COLOMBO, July 17: The Indian team is into techniques that breaks the barriers of the mind. The therapy practised by them has a two-fold purpose: to help relax specific muscles that are stressed out, and autosuggestion that is geared at enhancing the performance of the players.

Students of psychology will vouch for the fact that beyond the margins of the mind lies a power of endless possibilities. It's just that these powers lie dormant in the human mind, conditioned by universally accepted beliefs of what's possible and what's not.

Dr. Ali Irani, the Indian team physio, explains the therapy that has found the players very receptive to the idea.

Dr Irani guides the players through a medley of post-practice workouts before leading them to what is an amalgam of yoga, blended with tools of psychology like autosuggestion.

``Breathe deep...and now breathe out. Let me hear the hissing sound,'' the doc lectures and the Indian players, stretched out on a towel, follow his dictates. He tries to take the players deeper and deeper in a state from where controlling their minds become easier to obey his suggestions.

He explains: ``The body of a sportsperson tends to get sore after exertion.

And what I try to do is to help key areas of the body muscles like calves, shoulders and thighs.''

He says he learnt these relaxation techniques from Prof Rooshi Pandya and is putting it into effect with the Indian team to ``change their concept exercise routines.''

``Now the players do stretch outs. But unlike in the past, now one player stretches out another. Similarly, other exercises have been designed to get the necessary exercise at the same time make him enjoy it.''

Suggestion techniques is one method the players have reacted positively to. He recollects how a player in a state of trance on the 1988 tour of Sharjah, promised him that he will take five wickets the following day.

``He got four the next day. So I took him back in a state of trance and quizzed him why he had not taken five. He insisted that he had taken five. He was unwilling to accept an umpiring decision that had gone against him. So strongly convinced was that he had taken five.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.