"The Space Between Stimulus & Response" -- Reading @gtmumford's "The Mindful Athlete" - "Think about the eye of a hurricane..No matter how intense the storm, that calm, blue center is always there." Metaphor depicts the space between stimulus & response. amazon.com/Mindful-Athlet…
"We all have that quiet center within us" -- "Mindfulness reconnects us to this center space, where we fully experience the present moment & have access to the transcendent wisdom that's often associated with conscious flow." @gtmumford
"Between stimulus & response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth & our freedom." Viktor Frankl
'@TheDaily_Coach shares a story Bill Parcell's highlighted to his @dallascowboys team in 2006 about two boxers, Vito Antuofermo & Cyclone Hart who both reached a point in their match where they were entering the "thin line" zone thedailycoach.substack.com/p/the-thin-line
Parcell's on Boxing - “It’s a laboratory. You get a real feel for human behavior under the strongest duress — under the threat of physical harm.” In this laboratory he has identified a phenomenon he calls the 'game quitter."
Parcell said that "Game quitters seem as if they are trying to win, but really they’ve given up. They’ve just chosen a way out that’s not apparent to the naked eye. They are more concerned with public opinion than the end result.”
Hart was able to hear Antuofermo say "Every time he hit me with that left hook to the body, I was sure I was going to quit. After the second round, I thought if he hit me there again, I’d quit. I thought the same thing after the fourth round. Then he didn’t hit me no more."
“Hart began to weep. He was crying b/c for the 1st time he understood that Antuofermo had felt the same way he had & worse. The only thing that separated the guy talking from the guy crying was what they had done. The coward & the hero feel the same emotions. They’re both human.”
Parcells added that @dallascowboys on that day "were Cyclone Hart" - "This is the story of our last game" & this is the story that most athletes face at some point in a game/match - How are they going to REACT to the stimulus that's in front of them.
"Life is all about the stimulus that we experience in the world & the way we interpret that in our minds. We can REACT to this stimulus in various knee-jerk ways - with anger, agitation, anxiety, fear, craving, doubt, guilt -- or we can RESPOND........"
"We can RESPOND to this stimulus by getting still, paying attention "on purpose" to what thoughts & feelings come up within ourselves without judgment, & by acting from this center space of calm." The former way of being will keep us stuck in the same place."
"The latter way of being, as {Viktor} Frankl suggests, will led us on a path to personal transformation, freedom, & flow." "This calm center space is what anchors the mindful athlete in the present moment & facilitates high performance & flow." @gtmumford
"The athlete who is in championship form has a quiet place in himself. And it's out of that his ACTION comes. If he's all in the action field, he's not performing properly. There's a center out of which you act; in dance this is true, too."
"There's a center that has to be known & held. It's quite physically recognized by the person. But unless this center has been found, you're torn apart. Tension comes." Joseph Campbell
If this is your first time hearing the name Joseph Campbell, I suggest you listen to his series of interviews with @BillMoyers that were aired in 1988, "The Power of Myth" - film.avclub.com/joseph-campbel…
Linking the @nytimes 2006 Michael Lewis article, "What Keeps Bill Parcells Awake at Night," that references Bill Parcell's lessons from the boxing match between Vito Antuofermo & Cyclone Hart. nytimes.com/2006/10/29/spo… 
@gtmumford unroll @threadreaderapp
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
