RICHMOND'S mindfulness coach Emma Murray has given an insight into the fanatical commitment to improvement that helped drive Dustin Martin's unprecedented 2017 season. 

Murray's performance mindfulness program was compulsory for Richmond players on their way to the 2017 premiership after being introduced via a small group of Tigers in 2015 and 2016.

Martin was among the most committed participants and he mentioned Murray after winning the Brownlow Medal in a season that saw him become the game's best player. 

Murray, whose program allowed players to focus on their strengths and stay in the moment during games, said Martin had become an "absolute advocate" of mindfulness and it had simplified his life.  

"Dusty started working with me in early 2016, and what's fantastic about Dusty is he takes what you're saying and he just does it," Murray told St Kilda champion Danny Frawley on SEN.  

"He doesn't question it, he doesn't do it for just half a game, or do it for one day, or do it on the field but not for training.

"If that's what you're telling him will work for him, then he does it religiously and his whole life has become more simple."

Meditating with Murray's teenage son, Will, who became a quadriplegic after an accident in 2016, became a pre-game ritual for Martin in 2017 and the pair became close friends. 

Will was a star junior athlete before injuring his spinal cord after jumping off a pier at Half Moon Bay, south-east of Melbourne.

Murray, whose role at Richmond is also detailed in author Konrad Marshall's book Yellow and Black, describes her work as helping people use the tools of mindfulness to perform better in their roles.

"But as they learn that and as they use that in their jobs and their sport, as a consequence they also can take that into their families and they can perform better as a parent or as a partner or as a friend," she said.