The Olympics, The Challenge
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Mike wrote,
"This was a great article pointing out the ethics of performance enhancement. Money, time, altitude chambers, and speed suits are all an advantage when others don't have them. Then, is it a fair race? I was hoping you were going to get to inherited ability … which brings up the issue that even when all food intake, psychology, training, and equipment are equal, genetics wins out, so how much pride can one take in his accomplishments knowing that a good chunk of one's success was a gift over which you can't overcome? After all, you can't make a quality chair if you're given just balsa wood! This reminds me that we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously based on the outcome of our athletic dominance over others. I should just try to improve my own performance against my previous performances."
In the Star Trek Next Generation episode "Peak Performance," a training exercise between two ships was deliberately mismatched in armaments, crew, and maneuverability. When the first officer chafed at this, asking what was the official's word for "mismatch" the reply was, "Challenge!"
In martial arts, the win does not always go to the taller or stronger person. Athletic ability needs numerous coordinated skills. If the outcome were always for the bigger or faster fighter, there would be no betting in boxing or any other sport.
Inherent ability doesn't always decide the outcome. It's not a matter of not being able to teach a pig to sing. My carpenter husband Paul can make a solid comfortable chair from balsa wood, paper, (even Jell-O™, he speculates, thanks to Mike's post) by dint of skill and love of his craft.The "Peak Performance" episode emphasized, "The person in the superior position is expected to win. How one performs in a mismatch is precisely of interest. We don't whine about the inequalities of life."
- To learn how to build your spirit and body, regardless of what sport you play, or even if you do no sports at all, try the book Healthy Martial Arts.
- For a general look at "honest" and engineered training, try Rocky IV and Healthier Exercise.
- Don't give up if you don't want to - Why Not?
- Watch a short movie of Muay Thai in Her 90's.
- Good sportsmanship in daily life - Healthier Heart.
Get out there and train.
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy. See Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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Read and contribute your own success stories of these methods. Before asking questions, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
For answers to personal medical questions - Replies to Medical Questions. Limited Class spaces for personal evaluation. Top students may apply to certify through DrBookspan.com/Academy. See Dr. Bookspan's Books.
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Labels: movie/media fitness, Olympics, performance enhancing modality, spirit
1 Comments:
At Thursday, August 07, 2008 2:06:00 AM,
Unknown said…
Thanks for the response! Let's keep going further with my same premise applied to your example. Paul can make a balsa wood, paper, and even jello chair because of years of education, experience, application, passion, and let's face it, he probably does have some inherited genetic ability in the realm of spatial intelligence (I just completed my Gifted Education Endorsement from the Dept. of Ed.) I would assume that Paul, like gifted people in all areas, learns and adapts to stimulus in his area better than most of us, with less repetition and fewer errors to correct along the way. This is rewarding to him and perpetuates more enthusiasm, then more independent study leading to greater skill and so on. The person who has a more difficult time learning and physically adapting at building chairs or mastering a sport or skill(Low or medium responders) needs more practice at each point along the continuum, slowing progress while the "high responders" learn and adapt faster because of their gifts and being intrinsically and socially rewarded by their own progress. We all have our own genetic ceiling, cognitively and physically.
I have taught over 600 students for nine months at a time each, for 24 years. We don't all learn and adapt the same.
(Here comes the name-dropping part) I've trained and run with world class runners Thom Hunt, 4-time Olympian George Young, Steve Scott, Ray Wicksell, Don Janicki, and Ed Mendoza. I've competed in cycling events with Kent Bostick and and the US cycling team. They all killed me, even though we trained and ate practically the same for years. When they pull away with little effort while I'm gasping and sputtering it is awesome to watch and very apparent that there is something very different about them at the cellular level. I don't feel bad being left behind. At the same time, others have trained, learned, and eaten just as soundly as I have, yet I leave them in the dust because I just adapt better than they do. I don't feel proud of that. I worked hard, the rest is a gift of sorts.
I've watched many cross-country running races at the high school level. At about the half-way point look at all the runners when they are on a long straight stretch of the course. You'll see bell curve visually displayed before you.
Here's a great quote from the movie "Without Limits" about Steve Prefontaine. Pre thinks we're all born the same and that winning is just a matter of will:
Bill Bowerman: Know what your problem is, Pre? Vanity!
Steve Prefontaine: Vanity?
Bill Bowerman: Yes, vanity, Pre! Your belief that you have no talent is the ultimate vanity. If you have no talent then you have no limits, it's all an act of will. Your heart can probably pump more blood than anyone else's on earth, and that takes talent. The bones in your feet are so strong, it'd take a sledgehammer to break 'em. Be thankful for your limits, Pre, they're about as limitless as they get in this life."
All men are NOT created equal, cognitively or physically.
It takes training and hard work to find out where our genetic limits are. That is fun and satisfying. This is the long winded point I was trying to make.
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