The Power of Attentional Focus: From Victory to Collapse

Robert Nideffer opens his Athletes’ Guide to Mental Training with an unforgettable scene: a dive from the springboard.
In the first competition, everything flows. His body acts on its own, on autopilot. Every movement occurs without conscious effort. It is the perfect state of control: the thrill of victory.

One week later, facing the same dive, everything changes. The noise of the crowd, the pressure of competition, and internal anxiety take over his mind. The execution fails. What was once fluidity becomes rigidity and loss of control: the agony of defeat.

This contrast reveals the essence of mental training: the difference is not in technique or strength, but in the state of the mind and the quality of attention.

Science and SER-BLW: training the subconscious
What Nideffer experienced in the perfect dive is what we in the Improved Respiration Training System (SER-BLW) call flowing on autopilot: a state where the body executes precisely thanks to subconscious training.

SER-BLW does not seek to make you think about your breathing. It ensures that improved respiration—slow, nasal, almost invisible (5–10 cycles/minute)—is already integrated into your physiology so that it acts as the subconscious anchor of focus.

In this way, under maximum pressure, your breathing sustains CO₂ balance, regulates the nervous system, and frees the body to perform automatically.

Mind Like Water: expansive calm
Nideffer describes Mind Like Water as a mental state in which the mind reflects reality as it is, without distortion. Like the surface of a calm lake: everything is perceived, nothing is altered.

– Broad and receptive attention.
– Ideal for reading the environment, anticipating moves, and perceiving signals.
– In triathlon, it serves to manage space, time, rivals, and external conditions.
– From the SER-BLW perspective, this state is cultivated with long, soft breaths that induce vigilant calm.

In BLW we define it as total presence without tension: the state of the Commando who sees everything, hears everything, and adapts to everything.

Focus of Ki: directed intensity
In contrast, Focus of Ki represents concentrating all physical and mental energy into a single point. It is the archer’s gaze releasing the arrow or the runner’s final sprint.

– Narrow and intense attention.
– Useful for power, precision, and immediate execution.
– From the SER-BLW perspective, it is trained with specific protocols including short and forced exhalations; it is sustained with the same slow, nasal, prolonged breathing that keeps the system stable while the mind directs its full intention toward a single objective.

In BLW we interpret it as total impact in the decisive moment: the state of the commando channeling everything into one tactical action.

The art of alternating
Real power lies not in choosing one or the other, but in knowing how to alternate between both states.

– In triathlon: Mind Like Water during swimming and cycling, Focus of Ki in the final sprint.
– In freediving: Mind Like Water to control anxiety, Focus of Ki to sustain the final hold.
– In tactical environments: Mind Like Water to read the terrain, Focus of Ki to execute under fire.

SER-BLW trains the subconscious to move naturally between these states.

Keys to total concentration
1. Autopilot occurs only if the subconscious has been trained.
2. Improved respiration regulates focus amid chaos.
3. The warrior masters both the expansive calm of Mind Like Water and the intensity of Ki.
4. SER-BLW uses practical protocols to condition this subconscious response.

Altumblue Mentality
We do not control the crowd, the rival, or the environment. The only things we control are our breathing and our focus.
– When you train your breathing, you train your subconscious.
– When you train your subconscious, your body flows automatically.
– And when your body flows automatically, your performance rises to a superior tactical, physical, and mental level.

“Adapt your body to improved respiration. Alternate between the calm of water and the intensity of Ki. And your body will flow on autopilot.”