EFT Into Schools

Posts Tagged ‘Success’

By Brent Thomson, PhD

I recently worked with the entire Red Wing High School Girls Basketball team (in Minnesota), using EFT to improve team performance. I met with the team for a two-hour session. At that time their record was 5 games below the 500 mark.

Historically, the girls team has struggled, usually winning anywhere from 3 to 5 games in a year. We talked about the major problems with the team members and the coaching staff, and came up with the following hit list that needed to be chopped down:

Poor free throw shooting;
poor jump shooting;
poor use of the clock;
losing focus and concentration;
poor passing;
fear of making mistakes;
consistently playing below ability level;
easily intimidated by the other team; and
easily affected by crowd noise.

We put each of these in the familiar Even though format and proceeded to tap on each one. We did three or four rounds on each issue and then talked about other issues that surfaced. What I found by doing this is that individual issues started to surface for each of the players and we were then able to isolate those and tap them down on an individual basis.

GC COMMENT:  Getting to individual issues like this often spells the difference between good results and spectacular results.  All athletes have their individualized beliefs, idiosyncracies and other barriers to achieving their full potential.

BRENT CONTINUES:  I also found that the team really enjoyed doing the tapping as a team. A number of the players and the coaches noted a general sense of purpose, and a positive sense of team unity was a side effect of the group tapping.

Again, we kept track of the statistics as a team in terms of free throw percentage as a team before tapping, and again after tapping. Also, we kept records in terms of shooting percentages, both before tapping and after tapping.

Overall, the team has improved 87% in free throw shooting percentage since tapping. Before tapping, they were making a dismal 40 out of 100 as a team. Since applying EFT the team has played 8 games and in that 8 games they skyrocketed to a team average of 75 out of 100.

Overall shooting averages for the 8 games previous to tapping was 37 out of 100. Shooting percentage in the last 8 games since the EFT session is now 54 out of 100. Thats a 46% improvement.

Most telling, their record in the last 8 games is 6 wins with only 2 losses. One of the losses was by 3 points to a team ranked in the top five in the State of Minnesota. Earlier in the year, they were blown out by over 30 points.

Both the coaching staff and the players attribute the improvement in their performance to the addition of EFT into their training procedures. I am convinced that EFT has a significant place in training individual athletes and teams so that they can maximize their physical abilities and play with greater stamina, speed, strength, and co-ordination.

____________________

I also had the opportunity to work with, Katie Auge, the captain of her High School Gymnastic’s team in Red Wing, Minnesota (where I live).   She has been struggling this year with a nagging ankle injury and has been receiving physical therapy on an ongoing basis. This has significantly affected her scoring all year as well as her overall confidence throughout the year.

Katie is a senior and her wish is to make the state gymnastics meet in the All Around Competition. Her dad called me to ask if I would work with her. I had previously worked with her last year (Junior year) on three occasions, and she really enjoyed EFT. She had never made the state tournament previously.

I met her for one session the day of the regional meet that was to decide whether or not she would go on to the State Competition. We tapped on the following:

Even though Im afraid of falling and hurting myself on the vault;

Even though Im worried about my ankle holding up in the competition today;

Even though I have all this anxiety about performing well in front of friends and family (the meet was held at her High School in Red Wing);

Even though I have this fear of failure; and

Even though I have fears about sticking the landing on the vault.

The session was 90 minutes long. We were able to get all the aforementioned targets down to 0 (on a 0-10 intensity scale). In addition, we worked on planting an effective choice statement that would empower Katie to do her best. We decided on the following:

I choose to see myself performing in a graceful, relaxed, confident, and powerful manner in all my events today.

Katie was able to visualize this belief at a 9 level after tapping on this over a period of four rounds.

Well, Gary is always looking for statistics to indicate proof that EFT works, and I have some. I received a call on Saturday morning from a very excited Katie and her father saying she nailed the vault, and qualified for her first state competition in the All Around Competition category.

Katie says that there is no doubt that the EFT was the strategy that put her over the top. In addition, she said that her ankle did not bother her at all during the meet, and that her confidence was consistently high. She attributes this to the EFT work we did on the day of the regional meet. Think what we could have accomplished if we could have had a little more training time?

Sincerely,

Brent Thomson, Ph.D., L.P. drrelaxation@hotmail.com
Clinic Director Lifestyle Health Services
Bloomington, MN

from www.emofree.com

Four wayward, disruptive, aggressive, “not-interested-in-learning” students with a “last reprieve” undertook a three-week program to address their problematic behavior. Desperate for a solution to this growing problem within the school, the Resource Teacher-Learning and Behavior, of Pukekohe High School in New Zealand and the Principal invited EP specialist Wayne Thompson to implement an EFT-based program, as everything else the school had tried had no impact.

The program’s focus was to give students tools to manage their negative emotions, so no matter what problems arose, they would be able to choose better behaviors.  The students’ initial attitude was a challenge. They were resistant and thought the “tapping” technique was too weird!

Wayne used a four-step process that began by building rapport with the students using NLP matching and pacing techniques and then continued with identifying the disruptive patterns in their use of language, swearing, fidgeting, talking out of turn, rocking on their seats, etc.  Next, Wayne encouraged their disruptive patterns, which allowed him to then interrupt these negative patterns.   Lastly, he facilitated new positive patterns through role-play.

During the three week period, Wayne’s main focus was to make sure that the students learned how to use EFT and apply it to challenging situations as they arose in the present and to also apply EFT to negative events from the past.  Every day the program commenced with the students doing the EFT routine together to reinforce learning the technique.

Weeks after the program finished, staff noticed huge shifts in the students’ behavior. The Principal has asked for a follow-up program, and news of its success reached another local school.

Rehana Webster BSc
www.behaviourchanges.com/