‘Getting Suggestive’

Hypnotherapy delivers subliminal messages to the subconscious mind.
(They are delivered below the level of full consciousness.)
Auto suggestion delivers supraliminal messages, or mantras, to us in our fully conscious state.
Both practices seek to replace very understandably negative perceptions with positive and healthier alternatives.

Two very good examples of autosuggestion.

Trombonist.
Gymnast.

Some years ago I was having a bad spell - not playing as well as I knew I was capable of doing.
A very good friend was staying at my house for a few days.
He is an exceptionally fine trombonist.
A trombone guru.
I mentioned to him that I was not playing up to par at the moment.
Would he look at my embouchure (the setting of my chops) my diaphragmatic breathing - my stance etc... to see what I was doing wrong.

My trombone mentor said:
“Dave you are doing nothing wrong, except you are thinking wrong!
When you look at your trombone, and when you pick it up, you must have - ‘No Doubts.’
NO DOUBTS !!”

Instead of thinking:

• this is a tough instrument
• a really tricky piece of music
• will I ever get my feature right
• in front of all of these people
• on a big stage.

‘It is not the master of you!
You are the master of your trombone!

THINK AND TELL YOURSELF

- “I am the master
- you will do exactly as I say.”

Then Just Go and Do It!’

My playing reached its very best and most confident stage.
I could play it exactly the way that I wanted to.
I proved it time and time again.
Pretty well every outing.
I got pretty cheeky with it.
I swaggered about on stage,
and often waved it about in the air.
Six foot of brass.
Well it is a bit phallic.

(...steady girls....)
—————————————

A couple of years ago I was talking to a charming young lady Gymnast.
Just eleven years old.
A gymnast since age 5.
She excels at all of the disciplines:
vaulting horse, box, asymmetric bars, the dreaded beam.

She somersaults them all.
Having watched her doing her aerobatics on video, I asked in my usual naive fashion,

“do you ever look down the run-up mat at that vaulting horse, and worry about hurting yourself and getting it all wrong - having an accident?”

(I knew with a dead certainty that if I ever tried it I would chuck myself ‘arse-over-backwards’ into this time next week, before waking up with everything busted!)

Imagine me being daft enough to suggest anything so negative to an aspiring Olympic hopeful - DOH !!!!!

She said
“I never think that way.’
I just look towards the object and I say to myself,

‘I - can - do - this.’
and then - I - do -it.”

We are now two years on, and she enters many competitions and wins numerous trophies.

Auto suggestion has it’s place and may well be able to help us too.

Bob Martin Trombone, "Out of this World"

Now listen to Bob Martin my trombone guru
multitracking on 8 trombones,
(Alto - Tenor - Bass trombones
also string bass and arrangement.)

Stunning !!!!!
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