Sports Massage / page three Leverage / higher levels of performance “Men of genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work the least.” – Leonardo da Vinci (also attributed to painter Giorgio Vasari) “To all who want to accomplish something, I say go into silence regularly for the power and wisdom to accomplish.” – Elizabeth Towne, 'New Thought' writer, author of Just How to Wake the Solar Plexus (1907) If you ever pick up a Russian newspaper and open up the sports section, you might notice a little curiosity: The lead article could well feature not soccer nor hockey but chess. There are still some of us who can recall television coverage of the epic 1972 chess battle between American Bobby Fischer and the Russian Boris Spassky. Lesser known was the gruelling physical preparation that Fischer submitted himself to before a showdown of such import. In more recent times, semi-retired world master Garry Kasparov prepares for major matches with a regimen that includes cycling, soccer and swimming. "Your chess deteriorates as your body does." – Bobby Fischer "We don’t rise to the occasion; we sink to our level of training." – Taylor Clark, Nerve (2011) (Taken from Archilochus, 7th century BC, whose language lacked the word 'chops') "I prepare to the point where instinct takes over." – Steph Curry, elite NBA point guard "For 42 years I’ve made small, regular deposits of education, training and experience. And the experience balance was sufficient that on January 15th I could make a sudden large withdrawal." – Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who brought a disabled commercial aircraft to a safe landing on New York's Hudson River in 2009 "A coarse sailor is one who in a crisis forgets nautical language and shouts, ‘For God’s sake, turn left’!" – Michael Green, The Art of Coarse Sailing, 1962 "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." – Paul Romer, Nobel Prize-winning economist "Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy." – Tchaikovsky What sparks this example was a snippet from a menza-menza 2009 book by Michael Gelb that we'll discuss further below. In trying to distinguish what makes an international grandmaster in chess stand out from a “mere” master, researchers have trouble ascertaining palpable differences. What is noted, however, is that those in the top tier of their field display a level of playfulness not found among their lesser-gifted peers. Says Gelb, over-seriousness is a red flag indicating mediocrity and bureaucratic, inflexible thinking. In fact, one of the final classic obstacles along the pathway to the state of Wu Wei (effortless action) is seriousness itself (Lundberg). “There is little success where there is little laughter.” – Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), industrialist and philanthropist “Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.” – Brendan Gill, long-time New Yorker contributor and critic “Delicate humor is the crowning virtue of the saints.” – Evelyn Underhill, scholar of mysticism (1875-1941) “May God protect me from gloomy saints.” – St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.” – Malcolm Cowley, novelist (1898-1989) “I feel as though that was someone else playing. I was possessed.” – Ringo “It is not ‘I am doing this,’ but rather ‘this is happening through me’.” – martial arts master Bruce Lee It’s likely, however, that playfulness, while easily identifiable, is but a function or side-attribute of a yet higher space that top performers are able to generate, a zone that University of Chicago professor Mihaly Csikszenthihalyi terms ‘flow,’ similar to the ancient Chinese 'yu.' In fact, our good professor with the unwieldy name has written an overly academic book by the same name. (His 1996 book 'Creativity' was a downright train wreck.) In my estimation, few people find themselves within the proverbial 'flow' (zone) space for any substantial amount of time, and those who do find it don’t talk about it so much nor cultivate the means to operate from it on a regular basis. "The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shih, or 'no fuss'." – Alan Watts, Zen educator "There are some other books which seem to portray the thoughts of Zen properly, but whose authors are mere intellectuals whose experience is shallow. Their books are easier to understand, but they do not convey the essential quality of Zen." – Erich Fromm, German-born psychologist, regarding the work of D.T. Suzuki In describing flow, Mihaly quotes a rock climber: “Somehow the right thing is done without you ever thinking about it or doing anything at all.... It just happens.” Said golfer Arnold Palmer, during this “zoned in” (flow) state we sense a type of reverie (pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts) from within an insulated (cocoon) state. "For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication." – Nietzsche (In this case we'll define 'intoxication' as the 'reverie' of Palmer. Note that the great philosopher did not say 'psychological' condition. He said 'physiological', which may be defined as the physical side of psychological.) “The rugby player during the course of a game is living life at its most intoxicating.” – Rowe Harding, Rugby Reminiscences and Opinions, 1929 “Flow is inextricably related to rhythm.” – sport psychologist Gio Valiante “With wanton heed and giddy cunning.” – Milton, L’Allegro, 1654 (let's read 'wanton heed' as 'reckless discipline') “All seasoned players know, or at least have felt, that when you are playing your best, you are much the same as in a state of meditation. You are free of tension and chatter. You are concentrating on one thing. It is the ideal condition for good golf.” – Harvey Penick (1904-95), golf pro and writer “The spirit of meditation is the combating of self-willed thinking.” – Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) The ancient Greeks had two complementary notions: enthousiasmos (enthusiasm), the state of being possessed by gods; and ekstasis (ecstasy), the state of literally being "beside oneself.” The term 'intoxication' appears to match the second condition, while still containing elements of the first. Notice also the similarity of the word 'reverie' to that of 'reverent'. “Always and in everything let there be reverence.” – Confucius, The Book of Rites (Have we finally nailed the intended meaning of the word?) Per the Greens (Beyond Biofeedback, 1977), this state of reverie indicates the descent (ascent?) into the realm of theta brainwaves, which are deeper than alpha. One can now surmise with prudence that ekstasis and the new-agey concept of "observation" are counterparts of the theta realm. Better yet, this space can be induced with reliable predictability on the massage table. Per psychoanalyst Lawrence Kubie (1896-1973), cited by the Greens, this state of reverie can be induced by total muscular relaxation. Kubie described reverie as a hypnagogic state, a pre-sleep condition where the mind is entering the theta realm. “Active imagination requires a state of reverie, halfway between sleep and waking.” – Carl Jung “During periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insight.” – Austrian-born physicist Fritjof Capra, helping to define the German word einsicht as expressed by Hegel The Greens have also cited David Foulkes, born 1935, a leading researcher into the nature of dreams. At the University of Chicago, Foulkes found that subjects who could practice imagery from within a deeply relaxed state were psychologically healthier, had more social poise, were less rigid and conforming, and were more self-accepting and creative. Those who do not achieve this state tend to be more authoritarian, rigid, conventional and intolerant. We will also accept these descriptions as fundamental elements of that elusive concept known as well-being, to which the Greens add the element of intellectual flexibility. “There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Trine, American ‘New Thought’ writer (1866-1958) "Any leader who adheres inflexibly to one set of commandments is inviting disastrous defeat from a resourceful opponent." – admiral Charles Randall ‘Cat’ Brown, The Principles of War, 1949 Sports writer John Jerome also picked up on the theme of flow in his The Sweet Spot in Time: The Search for Athletic Perfection (1982). Within this 'sweet spot,' similar to Mihaly's 'flow,' skill levels are higher and motions are quicker as well as more accurate and powerful. He asserts that the mind cannot produce these spaces as reliably (source: Garfield). “My center does not come from my mind.” – painter Georgia O'Keeffe “The shot will go smoothly only when it takes the archer himself by surprise.” – Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery, 1953 “Command by instinct is swifter, subtler, deeper, more accurate, more in touch with reality than command by conscious mind.” – philosopher Michael Novak, The Joy of Sports, 1976 “Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.” – Balzac, French novelist (1799-1850) “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple “It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.” – Wilbur Wright Looking at the massage literature, let’s see if we can pluck out any physical elements that may either hasten or hinder the arrival of this reverential state: Said Rolf, when musculature operates in a state of balance, work is now being performed with far less effort, with less drain on the body’s energy. We are accomplishing more with less, whether the work in question is on the factory floor or the soccer field. Thus we can see a direct correspondence between muscular balance and effortlessness, which is certainly one attribute we typically associate with higher levels of performance, even in the arts. “True mastery exhibits no effort.” – Li Mu, Chinese warlord, third century BC The renewed ease can even spill over into everyday life, suggests Rolf, who says personal relationships can improve as well. We can more easily handle the day-to-day situations that life throws at us, particularly the subtleties of more effective interpersonal communications. “Strength that has effort in it is not what you need,” she says. “You need the strength that is the result of ease. To me, strength is balance." (Rolfing and Physical Reality, 1990) Notice how we’re no longer defining strength as a step-child of willpower and force alone. We'll leave that to the amateurs. “It is this tendency to play with manic enthusiasm on every possible occasion that distinguishes the amateur jazz musician from the professional, often to the public detriment of the latter, who are regarded as snooty and unfriendly.” – trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton “I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.” – Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer (1864-1949) “Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” – Edgar Degas, French impressionist (1834-1917) “I was thought to be stuck-up. I wasn’t. I was just sure of myself.” – actress Bette Davis “(Golf) professionals invariably trudge phlegmatically around the course – whatever emotions are seething within – with the grim yet placid and bored look of cowpokes, slack-bodied in their saddles, who have been tending the same herd for two months.” – journalist George Plimpton Definition of phlegmatic: an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition “When I used to gamble, I looked for guys with head covers on their irons. Those guys I could beat.” – Chi-Chi Rodriguez, World Golf Hall of Fame “An expensive warmup suit marks the runner as a beginner.” – physician/author/runner George Sheehan Another condition that can interfere with ‘flow’ is when muscle becomes chronically constricted and knotted. This produces an energy drain on the rest of the organism, says Deane Juhan in Job’s Body as we discussed on the previous page ("energy crisis"). Energy resources get hogged and physical equilibrium is disturbed, just like on our knotted plank of wood. “Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older.” – surgeon/professor Hans Selye, University of Montreal “While nervous tension may be a component of stress, one can be stressed without feeling tension.” – Gabor Maté, Hungarian-Canadian physician Another source (one that calls for a specialized form of bodywork) is the matter of unresolved scar tissues embedded in key postural muscles. These produce a myofascial drag on the body, wasting enormous energy (source: Robert King of the American Massage Therapy Association). It's as if we're driving down the highway with the emergency brake still on. These three factors – imbalance, constriction, and scar tissue – impede the body’s ability to perform as one cohesive unit, and they eventually lead to undue fatigue. Grace of movement is no longer possible. Taken to the extreme, herky-jerky movement with excessive sway is a clear indication of neurotic personality (source: Barlow). Wilhelm Reich made similar observations, saying that a key indicator for the space of well-being we all seek is a state of physical gracefulness. “The movements of the body reveal the movements of the soul.” – Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), the quintessential Renaissance Man “Never mistake motion for action.” – Ernest Hemingway “We still by no means think decisively enough about the essence of action.” – Martin Heidegger, a seminal thinker of the 20th century (Another indicator/criterion, as pointed out by psychiatrist Karl Menninger, founder of the Menninger Clinic, is a spirit of generosity.) “Generous people are rarely mentally ill.” – Dr. Karl Menninger While alleviating these impediments is certainly no guarantee we’ll automatically reach higher plateaus of performance, their reduction, and the resultant improvement in muscular efficiency, does appear to be a leveraging tool, a catalyst, in that direction. Per Rolf, the reserve strength and power of the body can now emerge. As expressed by two researchers who are cited periodically in the literature, Elmer and Alyce Green, authors of Beyond Biofeedback (1977), the state of relaxed enhancement allows the entire organism to find its optimal homeostatic balance, thus leading to improved physical performance. One physical explanation is that by diminishing tension we unbind muscle, perhaps un-torque it a bit, leading to a state of relaxed attentiveness. This factor was reported in a study once published by the Association for the Advancement of Sports Potential, as cited by Garfield. In addition, to not operate from this state leads to what's termed the "paralysis of overanalysis," as discussed by sports psychologists Evelyn Hall and Charles Hardy, speaking to the 5th World Sport Psychology Congress, Ottawa 1981. “If the verbal description you create of the situation you find yourself in leads to paralysis and ineffectual behavior, then throw those damn words away and find yourself a new set.” – Moshe Feldenkrais, movement educator “I see things written about the golf swing that I can’t believe will work except by accident.” – Harvey Penick (1904-95), golf pro and writer “A physicist can describe the perfect golf swing and write it down in scientific language, but the smart golfer doesn't read it. The smart golfer gives it to his opponent to contemplate.” – Dr. Fran Pirozzolo, sport psychologist “A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.” – Sir Thomas Beecham, English conductor (1879-1961) (Can a similar distinction be made between a "massage therapist" and a masseur?) “Art, for example, becomes 'art therapy.' When patients make music, it becomes 'music therapy.' When the arts are used for 'therapy' in this way, they are degraded to a secondary position.” – James Hillman, influential American psychologist “When I was first aware that I couldn't read music I didn't know I couldn't read because I could play the music that was in front of me.” – Dave Brubeck, pioneering jazz pianist and composer “An artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant can talk about horticulture.” – Jean Cocteau, French poet and filmmaker (1889-1963) “Don’t ask a poet to explain himself. He cannot.” – Plato “Many return from war who can't give an account of the battle.” – Italian proverb “He who studies the ball with hawk-eyes is a worried man.” – English cricket great Frank Woolley “Learn not to be so careful.” – photographer Diane Arbus We can now add the Greens, and even Rolf, to our growing list of authors who invoke the "reserve energy" theory. As Garfield explains, we can even expect quicker reaction times when operating from this leveraged ground of being, partly because superfluous brain signals to the muscles are minimized. Within this "cocoon of concentration" as he puts it, we release massive amounts of energy that are not normally available. “You don’t just throw the ball, you propel it.” – baseball hall-of-famer Warren Spahn This train of thought seems to appear only periodically in the literature of sports performance and self-improvement, and only from the more perceptive of writers. Says Gallwey in a snippet that appears from time to time, "The greatest efforts in sports come when the mind is as still as a glass lake." “Stillness is where creativity and solutions are found.” – Meister Eckhart, renowned mystic (1260-1328) "One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness, not to be a mere rushing on." – English writer D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) "I had to learn that slower is faster . . . . It's like preparing for a jump: You can't rush. You must summon the appropriate energy." – Edward Villella, leading American dancer/choreographer "The basic endgame principle: Do Not Hurry." – Alexander Kotov, Russian chess grandmaster/author (1913-1981) "When a decision is taken belatedly, its execution inevitably leads to haste." – Vasily Chuikov, Soviet military commander "You can’t fire a cannon from a canoe." – strength coach Charles Poliquin "Balance and stillness are to be found at the heart of all change." – Dr. Andrew Weil, media-approved health consultant who needs to go on a diet "Among the great things which are found among us, the existence of Nothing is the greatest." – Leonardo da Vinci "I’ve been 40 years discovering that the Queen of all colors is black." – Auguste Renoir, French impressionist (1841-1919) This still lake, this cocoon, so contrary to common "wisdom," is reflected not merely by calmness but by a type of intensity that only calmness can contain. This calmness/intensity combo is also marked by an enhanced concentration that can't be broken as easily as before. Loehr, viewing the cocoon from the other side, labels this combination one of inner strength and self-control (the ability to choose, not react). He also enhances our understanding of the word 'cocoon' by saying the locus of this control comes from within, meaning it's self-generated; no one else can teach us. “There's very few pitching coaches that I worked with that actually came out on the mound and told me what I was doing wrong with the knuckleball. Because they just didn't know. So I had to figure it out. I was on my own.” – Phil Niekro, Atlanta Braves “The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.” – Bob Uecker, pro baseball player and lighthearted announcer "You won't GET any feedback.” – Werner Erhard "To a pitcher, a base hit is the perfect example of negative feedback.” – outfielder Steve Hovley "Every ‘boo’ on the road is a cheer.” – renowned NHL coach Scotty Bowman "Boos don't block shots.” – Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers “In the absence of feedback, people will fill in the blanks with a negative.” (Brilliant) – Patricia Summitt, Olympic and collegiate basketball coach "This happened once before When I came to your door, No reply." – The Beatles, No Reply Definition of existentialism: the realization that no one else can put your pants on for you. “The vast majority of persons of our race have a natural tendency to shrink from the responsibility of standing and acting alone." – Sir Francis Galton, English polymath/statistician (1822-1911) “When things go wrong in your command, start wading for the reason, with increasingly larger circles, around your own desk." – Bruce C. Clarke, American general "You’re never a loser until you start pointing your finger at others." – NFL coach Sam Rutigliano "Too many managers strut around on the field trying to manage the umpires instead of their teams." – baseball umpire Bill Klem (1874-1951) “Take charge when you’re singing." – country music legend Patsy Cline “When I open many books, or most leading women's magazines, or see almost all TV shows, I don't find myself at all. I am completely anonymous. My value system is not there." – Béla Károlyi, Romanian-born Olympic gymnastics coach Garfield attributes the enhanced concentration to the fact that we've surmounted the reactive fight-or-flight response and the tight musculature associated with it. Clearly then, there's a connection between tight musculature and the inability to take in the big picture, whether in life or on the field. We've also gained a further clue how to access these so-called "hidden reserves" that have been discussed in muted tones on dimly lit and dusty library shelves for far too long. "When your body is not aligned, The inner power will not come. When you are not tranquil within, Your mind will not be well-ordered. Align your body, assist the inner power, Then it will gradually come on its own." – reference to Nei-Yeh (Inward Training), from Taoist poetry circa 4th century BC Let's re-translate the first line: "When your PC muscle is out of whack." “If I ever let the muse go to sleep it is only that she may wake refreshed.” – Beethoven “To repair the cerebral cortex from the wear and tear of consciousness." (The function of sleep.) – James Horne, professor of psychophysiology, Loughborough University, Leicester German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz (1884-1970) became convinced that both cortical and subcortical brain processes could be controlled by visualization.... Schultz's clinical findings were dismissed by most physicians and psychologists. – Elmer Green, "Alpha-Theta Brainwave Training," presented in 1993 at a symposium in Montreal (Schultz's findings were incorporated by NASA) A perceptive reader may now ask, essentially, to what extent can we turn this information into improvements on the field? We’re not talking fireworks here, but we can anticipate a degree of incremental improvement that no athlete would turn down, namely a benchmark of 20%. Said Meagher in SportsMassage: A proper application of sports massage techniques can increase our game performance 20%. It will protect us (presumably from injury) an extra 20%. Not only that, it can extend our season by 20%. Not to be outdone, it can extend our career by 20%. Again, we’re achieving these aims not through direct or linear force and willpower. We’re achieving them as a byproduct, in leverage fashion, of muscular relaxation and realignment – moving backward so as to move forward. We cannot force performance (a good definition for pressing) any more than we can force a rose to bloom or trigger point to release. Trigger points, by the way, also play a role in delaying relaxation after physical exertion. “Come the right moment (kairos), a pawn (trimtab) can bring you victory.” – Ho Chi Minh, first president of Vietnam “In war there is only one favorable moment. Genius seizes it.” – Napoleon, Maxims of War, 1831 “There is a moment in every battle in which the simplest maneuver is decisive and gives superiority, as one drop of water causes overflow.” – Napoleon “If two (basketball) teams are evenly matched, it can come down to number of possessions. If one out-of-bounds call goes the wrong way, that can be the difference.” – Tommy Heinsohn, Boston Celtics “He applies pressure just where the pressure is needed.” – Alfredo Di Stéfano, Real Madrid, regarding Lionel Messi “Whether it’s a big ship or a small ship, the same size hole placed correctly in the hull can sink it.” – Ed Parker, karate instructor and author (Are we getting that kairos and precession are interrelated?) Meagher helps spell out the apparent contradiction: Yes, strength is indeed a function of muscular contraction. However, higher levels of power generation – those that help us stand out from the pack – rely upon an additional factor: full relaxation (which includes relying a bit less on sheer willpower) in addition to the contraction. They occur simultaneously, and are a concrete example of the oxymoron “relaxed concentration.” “To do great work, a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.” – English novelist Samuel Butler (1835-1902) Without this total relaxation, Loehr's 'X Factor,' the performance simply won’t be there, at least not at the top level, even after an athlete has been “sat down” by their coach in order to rest and recuperate. In and of itself, rest cannot unfire a hyperactive muscle. (Phaigh asserts that a proper massage rivals the benefits of a two-day layoff in training.) Meagher was not a mere theorist, by the way. He played football for Notre Dame and coached baseball, basketball, football and Olympians as well. “There are two kinds of people in the world: Notre Dame lovers and Notre Dame haters. And, quite frankly, they're both a pain in the ass.” – Dan Devine, former head football coach at ... Notre Dame However, it's taken Clair "Trigger Point" Davies to put the icing on the cake regarding this issue of relaxed concentration. Per Davies, muscle strength returns naturally when trigger points are deactivated. Now we're seeing a higher-quality and more cogent definition of Meagher's "full relaxation," and perhaps now's the time to assert a new postulate: Strength is a function of deactivation. This concept dovetails nicely with and clarifies our mantra "reduce resistance to movement." “In the case of an airplane, speed is determined by the outcome of the conflict between the thrust of power and the drag of the plane. So it also is with humans.” – Jacqueline Cochran, aviation pioneer (1906-1980) “Natural velocity is better than forced velocity.” – John Smoltz, Hall of Fame pitcher and broadcaster (Smoltz just gave us a definition of the word 'celerity' more precise than any offered up by lexicographers laboring away at prestigious dictionaries) Dr. Benson also offers a clear example of this relaxation/exertion dichotomy: After running or jogging four or five miles, many runners experience their well-known natural "high." However, when coupled with the meditative attitude of the state Benson has termed the “relaxation response,” this high will often occur in only the first or second mile. The arrival time for the zone has been expedited; if a trainer or masseur is involved, they’ve earned their stripes. Also, exercise becomes more efficient. When Benson and other researchers reported these findings in the medical literature, several marathoners were upset because they felt the beans were spilled on their secret competitive techniques (Herbert Benson, The Relaxation Response, 1975). “Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand times superior to meditation in stillness.” – Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769), Zen Buddhist “On my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker the first defender.” – Johann Cruyff, Dutch football great "Play a defensive game with an offensive mental attitude." – tennis great Bill Tilden "The true strength of a prince does not consist so much in his ability to conquer his neighbors as in the difficulty they find in attacking him." – Montesquieu (1689-1755), French philosopher "His defense was invariably counter-attack." – English cricketer Bob Wyatt, regarding cricketer Frank Woolley "How are they defensively, attacking-wise?" – Ron Atkinson, Oxford United "In a series of games, the strongest defensive team survives." – Tom Landry, head coach, Dallas Cowboys, regarding the playoff structure "The offense sells tickets, the defense wins games." – coach Marv Levy, NFL Hall of Fame "I may not drive in 100 runs a year, but I can prevent 100 runs from scoring against us." – shortstop Ozzie Smith, baseball hall of fame "Good players win you games, good formations stop you from losing them." – Gordon Strachan, manager for the Scottish national football team "We beat them four-nil, and they were lucky to get nil." – Bill Shankly (1913-81), Liverpool manager Like Benson, Kubie, and the Greens, Garfield also claimed that the arrival time for The Zone (spinning plates in the circus) can be expedited (he says 'orchestrated'), though we cannot command its appearance on schedule. But as with the mystics of ages past and their anticipated future glimpses of intense awareness, we can set the table for its return, just as a billiards pro sets the table in anticipation of properly placing the cue ball three shots hence whereas the average schmuck can only see one shot at a time. "Placing the ball in the right position for the next shot, knowing exactly where to be on the green, is 80% of golf." – golf legend Ben Hogan "Play the shot that makes the next shot easy." – Scottish-born golfer Tommy Armour (1896-1968), winner of three majors "Moderate skill in billiards implies a certain amount of mental capacity, but such skill as you have displayed is clear evidence of a misspent youth." – Herbert Spencer, English polymath (1820-1903) "The game of billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition." – Mark Twain "Dressing a pool player in a tuxedo is like putting whipped cream on a hot dog." – Minnesota Fats, professional pool celebrity Besides working at the muscular level, deeper levels of relaxation extend their benefits toward our energetic aspects as well. Says Dr. Yang, almost all styles of Chinese martial arts train in Qigong (pronounced 'chee-KUNG'). Its role in helping our intentions translate themselves into physical performance (visualizing) is vital for reaching the higher levels of power generation, lest traditional combat techniques fall flat. Of particular importance is the inflow and outflow of qi energy to and from the Lower Tan Den, located within the pelvic basin. (The upper Tan Den corresponds to the third-eye point above the nose.) Yang also notes that breathing deeply does not necessarily mean breathing heavily. Other writers have noted the existence of a "deeper breath" that occurs more naturally with less effort, entailing more partnership with the diaphragm. “Fill yourself with Qi, invite the attack.” – Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido “The side attacked always overestimates the strength of the attacker.” – August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, Prussian field marshal (1760-1831) Taking a look back now at our chess masters and what separates the elite from the mere great, let’s add the element of effortlessness – which may or may not include playfulness. This space seems to occur naturally once we let go of reservations (which have physical counterparts) and get into it, whatever “it” may be, as long as we’re generating this space for the benefit of all, opponent included, even if they lose. "I have often marveled at the thin line that separates success from failure." – Sir Ernest Shackleton, Anglo-Irish polar explorer "The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate." – Willa Cather (1873-1947) "Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success." – Emerson "I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community.” – George Bernard Shaw "What does not benefit the hive is of no benefit to the bee.” – Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) Sports commentators sometimes describe this attribute of "getting into it" as one of “mental toughness,” but mental resolve seems to have little to do with it; it has been rendered obsolete. “You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason.” – Plotinus, third century AD “Thinking only begins at the point where we have come to know that reason, glorified for centuries, is the stiff-necked adversary of thought.” – German philosopher Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 1927 Ironically, we’ve even stopped “thinking” so hard, which is a relatively low space in terms of high performance. It’s a well-known cliché that people get out of the way for those who know where they’re going, and this gets misinterpreted sometimes as toughness. “(Real) thinking is a momentary dismissal of irrelevancies.” – Buckminster Fuller "Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence." – Thomas Szasz, Hungarian-born psychiatrist (1920-2012) "Courage is the power to let go of the familiar." – Rev. Raymond Lindquist, Hollywood, California "Intelligence without audacity is not enough. I must have the guts to explode the game." – Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, born in Baku, Azerbaijan "We haven’t got the money, so we’ve got to think!" – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand physicist (1871-1937), Nobel laureate “Nine-tenths of everything is inessential. What is called ‘reality’ can be summed up with so much less.” – Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher and statesman “Too much foliage and too little fruit.” – pathologist Theobald Smith (1859-1934), regarding the pitfalls of too much research Reducing sway One of mankind’s greatest technical accomplishments to date has been to land a man on the lunar surface and return him safely to earth. However, one little-known fact about the Apollo missions to the moon is that these spacecraft spent some 90% of their time off-course. Nudged around by gravitational and other forces, the flight paths of the spacecraft required continuous fine-tuning. Jet airliners face a similar problem and are gently nudged back on course frequently. Said the great Buckminster Fuller, who periodically mentioned the Apollo dynamics, ocean-going ships face a similar situation at sea: it’s impossible to eliminate their tendency to veer off course; the routes they follow require constant readjustment. “A man walking is never in balance, but always correcting for imbalance.” – Gregory Bateson (1904-1980), English anthropologist "Even at the highest levels of golf, perfect shots are mostly accidental and extremely rare." – Jack Nicklaus (Absolute perfection, regardless of the sport, is reserved for the St. Peter's League, a term used by classic sports columnist Ring Lardner.) “A good round of golf is if you can hit about three shots that turn out exactly as you plan them.” – Ben Hogan “Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.” – Anne Wilson Schaef, psychotherapist/author “Not all of Mozart's paintings were perfect.” – Andy Reid, head football coach, Kansas City Chiefs, after a particularly tough victory (a 'barnburner') in 2019 “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” – NFL coach Vince Lombardi “I don't have perfect pitch, but I have relative pitch. I'm glad I don't have perfect pitch because perfect pitch can drive you crazy.” – Billy Eckstine, jazz singer and bandleader of the swing era “All rising to a great place is by a winding stair.” – Francis Bacon, philosopher/statesman “When it comes to obstacles, the shortest line between two points may be the crooked one.” – German dramatist Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) Said Fuller, all physical movement, even among humans, is a series of small course-corrections. What we call ‘grace’ is really the ability to minimize herky-jerky movement, not necessarily eliminate it entirely, fine-tuning our course corrections right in the middle of performance. Sports psychologist Steven Ungerleider has noticed this trait in golf-great Jack Nicklaus. Per Ungerleider, Nicklaus distinguishes himself from average competitors by minimizing the inaccuracy of his misses, learning how to manage his less-than-perfect shots (Mental Training for Peak Performance, 1996). “Golf is not a game of great shots. It’s a game of the most accurate misses.” – hall-of-famer Gene Littler “A golf swing is a series of corrected mistakes.” – Carol Mann, World Golf Hall of Fame “When debugging, novices insert corrective code; experts remove defective code.” – Richard Pattis, University of California at Irvine “I miss. I miss. I miss. I make.” – Seve Ballesteros of Spain, World Golf Hall of Fame “Wisdom consists of knowing when to avoid perfection.” – Horowitz’s Rule “Every move creates a weakness.” – Siegbert Tarrasch, German chess master/author (1862-1934) “Historically, good men with poor ships are better than poor men with good ones.” – vice admiral Joseph Taussig, U.S. Navy “You don’t need to have your best stuff to win.” – David Cone, baseball pitcher and announcer That said, some people betray their attempts to hide jerky movement by the excessive sway seen in samples of their handwriting. “Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.” – H.L. Mencken, journalist / social critic / scholar of English “Golf is not a game of good shots. It’s a game of bad shots.” – Ben Hogan, winner of nine majors “From error to error, we discover the entire truth.” – Sigmund Freud “Without error there can be no brilliancy.” – German chess grandmaster Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941), world chess champion for a record 27 years “We are built to make mistakes, coded for error.” – Lewis Thomas, physician and educator “Truth will sooner come out of error than from confusion.” – Francis Bacon “It is the true nature of mankind to learn from mistakes, not from example." – Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), English astronomer “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior." – psychologist Henry C. Link (1889-1952) “Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.” – Savielly Tartakower (Austria-France / 1887-1956), chess grandmaster and author A review of the bodywork literature almost inadvertently reveals a similar situation when it comes to physical movement of the human body. It’s an aspect of athletic preparation that can benefit not only from muscular balance but from a balancing act that applies to our nervous system as well. First let’s assume, based on anecdotal and some published evidence, that most athletes are ‘A’-type personalities who are driven to succeed, which in and of itself is not an unworthy trait. However, the higher levels of power generation, those that separate out the elite from the mere achievers, will remain unknown and unavailable to them, especially the types who frequently appear to be in a hurry. This hurry-up mindset reveals a dominance of the “fight or flight” aspects of the sympathetic division of our autonomic nervous system, the one that monitors functions operating beneath the radar screen of full conscious control. It also indicates trepidation in its fullest sense, both behavioral and physiological. GRANDFATHER: It’s my considered opinion that you’re a bunch of sissies. JOHN LENNON: You’re just jealous. – A Hard Day's Night “Fight or flight” (jitsu) is winning out over the “rest and digest” (kyo) aspect of the complementary parasympathetic system, which concerns itself with rebuilding the body after use. Whereas we don’t want to live in the hyperactive fight-or-flight mode more than is necessary, neither do we want to camp out very long in rest-and-digest, lest we get left behind in the dust by those of more even-minded dispositions. "There's no workman, whatsoever he be, That may both work well and hastily." – Chaucer, The Merchant's Tale "Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him." – Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773), British statesman known for his wit "Be quick without hurrying." – John Wooden, basketball coach, UCLA "Hasty questions require slow answers." – Dutch proverb While it was Moshe Feldenkrais who noticed in the 1940s and ‘50s that a more refined balancing act between these two nervous systems (gas pedal vs. brakes) can lead to higher levels of performance, it was a psychologist from Scranton of all places who discussed the connection in print in 1998 (John Harvey, of Allied Services, in his book Total Relaxation). Harvey noted, as have many others, that we tend to experience life in a way that sets off a constant and low-grade fight-or-flight response, which of course is an imbalanced stance, as is spending too much time on the opposite end of the continuum, playing possum. However, Harvey perceptively moved our awareness forward by describing a third kind of imbalance not often discussed in the literature: excessive fluctuation between the two states. We feel pumped up one minute and trapped the next. "I wasn’t throwing the ball really well because my adrenaline was so high." – Orel Hershiser, Los Angeles Dodgers "I don’t try to get players emotionally up for a game. It creates too many peaks and valleys. I strive for an even keel." – coach Denny Crum (1937-2023), University of Louisville basketball "It's not when you brake but when you take them off that counts. Most people don't understand that." – Jackie Stewart, Formula One racer from Scotland On a physiological level there's little time left for restoration and housekeeping. We sabotage our built-in mechanisms for analyzing input and dealing with ongoing situations with any degree of perspective as described by Leonardo. We choke. In his classic Stress of Life, Hans Selye touched upon this point as well, noting how exagerrated hormonal responses, when inappropriate to the situation at hand, lead to "stereotyped" reactions (mental tapes). In a sports context this translates into lackluster performance that lags a few seconds behind the moment, a matter that can be alleviated, says Selye, by deep sleep and relaxation. “The nervous system and the automatic machine are fundamentally alike in that they are devices which make decisions on the basis of decisions they made in the past.” – mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), originator of cybernetics "A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life." – August Strindberg (1849-1912), Swedish playwright "Some people have got a mental horizon of radius zero and call it their point of view." – David Hilbert, German mathematician (1862-1943) "We are all victims of the pictures in our head." – journalist Walter Lippman "And something on your mind, Became a point of view." – Tears for Fears, Change (1983), from an album influenced by the work of psychologist Arthur Janov "The way you react has been repeated thousands of times, and it has become a routine for you. You are conditioned to be a certain way. And that is the challenge: to change your normal reactions, to change your routine." – Mexican writer Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements "I turn pale at the outset of a speech and quake in every limb." – Cicero, first century BC "Choking is a ‘system jam’, an overload of information. A system jam results from fear of failure." – performance coach Dave Alred, The Pressure Principle, 2016 It is this fluctuation we’ll attempt to address with certain physical “course corrections.” Our aim is to enable ourselves to perform at higher levels for longer periods of time, without the usual expenditure of effort. “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong." – Carl Jung Lower levels of performance leave a residue of tension, dissatisfaction, angst, and no sense of completion or accomplishment. They go hand in hand with enemies that go by the names of emotionality and overexcitement, the antithesis of calm anticipation, which we’ll attempt to foster on the massage table. “When I was younger and inexperienced, I was a very animated pitcher. I pitched with a lot of adrenaline. I was my own worst enemy when things weren't going well." – hall-of-famer Randy Johnson “One of the finest sights in the world: the other man's ball dropping in the water – preferably so that he can see it but cannot quite reach it and has therefore to leave it there, thus rendering himself so mad that he loses the next hole as well." – Henry Longhurst, British golf writer and commentator “Most good (golf) players don’t show much emotion when they hit a bad shot." – Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager (a work accused of extensive plagiarism) “Never retain an emotion to the point of preparation for the next shot." – Dick Beach, author of Golf: The Body, the Mind, the Game, 1992 “You don’t have to follow up a bad shot with a great one." – Ian Baker-Finch (Australia), pro golfer and TV commentator “The more I become involved emotionally in my client’s cause, the less I am able to do for him." – Joseph Ball, past president, American College of Trial Lawyers “We often give enemies the means of our own destruction." – Aesop “You’ve got to find a way to get out of your own way." – hall-of-fame pitcher Steve Carlton On a physiological level, when the body is tensed blood flow is constricted. Sports psychologist Mark Nesti of Liverpool John Moores University has also noticed and discussed the negative consequences of the over-emotional state. Nesti, consultant to several teams in the Premier League, points out that real winners are more apt to be "deeply pleased" with victory, not over-excited, nor do they beat themselves up very long after a tough loss. “Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories." – Polybius, Greek historian, c. 200-118 BC “One more such victory and we are undone." – Pyrrhus, upon defeating the Romans in 279 BC “The time your game is most vulnerable is when you’re ahead." – Australian tennis great Rod Laver “The most dangerous spot comes while everything is going smoothly." – Bobby Jones, World Golf Hall of Fame If we do succumb to this emotional yo-yo, said Feldenkrais, we cannot correct it by willpower alone. This is an assertion whose recurrence from various credible sources places it at the level of fundamental postulate. The first course of action, he says, is to restore elasticity to the pelvis in a manner described earlier. In a nod to Eastern theories, particularly Qigong, this begins to discharge the excessive and/or dammed up energy of the constantly excited cortical centers. (The word ‘cortex’ is Latin for ‘bark of a tree’; in similar fashion, ‘cortical’ refers to the outer part of an organ. Russian researchers, by the way, call the brain cortex the "analyzer.") We’re helping to eliminate what’s in effect random snow on a television screen, allowing more subtle electromagnetic properties – a clear picture – to emerge. These operate beneath the level of surface excitement. It’s similar to a classroom situation where if you could only show the door to the loudmouths and space-dominators, only then can some real learning take place. “Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.” – Jean-Paul Sartre As a result of discharging some of this surface noise (static charge), we can now project energy rather than dam it up and channel it back inward in self-protective fashion. We’re less hurried, as is a focused classroom. “It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way.” – Rollo May, psychologist “We're lost, but we're making good time.” – Yogi Berra “When they’re in a jam, a lot of pitchers … try to throw harder. I try to locate better.” – hall-of-famer Greg Maddux “The tendency of a younger pitcher is to throw too hard when they get into trouble.” – Ken Singleton, baseball pro and Yankee announcer (9-26-17) “An excited cell (on its own) takes a considerable amount of time to subside to its original state.” – Moshe Feldenkrais (ergo, one of the primary purposes of massage is to accelerate this subsidence) This over-excitement itself is a form of tension – the bark has lost its pliancy – causing contraction and thus inhibiting energy from spreading. Our aim, on the other hand, is to produce excitation – a state of expansion and aliveness. This state represents a contextual shift in the way we customarily use the word, and it implies refined vibration/oscillation of musculature. Remember that in a technical sense, 'excitation' means the application of energy to an object or physical system. As part of this excitation process, bloodflow is now improved, blood vessels are dilating, anxiety and impatience is reduced, we can ‘see the ball’ better. "Patience is the absence of expectation." – Shinichi Suzuki, musician and educator "As I looked at the putt, the hole looked as big as a washtub. All I tried to do was keep the sensation by not questioning it." – Jack Fleck, on coming from behind to win the 1955 U.S. Open "A man is as old as his arteries." – Thomas Sydenham, “The English Hippocrates” (1624-1689) “Unforgiveness is the most prolific cause of disease. It will harden arteries or liver, and affect the eyesight. In its train are endless ills.” – Florence Scovel Shinn, American 'new thought' writer (1871-1940) "Balance in the liver meridian will produce a sense of well-being and equitable temperament." – Inge Dougans, The New Reflexology, 2006 (The liver meridian is sabotaged by unresolved anger.) Dr. Edmund Jacobson (Harvard), cited periodically in the better literature on self-improvement, described this phenomenon as early as 1942 (some sources cite the 1920s). He remarked that the fight-or-flight response, which may never get totally deactivated (though an hour on the massage table comes close), can override the more subtle learned movements that are required to execute most movements in sports. This point is a major sub-theme of this page, and it gets cited here at least three different times, from three different angles. In fact, this sub-theme should get its own chapter. In 1938, Jacobson wrote an influential book called Progressive Relaxation. He argued that many ailments – including chronic pain, indigestion and ulcers – are caused by muscular contraction. (Simply sleeping on a bad surface can sabotage the digestive system for a couple days.) Loosen the muscle, disengage the hyper-tense fibers, and you eradicate the condition, whether it's anxiety or another emotional problem. Jacobson's assertion was revolutionary (and possibly heretical) at the time, says the famed Dr. Herbert Benson, also of Harvard, in his Relaxation Response. Said Jacobson, "an anxious mind cannot exist within a relaxed body." Note that EEGs have revealed that some people who consider themselves relaxed still have a hyperactive racing mind. “Concentration is a fine antidote to anxiety.” – Jack Nicklaus (Lack of concentration may be an element of the 'kyo' condition discussed elsewhere on this page.) “Concentration is not staring hard at something. It is not trying to concentrate.” – Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis “If you’ve got to remind yourself to concentrate during competition, you’ve got no chance to concentrate.” – Bobby Nichols, pro golfer “Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.” – pro golfer Arnold Palmer Unfortunately, excitement and agitation are the only tricks many underperforming athletes know (just witness a halftime rant from a football coach on the losing end of the scoreboard, highlighted by punching the chalkboard). But these are merely conditioned responses, meaning our brain is flying on auto-pilot, minus the course corrections. This type of undisciplined emotionality can actually interfere with performance, and not only on the playing field. “You have to be clinical when you drive at the highest level. The biggest risk is to allow your heart to rule your head.” – Formula 1 champ Jackie Stewart “The cardinal sin in poker is becoming emotionally involved.” – Katy Lederer, poet and poker player “You can't run a war on gusts of emotion.” – Lord Blackett, Nobel Prize for physics 1948, advisor to the British military effort during World War II “What I said to them at half-time would be unprintable on radio.” – Gerry Francis, manager of Tottenham Hotspur, 1995 “Unless a person knows how to give order to her thoughts, attention will be attracted to whatever is most problematic at the moment.” (brilliant) – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow, 1990 “You have freedom when you're easy in your harness.” – poet Robert Frost “To hit the ball correctly, the golfer has always to be under restraint.” – Bobby Jones, On Golf, 1966 Give me a coach, on the other hand, who settles me down rather than agitates me. Or as it says in The Koran in one of my favorite quotes, “Marry the person who quiets your mind,” an admonition that echoes the oft-barked words of a former football coach of mine: "Don't get paralyzed by your emotions!" As Robert Greene put it in his pleasurable diversion of a book called Mastery (2012): when boxers get hit in the ring, they often revert to fighting instinctually and impulsively. They let their emotions get the best of them. During a match it’s very easy to react emotionally to punches and thus lose any sense of strategy.  "Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct. They may look the same but they are worlds apart." – Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink "Let the first impulse pass. Wait for the second." – Baltasar Gracián, Spanish philosopher (1601-1658)  "Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process." – Benjamin Graham (1894-1976), investment pioneer "Under the influence of surging emotions (and not necessarily negative ones) we sometimes lose concentration and stop objectively evaluating the events that are taking place on the board." – Mark Dvoretsky, Russian chess master and trainer "There are no safeguards that can protect the emotional investor from himself." – billionaire J. Paul Getty, (1892-1976) "Missing a short putt does not mean you have to hit your next drive out of bounds." – Sir Henry Cotton, winner of three British Opens In his 1984 follow-up to the classic Relaxation Response, Dr. Benson offered his take on the use of willpower alone: When attempting to solve an entrenched problem, he said, the overactive use of willpower activates the sympathetic nervous system (destabilizing the fine-tuned equilibrium – minimal sway – we’re trying to establish). This in turn may aggravate the situation rather than improve it. In contrast, a slightly passive and trusting attitude will allow the problem to subside – only when we stop trying so hard. This poses a complicated challenge: We're working to improve a situation, but we're being told not to dwell about how our actions are working. Or in other words, we’re walking the balance beam with fight-or-flight on one side (which tightens musculature) and rest-and-digest (tend-and-befriend) on the other. If we review the literature of the ages, this middle ground is the closest that man has identified so far when it comes to identifying problems and achieving results. (Taken in part from Beyond the Relaxation Response by Benson) “Any attempt to bring the conscious will into play, as one is often tempted to do after a series of exasperating failures, at once sets the automatic department (subconscious mind) on strike.” – Dr. Louis Robinson, “The Psychology of Golf,” North American Review, December 1897 "The most consistent golf is played by the aid of the subconscious mind." – C.W. Bailey, The Brain and Golf, 1924 "The unconscious works without your knowledge, and that is the way it prefers." – psychiatrist Milton Erickson "I've come to realize that I perform best when I'm letting my subconscious mind hit the ball and my conscious mind is otherwise occupied." – golfer Al Geiberger, winner of the 1966 PGA Championship "The only thing to do with your conscious brain is to find the way from the hotel to the game field." – sports psychologist Bob Rotella "Thinking should be done before and after, not in the midst of photographing." – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer (1908-2004) "Movements are controlled by 'remembered feel.' The only concentrating we must do is guarding this remembered feel from interference." – Percy Boomer, On Learning Golf, 1942 "The best function the conscious mind can perform is to hold clarity of intention." (BRILLIANT) – David Hemery, gold medalist for the UK in the 400-meter hurdles, 1968, and author of Sporting Excellence "Create a process based on one or two conscious thoughts that will enable you subconsciously to perform several other actions." – performance coach Dave Alred, The Pressure Principle, 2016 Not only do these imbalances diminish with a loosening of the pelvis, but as we’ve seen elsewhere on this site, they also recede with the discharge of excess energetic flows. Says Peijian Shen, one of the three main “gates” for discharging this excess ki lies at the tip of the coccyx (tailbone), near the V-shaped point where the back meets the buttocks. This is found at or near Point 1 along the Governing Vessel, which runs to the top of the head. Shen holds this spot, the chang-qiang (meaning ‘long and strong’), for up to three minutes, but for our purposes ten seconds or so will do, through the towel for modesty purposes. We apply a strong degree of focus and intention, since this point is particularly resistant. At this moment we’re also working the shushumna nadi, or central line of energy (from The Book of Meditation, 2001, by Chris Jarmey). We’re also working the ganglion of impar (meaning "unpaired"), the negative pole of the sympathetic nervous system. Over the centuries, per Rolf, this area has been considered central to the well-being of the individual. "A stroke without intention can be an empty gesture." – Art Riggs, nationally recognized massage instructor "Inspiration is intention obeyed." – Emily Carr, Canadian artist and writer (1871-1945) "Forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable." – science fiction writer Octavia Butler "Photography is 10% inspiration and 90% moving furniture." – Helmut Newton (1920-2004), German-Australian photographer "Habit is stronger than reason." – Spanish philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) "The mind is like a piece of paper that’s been folded. It will now forever fold on the same crease – unless we make a new crease or fold. Then it will follow these." – William Walker Atkinson, ‘New Thought’ writer (1862-1932) "What matters ought to be evacuated (discharged)." – Hippocrates Dr. Yang also pinpoints this area as a spot where Qi circulation can get clogged up, particularly as we age. He centers his attention at the tailbone, specifically Governing Vessel 1, with a spillover effect onto the Conception vessel. Juhan and Montagu also discuss the area's importance, paying attention to the perineum and its role as a mini-diaphragm, perhaps even a trimtab of sorts for the main diaphragm further north. Though direct work in or near the perineum is off my radar screen of practice, its reputed ability to effectively jumpstart well-being and reset the nervous system cannot be dismissed lightly. In fact, it's been claimed that the perineum has been used as a revival point after drownings. Back to the table, we take an indirect PNF approach to the perineum, with the client supine, leg extended laterally off the table. Then we ask the client to return the leg to the midline against our resistance, asking our friend on the table to experience the sensation clear up to the proximal attachment of their adductor. Call it cheating if you will, but we've just taken a shortcut to help unblock dammed-up energy that would otherwise sit around for a few more years, just like an unwelcome house guest who doesn't get the hints to depart. “Resistance exercises have proved most effective in all branches of muscle therapy for the restoration of normal function.” – Dr. Arnold Kegel (1894-1972), University of Southern California (I've don't recall this quote ever referenced in a massage text, although some do mention the profound value of Kegel exercises.) "Hello, I must be going." – Groucho Marx, Animal Crackers, 1930 "The muscles of the perineum can be pictured as a hammock attached to the sacrum." – Bruce Burger, Esoteric Anatomy, 1998 (Others have described these muscles as forming a trampoline.) As we address tensions in the pelvis, we bear in mind the fundamental principle of working from the core outward, after we've worked from the periphery inward. Not just the muscular and energetic (ki) systems respond well in this fashion, so do the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems (Esoteric Anatomy, 1998, by Bruce Burger). “Work from the outside in, and then inside out." – Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains, 2009 A second approach: Whereas the autonomic (autopilot) system operates below the level of full consciousness, hence the name, the organ of the conscious mind is the cerebrospinal system. As we’ve seen, there is a physical link between the two, thus helping to provide the linkage we need between “course corrections” to the nervous system and their applicability to physical performance. Various writers, notably Rosen, have placed this link/bridge at the diaphragm. But if we travel back to 1928 and the famed business/motivational writer Napoleon Hill (whose works still exist in most bookstores), we see an even more elementary linkage: the vagus nerve, which passes through and innervates the diaphragm, serving as a bridge between the unconscious and conscious (Law of Success). Perhaps Rosen was so enamored by the prospect of stamping her own name on a modality that she overlooked this fundamental point. "I am the very model of a modern Major-General." – from Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance "The seat of the soul is the pylorus." (Which connects the stomach to the duodenum.) – Jan Baptist van Helmont of Belgium, Ortus Medicine, 1648 (A curious aside of historical trivia in man's continuing attempt to delineate a mind-body connection. Descartes placed the seat of the soul in the pineal gland.) "The seat of the soul is physiological." – Ida Rolf The vagus (from the Latin for 'wandering,' as in 'vagabond') also affects various visceral functions, including heart rate. We access it alongside the neck, producing a calming effect by settling down the amygdala of the brain. It’s been suggested that people who are overeager for results (too “fight or flight”) may especially benefit from letting go of facial tensions, whose drama would entail the vagus, at least indirectly. The vagus innervates the face and is a major component of the parasympathetic (visceral) nervous system. Regarding the residual power of the vagus: While most if not all muscles can harbor trigger points, only a few muscles are known to generate what has been term ‘referred autonomic phenomena’. These muscles include trapezius, SCM and the masseters. Note how these muscles are close to the accessory nerve, also known as cranial nerve XI. It’s also known as the spinal accessory nerve and it joins with the vagus nerve. Referred autonomic phenomena include blurred vision, tinnitus, excessive sweating, pilomotor response (goosebumps) and dizziness (Jelvéus 2011). "He was all red and in a sweat though the room was not hot. And his face was painful and piteous to see, particularly from its helpless efforts to seem calm." – War and Peace, as Count Rostov gambled away his fortune "A gambler is someone who plays slot machines. I prefer to own slot machines." – Donald Trump "In most betting shops you will see three windows marked 'Bet Here', but only one window with the legend 'Pay Out'." – Jeffrey Bernard, The Spectator Whether in the game of romance or on the playing field, a major turnoff is when a guy becomes too eager, jumping offsides and costing his team five yards at a time. Perhaps he's loaded up with untreated trigger points, by the way, since TPs make muscle itself a little too eager to act, attacking our equilibrium there and in our 360 joints. "The outcome of a fight will be determined (lost) by who wants it too much … quicker to leave his game plan because he desperately wants to beat the other guy." – boxer Sugar Ray Robinson "Good teams always have a Plan B. Look at Barcelona. Their Plan B is to stick with Plan A." – Irish-born Johnny Giles, champion midfielder for Leeds United in the 1960s and 70s "Suppress the enemy’s useful actions and encourage his useless ones." – sword master Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) "The primary objective of match tennis is to break up the other man’s game." – tennis great Bill Tilden "The height of strategy is to attack your opponent’s strategy." – Sun Tzu, 5th century BC "It is more important to frustrate your opponent’s strategy than to be obsessed with your own." – Larry Evans, American chess grandmaster "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." – Sun Tzu "If you don’t have a strategy, you’re part of someone else’s strategy." – futurist Alvin Toffler As we begin to settle down any nervous system imbalances, one possible sign of success is if we hear a stomach rumbling or two. This connection was established by the Norwegian Gerda Boyesen (1922-2005), who noticed that releasing the autonomic system can help improve the process of peristalsis. (Besides gurgling, another sign of release is rapid fluttering of the eyelids.) As a side benefit, the client may report enhanced levels of that finicky state known as well-being, perhaps getting a glimpse of it for the first time in years. Side note: In this section we’ve been describing the nervous system according to its traditional and accepted subdivisions. However, after years of research studying the processes of disease, the Russian physician Aleksei Dmitrievich Speransky became convinced that subdividing the nervous system into central, peripheral, sympathetic etc. had no justification. He stated that any nerve point can serve as a central location (A Basis for the Theory of Medicine, 1935). A similar view of musculature itself has appeared from time to time, with increasing frequency in recent years. One more aside: In human beings, research has established that the quality of the relationship between parents and child – defined by the parents' empathy and their response to the child's emotional needs – will determine the balance of the child's parasympathetic system years later. (From The Instinct to Heal: Curing Stress, Anxiety and Depression Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy, 2003, by David Servan-Schreiber, MD) "The scars left from the child’s defeat in the fight against irrational authority are to be found at the bottom of every neurosis." – German-born psychologist Erich Fromm "It helps if the hitter thinks you’re a little crazy." – baseball Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan "Every great hitter works on the theory that the pitcher is more afraid of him than he is of the pitcher." – Ty Cobb, Detroit Tigers "Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out." – (boring) commentator Joe Garagiola "With few exceptions, sports broadcasters function as publicity men, not reporters." – Jimmy Cannon, New York area sports writer (1909-1973) Startle pattern "When archers shoot for enjoyment, they have all their skill. When they shoot for a brass buckle, they get nervous. When they shoot for a prize of gold, they begin to see two targets." – Chuang Tzu / 4th century BC / mentioned above in our discussion of the concept of 'yu' "Putts get real difficult the day they hand out the money." – golf great Lee Trevino "You’re nervous because you’re afraid of the outcome." – Randy Couture, mixed martial artist "The greatest interference is fear of unwanted results." – sport psychologist Joe Parent, Zen Golf, 2002 "Almost every catcher goes through a phase during which he can throw perfectly to second, but with men on base he can’t throw the ball back to the pitcher." – Jeff Torborg, baseball catcher/manager/broadcaster "Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself." – D.T. Suzuki, Zen and Buddhist educator (1870-1966) Once we accept the fact that most of us spend a majority of our time off-course, just like the Apollo missions, we can also see that most of us spend the bulk of our time in a state of low-level agitation, or upset. In 2009, Michael Gelb published a glorified masters' thesis of a book called 5 Keys to High Performance in which he discusses the work of Dr. Frank Pierce-Jones of Tufts University near Boston. Jones has developed a widely accepted theory known as the Startle Pattern, which bears a striking resemblence to choking in the clutch. He says the startle pattern is a universal reaction to overwhelming stimuli, and that most people live every single day in a modified version of it (as do most people spend most of their time in a state of upset, remedied by convenience foods, alcohol, aimless shopping, and social climbing). "24 hours in a day. 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not." – attributed to actor Paul Newman "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue." – Airplane During a startle pattern episode, "stage fright" as some may call it, we tend to stiffen our neck, pull back our head, hold our breath and contract major joints. This contraction also disrupts the flow of qi, since joints in this respect function as qi-gates. Notice how McGillicuddy points out that limitations in muscular efficiency tend to show up at the joints first. Even more precisely, Chaitow ('96) notes that muscular imbalances change the "equilibrium point" of a joint. This is a profound assertion with ramifications for achieving not only center of balance but also centration of bones within sockets. Notice also how the startle pattern resembles Dr. Barlow's description of choking in the clutch. Per Harris & Harris (1984), one of the known physiological reactions to choking is "cottonmouth," or dry mouth. (Maybe that's why we call it 'choking' in the first place?) Besides limiting our physical flexibility, we're also marginalizing our mental capabilities. The knees can buckle without warning (check for TPs in vastus medialis*); bursa, which act not only to reduce friction, are losing their ability to distribute lines of stress. (The expression "cold feet" now makes much more sense.) The SCM and trapezius muscles contract (the scalenes come next), and note that these are key sites for trigger point activity, the most common of which is the upper trapezius near its junction with the neck. We are now predisposed to act defensively and reactively. Our front muscles can also contract as a group, which is often seen in episodes of trauma, placing strain on the lower back and creating postural imbalances. And to think that it all starts with the blink of an eye and lasts only for a short period of time. *Per Davies, buckling of the knees can stem from the double-whammy of trigger points in vastus intermedius (one of the four quads) working in concert with TPs in the upper gastrocnemius. "Do not learn how to react. Learn how to respond." – Buddha "Trauma comes back as a reaction, not a memory." – Bessel van der Kolk, Dutch psychiatrist "The number of ways in which a player may inadvertently tip off the strength or weakness of his hidden cards is limitless, and include such physical clues as excessive sweating, trembling hands, or a change in voice tone." – Peter Steiner, Thursday Night Poker, 1996 (Our throat and voice correspond to the fifth chakra. When we have an issue at this point, we may experience difficulty with communication, we may choke up, or we may become more self-conscious and speak more faintly. Observers may incorrectly interpret this fearful behavior as coldness or lack of interest.) "Instinct is intelligence incapable of self-consciousness." – John Sterling, Scottish essayist (1806-1844) "When a batter swings and his knees move, I can tell his weaknesses ... and put the ball where he can’t hit it." – pitching icon Satchel Paige "Blushes cannot be counterfeited." – Margaret de Valois, Queen of France (1553-1615) "Observe your enemies, for they first observe your faults." – Antisthenes (445-365 BC), a student of Socrates "Great players crave instruction on their weaknesses." – NBA coach/executive Pat Riley Myers (Anatomy Trains) adds that our posture is also affected, particularly by rigidity in the legs. In some form or another, he says, this postural pattern can continue for years. (Note that this discussion – tirade? – leaves the topic of "postural" vs. "phasic" muscles on the back burner. Chaitow among others believes the distinction to be secondary to our tasks at hand.) Compounding our postural distortion is the involuntary contraction of the psoas, a situation given short-shrift in the massage literature (or what passes for it). "When startled ... the psoas contracts and curls up, a little like a caterpillar poked by a stick." – Liz Koch, author of The Psoas Book "It requires one to assume such indecent postures." – Oscar Wilde, explaining why he didn't play cricket "If Stalin had learned to play cricket, the world might now be a better place." – Richard Downey, British bishop, 1948 Postural/tonic muscle: "slow twitch," designed for the long haul Phasic muscle: "fast twitch," designed for short bursts of energy Said Pierce-Jones in his 1976 book Freedom to Change, it is these very muscle contractions in the neck that cause unreliable kinesthetic feedback, the kind that orients us in space. Releasing them is key to relaxed concentration. (Psychotherapist Charlotte Wolfe [1897-1986] placed the kinaesthetic sense on a par with the five traditional ones.) We mentioned the role of the sub-occipitals earlier in this regard; we can also add the acupoints known as Gallbladder 21 (midpoints of upper shoulder; named Jian Jing or 'shoulder well') for their role in helping to release the trapezius. Jing has been translated as the "prime mover," our "constitution," or the carrier of Qi. Jian Jing, part of the set of points known as Heavenly Rejuvenation, also "just happens" to coincide with the point of heightened trigger point activity in the trapezius. The sages of past and present tell us to concentrate in a relaxed and diffused manner, and now we have an additional leverage tool with which to do so. The good doctor Pierce-Jones, who it appears was yet another student of Alexander, also recommends softening our eyes so as to increase awareness of inappropriate effort. (Other students of the Alexander Technique over the years have included Aldous Huxley, Paul McCartney, Sting, and actor/comedian John Clease, though the technique has so far proven itself ineffective at reviving dead parrots pining for the fjords.) "The eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul." – Emerson "Like all truly great men, he bestrides two ages." – author C.L.R. James, regarding classic cricketer W.G. Grace Myers (Anatomy Trains, 2001) took the ball on this front and ran a little further, stating that any eye movement will produce a change in tonus in the sub-occipitals. From this point, other spinal muscles tend to "listen" to these sub-occipitals and organize themselves by following their lead like baby ducks. Consequently, the sub-occipital area of the rear neck is crucial to releasing the entire back of the body, from foot to head. They contain 36 muscle spindles per gram of tissue, in contrast to the gluteus maximus which has 0.7. In layman's terms, the neck is smarter than the butt. Tonus: resistance to stretch / sitting vibratory level Occiput: our "top-most vertebra" (per Myers) What's important to get here is this: In a massage room we deal with certain constants, namely the height of the table, the viscosity of the oil, the room temperature, lighting, background music, pomposity of the masseur, etc. We're assessing how to get our client from (though not always) an undesired state (such as constant fatigue) into a state that's more productive and satisfying. In formulating an approach, we now have two more constants to consider. First, we cannot assume that our client's physical movement through life is on course most of the time. Second, we must assume that even clients who appear to have their act together spend a good portion of their life in a state of agitation and low-level upset. Curiously, it's been estimated from various sources that we spend 90% of our time in either state. Therefore some evidence indicates that states one and two may be inextricably related, and thus to treat one condition is to address the other, and vice versa. "Whatever state of mind you're in, ignore it. Think only of cutting." – Miyamoto Musashi, Japanese sword master, 16th century "It's very simple. My secret has been I know what to ignore." – English biophysicist Francis Crick, Nobel Prize in 1962 "Never look at the trombones – it only encourages them." – German composer Richard Wagner (1813-83) "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." – Mark Twain Whole-body dispersion/diffusion One of the greatest players in the history of golf was a Virginian of celebrity status named Sam Snead. A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Snead was considered to have the often-imitated “perfect swing.” Compared to other golfers on the tour, he was an exceptionally long driver, even into the wind. One of Snead’s biggest fans was President Eisenhower, who some said ran America from the golf course. In one of the more illustrious moments of golf legend and lore, story has it that Eisenhower one day asked Snead for some advice on his swing. In a one-sentence clinic in kinesthetics, Snead reportedly told the former general, “Mr. President, put your ass into the ball.” "When I want a long ball, I spin my hips faster." – Jack Nicklaus "Grange could ‘shimmy his hips’ like an exotic dancer." – Larry Schwartz, espn.com, speaking of iconic football halfback Red Grange "It's not just enough to swing at the ball. You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it." – Babe Zaharias, greatest female athlete of the 20th century (golfer Byron Nelson once said only a handful of men could outdrive her) "She (Zaharias) is beyond all belief until you see her perform.... Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical coordination, the world of sport has ever seen." – famed sportswriter Grantland Rice (It's been said on the links that loosened hip flexors can easily add 20 yards to a drive.) "I shake my little tush on the catwalk." – Right Said Fred, I'm Too Sexy Years later, Deane Juhan in his classic text Job’s Body echoed Snead’s advice when he stated that the entire musculature must learn to participate in the motion of any of its parts. Said Juhan, we never release a single muscle, but rather we increase a range of motion/adaptability that involves several, or many, separate compartments, arse included, one would surmise. "The numerous posterior muscles behave like one single muscle."  (Overlapping like tiles on a roof, providing a synergy of strength.) – 'First Law' of Françoise Mézières, French physiotherapist (1909-91) For the sake of illustration, a golf swing is a total-body, nearly simultaneous chain reaction – some 400 muscles and 70 joints need to work in harmony, not isolation. In the words of Chaitow, the brain thinks of this 400/70 dynamic as one whole motion (engram), not as a series of individual muscles working in logical sequence. Or as F.M. Alexander might put it, it happens “sequentially, all at the same time.” “Dividing the swing into its parts is like dissecting a cat. You'll have blood and guts and bones all over the place, but you won't have a cat.” – Ernest Jones (1887-1965), English pro golfer, World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame “Verbal instruction as to how to correct wrong habits of movement and posture is very difficult.... To take a step is an affair, not of this or that limb solely, but of the total neuromuscular activity of the moment.” – Sir Charles Sherrington, physiologist and Nobel Prize winner in 1932 “Those who grasp the whole will also comprehend all parts of that whole, even when immediate technical understanding is lacking.” – German master composer Richard Wagner (1813-83) “The whole is something else than the sum of its parts.” – Kurt Koffka, German gestalt psychologist (1886-1941) “The way we do one thing is the way we do everything.” – Zen saying, and a variant on Gestalt psychology Logical sequences assume A+B=C causality, which by definition entails a time gap between two actions (Steve Zaffron & Dave Logan, The Three Laws of Performance, 2009). We're here to both shrink that time gap as well as question the very foundations of causality, which may merely be an assumption. "The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarch, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm." – Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher/mathematician and Nobel Prize winner “The feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naïve faith in causality – the notion that A in the past caused B in the present, which will cause C in the future, when actually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it...in this moment...this supreme moment...this kairos.”  – Tom Wolfe, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) “Each of us can manifest the properties of a field of consciousness that transcends space, time, and linear causality.” – Stanislav Grof, Czech psychiatrist “You are not thinking. You are merely being logical.” – Danish physicist Niels Bohr “When I am...completely myself, entirely alone...or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these come I know not, nor can I force them.... Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them gleich alles zusammen (all at the same time together).” – Mozart, describing the power of his hypnagogic/alpha-theta state “Let all things be done decently, and in order.” – 1 Corinthians 14:40 “While we can conceive of a sum as being composed gradually, a system as a total of parts, with its interrelations, has to be conceived of as being composed instantly.” – Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), Austria, developer of general systems theory “You would hardly think of drawing a circle by first drawing a number of arcs and then piecing them together.” – Ernest Jones (1887-1965), English pro golfer, World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame Aside: We're not even aware that we come from a mind-set of causality, it is so imbued in our thinking. To wit: "Intellectual progress is by no one trait so adequately characterized as by development of the idea of causation." – Herbert Spencer, English philosopher/biologist, The Data of Ethics, 1879 "If there is anything in the world which I do firmly believe in it is the universal validity of the law of causation." –T.H. Huxley, English biologist/anthropologist, Science and Morals, 1886 "I firmly believe, in company with most physicists, that the quantum hypothesis will eventually find its exact expression in certain equations which will be a more exact formulation of the law of causality." – Nobel Prize winner Max Planck, German physicist, Where is Science Going?, 1932 So in the realm of sports massage, the evidence suggests we can define a successful session as one where we help disperse energies from the core to the periphery, from the butt and abdomen to the 400+ muscles involved in a golf swing, so they can act gleich alles zusammen. To presume that one can effectively release all of these muscles within a reasonable time-span is a stance that grows more perilous as we speak; to presume that we can release a wide range of musculature by operating beneath the radar screen, aiming for a profoundly deep level of relaxation instead, one that will foster the release of these muscles on their own, now appears to be the wiser course of action. "Peripheral symptoms diminish by improving the proximal part of the circulation." – Maria Ebner, Connective Tissue Manipulations, 1985 Some of the earliest massage practitioners were known as body 'manipulators'. The word breaks down into the Italian for "skillful use of the hands." This line of thought is not necessarily new to leaders in the fields of psychology and human potential. For instance, the English psychologist Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) challenged Freudian notions that heightened states of being (ergo higher levels of performance) could be limited to discrete portions of the body. He argued that performance emanates from a space that is much more dispersed and diffused. "The ideas of Freud were popularized by people who only imperfectly understood them, who were incapable of the great effort required to grasp them in their relationship to larger truths, and who therefore assigned to them a prominence out of all proportion to their true importance." – Alfred North Whitehead, English philosopher/mathematician (1861-1947) Reich, the Austrian/American psychologist, offered a similar view. He believed that to bring about a change in an individual's nature, the entire “body-mind” must be prepared. If any real integration is to occur, he wrote, the entire body must be viewed and treated as a whole, not a grab-bag of parts. "To treat a knee, but ignore the brain and emotions that direct the choreography of that knee, is not consistent with total care of the patient." – Desmond William G. Faris, English physician (1901-1967) (Travell & Simons duly noted that emotional stress, in and of itself, can translate into trigger points.) Another early follower of Freud was the German philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979). As with Reich, he was strongly influenced by the philosopher/economist Karl Marx (1818-1883). According to Marcuse, a major goal of human fulfillment was the revitalization of the entire body. He felt that human energies had become too concentrated, which was perhaps his way of saying we've become overspecialized, dealing with parts rather than wholes, whether the situation be our relationship to our body, society at large, or the pesky bunkers on the back nine. "No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot." – George Bernard Shaw "Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nitpicking, the ferocious quibble over a comma." – Frank Herbert, author of Dune "Specialists are people who always make the same mistakes." – architect Walter Gropias (1883-1969), born in Berlin “Not every problem someone has with his girlfriend is necessarily due to the capitalist mode of production.” – Herbert Marcuse “All I know is I’m not a Marxist.” – Karl Marx A half-generation later it was the aforementioned Maxwell Maltz who fleshed out and added additional context to our hypothetical 400-muscle/70-joint golf swing. According to Maltz, our awareness of this movement, particularly a successful one, what Maltz calls an “action pattern,” is stored not only in our conscious memory. The pattern is stored, sequentially, in our very nerves and tissues. Some professional baseball pitchers, it should be noted, go through a short throwing routine between outings just to stay in sync. They call it "shadow boxing," which may simply involve throwing balls for ten minutes at a mattress in their hotel room. "He that sings a lasting song Thinks in a marrowbone." – William Butler Yeats “What we think and feel (and are) is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and our viscera . . . . The ductless glands secrete among other things our moods, our aspirations, our philosophy of life.” – Aldous Huxley “Learning and memory are just as much biology as a process of DNA replication.” – German psychologist Anke Ehrhardt “Adrenal secretions stimulate the action of the heart and are thus key to our sense of well-being.” – Eunice Ingham (Relexology instructor Ann Gillanders makes a similar case and singles out the thyroid gland.) “Our most sacred convictions, the unchanging elements of our supreme values, are judgments of our muscles.” – Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 1901 It is therefore incumbent that we allow our consciousness to spread into these nerves/tissues in dispersed fashion, because when it comes to results, that’s where the cheese is. If someone ever tells us they could “feel it in their bones,” says Maltz, we better take notice because they’re not far from wrong. “The separation of psychology from the premises of biology is purely artificial, because the human psyche lives in indissoluble union with the body." – Carl Jung “Most photographers seem to operate with a pane of glass between themselves and their subjects. They just can't get inside and know the subject." – W. Eugene Smith, American photojournalist “I am convinced that there is no sort of boundary between the living and the mental or between the biological and the psychological." – Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) “A thing known passes out of the mind into the muscles." – William Carlos Williams, poet/physician To quote Juhan again, we must resist the tendency to focus our attention upon localized and predictable (safe and boring) effects. We must always strive to include “ever broadening and more complexly interrelated processes” (400-70, a 'kinetic melody') into our ways of thinking and working. Or in other words, as Snead apparently noticed to Eisenhower’s benefit, performance is a full body endeavor instead of an enterprise that limits itself to just the arms or legs, nor just the derriere for that matter. "Bodies are strain distributors ... not strain focusers." – Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains (2009) Similarly, sports massage itself is also a full-body endeavor that favors the forest over the individual trees. Said masters Shizuto Masunaga & Wataru Ohashi in 1977’s brilliant Zen Shiatsu, treating individual problems for their own sake will not produce results that are long-lasting, because the situation is often the result of a panoply of factors. This contextual approach goes back at least a couple thousand years, particularly in the East. Said the British teacher Rosalind Oxenford in 1997’s Discover Reflexology, in ancient times the common man received medical treatments from the “barefoot doctor” who walked from village to village with his acupuncture needles. He would apply (inefficiently) more needles than the “rich man’s physician,” and his emphasis would be on alleviating annoying conditions (reactive vs. proactive). In contrast, the rich man’s physician would treat the whole person (mind, body, spirit) with Five Element acupuncture. He concentrated his efforts upon “spirit points” aimed at enhancing the well-being of the entire person, and in a well-structured sports massage we will do the same. Like the rich man’s physician, we ourselves are now beginning to operate at the level of context (forest) vs. con-tent (aka trees), which happens to be a growing trend in higher education. Said Feldenkrais in his Body & Mature Behavior (1949), we can understand the comparatively recent tendency to study directly the whole instead of its parts. Numerous schools of thought have been formed to investigate the response of the entire living frame instead of dissecting it. Synthesis upends analysis, and not just in the classroom but on the field, or the massage table, as well. "In order to begin an analysis, there must be a synthesis present in the mind." – Dutch historian Johan Huizinga "Learn to think with the whole body." – Taisen Deshimaru (1914-1982), swordmaster and Zen Buddhist teacher “I can feel my serve from my toes to my fingertips.” – Arthur Ashe, tennis hall of fame "While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.” – Publilius Syrus, first century BC "If you think, you are late. If you’re late, you use strength. If you use strength you get tired.” – Saulo Ribeiro, Brazilian jiu-jitsu master and five-time world champ "I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be . . . the ball." – Chevy Chase, Caddyshack “As soon as you start thinking, you miss." – Steve Kerr, head coach, Golden State Warriors (NBA) “I don’t think I think when I play … the right chords appear in my mind, like photographs, long before I get to them." – Earl Hines, premier jazz pianist “Bad shooters are always open." – Pete Carril, head basketball coach, Princeton University Character vs. technique If there’s but one ultimate secret to growing enviable vegetables in your back yard, it has to be this: dig your soil loose and deep. Borrowing this advice from The Vegetable Gardener's Bible (2009) by Edward Smith, I’ve grown a variety of vegetables to a size and flavor like never before. Says Smith, whenever a plant’s growing space gets wider or deeper or both, its growth improves. The roots get room to stretch out and find the nutrients and moisture they need. For instance, carrot roots can extend 1.5 feet wide and 3 feet deep, contrary to a common belief that the root system is much smaller. Now let’s compare the reality of roots with the issue of character, noting with ease the metaphoric similarities. One of the powerhouse books in the field of self-improvement in recent years has been Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. In his capacity as business professor at Utah State, Covey conducted a systematic survey of the self-improvement literature published in the United States since the time of the Revolutionary War. Unlike almost anyone else before him, Covey noticed a fascinating pattern. As he explains in his Seven Habits: If you analyze the history of self-help literature in America, the first 150 years concentrated on the development of character. However, in the last 50 years we’ve shifted over to technique, mental attitude, and getting what we want now. "Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting." – novelist George Orwell "Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the center of the city." – Oscar Wilde "Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings." – George F. Will, political commentator "A zebra (or camel) is a horse designed by a committee." – unattributed Character development, Covey insists, is still the huge mass of the iceberg, despite the modern emphasis on influencing and manipulating people with the trendy technique-of-the-week. "Cupping produces more noise than value." – sports massage maven Jack Meagher In the end, lack of character will always reveal itself. This longer-term view, says Covey, can be described as the “law of the farm.” If you don’t sow, you don’t reap. And while I’m not a farmer, I have learned first-hand that if you take care of the soil (the character), the technique as well as the tomatoes virtually take care of themselves. "In bowling and in life, if a person makes the spares, the strikes take care of themselves." – novelist Stephen King "That's how I judge a quarterback: Either you make plays or you don't. I don't even want to talk about mechanics." – Fran Tarkenton, New York Giants & Minnesota Vikings "The moment a man begins to talk about technique, that's proof that he is fresh out of ideas." – suspense writer Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) "The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all." – Spanish cellist Pablo Casals "Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration." – Rudolf Nureyev, Russian dancer (1938-1993) "There is a difference between playing well and hitting the ball well. Hitting the ball well is about thirty percent of it. The rest is being comfortable with the different situations on the course." – Mickey Wright (LPGA), World Golf Hall of Fame "Forget about style, worry about results." – Bobby Orr, NHL hall-of-famer "To acquire style, begin by affecting none." – William Strunk Jr., professor of English at Cornell, The Elements of Style, 1918 "Bobby (Fischer) played perfectly, and perfection has no style." – Miguel Najdorf, Polish-Argentinean chess master (1910-1997) "It was from Handel that I learned that style consists in force of assertion." – playwright George Bernard Shaw "Style means consistency." – pop singer Adam Ant Note that many professional golfers have serious flaws in their so-called "form," although form is what most instructors dwell on. Top pros, per Maxwell Maltz, create instead a clear mental impression of where they want the ball to go, and form now becomes secondary. In many cases it seems to take care of itself. Maltz notes that the legendary baseball player Ty Cobb held the bat "incorrectly" (with a split grip), threw "incorrectly," and violated almost every guideline for being a professional player. “My shot was imperfect, my run-in was too short and my hands were too far back at takeoff. When I manage to iron out these faults, I am sure I can improve.” – Sergei Bubka (Ukraine), first pole vaulter to clear 20 feet, Olympic gold medalist "(Eddie) Stanky couldn't hit, couldn't run, couldn't field, and couldn't throw, but he was the best player on the club. All Mr. Stanky could do for you was win." – baseball owner Branch Rickey, regarding the infielder/manager for the St. Louis Cardinals "Sometimes the more measurable drives out the most important." – René Dubas, French-born microbiologist (1901-1982), Pulitzer Prize winner in 1969 for non-fiction "People will always try to stop you doing the right thing if it is unconventional." – investor Warren Buffett "Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw flashes." – psychoanalyst Theodor Reik (1888-1969), born in Vienna "Mediocre people don’t like high-achievers, and high-achievers don’t like mediocre people." – Nick Saban, head coach, Alabama football "It takes moral courage to make a move (or form a plan) running counter to all tradition." – chess grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch of Denmark (1886-1935) Now let’s substitute “character development” with enhanced body awareness and “technique” with verbal input. In this scenario, our newly diffused body sentience – the root, the mass of the iceberg – drives the engine known as our body in competition. While still important, technique and verbal admonitions take the back seat on the bus. Per Garfield, abstract verbal phrases evoke no visual images in the mind of the athlete, for they overload and restrict the performer's mind. A single correct image is far more valuable. "Golf is 20% technique and 80% mental." – hall-of-famer Ben Hogan Acupuncture is 10% technique and 90% spirit. – John Shen, MD (1914-2000) "When you reach that elite level, 90% is mental and 10% is physical. You are competing against yourself, not against the other athlete." – Dick Fosbury, gold medalist in high jumping, developer of the "Fosbury Flop" despite dire warnings from his coaches "The competition to be feared is the one who never bothers with you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time." – automotive pioneer Henry Ford "What the superior man seeks is in him; what the common man seeks is in others." – Confucius Microsoft has noted that by fixing the top 20% of bugs in programming, 80% of the related errors and crashes in a given system can be eliminated. (Sports masseurs take note?) For instance, it’s not uncommon for baseball coaches in the majors to take that dreary stroll to the mound in a precarious seventh inning and basically tell their pitcher to "trust their stuff" and not think so much. The coach in this case, who wants his pitcher to stop finessing the plate, is inadvertently echoing the sentiments of Feldenkrais who stated that the best-adjusted people in this world do not overly rely on conscious control of their body movement (Body and Mature Behavior). “Sometimes I get too ‘thinky’. I don’t skate as free as I can.” – Olympian Linda Fratianne “Re-establish trust in the process.” – performance coach Dave Alred, The Pressure Principle, 2016 “If I'd thought about it I wouldn't have thrown a perfect game.” – Catfish Hunter, Oakland (Calif.) Athletics, 1968 “Success at games demands a total freedom from care.” – R.C. Robertson-Glasgow, Scottish cricketer and writer “I’m far more dangerous now, because I don’t care at all.” – Joe Strummer of The Clash “The chief danger in life is that you take too many precautions.” – Alfred Adler, Austrian psychotherapist (1870-1937) “If you never miss a plane, you’re spending too much time at the airport.” – George Stigler, Nobel prize winner in economics “It doesn't help a great deal to have the soundest swing in the world if that swing is not trusted.” – Bobby Jones, On Golf, 1966 “You start giving yourself lessons while you’re playing the game.” – sport psychologist Joe Parent, Zen Putting, 2007 “Self-trust is the essence of heroism.” – Emerson At higher levels of performance, assisted by the structured touch of sports massage, we move beyond this realm. As discussed in Massage & Bodywork magazine (December/January 2004), with touch, there is an awareness in the cells of the body that bypasses intellectual knowing. We can now take elements of our performance out of the realm of remembering and move it up a few rungs to the level of being. (Some in the field have termed it “natural knowing.”) “Thinking is very far from knowing.” – Henry George Bohn, English publisher (1796-1884) “Breathing is another function that commands a runner’s attention to an unnecessary extent.” – Noel Carroll, founder of the Dublin Marathon “Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do.” – Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) “I did not arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.” – Einstein Within this space, our perception of heightened performance can take on expanded meaning, one founded on experience rather than belief and pep talks and indoctrination, which in many cases have to get unlearned anyway. These are but a function of the mind, not the body, so it follows that they’re merely secondary ways of preparing ourselves. Says corporate/athletic trainer/psychologist Jim Loehr, top athletes aren't very impressed nor inspired by pep talks, no matter how eloquent. "He who knows the most believes the least." – Italian proverb "Our belief system is just like a mirror that only shows us what we believe." – Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements This is an approach not unlike Tragerwork, developed by Dr. Milton Trager (1910-1997). Born in Chicago with a congenital spinal deformity, Trager overcame fate to become a gymnast and boxer. The effects of a Trager session are intended to penetrate beneath the soil, below the level of conscious awareness. “What is softer? What is freer?," Trager would ask as he found blockages in a body. When successful, a Trager session resulted in a calmer, more attentive, more meditative (diffuse) feeling state rather than one dominated by the intellect. As youngsters on a Florida beach, it’s said that Trager’s brother once asked Milton “How high can you jump?” The future doctor rephrased the question astutely, asking in return, “How soft can you land?” “What people think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question.” – Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine; one of the great heroes of the 20th century “Often, in great discovery, the most important thing is that a certain question is found.” – Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Austro-Hungarian gestalt psychologist So in the context of sports massage we will aim for the root, the character, the part of our body that performs better when we dispense with thinking so much and start “trusting our stuff.” With far less effort and tending, the fruit can virtually handle itself. Says Jim Loehr: "In working with top athletes we spend no time working on technique." "Technique is the servant of tactics." – Jack Barnaby, Winning Squash Racquets, 1979 "Master technique, so that technique never prevents you from dancing." – Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), born in San Francisco "You'll begin to act when you can forget your technique – when it is so securely inside you that you need not call upon it consciously." – Stella Adler, founder of the acting studio that bears her name "Inner certitude about one’s abilities is a golfer’s primary weapon." – Jack Nicklaus "Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong." – adage from early 20th century "Benny (Goodman) used to practice fifteen times more than the whole band combined." – Harry James, big-band leader and trumpeter, speaking about the big-band icon Top-flight performance is never a function of technique, Loehr adds, nor even of fitness level. Simply put, lower-level performers display minimal recovery routines, or none at all. Even the famed F.M. Alexander asserted he did not deal with specific symptoms per se. Rather he fostered better patterns of body-use which formed the basis for improved psycho-physical functioning (source: MacDonald). Rolf also asserted that symptoms "melt" as organisms regain balance. "A redeployment of the entire muscular equipment." – Nikolaas Tinbergen (Netherlands), winner of the 1973 Nobel in medicine/physiology, regarding the Alexander Technique "In our day, when a pitcher got into trouble in a game, instead of taking him out our manager would leave him in and tell him to pitch his way out of trouble." – baseball icon Cy Young “Trouble shots are amazingly easy if you activate your imagination.” – Walter Hagen, member of the World Golf Hall of Fame “The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.” – Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers “All excellence is equally difficult.” – Thornton Wilder, novelist/playwright “The stuff that isn't taxing doesn't make any difference.” – Werner Erhard “There’s a great advantage in training under unfavorable conditions.” – Czech long-distance runner Emil Zátopek, three gold medals in 1952 “The sweetest pleasure arises from difficulties overcome.” – Publilius Syrus, first century BC Focus + intensity yields alchemy “When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.” – from White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane In collegiate, Olympic and professional sports, even throughout the realm of sports journalism, even on this very page, one of the most ill-defined words might just be this: focus. Pre-game football analysts are particularly prone to abuse the word, uttering gems like “This game will be won by the team who decides to focus.” “If a man watches three football games in a row he should be declared legally dead.” – humorist Erma Bombeck Focus is a charming word, and it’s even partially accurate, but that in itself is part of the problem, which at first glance appears to be threefold: First, it suggests that focus is something we actively do. On the other hand, through sports massage we want to uncomplicate matters by having less to do, less to remember, a fundamental aspect of letting go. “The most effective way to do it is to do it.” – aviator Amelia Earhart Second, the word focus suggests an exclusionary level of thought that approaches self-absorbed tunnel vision. We want instead to foster a diffuse awareness that takes in the entire periphery. “The punch that knocks a man out is the punch that he doesn’t see.” – trainer Cus D’Amato “He (D’Amato) was a man of high moral integrity. Therefore, in this business, he was perceived as an eccentric.” – Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, personal physician to Muhammad Ali “Boxing is the red-light district of sports.” – Jimmy Cannon, sports reporter and war correspondent “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.” – Voltaire, quoting Timaeus of Locri, 5th century BC The third problem is the most important. Simply put, the word ‘focus’ is not generative, meaning that it doesn’t tell the listener or reader how to re-create it on the field. When the coach says, “If you only focus,” we say “Duh?” “I don’t think there’s anybody in this organization not focused on the 49ers … I mean Chargers.” – Bill Belichick, head coach, New England Patriots “A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.” – E.W. Howe, Country Town Sayings, 1911 “How about a little fire, Scarecrow?” – Wicked Witch of the West “We can make, to ourselves, very much stronger suggestions than anyone else can, whoever that person may be.” – French psychologist Émile Coué (1857-1926), a forefather of the human potential movement However, if we replace the word focus with another word that peppers this entire website, namely equanimity, there’s a chance for the listener to say, “I got it.” The word comes from the Latin aequus, meaning calm, even-minded, displaying equilibrium; coupled with animus for mind or spirit. It’s the ability to see it like it is and tell it like it is without denial or self-delusion, quickly and under pressure, without alienating people. Rarely to be outclassed by the cheeky Romans, the ancient Greeks coined a similar term known as ataraxia. Credited to Pyrrho in the third century BC, ataraxia expressed a state of imperturbability in the face of uncertainty or danger. It was considered the ideal state for soldiers entering battle – neither gung-ho nor defeatist – where angst was noticeably absent. In fact, ataraxia has been defined in terms of the Roman concept: namely a robust state of lucid equanimity. "You should not confuse the sound of your own heartbeat for the hooves of approaching horses." – Chinese proverb "The best way to behave in adversity is to remain very calm and not become indignant." – Plato “Play for more than you can afford to lose and you will learn the game.” – Winston Churchill "Pressure is playing for ten dollars when you don't have a dime in your pocket." – golfer Lee Trevino, winner of six majors "Think I'll buy me a football team." – Pink Floyd, Money Equanimity suggests aplomb minus the swagger, poise under pressure, sangfroid ('cool blood') in the clutch. This is the starting point for generating results when the space gets bogged down, when we’re stuck, when the situation might even appear hopeless, as with Shackleton and his men stranded in the Antarctic no-man’s land. The Latin word equanimity in this sense is closely related to the Greek sophrosyne, a concept that combines excellence of character with soundness of mind. To the ancient Greeks, sophrosyne promoted other qualities such as moderation, discretion, propriety and self-control. The Romans called it gravitas, suggesting depth of character and enhanced presence, a word still used today in the same sense, though sparingly. “Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.” – football analyst and coach John Madden “The true worth of an experimenter consists in pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek.” – French physiologist Claude Bernard (1813-78) “You actually need to discipline yourself to look at what you're not doing.” – Werner Erhard “You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi Berra "Aequanimitas (equanimity)." – the last word of Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (86-181 AD), when asked by the head of the night watch "What's the password?" It’s worth noting that to operate from an unfocused position, one that lacks equanimity, is considered a key indicator for stress. On the other end of the stick, there is some agreement among self-help writers that focus/equanimity is a gateway to higher levels of performance. Said the Australian Matthew Kelly in 2004’s The Rhythm of Life, a watery self-help manual with a heavy theological tinge, “upper-limit achievement” (a nice expression, by the way) is the fruit of disciplined, selective, concentrated focus. "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember your initial objective was to drain the swamp." – Werner Erhard "The successful warrior is the average man ... with laser-like focus." – Bruce Lee, martial artist and cultural icon "When the mind is in a state of uncertainty, even the smallest impulse tilts it askew." – Terence, Roman playwright (second century BC) "If you run after two hares you will catch neither." – Latin proverb "Your focus determines your reality." – Star Wars film director George Lucas "Thought that accepts reality as given is no thought at all." – German-American philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) Short of fleshing out an academic definition of equanimity/ataraxia, a process that can take all day, what are some key elements of this mindset? John Upledger, an osteopath and author of 2002’s SomatoEmotional Release, observed it in artists: beyond displaying high knowledge, they are able to become completely absorbed in the moment of their craft without distraction (the space between stimulus and response has been expanded). "When I play, I become entirely absorbed in the game. It may be a form of concentration." – tennis great Helen Wills (1905-1998) "If you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in focus. You must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor. You must be living, in your eye, on that bird." – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), supreme court justice "The media are still in the thrall of the ‘grit your teeth and bear down’ model of focus." – sports psychologist Bob Rotella "I focused to nothing." – British swimmer Duncan Goodhew, Olympic gold medalist in 1980 "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician (1854-1912) "After mastery comes artistry and not before." – English anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) Upledger’s observation reminds us that whether in sports or the arts, upper-tier performance actually defies logic. It even calls in a type of alchemy, the kind noted by that 20th century psychologist of historic proportion, Carl Jung. We’re not talking of course about turning copper into gold, at least not literally. By alchemy (until we come up with a better word), we’re talking about a power or process of transforming something common into something special; an inexplicable or mysterious transmuting. To borrow an example from the dictionary: “She practiced her alchemy in the kitchen, turning a pile of vegetables into a delicious salad.” In this context, the word alchemy is not too far removed from synergy, which is the behavior of whole systems that is not predictable by taking a mere sum-total of the parts. (Synthesis upending analysis.) "Leadership is a choice that lies in the space between stimulus and response." – from The Wisdom and Teachings of Stephen R. Covey (2012) "We perceive beauty in the harmonious intervals between the parts of a whole." – Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, 1945 Jack Benny, George Carlin and Victor Borge were three comedians known for using the "extended beat," allowing the pause itself to become a source of humor beyond the original joke. – Wikipedia entry "Comic Timing" "Music is the space between the notes." – French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) "There are notes between notes, you know." – Sarah Vaughn, American jazz singer (1924-1990) "It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play." – jazz trumpeter Miles Davis "It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play." – jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie "The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” – Mark Twain Jack Meagher saw another aspect of focus/equanimity in golfers: Average golfers, as Meagher points out, say the game is one of concentration (focus). Top-flight golfers, however, have concentration nailed down; they’ve already mastered the art of shutting down outside distractions. Concentration (focus) is fine, he says, but what really counts is shutting out that which would prevent your ability to concentrate. It's said that the great Red Sox hitter Ted Williams started this process in the clubhouse, before each game, as he tied up his shoelaces. We also see similar attributes displayed by the greatest of chess masters. “Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.” (an apt description of the martial-arts concept of kime) – Ray Knight, Cincinnati Reds & New York Mets “I’ve trained all my life not to be distracted by distractions.” – Nik Wallenda, tightrope walker “(David Beckham) is such a great player that he has the capabilities to let no one affect his game.” – Steve McClaren, manager for Queens Park Rangers “You can always find a distraction if you’re looking for one.” – Tom Kite, member of the World Golf Hall of Fame “When a putter is waiting his turn to hole out a putt of one or two feet in length, on which the match hangs at the last hole, it is of vital importance that he think of nothing. At this supreme moment he ought to fill his mind with vacancy. He must not even allow himself the consolation of religion.” – Sir Walter Simpson, The Art of Golf, 1887 "A leading difficulty with the average player is that he totally misunderstands what is meant by concentration. He may think he is concentrating hard when he is merely worrying." – golfer Bobby Jones "When you’re average, you’re just as close to the bottom as to the top." – Alfred North Whitehead, leading 20th century philosopher With a degree of equanimity/apatheia, the counterpart of Rolf's physical equipoise, we stand a chance of not becoming an overly focused automaton, which is basically a machine that performs a function according to a predetermined set of coded instructions, say for instance The Backstreet Boys. Edward Deci, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, moves our conversation forward when he explains that it's a narrowed focus (something we "do" rather than "let happen") that exacts a cost. In his well-regarded text Intrinsic Motivation (1975), Deci notes that with a narrowed focus our thinking lacks depth, periphery, and originality. We can't take advantage of unforeseen opportunities as they appear (Dr. Phil's challenge), we can't see the big picture, and this scenario also applies to the realm of sports performance, which Deci has studied. "If you know how to focus, unfocus." – Peruvian-born author Carlos Castañeda "Focus without contextual awareness breeds a fanatic." – Thomas Myers, Anatomy Trains, 2009 "Great men are more distinguished by range and extent than by originality." – Emerson "Originality is nothing but judicious imitation." – Voltaire "Opportunities don’t knock, they whisper. So shut up and listen." – Thomas Leonard, personal development leader "Listen aggressively." – Captain Mike Abrashoff, It's Your Ship, 2002 "Listening requires more intelligence than speaking." – Turkish proverb "He who speaks without an attentive ear is mute." – Stephen King Deci also noted that having too narrow a focus does not force us to call upon the deeper reserves that separate champions from mere competitors. Garfield noticed a similar dynamic at work in the old Soviet system of sports training, where one was taught to look at competitors as equals. When we excel against an equal, Garfield noted, we’re called upon to pull out deeper reserves of competitive energies, outside of our normal range. We tap into more of ourselves, and the Soviets called this process "self-actualization" (as did Maslow). "A creative [mature] man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others." – author Ayn Rand (born in St. Petersburg, Russia) "You don't play against opponents. You play against the game of basketball." – coach Bobby Knight, Indiana University "Forget your opponents, always play against par." – Sam Snead, golfing buddy of President Eisenhower "Always remember that however good you may be, the game is your master." – John Henry Taylor, five-time winner of the British Open "Golf is a non-violent game played violently from within." – Bob Toski, Golf Hall of Fame "I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself." – Mikhail Baryshnikov, born in Riga, Latvia "Your job is to umpire for the ball and not the player." – baseball umpire Bill Klem (1874-1951) This mindset represents a contextual shift in terms of competition, and it was described by Covey when he discussed the difference between win/lose and win/win situations. Said Covey, producing win/win situations takes creativity and character strength. It relies upon deep thinking. In the long run, he says, win/lose and lose/win situations are not even realistic. Win/wins are tougher and more rigorous, and they're produced from a part of ourselves that lies far deeper than the level of mere technique. It's a process based on character and it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Soviet outlook of competitors as equals. "Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself." – Shakespeare, Henry VIII "When the game is over, the king and pawn go back in the same box." – Italian proverb "Self-improvement is the name of the game, and your primary objective is to strengthen yourself, not to destroy an opponent." – Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-Cybernetics I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you can be." – pro golfer Ken Venturi, winner of the 1964 U.S. Open "If you want to reach the top, you don't run over others. Likely, the only way you'll reach the top is to be carried there by others." – John C. Maxwell, minister and writer For the sake of driving the point home a speck more clearly, we can easily see this concept at work in the realm of music and art. Performers with a narrowed focus, with their eyes hell-bent on money and chart placement, produce material of far less consequence than performers who produce their art as a form of self-expression. For an example, compare the worthless material of (so-called) musicians such as Nirvana or The Foo Fighters versus Shakespearean-level performers such as The Beatles. The former, like The Backstreet Boys, are manufactured entities designed to exploit a marketing niche and drown out quality. Their music is flat and their impact minimal, except to morons. (If you're a musician, cover the Beatles at your own risk. It can't be done.) “An athlete can’t run with money in his pockets." – Emil Zátopek, three gold medals in 1952 for Czechoslovakia “Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all." – writer Gore Vidal “You’ve got no chance of making it to the top if you’re just playing for money." – Gary Lineker, former pro footballer, BBC commentator “If you think about money, you stop playing hockey." – Moscow-born Alexander Ovechkin, future hockey hall-of-famer “Jonas Salk’s great aim wasn’t to become head of the lab so he could qualify for a pension." – sales trainer/author Tom Hopkins, regarding the developer of the polio vaccine “Men often applaud an imitation and hiss the real thing." – Aesop “Technical perfection is insufficient. It is an orphan without the true soul of the dancer." – Sylvie Guillem, French prima ballerina In his so-so book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2009), Daniel Pink suggests that lesser artists (opportunists, essentially), unlike the Beatles, lacked intrinsic, deep motivation. Music and art created with a deeper and more honest intrinsic motivation is spontaneously recognized as far superior. Theresa Amabile of Harvard has studied the phenomena as well, noting that commissioned works (Nirvana and the Foo Fighters fall into this category; they're merely puppets of their corporate handlers) are less creative than works created freely. What throws us off is that commissioned works sometimes possess some technical quality, but by and large they leave us with a flat impression. “It is impossible to feign mastery of an instrument, however skillful the impostor may be." – Andrés Segovia, Spanish classical guitarist (after listening to Nirvana or Oasis?) “There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note." – Gustav Mahler, Austro-Bohemian composer (1860-1911) “All sport … must embody an element of creative art, of generation, not of technical skill alone." – Albert Knight, The Complete Cricketer, 1906 “The sum of all technical knowledge cannot make a master contract player." – Ely Culbertson (1891-1955), Romanian-born bridge master and author “A samurai is a total human being, whereas a man who is completely absorbed in his technical skill has degenerated into a ‘function,’ one cog in a machine." – Japanese author Yukio Mishima Regarding motivation: “Just give me 25 guys on the last year of their contracts. I’ll win a pennant every year.” – baseball manager Sparky Anderson "The way you motivate a football team is to eliminate the unmotivated ones." – Lou Holtz, Notre Dame University "A ball player’s got to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That’s why no boy from a rich family ever made the big leagues." – Joe DiMaggio, New York Yankees "The ability to rebound is inversely proportional to the distance one grew up from the railroad tracks." – Pete Carril, Princeton basketball coach "We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it." – Peter Drucker, management consultant "When you look at people who are successful, you will find that they aren't the people who are motivated, but have consistency in their motivation." – Arsène Wenger of France, manager of Arsenal 1996-2018 "Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity." – martial arts master Bruce Lee An altered focus can also be observed among experienced practitioners of tai chi, how they operate in almost a trance-like state, a parallel universe of a world where they can't be touched. In a sense, their so-called narrowing of focus amounts to an altered and heightened state of consciousness. People who experience this zone say things like “My body came alive. I didn’t think I was capable of feeling so much.” It’s a state that enables us to realign dysfunctional forces that work at cross-purposes to each other. For instance, when Kennedy first declared that America would put a man on the moon, “sober” minds declared “it can’t be done.” When Joe Montana, Troy Aikman's (Dallas Cowboys) pick for greatest quarterback ever, faced 80 yards of gridiron and 90 seconds on the clock, few “rational” minds would bet money on a positive outcome. “A truly great player makes the worst player on the team good.” – Oscar Robertson, 12-time NBA all-star “Play your partner's game, especially if you know more about bridge than he does.” – Charles Goren, bridge master and author “To be a great player you have to affect the entire unit.” – Nick Saban, head coach, Alabama football “A rising tide lifts all boats.” – aphorism attributed to John F. Kennedy “When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.” – Rev. Billy Graham “A centre of excellence is, by definition, a place where second-class people may perform first-class work.” – English physicist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) “A first-rate laboratory is one in which mediocre scientists can produce outstanding work.” – physicist Lord Blackett (1897-1974) Since this state of top-tier performance, from our normal logical perspective, is non-linear, beyond the realm of “figuring it out,” how then do we get “there” from “here”? This is the point where the “faith factor” comes into play, one hinted at innumerable times through the ages: that if we dwell less on the end result, allowing ourselves to settle more into the moment, the next course of action will reveal itself, moment by moment. Not only is this a linchpin aspect of the Alexander technique, as reported by his associate Dr. Barlow, it is a universal truth, relayed time and time again by the great mystics of history, a truth that can serve us well at crunch time. This space cannot be experienced during normal and pedestrian linear time; it occurs during moments of kairos, a term we previously examined and which even carries theological overtones. “Belief is passive. Faith is active.” – Edith Hamilton (1867-1963), American educator “The investigator should have a robust faith – and yet not believe.” – French physiologist Claude Bernard (1813-78) “Spiritual tranquility that is not passive.” – Trevanian, Shibumi, 1979 “Every defense, once begun, must be carried on with the utmost energy.” – French general Ferdinand Foch, World War I “Courageous timidity.” – John Henry Taylor of England, World Golf Hall of Fame “It is nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me many years to realize it." – Bobby Jones, co-founder of the Masters Tournament “If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark." – St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), Spanish mystic “The eye altering, alters all." – William Blake, English poet (1757-1827) Dr. Candace Pert of the National Institutes of Health offered a similar viewpoint in her acclaimed Molecules of Emotion, published in 1999. Through deep relaxation, she said, we can begin to trust that life will unfold without us acting as the prime mover, without our brain forcing the outcome. Mystics throughout history have confirmed the legitimacy of this insight. “One must let the play happen … let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.” – playwright Edward Albee “A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935), supreme court justice, helping us nail down the German concept of einsicht An early and obscure self-improvement writer from Oregon named Claude Bristol (1891-1951) expressed it well. Said Bristol, vague desires produce vague outcomes. Know and visualize an outcome in your gut (reminiscent of Maltz), and your subconscious will guide you the rest of the way. Bristol believed we don't achieve our goals by action alone (nor by pure logic), rather we're guided to achievement by the intensity and clarity of our intention (housed in the chest), which has the power to overcome the shackles of reason and penetrate our subconscious. "Truth depends upon the intensity of imagination, not upon facts." – Neville Goddard (1905-1972), religion/self-help writer and speaker from Barbados "Another hand was guiding my bat." – George ‘Shotgun’ Shuba, Brooklyn Dodgers, after hitting a pinch-homer in the 1953 World Series against the Yankees In their 1977 text Beyond Biofeedback, researchers Elmer and Alyce Green expressed this dynamic in a similar way. Said the Greens, physiological change is not accomplished by force or active will. It is achieved by imagining and visualizing the intended change while in a relaxed state. Relaxation fosters the casual, detached, though yet expectant attitude that helps bring about the desired change. "To be consistently effective, you must put a certain distance between yourself and what happens to you on the golf course. This is not indifference, it’s detachment." – Sam Snead, golf hall-of-famer "Don’t let your mind take the shape of the situation." – sport psychologist Joe Parent, Zen Putting, 2007 "People set themselves unduly low expectations." – Sir John Harvey-Jones, British industrialist "One can consciously change his attitude about his own capability." – David Hemery, Sporting Excellence, 1986 "If you do not run your subconscious mind yourself, someone else will run it for you." – Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940), artist and 'new thought' writer "Action and contemplation are very close companions; they live together in one house on equal terms." – Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." – Einstein It follows that it’s this intensity which is the core element of the type of alchemy we’re discussing here. We’re also seeing the germination of a formula: That equanimity (a superior form of focus) blended with intensity yields the alchemy (synergy) needed to break through from adequate levels of performance into the upper tiers. Remember that the relatively obscure Greek concept of ataraxia basically meant a turbocharged form of equanimity. “You try to stay within the rules for the sake of the game, but you can always turn up the intensity.” – NFL hall of famer Lawrence Taylor “There is no such thing as great talent without great willpower.” – Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist “Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.” – Shakespeare, Twelfth Night "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them." – Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22, (after listening to Pearl Jam and Nirvana or the Chili Peppers?) Besides relaxation/visualization, how do we cultivate this space? Through a sports massage that’s not remedial by definition, what’s the kernel that will push us over the top? Of course, there is no one technique in itself that reliably pushes someone into higher levels; as Bristol noted, it's the passion and intensity that does. It’s a matter that defies logic, as does any inspirational work of art or music. Ditto for 49ers quarterback Joe Montana’s epic touchdown drives in the final two minutes of more games than we can count on our fingers. They can be analyzed in retrospect by Monday-morning armchair quarterbacks, but no one would bet on them before they happened. “I won’t know until my barber tells me on Monday.” – Knute Rockne, when once asked why Notre Dame had lost a particular game “Most games are lost, not won.” – manager Casey Stengel, New York Yankees “You win by the other man’s mistakes, not by your own brilliance.” – Edward Meyer, bridge master “Never interrupt your opponent when he's making a mistake.” – Napoleon “I dread our own mistakes more than the enemy’s intentions.” – Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, 4th century BC “Let your opponent show you how to defeat him.” – Wong Shun Leung, teacher of Bruce Lee “More players lick themselves than are ever licked by an opposing team.” – baseball manager Connie Mack On the physical side, it’s protracted, monotonous stimulation that helps focus attention, relax or exhaust defense systems (the insidious grip of logic), and raise/diffuse bodily energy levels. The object is to get totally into our own body, so into it that we pass through it so that it’s no longer an encumbrance (impedimenta). As expressed earlier, we re-create it so that the null point, not unlike the groundhog, makes its long-awaited appearance. As Juhan says, only now do we have the clean slate necessary to replace non-workable patterns with those that can succeed. “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – psychologist Carl Rogers “Nothing changes until it becomes what it is.” – psychiatrist Fritz Perls (1893-1970) “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” – Albert Einstein "A man's got to know his limitations." – Clint Eastwood as Inspector Harry Callahan, Magnum Force (1973) “It is when working under limitations that the master reveals himself.” – Aron Nimzowitsch, Russian/Danish chess grandmaster (1886-1935) “The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.” – Russian composer/conductor Igor Stravinsky “A river without banks is a large puddle.” – Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager “You adapt yourself to the contents of the paintbox.” – German artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) “To note an artist’s limitations is but to define his talent.” – novelist Willa Cather (1873-1947) “Every golfer scores better when he learns his limitations.” – Tommy Armour (1896-1968), 'The Silver Scot', winner of three majors “Understand your limitations – and capitalize on them.” – Bruce Lee “Stay within yourself.” – baseball adage We will also search for trigger points in the SCMs (beef jerkies) of the neck (you can grab them fully as you turn your head to the right or left), as these are said to diminish proprioception, or our ability to orient ourselves in three-dimensional space. The word proprioception also refers to the relative position of various parts of the body and the degree of effort being employed in movement. It’s curious how the origin of this word is similar to that of the word ‘appropriate,’ which can mean just the right action – no more, no less – at just the right moment. Thus when our proprioception is appropriate, the end result is that of equilibrium, which engenders equanimity and equipoise. “If some stress is brought to bear on a system in equilibrium, the equilibrium is displaced in the direction which tends to undo the effect of the stress.” – Le Chatelier’s Principle (related to the principle of homeostatis, and why is his chemical principle expressed rarely if ever in massage textbooks?) According to John Jerome (Search for Athletic Perfection), a superior athlete may simply have a more highly refined proprioceptive sense than the rest of us. Some muscles, in fact, may function more as proprioceptors than instruments of movement. Candidates for this classification include some of the occipitals, spinae erectors, as well as the popliteal behind the knee. The popliteus, in fact, has been described as a "kinesthetic knee monitor" (Starlanyl). “The middle of a fighter’s forehead is like a dog’s tail. Cut off the tail and the dog goes all which-way ‘cause he ain’t got no more balance.” – boxer Sonny Liston (unknowingly describing the powers of the third-eye point?) “It’s as if they have an eye in the center of the brain.” – ophthalmologist Jose Portal (Williamsburg, Virginia), regarding batters who don’t favor one eye over the other “If I ever need a brain transplant, I want one from a sportswriter, because I'll know it's never been used.” – iconic coach Joe Paterno, Penn State Aside: As a youth, it perplexed me why certain kids were "naturally fast" runners whereas others were "naturally slow." Both groups employed the same amount of effort, it would seem, with the slow ones oftentimes exerting more effort. But if we can buy into the notion expressed on this site that speed radiates from core to periphery, we can surmise that the slow runners simply had tighter hip rotators, a point to which John Jerome would probably not take issue. No one in our youths had the insight to point this matter out, not even coaches, backing up the assertion that it doesn't matter how hard you work if the underlying kata is dysfunctional, out of tune, or simply full of codswallop. “Put a good person in a bad system, and the bad system wins, no contest.” – engineer and management consultant W. Edwards Deming “When a man runs the wrong way, the more active and swift he is the further he will go astray.” – Francis Bacon (1561-1626) “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller “When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.” – management consultant Peter F. Drucker “Everything that is possible demands to exist.” – Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), German mathematician/philosopher “That which is possible, is inevitable.” – William Carlos Williams, poet/physician “Possibilities don't add up, they multiply." – Paul Romer, Nobel Prize-winning economist In a nod to Jerome, among others, we will also complement our work on the beef jerkies by addressing "proprioception central," namely the suboccipitals atop the neck at the junction of the lower skull. This location is also a major gateway for ki, and it tends to shorten in moments of fear (startle pattern & choking). We should also note that lying slightly underneath and aside the SCMs are another chief culprit for athletes of all types, namely the scalene muscles, aka "guitar strings," which are the gateway toward resolving tension in the upper back. Our prime suspect in this regard is the anterior (forward) scalene. The scalenes (neck skirt), working from above, in conjunction with the quadratus lumborum working from below, help the ribcage to essentially float in space, just as the scapula is designed to float like an astronaut inside the space station. When under assault from a trigger point, by the way, an aberrant scalene (an accessory breathing muscle) can reduce the size of the thoracic outlet ("tunnel" behind the clavicle), leading to pain and tingling in the arms and fingers (Davies). Later on we'll discuss the connection between a floating ribcage/scapula and the arrival of the logic-defying skyhook. For now, per Davies, we'll note that the scalenes are among the muscles most abused in sports activity. Generally lying beneath the SCM, the scalenes require a fair amount of practice and confidence to access properly. To stack the deck in our favor, we can first work levator scapula which can refer satellite trigger points to the scalenes and trapezius. A free-floating ribcage could in fact be a secret weapon for runners when you consider, as Myers suggests, that the intercostal (between-the-rib) muscles are not exclusively or even necessarily breathing muscles. Myers argues that they're just as likely muscles of running and walking. Like a spring on a watch, he says, they wind and unwind with each successive step. Ylinen & Cash (1988), noticed a similar phenomena: When an athlete’s performance has been sub-par, they say, even though training has been going well, one should consider the role of these respiratory muscles. Getting back to a well-measured pace and the demeanor required to produce it, in sports massage the masseur also bears full responsibility on his/her end for generating this space within themself. The practitioner must enter no less than a state of timelessness, with zero distractions, particularly mental ones. Loehr, the performance psychologist, notes that it takes little to distract even the best of us. A sports masseur, who McGillicuddy refers to as a ‘trainer,’ also needs to focus and visualize his/her intent. The recipient will detect this focus – or lack thereof – in the trainer’s hands. “Almost all gamblers learn to control their faces . . . the hand blabs secrets shamelessly." – Stefan Zweig, novelist (1881-1942) “I like to see them squirm." – attributed to chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer “A kind heart is of little value in chess." – Nicolas Chamfort (1741-94), French writer Diminished levels of intention simply will not deliver results on the massage table. Says Schatz, who is hardly an incense-burning New Age dilettante: to find, release and normalize dysfunctional tissue it takes focused attention. We also need to focus on the positive. If we dwell on someone’s weaknesses, that person becomes nervous and resistant (per 1977's Zen Shiatsu). “A lot of times people look at the negative side of what they feel they can't do. I always look on the positive side of what I can do." – Chuck Norris, actor and martial artist and gun fanatic “Chuck Norris knows the last digit of Pi." – Chuck Norris “All men that are ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities." – Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Irish statesman and philosopher “Some people are destroyed by their first failure, while others are destroyed by their first major success." – José Silva (1914-99), author of the "mind-control method" that bears his name “The world is made up of people who never quite get onto the first team and who just miss the prizes at the flower show." – Jacob Bronowski, Polish-British mathematician/scientist (1908-1974) “90% of short putts don't go in." – Yogi Berra It follows that we never mention negatives in the massage room. (“Gee, your trapezius has more knots than the ropes of the Mayflower.”) Nor does the sports masseur engage in a form of pressing. Specifically, we don’t attempt to force a result by applying excessive physical pressure. All that we’ll accomplish will be a defensive reaction in the receiver's ki. "Many shots are spoiled at the last instant by efforts to add a few more yards." – golf great Bobby Jones "The greedy golfer … will be sucked into his own destruction." – John L. Low, English writer and course designer "It’s 4th and 15, and you’re looking at a full-court press." – Lieutenant Frank Drebin, Naked Gun "Why should I obtain by force that which I can obtain by cheating?" – Doc Holliday, gambler/gunfighter/dentist (1851-1887) Trying too hard, a form of force, benefits neither the recipient nor the giver. It was Rousseau, if you remember, who said that as long as he desired something too strongly (pressing), he could not achieve it. And it was the Frenchman Émile Coué (1857-1926, a “grandfather” of the self-improvement field) who showed how the effort to succeed (once again, pressing) interferes with accomplishing our goals. The supreme discipline, they would seemingly agree, is to live in the present with a cool detached mind, particularly when the goal appears within reach. The same rule applies, with immediately consequences, in a sales situation or even a pickup bar on a weekend night. “The life of the spirit has no meaning either in the past or in the future. All its life is concentrated in the present.” – Marcus Arelius (121-180 AD) “The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” – Maslow (enlightened stuff) “What we perceive as the present is nothing but the recent past tinged with a vivid fringe of anticipation.” – Alfred North Whitehead "Do not turn back when you are just at the goal." – Publilius Syrus, Maxims, ~42 BC "It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims." – Aristotle "Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions." – Alexander Pushkin, born in Moscow, perhaps the greatest poet ever Similarly, Eastern philosophies incorporate the idea of "mindfulness" (a horribly abused word) – being acutely aware of the present by keeping the mind fully absorbed in the task you're performing, as displayed in the sacred creation of a Russian religious icon. When one becomes engrossed in the moment, even the most mundane task can help focus the mind. In short, we radiate intensity while remaining detached from the end-result. (If speed itself radiates from core to periphery, can we say the same for intensity?) If we can master this space, we’ve solved one of the deeper conundrums of life. More than a few trainers in the gym are functionally aware of this fact, telling us that exercising without concentration scatters the mind, reducing its benefits and setting us up for unnecessary injury. "The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness." – Joan Miró (1893-1983), Spanish surrealist painter and sculptor "A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he does it in a devout manner." – Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher (1795-1881) "A good spectator also creates." – Swiss proverb "Too many players think of a football as something (just) to kick." – Pelé "What is best in music is not to be found in the notes." – Gustav Mahler, Austro-Bohemian composer (1860-1911) "If a cricketer’s mind and every nerve are awake, and all his wits, there can be no dullness, whether the scorers are active or not." – Sir Neville Cardus, cricket correspondent, Manchester Guardian "Darling, my legs aren’t so beautiful. I just know what to do with them." – movie icon and humanitarian Marlene Dietrich ROBIN: "Her legs sort of remind me of Catwoman's."  BATMAN: "You're growing up Robin, but remember: In crimefighting, always keep your sights high." On a personal note, I've noticed that when I achieve this space of intensity/detachment, far less often than I'd prefer, people are more inclined to open up to me and share what's really on their mind. They consider me a guru or something, even though I say little and know even less. The space seems to breed a safety zone for open and honest communication, perhaps because it's not of our own making and calculation. "Young players calculate everything, a function of their relative inexperience." – Samuel Reshevsky, Polish-American chess master (1911-1992) As one may suspect, the literature of religious mysticism also discusses the proper role of focus. For instance, the education and preparation that tradition has ever prescribed for the mystic consists in the gradual development of an extraordinary faculty of concentration, of focus, of contemplation. When developed properly, we don’t turn into self-absorbed “me-firsters.” "Those who create 20% of the results believe they deserve 80% of the rewards." – NBA coach/executive Pat Riley "You’re only as good as the coach thinks you are." – television journalist Brian Williams To the contrary, our ingrowing concentration is balanced by an outgoing sense of expansion, says mystic scholar Evelyn Underhill, corroborating the findings of sports psychologists. We see this proper balance in people we consider “charming.” They are so delightfully focused on us – without the irritating aspect of self-assertion – that we relax and open up to them. Focus in itself won’t develop this trait; what balances it out is the trait of equanimity and dispensing with the desire for self-gain, even on the romantic front. "All luck is good luck to the man who bears it with equanimity." – Boethius (480-524 AD) "Luck never gives, it only lends." – Swedish proverb "Luck is the residue of design." – baseball owner Branch Rickey "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity." – attributed to Seneca, first century AD "The unprepared mind cannot see the outstretched hand of opportunity." – Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish microbiologist, developer of penicillin "Are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance?" – Jill Konrath, sales specialist and author "Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence." – retail magnate J.C. Penney Tom Friends of The New York Times once provided a good working example of what we’re talking about here. Friends once asked coach Jimmy Johnson what he told his players before leading the Dallas Cowboys onto the field for the 1993 Super Bowl: "I told them that if I laid a two-by-four across the floor, everybody there would walk across it and not fall, because our focus would be on walking the length of that board. But if I put that same board 10 stories high between two buildings, only a few would make it, because the focus would be on falling.” Johnson told his players not to focus on the crowd, the media, or the possibility of failing, but to focus on each play of the game as if it were a good practice session. The Cowboys won the game 52-7. "People have often said to me, ‘You’re so relaxed when you play.’ Relaxed my ass. It’s practice." – big-band leader Benny Goodman (1909-86) "Only someone who is well-prepared has the opportunity to improvise." – film director Ingmar Bergman of Sweden "You have to practice improvisation." – Art Tatum, jazz pianist "I didn’t believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared." – Tom Landry, NFL coach, Dallas Cowboys "Leave nothing to chance." – Roald Amundsen, Norwegian polar explorer "If officers are unaccustomed to rigorous drilling, they will be worried and hesitant in battle." – Sun Tzu, The Art of War "Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation." – Roger Staubach, hall-of-fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys "More of me comes out when I improvise." – artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967) How this focus can be turned into alchemy, doing the seemingly impossible, has been described by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone, authors of Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (1960): Around 1930, the great automaker Henry Ford asked his engineers to develop a one-piece eight-cylinder engine. The engineers replied that it couldn't be done, that such a high level of power can't be generated from one stand-alone unit. “An expert is someone who knows a lot about the past." – Tom Hopkins, sales trainer and author “The war the generals always get ready for is the previous one." – Henry Major Tomlinson, All Our Yesterdays, 1930 Ford responded, "Produce it anyway." Within about 18 months, despite the “logic and proportion” originally voiced by some of the best engineers that money could buy, the eight-cylinder was rolling off the assembly line and became a sales success despite the economic backdrop of the Great Depression. "Mortal danger is an effective antidote to fixed ideas." – German field marshal Erwin Rommel, the ‘Desert Fox’ “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – Muhammad Ali (giving us a brilliant crash course in ontology) "A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility." – Aristotle "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them to the impossible." – science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke "One finds limits by pushing them." – Herbert Simon, economist/psychologist "A dog in the hunt doesn't stop to scratch his fleas." – old saying taken from Blink by Malcolm Gladwell "I could rent you out as a decoy for duck hunters." – Groucho Marx "The perils of duck hunting are great – especially if you’re a duck." – Walter Cronkite, America’s archetypal television newscaster Positive ground of being "We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we've already done." – Longfellow For a coach, what works is seeing potential in their athletes, not just pointing out what’s wrong. When someone acts this way around us, emphasizing the positive, don’t we feel our body relaxing? Don’t we feel the tightness loosen from the habitual holding in our shoulders or perhaps even our joints? "It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test." – former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz "The person best able to appraise promise as a mathematician is a gifted teacher, and not a professional tester." – Joel Hildebrand, chemist/educator (1881-1983) "If possible, when giving advice, act as if you're reminding a person of something they forgot." – Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658) "If you get a good idea for your fighter, tell him so he thinks he thought of it himself. That way he’ll make the move naturally, without worrying if he’s doing it right." – Charlie Goldman, manager of boxer Rocky Marciano “One of the things you realize with a lot of high achievers: You have to figure out a way to make things their idea.” – golf instructor Hank Haney “The secret of talking to a pitcher in a crucial situation is not so much what you say as how you say it. You want to say something to relax him so that he can be himself and not show pressure. Casey Stengel (Yankee manager) would never say ‘Don’t throw a high curve’ and put a negative thought in your head. He’d say, ‘Oh, Mr. Craig, you know this guy can’t hit a low slider. Why don’t you throw one and we’ll be out of the inning and in the clubhouse.’ ” – Roger Craig, pitcher/manager “Sometimes we’re so afraid of hitting bad shots, we don’t let ourselves hit good ones.” – golf instructor Butch Harmon “The natural reaction of the player, when he's fearful of either slicing or hooking, always tempts him to do the very thing that will cause him to exaggerate, rather than correct, the fault." – golf legend Bobby Jones, On Golf, 1966 “Any time you don’t want anything, you get it.” – president Calvin Coolidge "It won't help to tell yourself, ‘Don't hit it in the water.’ Your mind will only hear ‘water’." – Dr. Bob Rotella, a watered-down, corporate-type ‘sport psychologist’ "Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it." – Montaigne, French philosopher (1533-1592) (just try getting a song out of your mind by the likes of lightweight opportunists such as John Cougar Melonhead or Billy Joel) A quick check of the massage and self-help literature finds similar assertions, though for now we fall far short of the rigors of academic thought. Found in Massage & Bodywork magazine, January 2004: When it can experience deeper levels of safety, the body spontaneously releases deeper levels of holding. From the book Pilates and Yoga (2004), by Judy Smith, Emily Kelly and Jonathan Monks: The body tends to open up only when it truly feels safe to do so. “The single-most important issue for traumatized people is to find a sense of safety in their own bodies.” – Bessel van der Kolk, Dutch psychiatrist From self-help big kahuna and professional-bore Wayne Dyer: There’s a connection between the experience of love (we’ll settle for proper coaching) and muscular strength. (A remarkable assertion that’s just dying for additional referencing.) “Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles.” – Alex Karras, former all-pro lineman for the Detroit Lions; cast member of 'Blazing Saddles' "When I was in the ring at the Olympics, it was my father's words that I was hearing, not the coaches'. I never listened to what the coaches said. I would call my father and he would give me advice from prison." – Floyd Mayweather, Jr. "When you have authority over people, they can't hear you." – Werner Erhard (a convincing case for egalitarian work structures) "People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude." – John C. Maxwell, minister/speaker/writer On the psychiatric front, Abraham Maslow turned the tables on traditional psychotherapy by studying peak performers rather than dysfunctionals for a change. He was particularly interested in “peak experiences” that provided, in his words, crucial sources of “clean and uncontaminated data” about who we are and might become. To confirm this assertion that already appears self-evident, we just need to look closely at one of our own peak goals or desires; we’ll notice that as we start to accomplish them something close to the core of our being gets tapped. "Work on your strong points because they are what made you." – Arsène Wenger, manager of Arsenal from 1996 to 2018 In a nod to the Maslow approach, well-known therapist Jack Morin of San Francisco claims better results with clients when he has them focus on peak experiences rather than on negative ones. In contrast, many of today’s therapists – regardless of modality – are still preoccupied with the Freudian approach of eradicating inhibitions, which entails focusing on the negative. “Look at a person’s light, not their lampshade.” – psychiatrist Gerald Jampolsky “The minute I get negative, it’s going to have an influence on my team.” – Don Shula, head coach, Miami Dolphins “A negative thought generated by your own mind … can be more distracting than the sound of someone else talking.” – sport psychologist Joe Parent, Zen Putting, 2007 “The Law of Flotation was not discovered by contemplating how things sink.” – Thomas Troward, 'New Thought' writer (1847-1916) “In boxing, if you think you’ll lose, you’re already halfway there.” – Lennox Lewis, world heavyweight boxing champion “If you’re afraid of losing then you daren’t win.” – tennis legend Björn Borg of Sweden, taking a cheeky liberty with the English language Says nationally known sales trainer Tom Hopkins, a spirit (or context) of negativity justifies average performance; it helps us rationalize why others do better. And perhaps the only noteworthy thing about the indie band Demons of Negativity is their tacit admission that the latter term implies the former. "Don't set your sights on being just average. You stop being average the day you commit to an all-out effort to win the level of success you want. The average person never makes that commitment." – Tom Hopkins, How To Master the Art of Selling "The major difference between the 'best' and the 'average' is that the 'best' get as much pleasure from practice as performance." – Benjamin Zander, director of the Boston Philharmonic "I get paid to practice. I play the game for free." – Junior Seau, Pro Football Hall of Fame "Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens." – John F. Kennedy "If one asks for success and prepares for failure, one will get the situation one has prepared for." – Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940), American 'New Thought' writer "Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit." – Napoleon Hill "One should never despair too soon." – Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1712-1786) "What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it." – Alexander Graham Bell More than a few professional sports teams have their players concentrate on film footage of successful plays rather than errant ones. They don’t rule out viewing footage of second-rate performance, nor should they. They’re just aware that this latter approach carries limitations and pitfalls. Note that midway through the 2013 season, after a disturbing 49-9 loss to the Bengals, coach Rex Ryan of the New York Jets didn't even allow his team to view the customary post-game film. “A sudden crushing defeat is apt to stimulate the defeated party to set its house in order and prepare to make a victorious response.” – Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History "This defeat has taught me a lesson, but I'm not sure what it is." – tennis champ John McEnroe "Defeat is simply a signal to press onward." – Helen Keller “The only difference between me and General Custer is that I have to watch the films on Sunday.” – Rick Venturi, Northwestern football coach “We didn’t tackle well today but we made up for it by not blocking.” – John McKay, University of Southern California (USC) football coach with four national championships Moreover, it’s been said that the only “problem” some athletes have is that their friends or coach seem to think there’s something wrong with them. Coach wants them to succeed on his terms, while we may only be capable of performing on ours. We're all very familiar with this scenario as it applies to the student/teacher relationship or in the workplace. “The better you become, the more people will try to find something wrong with you.” – Robert Lansdorp, professional tennis coach “I never criticize a player until they are first convinced of my unconditional confidence in their abilities.” – John Robinson, former head coach of USC (University of Southern California) and the Los Angeles Rams “To be himself, one needs to be free from the pressure of evaluative praise.” – Haim Ginott, educator and child psychologist “A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.” – the eminent English biophysicist Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner, 1962 “A quarterback doesn’t come into his own until he can tell a coach to go to hell.” – Johnny Unitas, Baltimore Colts “Innovation and progress are achieved only by those who venture beyond standard operating procedure.” – Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, It's Your Ship, 2002 On the theological front, the eminent Thomas Moore notes that it was Jesus himself who redefined the context in which we place necessary limits on our life. Our limits are usually defined by fear and anxiety, but who says our limits can’t be determined equally well, if not better, by removing limitations? Remember our original definition of sports massage: “The systematic reduction of physical impediments to higher levels of performance.” “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” – Sandy Koufax, Los Angeles Dodgers, who pitched a perfect game in 1965 (notice the contextual shift of thought outside the realm of logic) "The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth." – Jean de la Bruyère, (1645-1696), French philosopher "The truth is outside of all fixed patterns." – Bruce Lee "I’m not here for your amusement. You’re here for mine." – Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, Memphis, 1978 “Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.” – Ben Hogan “Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.” – advertising executive David Ogilvy "There's a way to do it better – find it." – Thomas Edison And it was Stephen Covey who offered a view similar to Longfellow’s: “Don't tie yourself to your history but to your potential.” We will now do the same in the massage room, or wherever we decide to set up the table. We will not try to “fix” our client/friend. It’s fairly well-established that to the extent we’re able to accept our partner's non-workable beliefs, attitudes and physical limitations – whether we do so intentionally or inadvertently – their prospects for dropping them will improve. This chemistry can only stem from our ground of being, not some agenda of putting our client on our one-hour self-improvement plan. On the other hand, to the extent we buy into our client’s less-functional aspects and dwell on them, the likelihood of lackluster performance remains. “You can not entertain weak, harmful, negative thoughts ten hours a day and expect to bring about beautiful, strong and harmonious conditions by ten minutes of strong, positive, creative thought.” – Charles Haanel, American ‘new thought’ writer (1866-1949) “If you engage in positive thinking to overcome negative thoughts, the negative thoughts are still there, acting.” – physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) “No person whose entire time is spent in the contemplation of limitation can demonstrate freedom from such limitation.” – Ernest Holmes, ‘new thought’ writer (1887-1960) “Don’t go to dinner with bad putters.” – attributed to classic golf author Harvey Penick If we look at our own lives or into the workplace, it should be apparent that little growth occurs through fear and pressure. It is mainly through encouragement that we feel safe enough to change, to blossom. "Fear is often false evidence appearing real." – Gary Mack, Mind Gym (2001) "Bad putting is due more to the effect the green has upon the player than it has upon the action of the ball." – Bobby Jones, On Golf, 1966 "I know a woman who walks rather well, but who limps once she sees someone watching her." – Montesquieu (1689-1755) "It has no fear." – American chess grandmaster Yasser Seirawan regarding the Deep Blue chess computer developed by IBM As a couple folks in the world of academic publishing have put it, we will create a level of comfort with our client’s "bio-psycho-social reality," or in other words, their entire being. At a root level, this practice can induce our client, if only through baby-steps at first, to allow the momentary loss of self (shackles of logic and “I can’ts”) that can hinder higher levels of performance, a phenomena that like a seedling cannot sprout in an overly critical or harsh environment. "There is no reason why the infielder should not try to put the batter off his stride, at the critical moment, by neatly timed disparagements of his wife’s fidelity and his mother’s respectability." – George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856-1950) “I used to do some terrible things in the marshalling area to upset my rivals.” – Dawn Fraser, gold medalist swimmer for Australia “I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style.” – Magnus Carlsen, Norwegian chess grandmaster at age 13 “How’s your wife and my kids?” – trash-talk from Australian cricket “I fart in your general direction.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail Precession One of the most frequent complaints a client brings to the massage table is a sore lower back. Some of these folks then expect the masseur to dive right into the back and spend 90% of their time here. In cases like this it seems that half of the masseur’s job is handling the mental preconceptions of the client, convincing them that a sore lower back can result from a variety of sources and that it still works to treat the entire body from head to toe. In fact, noteworthy results can be achieved in such cases without even once touching the lower back at all. In this regard, the ideal massage client is not the one who says "fix my back" but the one who admits "I love massages." Mr. or Ms. Masseur now has the latitude to address the trigger points both above and below the lower back that brought Mr. Achy Client through their esteemed door in the first place. “Never diagnose (a client) until after their therapy is over.” – Carl Jung "Treat the entire body ... and only then deal with irregularities." – Toru Namikoshi, Complete Book of Shiatsu Therapy, 1981 "What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back . . . with a hinge in it." – Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1870 In a non-massage context, let’s take the hypothetical case of a single guy at a wedding reception, hoping in the back of his mind to find Ms. Right with longer-term relationship potential. Mr. Single Guy will almost certainly spend 90% of his time hitting on women he’s interested in, regardless of their availability signals. "Opportunity is often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be tuning in." – Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924), founder of Success magazine "I rarely plan my research. It plans me." – Max Perutz, Austrian-British Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, 1962 "The trap does not chase the mouse. But when the mouse grabs the cheese, the trap plays its role." – Hélio Gracie, Brazilian martial artist and instructor "Forget about yourself and follow your opponent’s movement." – Yip Man, mentor of Bruce Lee "Opportunity comes like a snail, and once it has passed you it changes into a fleet rabbit and is gone." – newspaper executive Arthur Brisbane, 1864-1936 "A monkey who misses his branch cannot be saved." – Hindu proverb But contrary to popular logic, if Mr. Single Guy would only back off a little bit and tune his antenna for someone sending signals of interest in his direction (for instance, exaggerated interest in what he's saying), his chances for long-term success would be far greater. As a side benefit, he'd learn the difference between shifting the context of a situation vs. manipulating its content. "I always let men fool themselves. They were always loving someone I wasn't." – Marilyn Monroe "Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong." – Agatha Christie "Sometimes you need to back off in order to go faster." – Jackie Stewart, Formula One racer "Pushing the limit isn't always the way to succeed." – NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson "I don’t conquer, I submit." – Casanova "The difference between a fast bowler and a good fast bowler is not extra muscle but extra brain." – Fred Trueman, Book of Cricket (1964) On the bodywork front, ancient Chinese physicians learned early on that the first treatment approach that comes to mind may not be the most effective. According to Dr. Stephen Chang (The Complete Book of Acupuncture, 1976), these physicians came face to face with the indirect and illogical in times of hostility, and acupressure has origins that appear to be somewhat accidental. Early Chinese warriors, stung by the stones and arrows of war, sometimes reported unexplained cures from long-term ailments. Physicians could discover no logical relationships, but over time patterns emerged regarding points on the body and their associated effects. In nature, drop a pebble into a lake. Which way do the ripples of water flow? In a direction perpendicular to the original action, in a manner that can sometimes mimic the energy flows of acupressure. In a behavioral context, let’s look at the words of holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, author of the famed Man’s Search for Meaning: “Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue . . . as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself." (Intensity + detachment.) “Unexpected results are the rule, not the exception.” – Plautus, Roman playwright, 2nd century BC Before making the main point, which you’re getting already, let’s whip out (as it were) a couple more examples/analogies: On the business front, Jim Collins’ Good to Great (2001) is regarded as one of the premier books of the last generation, and its sales are still respectable. If you were to ask Collins how either we or a corporation can move up to being great, a space outside of pure logic, he might tell you “Only when we abandon holding onto being good.” "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." – Henry Ford "The field cannot be well seen from within the field." – Emerson "We do not see the lens through which we look." – anthropologist Ruth Benedict (1887-1948) "In order to see, you have to stop being in the middle of the picture." – Sri Aurobindo, Indian philosopher and yogi (1872-1950) "To invent you must think aside (à côté, or ‘off the edge’)." – Paul Souriau, French philosopher (1852-1926) "Almost all the greatest discoveries in astronomy have resulted from what we have elsewhere termed Residual Phenomena … of observation as remain outstanding and unaccounted for, after … the strict application of known principles." – Sir John Herschel, English mathematician/astronomer/chemist (1792-1871) "Ultimately, what separates a winner from a loser at the grandmaster level is the willingness to do the unthinkable." – Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov "The farther an experiment is from theory, the closer it is to the Nobel Prize." – chemist Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956), daughter of Marie In the social sciences, let’s revisit professor Mihaly from the University of Chicago and his oft-quoted but overrated Flow (1990): “Paradoxically, it is when we act freely, for the sake of action itself rather than for ulterior motives (the realm of our reactive mind), that we learn to become more than what we are now.” In this space we give the situation itself permission to teach us things, rather than simply retain our preconceptions, which is the land of mediocre performance and Mr. Single Guy trying to pick up uninterested chickadees at the wedding reception. "I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to 'wanting to be a ballerina'." – Suzanne Farrell, American prima ballerina "The mediocre golfer generally is one who is too lazy to play better." – Babe Zaharias, greatest female athlete of the 20th century "It isn’t the high price of stars that’s expensive, it’s the high price of mediocrity." – Bill Veeck, former owner of the Chicago White Sox "I’m not afraid to fail. I’m afraid to be mediocre." – Junior Seau, Pro Football Hall of Fame "The one thing coaches cannot tolerate ... is the individual who grows arrogant because he excelled at a lower level and believes he has nothing else to learn." – Zig Ziglar, sales trainer and author "He that cannot obey cannot command." – attributed to Benjamin Franklin In sports, this would suggest staying in the moment, particularly in dicey situations, to see what the space wants from us. It appears to be a universal principle that once we give a space what it wants, either in competition or even a social situation, we’re permitted to move into a higher realm not allowed to us before. (Why are peacocks beautiful? Because they eat thorns?) "Leaders grasp nettles." – advertising executive David Ogilvy "Flowers often grow more beautifully on dung-hills than in gardens that look beautifully kept." – St. Francis de Sales "What you resist, persists." – Werner Erhard Unfortunately, we're much more accustomed to telling the space what we want to give to it, keeping any potential thorns off the menu. Yet, per Mihaly, it is only from within the "flow" space (post-thorn, as it were) where we can expand to a higher level we can describe as suspension of entropy (disorder/decline/randomness). "Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands." (Brilliant) – Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD) "The physical is inherently entropic, giving off energy in ever more disorderly ways. The metaphysical is antientropic, methodically marshalling energy." – Buckminster Fuller "Order is repetition of units. Chaos is multiplicity without rhythm." – Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972) In the realm of interpersonal communication, logic tells us that the best way to make a point is to deliver it more clearly, and LOUDER. But to the contrary, says Stephen Covey in 1992’s Principle-Centered Leadership, that’s like driving a car by looking only through the rearview mirror. The fastest form of human communication is precisely the opposite, and it goes by the name of empathy. Covey reminds us that empathy, in fact, is amazingly fast. Tell that to Mr. Single Guy who goes home from the wedding reception alone. "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." – Dale Carnegie "No man ever listened himself out of a job." – president Calvin Coolidge “Never miss a good chance to shut up.” – humorist Will Rogers “To do all the talking and not be willing to listen is a form of greed.” – Democritus of Abdera (~460-370 BC) “ ‘He never listens’ is universal in the institution of marriage.” – Dorothy MacKaye, advice columnist, Ladies’ Home Journal “It is not the voice that commands the story, it is the ear.” – Italo Calvino, Italian author Before we belabor the main point into the status of road-kill, let’s say it now: Results happen at 90-degree angles to our agenda. The great Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) coined a name for this phenomena, and he called it precession. “Approach the game with no preset agendas and you'll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts.” – NBA coach Phil Jackson “No man does anything from a single motive.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet If real results happen at a perpendicular angle to our motives or expectations, this can help explain why the effects of massage are often difficult to describe to potential clients. They require a different kind of language altogether, one that is generative as opposed to merely descriptive. “In individual and organizational performance, most of us attempt to produce action by working in the after-the-fact realm of description, analysis, explanation, and prescription. Rarely do we consider that producing an action requires a whole different way of looking at it. If you want to have a dramatic impact on performance, you need access to the source of action.” – Werner Erhard “Air power speaks a strategic language so new that translation into the hackneyed idiom of the past is impossible.” – Alexander de Seversky, Russian-American aviator, 1942 “After a battle is over, people talk a lot about how decisions were methodically reached, but actually there’s a hell of a lot of groping around.” – navy admiral Frank Fletcher “By their very nature, (mathematicians) are more interested in the way in which the gate is opened than in the garden lying behind it.” – Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972) “In classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, ‘How well he spoke.’ But when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, ‘Let us march’.” – Adlai Stevenson, two-time presidential candidate in the 1950s “To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.” – Charles Baudelaire (1821-67), French poet “Well, girls, shall we go?” – an entire half-time talk delivered by Texas A&M football coach Dana X. Bible. His Aggies were down but eventually won (sometime in the 1920s). Unfortunately most of our language falls into the category of descriptive, especially in the world of journalism and, more often than not, in the field of coaching. We are fairly good at describing what has already happened, but we flounder as we attempt to articulate language that can spur effective action. How can we formulate a positive future if our language usually describes it in terms of the past? “Executives could only think in terms of what they'd already seen. It's hard for them to think in terms of what has never been done before.” – director George Lucas, Star Wars “High thoughts must have high language.” – Aristophanes "Falling is not in my vocabulary." – Philippe Petite, French tightrope walker "Language commonly stresses only one side of any interaction." – anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) "And sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in." – Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility "For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice." – T.S. Eliot "A spectator can describe what I’m doing on the tennis court. He is living in the realm of evaluation and explanation – but I’m playing in the world of action. While there is a relationship between his description and what is occurring on the court, the two are clearly not the same.... Failing to make this simple distinction can lead to being satisfied with an explanation about action and may hide from our view the source of action." – Werner Erhard, Industry Week, June 1987 "When I take action the world behaves differently." – Price Pritchett, business consultant and author Fuller, the greatest of 20th century geniuses, noted that when anyone sets out to achieve a goal, there is always a precessional effect, one that is mostly unpredicted by the original action. One of his favorite analogies was that of the honeybee. Seemingly inadvertently, the honeybee goes about his business of gathering honey. At ninety degrees to his body and his flight path, his legs gather pollen from one flower and “accidentally” deliver this pollen to the next flower, resulting in cross-pollination. The outcome of this seemingly inadvertent activity is that the bee contributes enormously to the continuation of life on earth. The great contribution of the bee happens therefore in non-linear fashion, though our thinking and analysis prefers the comfortable linearity of the old-school A+B=C world. “The formula 2+2=5 is not without its attractions.” – Dostoyevsky "If you want to live a long life, focus on making contributions." – Hans Selye (whose name should be familiar to every somatic practitioner) Somatics: a term coined by movement educator and philosopher Thomas Hanna to describe the awareness of the body as felt from within Working separately, Wilhelm Reich noticed a similar phenomena in the vertical streamings of energies within the body. When there’s a blockage, which he called armoring, or when there’s an upset, the inhibition of movement works at a perpendicular or right angle to the energetic flows. For instance, he said, most people have a high degree of functionality in their hands and arms. However, once the movement becomes associated with the expression of longing or desire (of which we’ll include the emotionally charged moments of pressing in the clutch), the inhibition sets in. We get clumsy and uncoordinated. We start to see two targets, as Chuang Tzu observed some 2500 years ago. "Runners in the Western world have a tendency to create psychological barriers for themselves, but (Noureddine) Morceli runs at will, with no inhibitions.” – Eamonn Coghlan, champion middle-distance runner for Ireland, regarding the Olympic gold medalist from Algeria "When you are face to face with a difficulty, you are up against a discovery.” – Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), physicist/engineer "Skillful sailors gain their reputation from storms and tempest.” – Epicurus (341-270 BC) "A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.”  – Charles de Gaulle "Man needs difficulties, they are necessary for health.” – Carl Jung Lack of armoring/holding/restrictions in the chest, on the other hand, will express itself in the arms and hands, as seen in great artists, musicians and dancers. These restrictions can appear elsewhere as well, including the neck and head, as Pierce-Jones noted. (Reich also noticed that the segmental array of the muscular armor looks like the structure of a worm.) Note that physical restrictions have an emotional counterpart: mental considerations, which are basically the reasons we give ourselves why we can't accomplish a goal or make a sale. To dissect a consideration is to address a restriction, and vice-versa. Note that the ancient Greek concept of ataraxia mainly entailed freedom from this type of consideration. “A purely disembodied human emotion is a non-entity.” – William James, America's premier psychologist “Cease to use your hands, and you have lopped off a huge part of your consciousness.” – English novelist George Orwell “Know where your hands are located at all times.” – Billy Blanks, tae bo developer and former boxer How do you stop an Italian from talking? Chop off his hands. – old canard Dr. Yang has described a similar phenomena from the point of view of acupressure. He notes that when the flow of Qi in the 12 main meridians is not normal, there exist eight “reservoirs” that help re-regulate the flow. The reservoirs (the 8 Qi Mai, or Qi vessels) act as capacitors (energy storage units) in an electrical circuit. They are often referred to as reservoirs because they store Qi for the system. Says Yang, these eight extraordinary ki vessels are still not fully understood. They contribute to the maintenance of homeostasis, so they are sometimes called the Homeostatic Meridians. French acupuncturists call them the Miraculous Meridians because treatment here has delivered relief when other methods have failed. “I'll perform miracles, if you want me to stoop that low.” – Adorable, I'll Be Your Saint, 1993 Each of these channels exerts a strong effect upon psychic functioning and individuality, and for this reason they are occasionally called the Eight Psychic Channels. It’s also important to note that at least from a figurative point of view, if not in physical reality, these homeostatic meridians travel, or at a minimum branch off, at angles perpendicular to the main channels which tend to run in vertical fashion, verifying the claims of Reich. Back to the context of sports massage: One of our main aims on the massage table, borrowing the lines of thought of Earls & Myers, is to induce a client to “relax into length” (stretch out the softened taffy) which is the physical counterpart of letting go. (Rolf says we induce balance.) As a side effect, one that is generally not predicted by the vast amount of bodywork publishing and research, at least not directly, we are aiding optimal joint alignment, centration and function to occur spontaneously, though with a certain time-lag. Remember the connection between joint misalignment and the startle pattern, which is a more clinical name for choking. On a personal level, I've noticed that when I'm "in the now," as various authors such as Eckhart Tolle put it, I can feel a release and more awareness in my joints, which happens to be one of the more provocative aspects of orgasm (carpopedal spasm). “The energy of contraction, however measured, is a function of the length of the muscle fiber.” – Ernest Starling, eminent British physiologist (1866-1927) “We don’t push the punch – we release it. This requires relaxing (first).” – Brian Chichester, Powerfully Fit, 1996 “Time is not a line, but a series of now points.” – Taisen Deshimaru (1914-1982), swordmaster and Zen Buddhist teacher “There is music in the spacing of the spheres.” – Pythagoras (6th to 5th century BC) This corroborates the view of Fuller, who said that if we want to achieve something worthwhile in life, we have two options. One, we can go directly for the goal and get the precessional effect, the one that nature intends to give us anyway. For instance, the goal of the military establishment, beyond self-perpetuation, is to take down the enemy, whether real or perceived. The intense levels of military research and development, almost inadvertently however, and happening at 90-degree angles to the main intention, have led to a windfall of technological advances for the common man. These include the internet, cell phones, and GPS technology, developments that manifest themselves after a certain time-lag from the original conception. The way Bucky saw it, what humanity rates as “side effects” are nature’s main effects. “The by-product is sometimes more valuable than the product.” – Havelock Ellis, English physician/scholar (1859-1939) Two, we can choose to go for the effect and get the goal. For instance, humans have been money-seeking beings for a very long time. Like the honeybee, we go after money (honey). When we do this, what is our precessional effect? What falls out, at 90-degree angles, from our pathway of seeking money, or whatever goal we're pursuing? “I cannot afford to waste my time making money.” – Swiss-American geologist/biologist Jean Louis Agassiz (1807-73), when offered a lucrative lecture tour In the realm of sports massage, one of our main precessional effects is to decrease resistance to movement, whether our goal is to soothe a sore lower back or run three miles at a personal-best time. A note of warning, lest we attempt to use precession as a quick-fix: Fuller reminded us that it's the nature of precession to produce its fruits at the last possible moment – right around the time we lose hope and patience. Back to a massage context, when nervous anxiety (and its cousin, self-invalidation) abounds, one muscle area to react quickly is the rectus abdominis (abdominal elevator), part of our Tin Can Union Jack. The key point here is that our work on the adductors, courtesy of the domino effect, passes through the PC (pubo-coccygeal muscle) of the pelvic floor onto the transverse and rectus abdomini that form the + of the Union Jack “flag.” One way to gauge success here is if our client/partner experiences a twitching sensation or pulsation in the PC area, a key indicator for an emergent space of well-being. Dr. Arnold Kegel (1874-1972) has observed that the health and positioning (alignment?) of the PC is paramount in this regard. To that end, it takes but little stretch of the imagination to call the PC our physiological "reset button." All told, we're seeing a precessional alleviation of a psychological state addressed through physical means – minus the customary time-lag between conception of an idea and its reduction into physical practice. In a relatively recent confirmation of the concept of precession occurring in the human body, a Dr. John Austin in 1992 noted a direct relationship between the Alexander Technique and respiratory endurance. Austin, professor of radiology at Columbia-Presbyterian in New York, also noted increasing strength and/or endurance of the muscles of the abdominal wall, minus the abdominal crunches, it would seem. He also noted that these improvements appeared to be indirect results (precession) of the lengthening in stature that the Technique fostered (MacDonald). "A long lean look comes from lengthening the psoas, not from shortening the rectus abdominis." – Joseph Heller, founder of the Hellerwork method of bodywork Just because the concept of precession is relatively unknown does not mean we cannot factor it into our quest for optimal levels of performance. If the tug of the sun’s gravity upon earth causes our planet to orbit at a 90-degree angle to the original pull, that should be enough evidence to indicate that precession may well be a universal law of physical motion, to a degree that may encourage us to give up the handcuffs of pure logic when it comes to achieving superior performance on the playing field. Does your coach talk like this? "It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking at it that one overcomes it; but, rather, often by working on the one next to it. Certain people and certain things require to be approached on an angle." – Frenchman André Gide, Nobel prize winner for literature, 1947 "An architect proves his skill by turning the defects of a site into advantages." – Bernini, Italian sculptor/architect (1598-1680) "There is water in every lane, so it is OK." – swimmer Ian Thorpe, winner of five Olympic golds for Australia, on drawing lane five for a final "If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough." – race car driver Mario Andretti (also attributed to Stirling Moss and Parnelli Jones) Page four Main page