Day 3 is set to begin in Las Vegas as the Men’s Freestyle division takes over the arena. Our crew is in the spectator role today and not all by choice.
I was fortunate to wake up early enough to watch the sun rise this morning. After the way some performed yesterday, I didn’t know for sure if it would. 😉
Wrestling tournaments are great in so many ways. I love wrestling and I love competition, that goes without saying. I love to win, and I also love the pursuit of trying to improve so that winning can become a reality. For me, this is as true as a coach as it was as an athlete, even if it looks different. However, sport kicks you in the face without warning sometimes and you end up experiencing almost everything except winning. Then what? How you make sense of those experiences and learn and grow from them is a major component of why we do what we do.
Spoken like someone who didn’t experience many wins yesterday, huh?
One of my heroes in sport and life is Olympic Gold Medalist Ben Peterson. He once said, “always compete, and when you can, win.” I love the simplicity of the saying because it captures the true competitive nature inside the world’s best winners. Winning happens a lot more for those who are relentless competitors.
What’s the difference between wanting to compete and wanting to win?
That’s an important question for athletes to come to grips with. We often talk about “surrendering the outcome” to bring freedom to the competitive experience. Compete hard and with great intention and purpose without attaching yourself to the outcome. But what does it mean to compete?
To compete is to give yourself entirely to a moment in time and to scratch and claw and grit your teeth while trying to be your best and do your best. To implement strategy and hustle while avoiding going through the motions. To engage all senses and pull out an intensity that is paired with a controlled aggression that expressing a willingness to stress and strain and do whatever it takes to succeed, which is never as simple as a desired outcome. It’s to leave it all on the mat each time you step foot inside the circle and consistently find more to leave on the mat all over again. To fight for your right to…fill in the blank (thank you Beastie Boys).
How do you access that ideal competitive state? The Zone. That’s the takeaway from Day 2. Wow, do we ever need to learn how to compete.
Can we do that? Can you do that?
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