Pretty slow these days, so here is the final metaphor: 

PATH UP THE MOUNTAIN METAPHOR

Suppose you are taking a hike in the mountains. You know how mountain trails are constructed, especially if the slopes are steep. They wind back and forth; often they have “switchbacks” which make you literally walk back and forth, and sometimes a trail will even drop back to below a level you had reached earlier. If I asked you at a number of points on such a trail to evaluate how well you are accomplishing your goal of reaching the mountain top, I would hear a different story every time. If you were in switchback mode, you would probably tell me that things were not going well, that you were never going to reach the top. If you were in a stretch of open territory where you could see the mountaintop and the path leading up to it, you would probably say that things were going very well. Now imagine that we are across the valley with binoculars, looking at people hiking on this trail. If we were asked how they were doing, we would have a positive progress report every time. We would be able to see that the overall direction of the trail, not what it looks like at a given moment, is the key to progress. We would see that following this crazy, winding trail is exactly what leads to the top.

Source: Steven Hayes, Ph.D.

SKIING METAPHOR

 

Suppose you go skiing.  You take a lift to the top of a hill, and you are just about to ski down the hill when a man comes along and asks where you are going.  “I’m going to the lodge at the bottom” you reply.  He says, “I can help you with that” and promptly grabs you, throws you into a helicopter, and flies you to the lodge.  You’d be upset, no?  Skiing is not just the goal of getting to the lodge, because any number of activities can accomplish that for us.  Skiing is how we are going to get there.  Yet notice that getting to the lodge is important because it allows us to do the process of skiing in a direction.  If I tried to ski uphill instead of down, it wouldn’t work.  Valuing down over up is necessary in downhill skiing.  Steven Hayes, Ph.D. describes this as: Outcome is the process through which the process can become the outcome.

Three quotes from John Wooden appear to hit on the same concept:

“A successful journey is the destination”

“The glory is in getting there”

“The journey is better than the inn”

I guess that it is up to you to figure out how all this is relevant to goals, wrestling, and you.

SWAMP METAPHOR

 Suppose you are beginning a journey to a beautiful mountain you can clearly see in the distance.  No sooner do you start the hike than you walk right into a swamp that extends as far as you can see in all directions.  You say to yourself, “Gee, I didn’t realize that I was going to have to go through a swamp.  It’s smelly, and the mud is all mushy in my shoes.  It’s hard to lift my feet out of the muck and put them forward.  I’m wet and tired.  Why didn’t anybody tell me about this swamp?” When that happens you have a choice: abandon the journey or enter the swamp.  We go into the swamp, not because we want to get muddy, but because it stands between us and where we are going. 

Steven Hayes, Ph.D. states that this metaphor highlights the fact that when we are traveling in a particular direction, the journey can take us across difficult ground.  It also shows that we don’t walk into pain because we like pain.  We walk through pain in the service of taking a valued direction. This is one of three metaphors related to goal setting. 

Hopefully, you reflect on it and on your direction and goals as they pertain to next year in wrestling, school, etc. 

This is the link to the article on Tiger Woods in the LA Times.  I have included some comments made in the article that reflects what we talked about in practice. Being non-judgmental when you are wrestling will increase your mindfulness skills, which will lead to a better performance.  Being non-judgmental will also allow you to be in the moment during your match and as we talked not become your thoughts, emotions, or react negatively to certain physiological responses (e.g. fatigue).  Continue to practice being non-judmental in practice and be mindful of this skill at the next tournament.  One last point: don’t judge your judging.

From the LA Times  Click to see the full article

“If playing great were all that Woods is about, that would probably be plenty, but there’s another quality even more important than skill.”

“It’s his mind, and that very well could be his greatest weapon.”

“But can they do it when the pressure is the greatest, when the lights are on, when the intimidation factor of a major championship scares the air right out of your lungs?”

“Mental toughness, I think you could put it into words,” he said. “It’s stuff like you never give up. You never give in to anything. You never accept anything but the best from yourself. You can always push to get better.”

“Tiger, he’s at his calmest when he’s in the last round and things are coming down to the end,”

“He’s been trained since a very young age to concentrate and focus and stay in the moment,”

A few weeks ago we started to incorporate mental techniques into the Condor Wrestling Club Practices.

On monday, we did an exercise to highlight the following: 

1) All of us have Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs)

example: “The guy that I’m going to wrestle looks way stronger than me” (I’ll use this ex. thoughout this post)

2) ANTs lead to a poor state of mind

example: anxious/not confident about the match (because you think the guy is stronger and will beat you)

3) A poor state of mind leads to undesirable  behavior (poor performance)

example: Not being aggressive, not defending a takedown, not trying to escape when on bottom, not controlling your opponent when on top, etc.

Although it is normal to have ANTs, we also talked about how to manage them when they happen (because you will have them again)

Through another exercise we learned that we can talk back to these ANTs (you teenagers might be good at this in other settings :))  Some of the ways to handle ANTs were:

1) Talk back to the ANTs to counter them

example: ” I have beaten guys that looked stronger than me in the past” or “just b/c he looks strong, it does not mean that he is good wrestler” or “Even if he is stronger than me, I can use my speed and other skills” or “I am strong too”

2) Strength is not an all or nothing thing, it is on a continuum (even a baby has some strength to hold a bottle)

example: we all saw that even the  lightest guy in the room “felt” strong even when drilling against a guy 50 pounds heavier.

3) Find evidence that supports your responses (you have beaten guys in the past that looked stronger) or make sure that you believe in your statements (even if you only believe 80% of it).  Talking back w/ a positive remark that you do not believe in will not do the trick.

Practice noticing your ANTs and talking back to them (you need to do this in order to learn to use this skill during a match).

We’ll talk more about how to handle ANTs next monday