The two studies included herein discuss mindfulness and acceptance in sport performance. Based on exploratory interviews with elite swimmers, Study 1 showed that optimal performance, or “flow,” states reveal similar characteristics to mindfulness and acceptance states. In flow experiences, the elite swimmers described that they had been particularly mindful of their bodily sensations and accepted them. In Study 2, mindfulness and acceptance were integrated into a psychological skills training program for seven young elite golfers. The program, based on mindfulness and acceptance, contributed to performance enhancement in competition. Participants improved the efficacy of their routines by seeking more relevant internal and external information. The results of both studies corroborated those of previous studies dealing with mindfulness and acceptance in sport. Together, these studies enhance the applicability and efficacy of these approaches with athletic clientele.

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This study explored the attentional focus of expert golfers using a naturalistic approach. Eight male professional golfers were filmed in two contexts (training and competition). Selfconfrontation interviews based on the video were conducted immediately afterwards. Qualitative data analyses showed that golfers used various attentional foci. Foci were classified according to their content and their characteristics. Golfers adapted their attentional foci to the context. They used sequences of attentional foci and moved from one attentional focus to another when they prepared, executed, or evaluated their shot. Future research on attentional focus of expert athletes should study the phenomenon over time.Attention and attentional processes have been extensively studied in sports research in an attempt to describe and explain if and how they influence performance and motor skill acquisition. Attention is defined as "the engagement in the perceptual, cognitive, and motor activities associated with performing skills" (Magill, 2003, p. 141). Among the diverse attentional processes on which research is conducted, a considerable number of recent studies have particularly dealt with how the optimal focus of attention may differ across different levels of motor expertise (e.g.

This study aimed to explore attentional foci and their temporal patterns in expert skaters in real competition situations. Individual self-confrontation interviews were held with 8 expert figure skaters while they watched their videotaped program performed in official competitions. Qualitative data analysis revealed that skaters used a substantial number of foci, which were classified by content and characteristics. Event listing was used to display the patterns of foci over time, revealing that skaters used distinct processes to prepare for, perform, and evaluate different program elements. These results highlighted the great flexibility and variability of attentional focus, according to circumstantial factors. Magill (2003) defines attentional focus as "the directing of attention to specific characteristics in a performance environment or to action-preparation activities" (p. 149). In sport psychology, researchers have focused on the effectiveness of different types of attentional focus. Broadening the perspective on this issue, studies on choking under pressure (Hill, Hanton, Matthews, & Flemming, 2009) have given rise to a number of explanatory theories (e.g., Beilock & Carr, 2001;Gucciardi & Dimmock, 2008;Masters & Maxwell, 2004) of how attentional focus disruptions can significantly hinder performance.To address these issues, most studies have used an experimental approach to compare the effects of various types of attentional focus on performance involving simple motor tasks or decontextualized sport tasks (e.g., simulated skiing, golf putting). Experimental approaches generally have two main features: The perspective is (a) dichotomous and (b) static. A dichotomous perspective places types of focus in opposition: internal and external (Nideffer & Sagal, 1998;Stevinson & Biddle, 1999;Wulf & Prinz, 2001), broad and narrow (Nideffer & Sagal, 1998), proximal and distal (Bell &Hardy, 2009), or associative and dissociative (Morgan & Pollack, 1977;Schomer, 1987;Stevinson & Biddle, 1999). In the static perspective, a single focus is associated with a discrete action. This focus is imposed by experimental conditions without considering either the preceding or succeeding foci.Recently, some alternate approaches have shed new light on attentional focus processes in athletes, notably by examining attentional focus in natural performance situations (Oudejans, Kuijpers, Kooijman, & Bakker, 2011). Experimental studies that oppose two focus types have produced inconsistent results (Bell & Hardy, 2009;Salmon, Hanneman, & Harwood, 2010). Some authors claim that this dichotomous perspective could limit our understanding of how athletes use attentional focus in natural performance situations (Bernier, Codron, Thienot, & Fournier, 2011;Salmon et al., 2010) confrontation interviews with eight professional golfers based on a video of their playing in two conditions: (a) during a training session and (b) during a competition. They inductively analyzed the collected qualitative data in order to precisely classify the at...