"The Cognitive Edge" Online Course

In 5 more days I'll be 64. It's Michele's "birthday season", my friends say. So I bought myself another birthday present a few days ago (with my husband's blessing so we've agreed it's from him) -- Susan Garrett and John Cullen's joint venture in sports psychology -- to help atheletes develop a pre-game routine that sets up consistently calm, focused performances. The course has a 14 day money back guarantee, and it all comes to you online.

Just to recap. For the $197 price tag you get:

1) The "Pre Competition Routine for Big Events" video
2) The "Pre Competition Routine for Big Events" companion ebook
3) Access to the gurus: Three hour long webinar/coaching calls with John Cullen and Susan Garrett to really help you to unlock the power of your mental game.
4) Bonus #1: my "Without Pressure You Get No Diamonds" ebook.
5) Bonus #2: John's "Finding Your Ideal Performance State" ebook.
6) Bonus #3: The "Pre Competition Routine for Big Events" MP3 recording for your ipod.

So far I've received:

• Pre-competition Routines for Big Events,a 20 page e-book to download and print out, by John Cullen
• Pre-competition Routines for Big Events, a video you download which repeats verbatum the same thing,
• Without Pressure, We Get No Diamonds, a 10 page e-book to download and print out, by Susan Garrett
• Determining your Ideal Performance State (IPS) - a series of charts for studying and ranking your performances, by John Cullen.

Okay, so I woke up yesterday very excited to get this course. I downloaded everything, printed out everything, read everything, listened to everything, and did all the exercises.

My impression so far: it's good, but hardly worth $200. Susan's revolutionary 2x2 Weave Pole training DVD was $79 and am still studying and learning from it a year later. I bought her Success With 1 Jump DVD for $69 and the things I learned in there I use every training session and in my teaching. Will this course contain twice the value or just be twice as expensive?

I'm still waiting for the 3 hour-long webinars to show up. I don't need Bonus #3 as I don't have an ipod.

While I'm waiting, let me state my BIG GRIPE with e-book publishers.

• Color: Why do they insist on putting so much color in their E-books? We have to print this out! Why do they make their customers' use up their $75 color ink cartridges printing out stuff that doesn't look worth a crap on bond paper anyway, and conveys NO information? PLEASE, any of you e-book publishers out there, go light on the half-page color photos, full color backgrounds and borders, 72 point bold red letters in your headlines. A touch of color here and there is acceptable, but be respectful of your audience's purse.
• Fine print/grey print. Why all the fine print/light print? Not everybody has 20/20 vision. Some of us need a minimum of 10 point type to see it, even with our 2.75 reading glasses on. On some printers, the grey print prints out so faint it is barely visible. And ink jet printers tend to blur the edges just a bit so the smaller, tighter the letters the more they run together. It costs no more to send things over the internet in 12 point type, black ink, and using a font (Verdana for example) where the letters are spaced further apart than with Arial. Perhaps you sacrifice a bit of "design", but at least it is readable.

For $200 and all the hype about it, I expect a whole lot from this course. At this point and from other e-books I've purchased thru the years, I think it is worth about $29.  Let's see what the 3 Webinars bring me.  I'll post my notes as they come in.

Webinar #1 - Visualization

Webinar #2 - Pre-Competition Routine

Webinar #3 - Power Phrases,

Okay, it's December 28 and I just finished the 3rd webinar.  Based on the 3 of them, I do think the uique tips I received is worth the price I paid for it.  There is a lot of homework. I have taken notes on each webinar and saved them in my drafts on this blog, but am wrestling with the ethical question of whether I can share them with my readers (current and future), in effect, give the information away.  My notes from each webinar are linked to above, but the links won't work until I resolve this issue.

What I can share for now is, if I do even half the exercises they recommend, this course definitely will help me move upwards and onward!