North Hills hypnotist helps U.S. Olympians
WARRENDALE— From getting through school to building a business to working with a U.S. Olympic team, hypnosis has done plenty for North Hills resident Dan Vitchoff, owner of the PAHypnosis Center in Warrendale.
"I got involved with hypnosis in college,"Vitchoff said. "I knew I had a high IQand I knew I could learn things, but I had learning issues. Taking tests, concentration and remembering what I studied was difficult for me.
"I tried hypnosis as a learning technique and it worked wonders. It piqued my interest."
Vitchoff, who has operated his hypnosis center for five years, has been studying the subject ever since his days at Point Park College.
Through clinical hypnosis, Vitchoff has been helping his growing clientele in such areas as study skills, fears and phobias, weight loss and smoking.
"Working with athletes is a big part of what I do,"he said. "Sports psychology devices are important because so many sports rely on mental skills as much as physical.
"I teach athletes, work with them, make them CDs and programs to use on their own when I'm not with them."
Vitchoff has worked with golfers, baseball players, wrestlers, football kickers, tennis players and gymnasts, among other athletes.
Now he's working with the U.S. Olympic shooting team.
"I was working with a gentleman named John Hamilton on quitting smoking,"Vitchoff said. "He's with the Hunters Share the Harvest program and he knows some of the Olympic shooters.
"I showed them what I did, how I could help them, and they became fascinated."
Vitchoff is the founder of The 33 Method, a nationally acclaimed sports improvement technique that combines aspects of sports psychology, hypnosis, nutrition and physical training.
He said his clientele "is in the thousands."
The goal of The 33 Method program is to take athletes competing at the highest level of their sports and enable them to perform flawlessly under pressure.
Vitchoff began working with members of the U.S.Army Marksmanship Unit in preparation for their Olympic selection matches. One of those Athletes was Josh Richmond, a 21-year-old who Vitchoff began working with before the 2007 World Cup.
Richmond wound up winning the gold medal and nearly secured a spot on the 2008 U.S.Olympic shooting team. Five of the shooters Vitchoff has been working with. Daryl Szarenski, Walter Glenn Eller III, Jeffrey Holguin and Vincent Hancock. were selected to the team.
"Of the 18 shooters I worked with, five made the team,"Vitchoff said. "It's all about proper mental preparation. You don't wait until something's wrong before you talk to a shrink. You prepare properly before you begin."
Hancock defeated 65 competitors to make the USOlympic Skeet Team and recently won gold at the 2008 World Cup in Suhl, Germany.
Vitchoff left for Beijing last Monday and won't return until Aug. 20. He will serve as the shooting team's mental training and performance coach.
He already has signed on to help the team in the 2012 Games as well.
"It's all about instilling confidence in one's ability,"Vitchoff said. "Thousands of times a year, we plant the idea in our athletes' minds that their confidence is unshakable under pressure."
