Becoming a Zen-Sational Basketball Shooter

By David Ranney

Why Go Another Day Missing Basket After Basket

And Free Throw After Free Throw?

Want To Learn A Better Way Of Shooting?

Using Zen principles, like being in the present moment, non-judgment, enhanced focus, awareness and letting your body flow are centuries old ideas that lead to peak performances. The lessons in my book will help you achieve these states of being. It’s time to reach your potential. Get going on improving your shooting. Can you see yourself making more baskets, more free throws, and helping your team win more games?

You will learn how to:

• Use your mind to make more baskets
• What to focus on when you shoot.
• Breathe when shooting to attain spectacular results
• Make more free throws using a routine that really works
• Shoot better under pressure

“I finished your book last night and it was one fantastic read!  I thoroughly endorse it. You know your stuff and I'm going to apply much of what you presented to my teaching methods.  Some of what you touched on I already do, but there were a lot of little things that will help my students become better shooters.”

-RICK PENNY, Author of One Motion Basketball, a DVD. Rick is one of the purest shooters, with the quickest release, to ever play the game. OneMotionBasketball.com

“This book is great on explaining the mental game. It shows you techniques and gives you principles to follow to improve your shooting. I went to the park after I read the Core Principles mentioned in this book, I played 21... and I won my first 21 game and I was making free throws!”

-ALBERTO

David Ranney is an author, professional speaker, basketball, baseball & tennis coach and entrepreneur. As a junior, he was highly ranked nationally  in tennis, represented the U.S. at Junior Wimbledon, and played for the University of Southern California when they were National Champions. However, after years of playing with intense frustration, he took two lessons from Tim Gallwey, Author of The Inner Game of Tennis. That experience changed his life forever.

www.PurePerformanceSports.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Ranney
• Release date: Jun 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781490504452

Book preview

An Introduction To The Mental Game

Welcome and congratulations for taking the 1st step in mastering the mental game of shooting basketballs. You are about to learn some concepts and techniques that will absolutely improve your shooting big time. That is if you read these lessons and then work on the ideas and skills presented here.

OK, it may take some time and nothing substitutes for shooting lots of basketballs, but you will learn faster and achieve a higher level of skill than using the traditional methods only.

As you may know, I do not get into a great deal of the actual mechanics of how to shoot. There are other great coaches out there that can teach you that. I will, however, give you some resources so that if you want to learn some killer approaches on how to shoot, you can explore them on your own. Here I will be giving you mostly mental concepts and techniques only.

I also want you to know what you can do to fix things when you start missing too many shots. You want to be able to do this right now and not wait for the next game or the next 5 games to get back your groove.

I am also assuming that what you are doing now isn’t working so well and you are searching for a better way. Am I right?

Are you ready to change? Are you ready to remake the way you shoot a basketball and become a phenomenally shooter? If you  will do the things you read here, you will have to improve. Guaranteed. Not only  

will your shooting improve but, guess what, you may even enjoy playing more.

In order to really play up to your potential you must figure out how to attain the proper state of mind.  This is where the Zen stuff comes into play. So, what is this Zen stuff all about? The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán which can be approximately translated as meditation or meditative state.

No, you don’t have to go to India, Japan or China and sit in a cave to learn to meditate because I will give you everything you need to do and know in this book.

Plus, these lessons will be in simple terms, they will be easy to understand, and for the most part the lessons are very short.

I know a person who is a Zen Buddhist. One day I asked him how he practiced being one. He said he did a lot of meditations and I asked him to give me an example. He said that he would just meditate and listen to all the sounds around him with no thoughts or judgments, but just being aware of them.

Well, guess what? This is what I have you do in many of my lessons, except you are being aware of what is happening not only on the basketball court but also what is going on inside of you that may be interfering with you playing your very best or what is helping you to play your very best. And, of course, this is all happening without judgments.

In order to really bring your shooting to its highest level, you must figure out how to attain a meditative state of mind. In this book, I will give you many things to focus (meditate) on and many ideas as to how you can achieve your goal of shooting the best that you are capable of.

This is a process that will never end, but I can promise you that if you will learn to shoot the way I lay out for you in this book, you will find playing the game of basketball ever so much more fun and rewarding not to mention shooting much better.

Before I get into these lessons, let me tell you a little about me and how I got started teaching the mental game and the best lesson I ever received. 

About David Ranney

Although I have worked mostly with tennis players, if you think about it, many of the same mental skills of tennis can apply to shooting a basketball or just about any sport.

Let me get started by telling you my story and how I got into playing and teaching peak performance techniques.

I started playing tennis tournaments when I was 10 years old.

I was ranked #2 in Southern, CA in the 15 & under.

I was ranked #2 in Southern, CA in the 18 & under.

I was nationally ranked #6 in Singles in the 18 & under division.

I was nationally ranked #3 in Doubles in the 18 & under division.

I had the honor of representing the U.S. at Junior Wimbledon where I got to the semi-finals. I lost to the Russian, which was the last person I wanted to lose to. Can you guess why I maybe didn’t play very well? If you don’t know, you will know after reading this e-book. To give you a little hint, it was because I tried way too hard to win.

I played on the Junior Davis Cup team. 

I played on the USC tennis team and the three years I lettered varsity we were National Champions.

As you can see I was a pretty good player, but not a great one.

But, I had a big problem. My attitude stunk and I was very negative. I used to yell and scream on the tennis court because I would get so incredibly frustrated. I thought that if I could only stroke the ball perfectly I would never miss. But of course, I couldn’t do that every time, and boy did I try hard. And, my attitude was horrible.

I hated myself for getting so angry and frustrated, but I couldn’t stop. I had no idea why I played badly at times, and I didn’t have a clue as to how to turn my game around when I wasn’t playing well. Neither did I know how to make myself play well.

I never beat players who were just a little better than I was. Remember I told you that I was ranked #2 in Southern California in the 15 and 18 and under. Well, a player named Jerry Cromwell was the one who was ranked #1 and I never ever beat him. I don’t think anyone tried harder than I did but I just couldn’t beat him.

After college, I began teaching tennis the traditional way until my conversion to teaching the Inner Game when I was in my 30s. What happened was that one day I was reading the LA Magazine about an instructor who was teaching The Inner Game of Tennis. His name was Tim Gallwey.  After reading about him, I knew I had to have a lesson from this man, and I was determined to go to the ends of the earth to find him. As it turned out, he was right there in my hometown of Los Angeles.

To make a long story longer, I took two lessons from Tim, and he completely changed my life. In the first 10 minutes into the lesson, I felt that the weight of the world was taken off my back. I never got angry or yelled again – an amazing accomplishment since I had already spent all of my tennis life getting upset with myself.

It was the best lesson I ever received and it changed my life forever. 

All of a sudden my tennis game was more consistent, and overnight my endurance increased. I wasn’t so tense all the