The target is the center of the bull’s-eye.

It’s a sweaty moment. The tension is suffocating.

Fate hangs in the balance as each finger releases the bowstring.

How do the ‘world’s strongest’ archers keep their composure under extreme pressure?

The archery competition at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will kick off with the qualification rounds on the 25th, one day before the start of the main competition.

Psychological training is as much a part of the archery team’s training program as technical skills as they are in their quest for gold.

While there is certainly an aspect of comparing your performance to that of other athletes, it is also important to focus on each shot as it directly affects your absolute score.

As Choi Kyung-hwan, secretary general of the Korean Archery Federation, told Yonhap News Agency, “The world’s top archers are all similar in skill. In the end, it’s the difference in concentration, the ‘glance,’ that decides their fate.”

In addition to the existing psychological counseling, the archery team introduced ‘mind-strength’ training in April with the help of Kim Joo-hwan, a professor at Yonsei University’s School of Journalism, Mass Communication, and Visual Arts.

While traditional psychological counseling focuses on the mindset and attitude of athletes before and after competitions from a psychiatric and psychological perspective, mind-strength training is based on neuroscience, which considers emotions such as fear and nervousness to be a matter of the body, not the mind or heart, and aims to induce relaxation.

The idea is that when the amygdala is activated in a negative situation, bodily changes occur, and the brain detects the “signals” from each part of the body, creating negative emotions.

When we stabilize the amygdala by noticing the reactions of each part of the body, the brain perceives the situation in a ‘steady state’. In addition, it activates the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for concentration.

To learn how to stabilize the amygdala (relax) and activate the prefrontal cortex (focus), the archery team held monthly mindfulness training workshops from April to this month.

The key is “meditation and breathing” to better recognize inner cues from the body.

“If you go to bed in an anxious or irritable state, those memories can stick, leading to anxiety disorders, slumps, and other performance declines,” says Kim. ‘Through meditation, you train yourself to recognize the state of your body and mind,’ he explains.

“Among the bodily functions that are governed by the autonomic nervous system, such as heartbeat and visceral movements, breathing is the only one that can be controlled with intention,“ he said. ‘Through ’Breathing Mindfulness Training’, we aim to improve awareness of emotions and various signals inside the body, starting with looking at the inhalation and exhalation as they are,” he added.

We also worked on imagery training to help us relax and focus in the actual arena, and a kind of self-talk (mantra).

The idea is that just as having a clear intention to “pick an apple from the tree” rather than simply “stretching my hand upwards” changes the way I move, the specificity of the image in my mind will make my intentions and actions more precise and more likely to achieve the desired result.

However, Kim said that the specific images and self-talk used in the training are “secret” for strategic reasons and will be revealed after the Olympics.

The archery team is pleased with the psychological training.

“We were able to understand the theory behind the physiological mechanisms of nervousness,” said Hong Seung-jin, the archery team’s general manager, ”and it was very helpful to practice how to control psychological tension.”

In addition, the team’s teamwork is expected to improve as the psychological and communication training covers not only tension control through breathing during competition, but also how to communicate and consider each other within the team.

The archery team, comprised of women’s team members Lim Im-hyun (Korea Gymnastics University), Jeon Hoon-young (Incheon City Hall) and Nam Soo-hyun (Suncheon City Hall) and men’s team members Kim Woo-jin (Cheongju City Hall), Kim Jeduk (Yecheon County Hall) and Lee Woo-seok (Kolon), will compete in the qualification round on the 25th.

The women’s team event will be held on July 28, followed by the men’s team event on July 29, the mixed event on August 2, the women’s individual event on August 3, and the men’s individual event on August 4.

The women’s team will be looking to win their 10th consecutive Olympic team title. 사설 토토사이트