers over the Celtics in winning the NBA championship, Coach Phil Jackson now has a record eleven NBA championships to his credit–seven with the Chicago Bulls and five with the Lakers. This impressive degree of success is due in no small part to his longstanding personal practice of mindfulness meditation, which he has also imparted, very importantly, to his players and other coaching staff.
In an article for True Hoop, Henry Abbott describes how meditation was included in the Lakers’ mental preparation for the final game of the grueling 7-game series with the Celtics.
Also, the following Hall of Fame Feature video about Phil Jackson’s phenomenal coaching career documents how mindfulness meditation has been a key component to his success.
In the arena of professional sports, this information buttresses my previous post about how mindfulness can improve one’s golf game. When considered in conjunction with its many other highly diverse applications, it becomes clear that mindfulness is a very robust skill set that has a remarkably wide range of important applications.
If you are interested in exploring mindfulness and/or starting a personal mindfulness practice, I invite you to accept my free gift of 6 audios and a self-guided version of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program that I directed for five years at a large hospital in Mpls., MN before I retired.
Also, if you have questions or are interested in personal coaching in mindfulness, please contact me at 651-204-0523 or at yodaspal@gmail.com. I will then do my best to assist you in whatever way(s) I can.
In the summer of 1992, I had the great good fortune of participating in a 5-day professional training workshop with Drs. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at Omega Institute in New York State. This watershed experience occurred after I had personally been practicing mindfulness meditation for about 16 years. Among its many other
What does it take to make you happy? How happy are you whenever “it” occurs? How long does “it” last? How attached are you to “it”–that is, how UNHAPPY are you when “it” isn’t occurring? Can you imagine yourself being happy even if “it” were never to occur again?
In his article in the Irish Times, Padraig O’Morain addresses these questions
Parents and teachers, listen up. Goldie Hawn is on a mission to recruit you in helping children become the leaders of tomorrow through the practice of mindfulness and yoga. To this end, she has authored a best-selling book, entitled “10 Mindful Minutes.” You can learn more by reading this article in the NZ Herald.
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This blog has been created as a resource to all people who are dedicated to increasing happiness and to decreasing suffering in their lives--and in the world--by learning how to live more wisely and skillfully.It aims to include a distillation of what I have personally learned in theses regards, along with the collective wisdom of many others.
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