Blocking Out Surroundings

Hey all,

I'm looking for some advice from people on how to mentally block out everything around me. So I've done some research online but it really is sifting through a lot of scenarios that I don't relate to so I'm going to type my scenario.

I'm basically looking for advice, possibly from people who played sports at an intense competition level. I play a lot of pool, 8ball, and I'm currently progressing to the point where my competitors are starting to "shark" me while I play. Now this means they'll either do something in the background to make me lose focus, or, they say things that get inside my head while I'm playing. This is a long and arduous tactic on pool tables.

I'm getting better at blocking out what's physically happening around me, so I only concentrate on the table and I can past everything else, but I have yet to earn how to accomplish this with audible sounds. So when somebody says something to me, about me, or just even in passing which has nothing to do with me, my ears and hearing are very much alert to what's being said.

I want to be able to block that out so I don't hear anything but my own conscious focusing in on the task at hand and that task is to play the game at my absolute best.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am open to a lot and figure meditation is going to be a big part of getting started?

 

Activate your fight or flight mode.

 

Well I'm actually trying to activate my "block out surroundings" mode. =p

 

Eliminate your fear of death so that you don't even give a shit if someone is pointing a gun at the back of your head.

 

And that's going to help me stop listening to conversations how exactly? Because all it really is, is another bloody distraction isn't it? Pretending someone is behind me with a gun.

Yerrrh that'll help me sink a few balls. Pffffffffdiareahnoisespfffttt

 

Blinkers

 

Seriously, wax earplugs

 

Are you allowed to use earbuds? Or would that be distracting also? I do that at work to drown out all the endless chit-chat that I'm surrounded by.

 

I've had that happen a few times @ the pool table.

My way is to tune to yourself. Calming breaths, listen to your inner voice so that it seems louder than any surroundings. Tell yourself mentally, slow, smooth and deliberate, what you are doing.

You're using your inner voice to block out theirs to where it's less than background noise. And feel the lack of importance in their voice similarly. It works.

Focus, confidence, follow through. You got this...

 

Hmm you could use earplugs I guess but if the audjudicator is trying to say something to you then could be embarrassing.

I also suffer from tinnitus so ideally there's some background noise, like music, but often too there isn't and ear plugs would literally make my head PINGGGGGGGGG away. =[

Is a good idea though. But I feel if I'm to improve then I can't be wearing big orange foam ear plugs shoved in my ears.

 

Oh everytime I attempt to try and calm myself I think I get more nervous.

Basically this time around, my team people were talking to my partner about our surnames and how I should take hers because it's sounds weird lol. And I was listening to this trying to play and I scratched badly and fouled. Then I was listening to them talk about my sisters and I went to bridge and completely knocked one of their balls. And I said fuck see what happens when you reduce my surname to one syllable! And my opponent say "yes I thought that might have come from your own sideline" meaning he knew them being talking loudly about me had put me off.

 

sing a song in your head...

 

Forgive me if this would be more distracting while playing pool, but can't you talk to yourself? In your head I mean. I know I've "checked out" while people are talking and my mind starts wondering and I start literally talking to myself in my own head, and next thing I know, I didn't catch a word that people were saying. Basically, leave the real world, retreat to the one in your head, and don't come out until after you make your shot.

Works for me. But, then again, I'm ditzy, so...

 

I was joking. But when you think about it, maybe you have trained your mind to pay attention to others' conversations so that you don't insult them and they won't injure you. Once you eliminate your fear of death, you will have no problem not paying attention to anything. You will become a God with the ability to see the matrix laid out on the pool table. You will be able to shoot the cue ball and it will actually teleport through other balls standing in the way of the ball you want to sink. Then your opponent will call you a witch and everyone in the pool hall will beat you to death with their cues.

 

earplugs and blinders


?

 

Well you do spend a lot of time talking to yourself yes and that works well at a venue where there's no spectating or people drinking beer 2 steps away. Like that literally helps me push me in my last open trials event because I kept telling myself every shot to keep the pressure up and i won 8-2 easily.

I'm ditzy too though.

My mind just often races around and around thinking several things at once, trying to play a shot while thinking about tomorrow and taking in what's said behind me.

 

it isn't surroundings. just the human part of them when it insists on hating logic and everyone else doing so.
fortunately it doesn't live with me. but its out there hating everything considerate and insisting everyone know about it.
its not one person, nor even one perspective, priority or motivation.

if people would rather kill themselves then have a conscience,
i do wish they'd crawl up their asses and get it over with.

 

Pain is what helps me not physically react to what people are telling me. I'm still listening. But, I don't react to it. Now, my preferred method of pain is cutting, but of course... I can't do that everywhere. So, I hurt myself by pinching myself, or jabbing my nail into my skin, like my fingers. I discreetly hurt myself.

If things get too out of control... then I take a restroom break.

I don't recommend what I'm suggesting. I'm just answering this question as a general question. I'm not trying to help. I suck at it, anyways.

 

i find living by myself helps. just wish i could live further from the clusterfucks called cities, without having to indenture myself to a car and or a mortgage.
someplace surrounded by a forest with a little garden, and the only pavement no wider then a place to walk.
that or just a culture that did not romanticize hating logic nor believed in the goodness of wishing to be feared.
(i know, or at least hope, there may be other places on this planet where this is possible,
i mean without having to screw everyone else in order to be rich enough,
but the ooo ass of 'merika i live in, isn't one of them and hasn't been for a number of decades now)

 

yeah, earbuds are wonders!! and I started with music in the earbuds...and then stopped the music and just used the earbuds

earbuds said 3 (oh, only three times?) in one sentence!!

Kinda surprised you don't have more of an inner dialogue. Since I've started talking to people online, I've seemed to have tuned out everything around me, because I'm just constantly thinking about what I'm saying or going to say next to so and so and soo (like now. I'm trying hard to ACTUALLY listen to this person, but typing this at the same time. ughhh lol...by the way, the question was what year was Stand by Me made-if you missed it, I was talking about this movie here with folks about a month ago)...anyway...getting my point?? pretend you're talking to one or more of us, maybe say your narrative while you're lining up your shots or whatever.

It's so ironic Irm, I'm trying to learn how to be MORE in tune with my surroundings here, because I've been so OUT of focus for awhile...so, it's not like exciting for me to tell you how to be crazy like me, hehe, but if it helps...