George Mumford will open the New Bedford Wellness Program on October 18th

Celebrity mindfulness coach, author, and sports psychologist, George Mumford, will be speaking at the opening of the New Bedford Wellness Initiative’s Wellness Program on October 18, 2015 at 2:00PM at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater New Bedford.

The New Bedford Wellness Initiative’s Wellness Program is made possible through generous sponsorships and community partnerships. The program is free and open to the public. Its offerings will include classes in cardiovascular exercise, yoga, meditation, smoking cessation and nutrition. The classes will be led by certified instructors and run every Sunday from October 2015 until October 2016. The classes will start at 11:00 am end at 3:00 pm. The class schedule is as follows; Cardiovascular exercise: 11am- 12pm, Nutrition and Weight Loss: 12pm-1pm, Yoga: 1pm-2pm, Smoking Cessation: 1pm-2pm and Meditation: 2pm-3pm.

Michael Jordan credits George Mumford with transforming his on-court leadership of the Bulls, helping Jordan lead the team to six NBA championships. Mumford also helped Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Lamar Odom and countless other NBA players turn around their games. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford is sharing his own story and the strategies that have made these athletes into stars in The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance. His proven, gentle but groundbreaking mindfulness techniques can transform the performance of anyone with a goal, be they an Olympian, weekend warrior, executive, hacker, or artist.

Mumford’s deeply moving personal story is unforgettable. A basketball star at the University of Massachusetts (where he roomed with Dr. J, Julius Erving), injuries forced Mumford out of the game he loved. The meds that relieved the pain of his injuries also numbed him to the emptiness he felt without the game and eventually led him to heroin. After years of making meditation on and off the cushion the center of his life and getting clean, Mumford enrolled in Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program and collaborated with him to create the Inner-city Stress Reduction Clinic in the early nineties.

When Michael Jordan left the Chicago Bulls to play baseball in 1993, the team was in crisis. Coach Phil Jackson, a long-time mindfulness practitioner, contacted Dr. Kabat-Zinn to find someone who could teach mindfulness techniques to the struggling team—someone who would have credibility and could speak the language of his players. Kabat-Zinn led Jackson to Mumford and their partnership began. Mumford has worked with Jackson with many of the teams he coached to become NBA champions. His roster of champion clients has since blossomed way beyond basketball to include corporate executives, Olympians, and athletes in many different sports.

With a charismatic teaching style that combines techniques of engaged mindfulness with lessons from pop culture icons such as Yoda, Indiana Jones, and Bruce Lee, Mumford tells illuminating stories about his larger than life clients. His writing is down-to-earth and easy to understand and apply. The Mindful Athlete is an engrossing story and an invaluable resource for anyone looking to elevate their game, no matter what the pursuit.

“Self-consciousness is when you’re focused on how you’re doing instead of what you’re doing. We have to learn how to push and challenge ourselves, but not in an insensitive way. Honing your performance really comes down to being comfortable with being uncomfortable.”—George Mumford

“George helped me understand the art of mindfulness. To be neither distracted or focused, rigid or flexible, passive or aggressive. I learned just to be.”—Kobe Bryant, 5-time NBA champion, Los Angeles Lakers

“George has ‘Mumfied’ the teams I’ve coached over the past 20 years. He has a style of mindfulness that goes beyond ‘just sitting/breathing’ to focusing while in action. For anyone needing to perform at the highest level, this book is for you.”—Phil Jackson, 13-time NBA champion, President of the New York Knicks

“The one thing that Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant could agree upon was that George Mumford was their secret weapon, the trusted advisor who brought clarity to their competitive minds. I know this because they told me personally. Mumford’s The Mindful Athlete brings to the reader the special insight that the world’s greatest athletes—from Michael Jordan to Scottie Pippen, from Shaq to Kobe—came to treasure.” —Roland Lazenby, Michael Jordan, The Life