Slow Motion Visioning

I’m fascinated by superstar players in sports – how they almost seem to see things in slow motion despite the frenetic pace of a game and can seemingly adjust in mid-air.   

Some of that enhanced performance comes from having “seen” so many similar “field” situations in the past (i.e., they’ve put in their 10,000+ hours).  Thus, they almost automatically know what’s going to happen in advance (e.g., the defensive player is moving to the right and can’t stop, or that ground ball is going to hop waist-high, not knee-high). 

And I’m sure that hyper-acute awareness, combined with instant reaction times to subtle changes in circumstance, plays a key role. 

But I’m suspecting that some degree of enhanced performance also relates to extraordinarily fast contextual processing – to a point that what passes in an instant for the casual observer can actually be “seen” unfolding with elongated broadband perception by the superstar.  (Maybe that’s also true for the referees, with whom we frequently have differing perceptions? Or maybe not!)

Focus and anticipation are additional key factors in recognition, processing and reaction. 

What’s frustrating to the avid fan – not to mention to the star or superstar athlete … or to the coach – is inconsistency.  Why does it all happen to near perfection some of the time and NOT all of the time … in particular, at extremely crucial times?  How could the highly ranked and rated University of Kentucky basketball team – which has had strokes of brilliance throughout the season – struggle so much against unranked teams so late in the season – and especially on their home court?   Competing teams always seem to take the floor against Kentucky already “pumped” to the max! 

In “Top Dog”, Bronson and Merryman point out that elite performance in everything from chess to highly exacting surgery to world cup dog handling to soccer is associated with an anticipatory rise in testosterone, plus a continuing rise of T-levels during performance.  However, this is not necessarily the case with chess Masters playing in local or regional tournaments, where they have much lower angst about the competition and where they occasionally lose. 

It almost seems that “fast-tracking” individuals go “off-line” when not sufficiently challenged ... a kind of "tortoise versus hare" problem: 

·         Relaxing to a fault against lesser opponents

·         Daydreaming in slow traffic

·         Texting while driving

·         Etc.

We understand that the testosterone rise is not a “triggering” or “initiating” event but a “sustaining” response to neural “prepping”.  However, it suggests that whatever testosterone is doing is an excellent marker of whatever else is happening.  More simply put, if an elite competitor is not UP for a game – whatever that means and however it happens – the chance for success is markedly diminished.    

So the job for an elite player, and for his or her coach, is to figure out how to consistently move the ready-meter UP for peak performance.  How do they get the adrenalin and testosterone flowing and lock-in the anticipation, the visioning, the hyper-acute awareness, the focus, the penetrating, broadband perception and the super-speed contextualization?  More to the point, how do WE do it? 

I can’t wait to finish the book!   Stay tuned.  Quartermaster

Hiding in Plain Sight

LIFE’S TOUGH 

The CHALLENGES are formidable,

the RESPONSIBILITIES awesome,

the EXPECTATIONS out-of-sight, and

TIME is always too short for what we want and need to do.

To protect ourselves from the vicissitudes of life, we often hide in variably constructed “shells” – each of us having our own personal mode of sheltering from the storms. 

·         Some of us busy ourselves to exhaustion in trivial pursuits. 

·         Shop-a-holics shop.

·         Alcoholics hide in a bottle.

·         Drug addicts mind-travel to unpredictable places as far from the real world as possible.

·         “Millennials” do video games, Facebook, Twitter and You Tube surfing.  

·         Work-a-holics submerse themselves in work.

·         Dogged “homemakers” immerse themselves in cooking, sewing, cleaning, etc.

·         Farmers immerse themselves in farming.

·         Writers immerse themselves in writing.

·         Politicians – well, politicians hide behind anything and everything, including a whole lot of smoke screens!

·         Increasing numbers of folks are getting “hooked” on exercise.

·         Some only live and breathe for the next bingo game, soap opera, or sports event.

·         Some hide behind excuses, explanations, and trumped up calamities.

·         Some are overcome by “family obligations”.

·         Significant numbers immerse themselves in community service activities.

·         “Professional students” escape into the ivory towers of academia.

·         The numbers hiding in a world of made-up fantasy are unknown, but are likely legion.

Some of these “hiding places” and practices are patently unsustainable and potentially devastating, while others can have very positive outcomes.  An over-achieving work-a-holic can literally change the world (ala, Steve Jobs, Jonas Salk or Madame Curie) and a dogged homemaker can provide a haven of respite for family and friends. 

However, it’s worthwhile – and very likely important – to take periodic inventory of our hiding places and practices to determine how well things are working and toward what probable or possible ends. 

The truly fortunate are those who emerge from the fray with sufficient capacitization and self-efficacy to take on the world as it comes – “sheltered” by their own … and their surrounding “village’s” … ability to cope with life’s vicissitudes and exigencies head on. 

Let’s immerse (“shell”) ourselves in the very best we know (worthy challenges) and can possibly muster (gain the capacity) toward the greatest good (most legitimate) we can fathom, as well armed (efficacious) as possible.  Quartermaster