Below I list the Buddhist Eight-fold path as described by Bruce Lee in “Tao of Jeet Kune Do.” When I came across this I felt like it spoke directly to the process we as coaches go through with our athletes when we are trying to make a change. Without knowing it, we attempt to carry them through these eight steps, and with those athletes unable to make a change, I can usually tell which step they get hung up on.
1. Right views (understanding): You must clearly see what is wrong.
2. Right purpose (aspiration): Decide to be cured.
3. Right speech: Speak so as to aim at being cured.
4. Right conduct: You must act.
5. Right vocation: Your livelihood must not conflict with therapy.
6. Right effort: The therapy must go forward at the ‘staying speed,’ the critical velocity that can be sustained.
7. Right awareness (mind control): You must feel it and think about it incessantly.
8. Right concentration (meditation): Learn how to contemplate with the deep mind.
Let’s look at these first four steps and shift to the perspective of the swimmer rather than the coach. When we set a goal to achieve something new, we first have to see what we need to do differently. That may sound easy but it’s quite uncommon. We tend to be blind to our weaknesses. Are you willing to look at your shortcomings? To admit them to yourself or to others?
Perhaps you can see what you need to do differently. Getting stuck on Step 2 is when you want to make the change but you don’t. This is sometimes hard to detect because you can be going through the motions of what it takes without truly deciding to accept “the cure” because that cure has some consequences you may not like. Having that willingness to accept what needs to be done is a huge step.
Steps 3 and 4 are about starting to carryout the change. You must speak in a way that will help you to make the change and you must act on your speech.
One of the biggest impediments to following the Eight-Fold Path that I see in athletes is when they make a change and do not see an immediate effect. Or they see an immediate effect which is negative. I had been searching for a long time for an analogy to explain to my athletes the process which I want them to undertake when a change is necessary. And one night driving home from practice, I found it.
It was about 9:30pm and I hit the dreaded night roadwork on the highway. Doesn’t seeing that neon sign feel like a punch in the mouth? This particular road that I was on had terrible traffic on it all day, so the solution is to widen the road, take out a few lights, build a new bridge even. Ok, sounds good, right? But wait, to make those improvements traffic will actually get worse in the short-term (I use ‘short’ loosely here as we all know how long those projects can last). But we put up with that worsening of the problem because in the long-term it will result in an improvement. That’s often the same process we go through when trying to make a change in our technique, or our training habits. Short term you have to make it worse so long term you can make it better. A short-term regression to make a long-term progression. How many of us are prepared to do that?
That 1st step needs more attention, for what is really required is awareness. To fix any problems that are hindering your performance, to make the gains you want to, you must first have some understanding of yourself, of how you think and how you feel. Without that understanding you won’t know whether you are doing the right things or the wrong things.
Physical awareness is your ability to know where you body is in space. Sounds obvious enough, but there is a big difference between knowing you are swimming in a pool, and knowing exactly where your hand is entering in backstroke, or whether your hips have dropped an inch during the middle of a tough set, or whether your head is coming up too high for a breath in butterfly, or whether your elbows are too far back in your breaststroke pull. Or how about bad posture? Do you feel like your shoulders are forward and your back bent? Probably not, and that’s the problem. Physical awareness is essential for technique improvement, reducing drag and improving efficiency. I believe awareness seperates, more than conditioning differences, 1st place from 8th place. Physical awareness is tied to that mysterious feel for the water you hear so much about.
Improving physical awareness is a long process, one that takes concentration and constant vigilence. You have to keep thinking about your technique, you can’t simply think of it only during times when you aren’t tired and able to go slowly. Try to feel technique as much as possible, rather than only thinking about technique.
Another type of awareness is mental awareness, which is recognizing or understanding the type of thoughts you have, what causes them and the emotions that follow. For me, this is much, much harder than physical awareness. The mind can be like a black box that you can’t see into. Our thoughts often come quickly and our reactions to them play out on a near subconscious level. Often we don’t see character traits in ourselves that everyone else does. For instance, you may not think you are pessimistic even though its clear to everyone else you are. So it’s impossible to change from being a pessimist to being an optimist if you don’t recognize that you are a pessimist first!
Getting to the point of having awareness about your emotions and thought patterns is an accomplishment. Most people simply act, think, and feel on automatic. Not being on automatic during practice is the goal, doing everything with attention and awareness will bring you better results faster. This is the difference between mindlessness and mindfulness.
Mindfulness is giving complete attention to what is happening right now. The more often you can be in a mindful state physically, the better your technique will get, and the more often you can be mindful about your thoughts and emotions, the easier it will be to reach your goals, whether they be in the pool or in other parts of your life.
In ancient Greece
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