Mike Hall is a picture of vitality.  He may be a little thin on top and carrying a few wrinkles, but his supple posture, slim but solid frame and ease of movement suggests he is an individual in rude health for his 53 years.

It may have something to do with the fact that, on a busy Edinburgh lunchtime in a popular coffee chain, while those around him dine out on lattes, muffins and melted cheese paninis, Mike has the self-discipline to stick to a cup of tea as he talks to In The Winning Zone.

Or, more likely, it may come from the fact that he has dedicated his life to sport, fitness and high performance in all aspects of life (he is also a successful playwright).  A Liverpudlian, Mike’s early sporting career showed promise, turning out for Liverpool schoolboys and representing Everton as a junior professional in the 1970s, as well as playing cricket to a county level.

It was around this time that he discovered a relatively new activity, and it is one which has been at the forefront of his wide-ranging sporting endeavours ever since.  The game of squash started enjoying mainstream popularity in Britain in the 1960s and 70s, and Mike was quick to join the party.

“It was such a fashionable game in the 70s, it took off like an explosion,” enthuses Mike.  “For a lot of people there was a natural progression from playing football to playing squash. I started coaching squash in Liverpool in the 1980s at Liverpool Health Club in the Adelphi Hotel.  I coached some famous pop stars, like Frankie goes to Hollywood!

“Then I came up from Liverpool to Edinburgh and got a job as a professional coach in Marco’s Leisure Centre (which closed in 2008). I coached from beginner standards right through to international level, and even hosted a lot of workshops with the world’s former number one player, Jonah Barrington.”

Squash is renowned as being one of the most physically challenging sports on the planet.  The high intensity of the game, combined with the need for skill, guile and quick thinking makes it the ideal workout for many sports enthusiasts, so much so that it is often sourced as the top sport to play for overall health and fitness benefits. 

Yet Hall, who now coaches at the Grange club in Stockbridge, prefers to focus on the other side of the game: the mind side. Indeed, much like his sporting prowess, Mike Hall is a true ‘Jack of all trades’ when it comes to sports psychology, especially when it comes to squash and, more prominently, golf.

“The mental side of golf makes up about 28% of the total game.  People say it is all in the mind but in reality it is only 28%.  Technique and natural ability make up the rest.  But most people generally do work on just the physical part of their game, even though the handicaps at the top level haven’t really come down over many decades, despite the advancement of products. So maybe it’s the mind side we should be looking at more.

“According to Tiger Woods, one of the keys to his success is having the ability to instantly recall success and let go of failure.  Scientific research backs this up.  The power of memory relates directly to producing ideal performances in the future. So for example, the way you react if you miss a bad putt can temper the emotion you express in the future. The way that you pattern your mind tends to repeat at future situations in sport.”

In a similar vein, and remaining with Tiger as a stellar exponent of the phenomena, Mike (fittingly) knows exactly what being ‘in the Winning Zone’ is all about. 

“It’s a pretty magical place, ‘the Zone,’” he remarks.  “In trying to understand exactly what that is, consider that the heart is the biggest ‘pendulum’ in the body.  A scientist in the 16th Century set up all these pendulums and eventually they all came into what we call entrainment, or synchronisation. So the view of science is that the heart is the biggest pendulum and if you use it correctly then you can synchronise your brain into an identical rhythm.  The point when the brain rhythms match the heart rhythms is that time when you can get into ‘the Zone’. So there are actual processes where you can achieve that.”

The processes that Mike speaks about are bafflingly simple, yet ingeniously effective.  Breathing is one such obvious example.  He describes a game of squash – aggressive, frenetic, exhausting – and how it is easy to become aggravated in the heat of the moment.

“If there is a rally that hasn’t worked out, rather than letting out a frustrated yell, there is a way of breathing that changes the emotional pattern you have.  It’s not a question of just breathing in and breathing out as you normally you do, it is the ability to deflate the lungs.  It allows your ideal performance state to return, using the body to change the mind. 

“If I have had a bad rally in squash then I start to say ‘ssshhhhhh’ when I breathe out, very quietly and intimately to myself.  After that you start to hit a state of calm.  People don’t generally do these things, but the ones that have used these techniques can generally see the difference.”

Mike’s range of expertise sounds intimidating, like a barrage of slogans and buzzwords, specialising in fields such as Mind Factor Golf, the Mozart Effect, In Praise of Slow and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, as well as Tai Chi and Chi Kung.

But after speaking to Mike for a while, most of these terms are just fancy for simple techniques which, at their core, encourage little more than common sense and a cool head in the face of adversity, helping to forge a link between the body and the mind.  Tai Chi is an increasingly popular example after centuries of proven road-testing in China.

“I help to pioneer new ways to look at educating the body to move within different sports.  So when I started learning Tai Chi, I knew straight away that the movement I was learning was totally transferable to sport, all sports.  I felt these exercises could help golfers learn to keep control. And it turns out that Tiger Woods has been doing this from the age of five!

“You can also see Tai Chi in squash, in the forehand or the backhand, the swivel of the hips, the ability to sink down to hit a shot.  Squash played at its best is a game of stillness within movement. Even though it is a very fast game, when you go in for the shot you need to be in a centre of stillness to move the body through space. And Tai Chi is all about the stillness within.”

You can find out more about Mike Hall and the work he does by visiting his Sportspace page or by following these links:

http://www.advizory.com/resources-and-links/Hall.html

http://www.golf-brain.com/index.php

RO
© Copyright In The Winning Zone, MMIX, All Rights Reserved