Hermann Maier, resilience, and how we should respond in a pandemic.
(Thread by a hack ski racer who currently cannot walk, about to go into surgery, but advising y'all.)
Here's our test subject, Hermann Maier, midair, realizing he'll crash at 70mph in the Olympic downhill. 1/x
(Thread by a hack ski racer who currently cannot walk, about to go into surgery, but advising y'all.)
Here's our test subject, Hermann Maier, midair, realizing he'll crash at 70mph in the Olympic downhill. 1/x
It’s Nagano, 1998, with a blind jump about four gates down from the start where you have to pick a line coming out of a gate, but the 3 racers in front of Maier have landed all over the hill, so he can’t use their tracks as a guide. He’s flying. 2/x
Maier picked the wrong line, tries to change course in midair (not possible) and rolls over. In slo mo video you can see the moment he realizes, he’s not going to save it, and his new goal is not to get broken. (And at almost 75 mph you can. Badly.) 3/x
He hits and goes through 2 fences, designed to slow, not to stop, because you don't want to use up all that kinetic energy at once. If your boot buckles hang up on the first fence, it'll practically rip your leg off. (At 75mph you have 25 times the kinetic energy of 15 mph.) 3/x
Maier survives, bruised but intact.
But a high speed fall can mess with your mind.
(Pictured, yours truly, about to experience a fall at the much calmer GS speeds of 45 mph.) 4/x
But a high speed fall can mess with your mind.
(Pictured, yours truly, about to experience a fall at the much calmer GS speeds of 45 mph.) 4/x
What does Maier do? He comes back. Two days later, he wins a gold medal in a different ski racing event. And then another gold a day after that, winning in GS and Super-G. 5/x
Maier's Austrian teammate, Stephan Eberharter, who'd won the World Cup overall, was asked, "Who's the world's greatest ski racer?" He answered, "I'm the greatest on earth. But Hermann Maier--he's from another planet." 6/x
To pivot to our situation in this pandemic, we are off course, and our less than pretty landing is ahead.
Our plans will change.
Our line will change.
We realize it.
We're making that transition from "Oh sh*t" to how to land safely with minimum damage. (Yrs truly, again) 7/x
Our plans will change.
Our line will change.
We realize it.
We're making that transition from "Oh sh*t" to how to land safely with minimum damage. (Yrs truly, again) 7/x
A huge field of study now in psychology is resilience. Some of us, with traumatic backgrounds, find a way to thrive, despite the trauma. We have resilience.
It's outside my expertise (except as a high-resilience subject with a traumatic background) but key: How do we thrive? 8/x
It's outside my expertise (except as a high-resilience subject with a traumatic background) but key: How do we thrive? 8/x
On the World Cup downhill teams, there are more torn ACL ligaments than there are athletes, because many of them have torn both ACLs, and are still competing as the top skiers for their countries.
That's the kind of resilience we're going to need ahead, in this pandemic. 9/x
That's the kind of resilience we're going to need ahead, in this pandemic. 9/x
Facing surgery Friday, and as a part of several communities (writing, Aikido, humanity) I'm shifting my focus: Away from outrage (plenty to be outraged about) to: how do we move forward? How do we build a new normal? How to land so we can get up again?
Good luck to us all. 10/10
Good luck to us all. 10/10
