Hypnotherapist Helps Hueneme Athletes to Improve Performance
Seated comfortably in a chair with his legs up, Hueneme High pitcher Chris Neri doesn’t look like he is preparing for a tough week of baseball.
His eyes are closed, his face a languid mask, his body devoid of tension.
Standing over him, George Hamm, his eyes also closed, rubs his hands together and sways slowly from side to side.
“You feel good in every way, all safe and secure,” Hamm says in a soothing monotone. “This is a busy week, with three games. As you throw you find yourself with added strength . . . you are now bigger, stronger, faster, smarter and mentally tougher than ever before.”
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Is Neri really bigger, stronger, faster and smarter than before? No.
But, thanks to Hamm, a hypnotherapist who works with Hueneme baseball players, Neri is mentally tougher. And a better ballplayer.
“I think I’m more relaxed; I don’t go out there with the pregame jitters,” said Neri, who has raised his batting average from .237 last season to .434 this season while lowering his earned-run average from 4.52 to 3.23. “It’s just the fact that you’re focused on what you have to do.”
Hamm, a retired Hueneme psychology teacher, says hypnosis can improve the performance of almost anyone doing anything, provided the person gives a true effort.
“I can’t make people flap their arms and fly but if you have an athlete, I don’t care how good that athlete is, if they work with me they’ll be better,” Hamm said.
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Working primarily from a room in his Oxnard home, Hamm interacts with football players, golfers, gymnasts, mountain bikers and swimmers among other athletes. He does not advertise, and his client list is confidential, but Hamm said competitors from Utah, Arizona and Michigan have come to him for help.
Closer to home, the Hueneme baseball team (15-9, 7-5 in league play) is built on fundamentals taught by its longtime coach, Reg Welker.
But Welker has found that Hamm’s teachings help.
“The coaches prepare the kids on the field and George works with their minds,” said Welker, who estimates that about 10 of his 15 varsity players have accepted Hamm’s methods. “It makes them play with confidence. This school is in a lower economic area and lots of these kids don’t have much self-esteem. It doesn’t hurt at all.”
Most Hueneme teams have losing records and the school’s athletes are especially starved for success. But in the past two decades, most Viking teams that have worked closely with Hamm have exceeded expectations.
Hamm distanced himself from the school after his retirement in 1993, but he was approached last fall by Hueneme football coaches after their team was crushed by Buena. The next week, Hueneme upset Rio Mesa, 41-14, and the team finished with a surprisingly solid 5-5 record.
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Hamm uses a handshake to bring his clients into hypnosis and a slow counting process to bring them out.
“Hypnosis is a natural state of mind; my job is to get goals and objectives fixed into a person’s mind,” he said. “I create within them a special quality of relaxed concentration. I’ve stumbled onto something here that all athletes are desperately looking for.”
Neri was nervous before his first personal session with Hamm, but now he is a firm believer in hypnosis. Each night he listens to audiotapes of Hamm discussing baseball skills.
Two weeks ago, Neri struggled and Hueneme lost both its games. In a loss to Dos Pueblos, Neri allowed six hits and eight runs in six innings. As a hitter, he was a combined one for six.
With those recent performances in mind, Hamm spent part of a session last week emphasizing the positive.
“You think only positive and winning thoughts and you separate yourself from anyone who has any kind of negative influence whatsoever,” he intoned to Neri. “You stay in the here and now. You don’t worry about what has happened, you don’t worry about what might happen, you stay constantly in the here and now and your teammates take inspiration from you.”
Neri’s performance soared after the session. He reached base 11 times in 12 at-bats last week and collected eight hits, two stolen bases and four runs batted in. In two pitching appearances totaling three innings, he did not allow a run and earned a save.
Second baseman Rigo Garcia, another believer in hypnosis, might be Hueneme’s most improved player. Last season, Garcia played sparingly because he was shaky in the field and had only one hit in eight at-bats.
“It seemed like every time a clutch play came along he didn’t make it,” Welker said. “But this year he’s one of the best fielders in the league.”
Garcia, a senior, also is batting .413. He said after only a week of listening to Hamm’s tapes, he became completely relaxed on the field.
“Before I was expecting the worst when the ball was hit to me, but now I make the plays” Garcia said. “In hitting, the ball looks bigger and it looks like it moves slower.”
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Welker and some Hueneme players say the Vikings would have won the league title if every player was regularly using the tapes.
While Hamm worked with Neri during one recent session, Welker had the rest of the players relax in the darkened Hueneme gym and listen to one of Hamm’s tapes.
“If they don’t want to do it, I’ll make them do it,” Welker said.
First baseman Robert Avila, the team’s best player, does not use the tapes and has declined offers to work with Hamm.
“People say they get relaxed but I just listened to that tape once and it didn’t hit me,” said Avila, who is batting .438 with 12 doubles, five home runs and 31 RBIs. “If you think it’s going to help you, go for it, but I need to get mentally prepared by myself.”
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Hamm’s largest group of supporters can be found in Lehi, Utah, a town of about 15,000 midway between Salt Lake City and Provo with a 950-student high school. Dennis Meyring, Lehi High’s swim coach, is a former Hueneme teacher who three years ago had his team raise funds to pay for Hamm’s services.
After traveling to Lehi in 1995 and working solely with Meyring’s team, Hamm returned the next year and worked with many of the athletes and coaches on campus.
Lehi teams responded by winning an unprecedented six Utah 3A Division state titles. Two of its other teams were runner-up.
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Hamm developed his personal hypnosis method in the early 1980s after concluding that traditional methods of mental preparation were often useless with athletes. His individual sessions usually last anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 1/2 hours.
He estimates he also speaks with about 1,000 educators during group sessions in a year. Outside his work in Utah, the majority of his clients come from Ventura County and surrounding regions.
Work with a group or individual begins with a two-hour orientation meeting in which Hamm briefly uses group hypnosis.
Subjects or their coaches are then asked to submit a list of behaviors and mind-sets upon which they want to focus with Hamm’s guidance. Hamm said he at no time controls his clients and that he cannot get them to act in a manner that goes against their normal inclinations.
“If it’s ethical and realistic, we’ll do it,” he said, adding that he has also helped people learn to read, lose weight and battle cancer.
Hamm charges patients $65 per individual session and $55 for an audiotape of his voice to use for reinforcement. Hueneme paid for the baseball team’s orientation. The weekly sessions where Hamm works with a player selected by Welker are paid for by team fund-raising efforts.
Welker said he can tell which players use the tapes by their performances on the field.
“One of the biggest things in high school athletics is that kids put pressure on themselves and get down when they fail,” he said. “But the kids who use George are relaxed and they remember the things we’ve taught them in practice.”