Focusing & Sports Roundtable: How to Play Your Sport from Your Body’s Inner Wisdom

Friday, November 4, 2022  from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm Eastern Time

3:00 pm - 5:00 pm Central European Time

Live attendance required - no recording.

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

The TIFI Membership Committee is pleased to offer this series of Focusing Roundtables, designed especially for members of the Institute. If you are not a member, please join at this link and then return to this page to register. This program will afford members a valuable opportunity to engage in casual peer-to-peer conversation with other members who share Focusing-related interests.

Program Description

Rafael Villeta has been developing a method of “bridging” Focusing and tennis instruction for close to 30 years. During this time, he has advanced both his skills as a tennis instructor, and his skills as a Focusing trainer and Focusing Oriented therapist, applying the latter to the support of players’ physical and emotional well-being, as well as a bodily approach to learning tennis. 

What he has not found up to this time is a community of like-minded sports and Focusing enthusiasts. That is why he is hosting this Roundtable, to share what he has developed, and to interact with other Focusers who are engaged with sports in any way, in the hope of a mutual sharing. From there, more could unfold, including planning future events, and creating a supportive space for like-minded Focusers.

Organic Tennis offers an experiential-holistic model that transcends education to present possibilities for the therapeutic, helping in the process of managing emotions or sports injuries. On reading Gendlin’s thoughts on Focusing and sports in his seminal book, Rafael was excited to discover that he was on the path Gendlin lays out when he talks about Focusing and Golf.

What follows is a preview of what you can expect we will discuss at the Roundtable in November.

• Have you ever wished to have more body wisdom to develop your sport activity? Is there a specific instance that comes up?
• When learning a sport, have you experienced a disconnection between mind and body? For example, someone is teaching you how to improve your form, and is asking you to execute a new movement, and you keep doing what you did before, in your old form. What is an instance that comes to you?
• Do you think Focusing can be useful to prevent or heal injuries? Do you have an experience with this?
• During your practice, have you ever noticed that a felt sense unfolds relative to the precise (sports) situation you are experiencing? If that happened, was it helpful? Is there a specific instance that comes up?

In his classic book Gendlin speaks about Focusing and sports this way, when considering golfers:

“... A felt sense is made of many interwoven strands, like a carpet. But it is felt (or “seen” if we pursue the carpet analogy) as one.

A felt sense is the many-stranded fabric of bodily awareness that (for example) guides golfers as they tee off. It would be impossible for them to think all the details of location, surrounding environment, and body movements that are woven into aiming. But the body knows the complex set of coordinated movements it must make to swing. The single felt sense of the situation incorporates the problem and the bodily known solution.

Golfers cannot think out all these details intellectually. When a golfer swings, several hundred different muscles must all work together in a precise way, each coming into action at a certain microsecond, each exerting just the right amount of pull on the right bone for the right length of time. The body feels all this as a whole.

If you observe a golfer getting ready to swing, you can see the whole body taking aim. It’s done not just with the eyes or the arms but by changing the placement of the feet, rotating and repositioning the whole body. Golfers aim with the feel of the whole body…” (Gendlin, E. (1982) Focusing. New York. Bantam Books, p. 96.)

Rafael met Barbara Dickinson in 2022 in a course on Interactive Focusing. After the two formed a Focusing partnership, Barbara learned about Rafael’s interest in building a community of people around Focusing and Sports. Barbara, after all, was the one who asked Gene Gendlin to illuminate his views on “Focusing and Football (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46NiHvmpZ80%20-%20Focusing%20and%20Football). Barbara loves community building projects and offered to help Rafael develop this Roundtable, and he is grateful!

Advance reading: If you would like to read more about Organic Tennis, Rafael’s article, “Organic Tennis: Focusing and Sports” by Rafael Villeta, C.F.P. can be found here: http://rafaelvilleta.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Organic-tennis-article-1.pdf

This article provides an example of how to use Focusing in learning a sport. Each sport may have its own Focusing methodology, but Organic Tennis offers fundamentals that can be applied to most sports. It only takes a commitment to any given sport to understand, research, and develop a sports-specific method.

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable?

This Roundtable is intended for anyone who has a knowledge of Focusing and a knowledge of any sport. Our hopes are for instructors, coaches, players, and even spectators, who are also familiar with Focusing, to gather with us in a mutual sharing of experiences, inquiries, intentions, and offerings.

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

What to expect from Therapist Rountables:  Each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer conversation. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the Hosts will serve as conversation moderators to encourage sharing and exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives. All participants’ sharings are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. To preserve the nature of informal conversation, the program will be offered live only and no recordings will be available. Registration is limited and on a first-come, first served basis. Participants are encouraged to create follow up opportunities for connection among themselves after the Roundtable.

About your hosts:

Rafael Villeta, C.F.T., C.F.O.T.

Rafael is a Focusing Trainer and Focusing-Oriented Therapist. He is a tennis teacher at the Madrid Tennis Federación. Creator of the Organic Tennis method where he integrates Focusing and somatic dance with the teaching of academic tennis. He is also a volunteer at the Red Cross, where he offers Focusing to refugees and immigrants. He has completed Bachelor and postgraduate studies in Fine Arts, allowing him to integrate creativity as a fundamental engine in his approach to therapy, education, somatics and movement. Find his website at https://rafaelvilleta.com/en/organic-process/

Barbara Dickinson, C.F.P.

After a long career in the US Federal Reserve System, Barbara retired and became an independent consultant. She consults with non-profits on operational improvement and strategic planning. She coaches individuals in career management, leveraging their strengths, and personal effectiveness. She has taken up a number of publishing projects in recent years, especially for her dear friend, and legendary Focusing teacher, Bebe Simon. And she is the co-author of a blog on How to Make Your Wishes Come True. When she is not engaged in one of these activities, she is home with her Rescue Dog Scout and his two friends, Jasmine and Zen the cats.