Winners & Winning V: Narelle Krizek & the Heart of a Coach

Narelle Krizek, currently the assistant director of US Squash’s Arlen Specter Center, made an interesting choice when talking to me about a significant match in her life.  Rather than speaking of her Junior World Championship or her Women’s World Doubles title, two supreme highlights for an athlete’s resume, she chose to discuss her 2013 Mixed Doubles World Championship which she won with fellow Australian Paul Price.  Narelle talked about the tremendous privilege of being the doubles partner of such a talented and confident player.  In fact, in relating the experience of the match and her dynamic with Paul Price, Narelle was also talking about the ideal relationship between coach and student, ideals which form her fundamental values as a coach.  Paul did this for Narelle in the following ways:

Creating Comfort.  Narelle reported that though Paul had a somewhat gruff reputation on tour, his demeanor with her was “gentle, positive, and reassuring.”  Because of these traits, which greatly emboldened her confidence, she was able to “relax and just play my game.  It was the most comfortable I ever felt.”  As she evolved into coaching, and into the parent of athletes, she too has taken on this task of creating comfort for her players and kids.  We know how important this is because, so often, parents and coaches create discomfort for their players by communicating in harsh tones, voicing disappointment, harping on opportunities missed, and inducing shame.

Fun.  Being comfortable creates the space whereby fun can be had.  Narelle stated, “even though I was dead exhausted from the other matches, I was able to just sit back and have fun in the final.  It was so much fun.”  Wouldn’t this be the ideal outcome?  To be able to be comfortable enough to play your best squash, and to savor the moment?  For sure, that’s winning.

Infusion.  One of the most powerful aspects of this match, and the element that cemented her style of coaching, was Paul Price’s ability to infuse her with several crucial building blocks of peak performance, components that allowed her best self to emerge.  They are:

            Trust: Narelle cited Paul’s trust in her as critical to her success.  While she had one of the better reverse corners in the draw, Paul’s trust in it bolstered hers, encouraging her to hit it often, and in doing so, he licensed her best self, gave it the green light.  He said things like, “we need your reverse.  You have the best reverse in the tournament.  Hit it often.  All will be well.”  Even when she hit it and it didn’t produce results, he encouraged her, saying, “it’s OK.  That was the right shot.  Keep it up.”  By removing doubt in her, she was able to play from that trusting place that always produces good results and fun.

            Confidence: An offshoot of trust is confidence.  Paul continued to enthuse Narelle with confidence, and, of course, he exuded confidence himself given his own place in the game.  It’s as if he gave some of his talent to her, supporting her, reminding her of her own strengths.  He modeled confidence.  This is what confidence looks like, and you can have some too, he was saying in his body language, in his words, in everything.

            Positivity and Calm: Paul breathed positivity and calm.  In doing so, Narelle breathed it in.  These attributes seem to stem from confidence and talent, but they are also stances, mindsets.  They communicate that, no matter what, all will be well.  Paradoxically, this stance has already accepted the possibility of defeat, and so all of the fear of losing is gone.  All that remains is the fun of the chase.

I was not surprised that she chose this match, given how much it contributed to her coaching career.  This is the place she coaches from.  She recognizes that when a player comes off court, her job is to create comfort, knowing that the conversation between player and coach can go one of two ways: 1) the coach’s disappointment and anxiety can come through, adding to the player’s strain, shame, and lack of confidence; or, 2) the coach can infuse the player with the trust, confidence, and calm to execute a game plan, to know and enjoy one’s strengths, and to have fun.  If you’re a coach, parent, boss or mentor, choose option 2 every time.

What Simone Biles Can Teach Rory McIlroy (or any athlete managing burnout)

If you’re a fan of Rory McIlroy’s, then you will have groaned along with him through his disappointing performances in the big events this year. Sure, he is going through some swing adjustments. Sure, he won the tour event at Quail Hollow this year. But, when the chips have been down in important moments, he has looked somewhat hang dog and stuck in second or third gear: A missed cut at the Masters, a T46 at the PGA, a T56 at the British, following a missed cut at the Scottish Open. My blood ran cold as I listened to his press conference prior to the US Open, because it screamed of an athlete looking to get mental monkeys off of his back, of an athlete fighting with apathy, and having the pressure of huge performance expectations on his back. In the press conference, he said things like:

“[I’ve been putting] Too much pressure on myself, playing too carefully, being too tentative, not playing free.”

“[I’ve been asking] How do you take the pressure off yourself? By being indifferent. Not by not caring, but by not putting pressure on myself that I have to care.

“The difference between 2011 [when I won my last US Open] and now: “I had less going on in my head. I was less cynical.”**

I know that many athletes recently have revealed mental health struggles (Bubba Watson, Naomi Osaka), and this is great for sport and hopefully reduces stigma and increases access to mental health services. But, here, in facing yet more questions about why he hasn’t won a major in seven years, Rory is revealing just the kind of pressure he is under, and just the kind of deleterious effects such pressure has. One look at his face, and you can see that the fire that used to burn so fiercely in him has dimmed considerably. Furthermore, in that press conference, he referred to some advice he gave a young, female, Irish golfer, by saying that if she were to endure the “boring, mundane, and tedious” practice sessions, she could have a successful career. He’s crossed to line from convincing himself he doesn’t have to care, to dreading the monotony of it. He has pressure on his shoulders because he has to redouble his efforts when he has no interest in doing the rote work necessary to compete at that level. It’s no fun for him anymore, but the stakes are very high, and his sponsors are paying him a lot of money to care. It is just the kind of pressure Simone Biles cited as compounding the noise in her head, and helped derail her Olympic bid this year.

But, consider Rory’s plight: He’s been at this for coming on 15 years. With the wrap around season, there is no down time. For golf superstars, their calendar is truly international, with globetrotting and all the ensuing punishments that entails for the body. Additionally, in the Tiger era, training for golf has become a relentless pursuit, with many hours in the gym, crafting a super-hero body. Ask Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd, Lee Trevino, and Arnold Palmer how many hours they spent in the gym. Indeed, half of the guys on tour in those years smoked. Finally, Rory now has a young daughter, and his new role as a father complicates his time and pulls on his priorities in ways he couldn’t have imagined when he won his US Open at Congressional in 2011. At this point, watching Poppy toddle is probably a lot more fascinating than another “boring” range session, “tedious” gym workout, or “mundane” weekend travel to Dubai, no matter how large the appearance fee.

Here it is in Biles’ own words:

I say put mental health first. Because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're not going to succeed as much as you want to. So, it's OK sometimes to even sit out the big competitions to focus on yourself, because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are — rather than just battle through it. ***

Here she is laying out a formula by which less is more, and which says that sometimes you have to get off the same merry-go-round that brought you all of your success and fame in the first place. Indeed, use your place in your sport to give yourself a sabbatical. Several things need to be in place in order to support and encourage athletes in doing that:

• The mindfulness to recognize stress responses to pressure; that poor performance isn’t indicative of the need for more work, but for a break.
• A supportive family, community, and entourage that will endorse your decision.
• Governing bodies that are willing to reduce the number of events to keep its star athletes fresh, even if it means a loss in revenue.
• Governing bodies that are willing to factor in breaks and sabbaticals into rankings, tour cards, and qualifications for big events so that stepping away from the sport doesn’t carry the penalty of needing to re-qualify for everything. Let them come back where they left.

These changes would be almost unfathomable changes for most sport governing bodies, but doing so would be a sign that they truly care about their athletes and see them as people rather than as profit streams. But the change has to also come from within the athlete to listen to the inner voice, and to have an authentic conversation with that voice to, as Simone says, “put the mental first.” It’s on the athlete to rediscover the joy in the play, and the play in the work. Have fun again. Or stop.

**USOPEN.COM

*** “Read What Simone Biles Said After Her Withdrawal From The Olympic Final,” www.NPR.ORG, July 28, 2021.

Justin Thomas II: Opposite Action in Action

Maybe you saw that Justin Thomas just won The Players’ Championship, golf’s fifth major with harrowing closing holes that guarantee a pressure-filled and exciting finale. And this year was no different. Of note, Justin Thomas was able to win such a difficult tournament so recently after a number of setbacks, just the kinds of life events that can often derail a player for a long time: he had a very publicized public relations gaffe referred to in my last post, he lost his grandfather with whom he was very close, and his good friend and Presidents’ Cup teammate Tiger Woods was involved in a catastrophic and career-ending car accident which he was lucky to survive.

Asked how he managed to hold it together during these tribulations, he made the following response: “I talked to people. I reached out to people. I mean, I’m not embarrassed to say that I reached out to people to kind of let my feelings out and just discuss stuff with them….some of the thoughts and things I was feelings, it wasn’t fair to myself and I needed to do something. And my girlfriend was very helpful with that and staying on me to make sure I was taking care of myself…”* In this response, he leaves out the fact that he also made an immediate, non-defensive, and total apology for his social gaffe, reached out to the constituencies he offended, and went on a training program to understand the root of his implicit bias and to show the genuineness of his repair attempt.

I don’t know if he is referring to seeking out a therapist, but in reaching out to people he is, perhaps unwittingly, referring to an emotion regulation skill called “Opposite Action.”** All of the events he experienced (embarrassment, grief, loss) elicit emotions which have action urges that bring the sufferer inward, to hide, to withdraw, to isolate. Acting opposite the action urge is a quick and effective way to change the emotion, and in this case, it was to reach out to people who could validate him, support him, and mainly relieve the negative voice stream in his head. In doing so, he had his sadness normalized, his thoughts re-balanced, easing his sense of shame and self-blame. Also, he shortened time frame of his suffering, and won one of the larger prizes in golf, including pulling off some particular nerve-wracking shots on the 72^nd hole.

To review: Justin Thomas experienced three events that had strong negative emotional impact, all of which could have derailed his entire season, if not his career. The negative emotions have action urges of avoiding and shunning. Instead, he acted opposite those action urges, made apologies, took action, and reached out for solace. Aspects of his practice that were particularly effective are that he went to people who wouldn’t reject him or reinforce his negative thinking. Finally, he didn’t just pay it lip service, he went all the way and he kept on doing it. Opposite Action works best when you do it thoroughly and repeatedly. So, the next time you are experiencing some emotional turmoil that might interfere with your game and noticing the urge to withdraw, practice some opposite action, and you may just find yourself walking tall and playing your best game.

*Morfit, Cameron. 2021. “Monday Finish: Justin Thomas Finds Better ‘Headspace’ at THE PLAYERS.” Pgatour.com. 03.15.2021

**Although the behavioral practice of exposure is not hers, the skill “Opposite Action,” as I’m using it here comes from Marsha Linehan and can be found in her “DBT Skills Training, Handouts and Worksheets,” 2 ^nd Edition. 2015. Guilford Press. New York, pp. 231-240 & 280.

Justin Thomas, the PGA Tour & the Stain of Homophobia on Male Sport

If you are a golf fan, as I am, you will have by now heard of the episode involving Justin Thomas, currently ranked #3 in the world, at the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii. And as disappointing as it was, you may have even been encouraged by his heartfelt apology and commitment to do the necessary self-examination to “be a better person.” However, there are still elements of the event that continue to unsettle me and reveal just how much, on a systemic level, homophobia is just as alive as it ever has been in male sport. To support this claim, consider the following:

1) Though a financial penalty is probably imminent from the PGATOUR, it has not been announced yet, nor has there been a statement distancing themselves from homophobia in any form and stating that it has no place on their tour. I gather that they don’t generally make public statements about players' fines, but it’s strange that they don’t see their silence as a tacit approval.

2) While Ralph Lauren was quick to drop their endorsement deal with him, with the rapidity one would expect from a product line so directly affected. Citigroup announced in a blog * (2 weeks later) that they were staying with him after a large portion of this year’s sponsorship money of his was donated to an LGBT cause. They believe this move will help “create change.” Other sponsors, Titleist, Footjoy, Beats by Dre, NetJets, Woodford Reserve, and WHOOP have all remained silent.

Maybe you haven’t noticed this silence, but I guarantee you it has been noticed by anyone in the LGBTQ community, for whom silence has not only been equated with oppression, but actually with death, and which has been fighting for acceptance in a world which is all too happy to have it remain in the shadows of the closet. It has also been noticed by gay men, for whom that particular word is associated not just with hatred, but with violence.

Making these omissions and delays more surprising is that they come at a time when “corporate America’s appetite for dealing with such public missteps has never been lower.”** Contrast this to what happened to Tiger Woods: the shattered glass from the back window of his Escalade hadn’t even been swept up before all of his sponsors swiftly dropped him. Apparently, you become a toxic asset if you’re a philanderer, but you’re still on the payroll if you just happen to hurl around the odd homophobic epithet.

To understand the reticence of his corporate sponsors and tour, let’s look at the text of Thomas’ apology itself:

“I’m clearly not proud of what I said. It’s humiliating. It’s embarrassing. It’s not me. It’s not a word that I use, but for some reason, it was in there,” Thomas said. “ And that’s what I’m trying to figure out, as to why it was in there . It’s going to be a part of this process and training program or whatever I need to do, not only to prove to myself but prove to my sponsors and prove to these people that don’t know who I am that is indeed not the person I am.”

While he has been applauded for the sincerity of his apology, anyone who has been raised as a boy, with a male gender identity, and particularly in boys’ sport knows exactly why the “f” word is in there, and how it got there: it is still a part of male socialization that being gay is the worst thing imaginable. It is associated with everything bad in sport, being weak and losing. And that is exactly the way he used the word, apparently without even knowing that it had emerged from his mouth. It is not a comment on Justin Thomas that “it was in there,” but a comment that, despite the breathtaking advances that gay men have made (the right to marry, broad representation in TV, film, and advertising, a presidential candidate), being one is still seen as a liability to an athlete at the top levels of sport. Indeed, that word is so implicated into male socialization that it’s hard to imagine how it wouldn’t be “in there,” hard to imagine it not being in there.

So, the major disappointment here is not necessarily that, in a moment of disparaging his own play, such a word slipped out of Justin Thomas’ mouth, but rather that his tour and many of his sponsors, in their silence, have sent the message that they tacitly agree with its usage, and are not interested in doing the work they need to do to help eradicate homophobia from where it resides in them and in the culture of those they are hoping to court as customers. In avoiding that responsibility and that work, they commit an injustice to all boys, gay and straight, struggling to a healthy sexuality and balanced gender identity. And, in doing so, they continue to make participation in sport a fraught and dangerous one for any aspiring gay athlete.

One effect of the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests was that many white people woke up to the fact that police violence against Black people is not a matter of one or two “bad apples,” but a part of a system that views Black lives as both inherently threatening and worth less. Similarly, here, it is not the Justin Thomases in golf who need to apologize, though their apology is welcome when they misstep like this. Rather, it is the tour and corporate sponsors who, in not denouncing homophobia in all forms, support and sustain the culture of homophobia that has stained sport since the inception of games with rules. In order for that stain to be removed, they need to repudiate it in no uncertain terms in both word and deed. Until then, you can expect to continue hearing the “f” word until you, too, don’t notice it.

**Hasan, Carla, “When an Apology is not enough,” citigroup.com. 1.25.21.

*Rishe, Patrick, “Crisis Management: Justin Thomas and his Endorsement Portfolio after being dropped by Ralph Lauren.” Forbes.Com. 01.23.2021.

Force v. Flow, part 2

In the last post, I wrote about the difference between force and flow energies. In this post I want to discuss ways to find, practice, and increase flow energy. There are two main steps to knowing flow energy more intimately and to cultivating it more committedly: 1) learning flow and practicing it, and 2) mindfulness to the difference between force and flow.

Cultivating Flow:

1) Find an activity whose intention is flow energy: yoga, tai chi, mindful walking. An easy entry point is a practice called Yoga Nidra, a yogic practice designed for more restful sleep. In Yoga Nidra we cultivate an energy that is relaxed, but alert, and aware. In essence, we practice dropping deeper and deeper into flow and away from force. Once this practice has become a part of one’s repertoire, we then have a frame of reference for the difference between force and flow.

2) Do things with the intention to do them in flow energy: with this difference in mind, and with mindfulness to force energy, bring yourself back again and again to flow energy. Everything can be flow when practiced as a such. Don’t wash the dishes to get to the next chore. Wash the dishes, as Thich Nhat Hahn has taught us: to wash the dishes. You don’t need to be practicing or performing your sport to practice flow energy, but rather, you can practice it all the time. Turn force into the exception rather than the rule.

3) Make an inventory of things that bring you out of flow (traffic, math tests, interactions with a certain someone, fifth set tie breakers, sprints); where do you rush? Where do you try too hard? When doing them, notice the dislike, discomfort, disease, and try to drop judgment or discontent. Lean into it. Allow it rather than fighting it or pushing through. Try slowing down, evening out the energy, exploring the difficulty or dislike. Enter it.

4) Of course, none of these steps matter if you aren’t breathing diaphragmatically. Learn this and do it all the time. It is the queen of all regulation strategies, and the portal to almighty flow.

Mindfulness to Force Energy is actually an umbrella form of mindfulness that comprises many levels:

1) Mindfulness to force emotions: frustration, impatience, anger, and even frenetic forms of excitement can be windows into the fact that we are in force energy.

2) Mindfulness to force thoughts: angry thoughts, racing thoughts, resentful thoughts, disbelief, rabid competitiveness, enemizing refs, rivals, crowd, and even one’s own entourage are all indicators of force energy.

3) Mindfulness to physical sensations: tension in the shoulders, belly, face; furrowed brow, clenched jaw; heat in the face and forehead; feeling “keyed up,” energized but at several levels too high.

4) Mindlessness to time: time is moving too fast or too slowly. You are rushing where pausing is called for. You are multi-tasking where one-mindedness is called for.

If this all sounds like a big deal, it’s because it is. Not only is force energy associated with bad performance outcomes, but it is often a window into deeper truths about the self. Maybe I am in force energy because I don’t like this activity. Maybe force is masking a confidence gap. Maybe I am in force energy because these are someone else’s goals and values I am representing. I am involved in false-self activity. In force energy I can win, but it will come at a cost. In contrast, it’s very hard to fake flow. If I am doing something that I love, and that resonates with my true self, it is much easier to find flow. If it is flow-syntonic, it is probably self-syntonic. In flow, we perform better because we are articulating something real, true and urgent about ourselves. And these are things we just can’t force.

Force V. Flow, part I

When I was at my competitive peak, with an intense practice and tournament schedule, one thing I particularly loved was the very intensity of it all: pressure  drills, court sprints, plyometrics, track workouts, squat thrusts with lots of weight on the bar, a really tough match or tournament weekend.  The soreness of it all was "weakness leaving my body," I believed, and acquiring the intensity that I lacked as a junior athlete definitely made me a more confident and steely competitor.  I've written often in this blog about the virtue of hard work.  But, for as fondly as I look  back on that period, I  also recognize that there was a certain  energy that attended all that work, fueled by my love of the intensity of it: there was a kind of force.  The force turned the intensity into a kind of do-or-die mentality.  I really pushed  through workouts, and I really pushed through matches.  At the time, I thought this intensity was my saving  grace, my superpower.  But, looking back, I see that it was all perhaps too intense.  I was too intense in practice, with no time for the crucial aspects of fun, flair or spontaneity, and too intense in competition, too edgy, too perfectionistic, the lens of  my gaze too narrow to enjoy the experience to its core.  I got hung up on bad calls, and I definitely got too judgmental with myself when I bunked a workout or lost a match that was within my grasp.  While there's much that could be said about this from a personality, or even maturity standpoint, today I'm focusing on the energetic nature of it, its quality of force.  Force energy is the energy that wants to make it all happen, that thinks that pushing is the only way through difficulty.  But, the flip side is that force has a certain violence to it, and as such, can have some serious negative consequences, as I'll outline below.  Of them all, the most detrimental is that it actually impedes peak performance and peak experience.  By pushing so hard, by having so narrow a focus, the richness of the  experience is lost, and with it, the joy.  I'm proud of my  competitive record,  but if I could  do it again, I'd try to temper the force energy, and dip below it to find an ease within the effort, the eye of the  storm.

To clarify more about the opposite of  force energy is  what Mihaly Csikszmentmihaly (1990) has called  "flow."*  Flow energy isn't lethargic or  associated with bad outcomes.  It isn't lazy or passive.  Both force and flow are, indeed, goal directed, but the temperature of their focus is different, with flow being a cooler, less harsh energy.  The intensity is there, but the violence is gone.  "Try easy," is what my yoga teacher, Baron Baptiste would say in my first encounter of the concept.  What a riddling thought when you are trying to get yourself into one of those angular yoga poses.  Drop the efforting in the effort he's saying.  Drop the panting, the pedal-to-the-metaling.  There are two critical areas of divergence between force and flow energy: the attention and the intention.  Let's look at it this way:

Force Energy	Flow Energy
1. While there may be an intensity of focus, its temperature is hot, the focus is laser-like, and its vibration is frenetic. As such, it can get unmoored.	1. The focus is equally intense but its temperature is cool, the focus is anchored. It is a state of immersion.
2. The intention of force energy is on the final product, on getting there, on completion.	2. The intention of flow energy is on what is happening, the process.
3. The attention of force energy is superficial, on the surface of the task.	3. The attention of flow energy is on the core of the experience, its essence.
4. Shallow, suppressed, uneven, and vertical breaths comprise force energy, making the action more difficult and scattering the energy.	4. The breath is long, even, horizontal, and focuses the attention and supports the intention of the action.
5. Negative emotions of impatience, anger, and disappointment color force energy.	5. Flow energy allows access to emotions like contentment, gratitude, and even joy. Peak experiences happen with flow energy.
6. In force energy, we are usually having a dysfunctional relationship with time: we expect too much in too little time, we can’t believe how slowly time moves when we want it to speed up, and our bodies are out of sync with the rhythm of the universe. Force energy is asynchronous.	6. Flow energy is in perfect conjunction with time; time goes away; time flows without being noticed; flow energy is not a race against or with time. Flow energy and time are synchronous.
7. Force energy begets conduct issues, injury, and is at war with reality.	7. Flow energy, by definition in sync with reality, is easier on the body, on the nervous system, and more readily begets peak performance.

I hope it's also clear that  peak performance and peak experiences happen in a flow state.  The problem is that many aspects of being an athlete funnel us toward force rather than flow: 1) most athletes who are looking to improve and win practice hard, and so, practice with a certain amount of force; 2) many coaches, in yelling and emphasizing results, are directing practice and play towards force energy; 3) many activities that athletes practice are, by their nature, difficult, and difficulty often steers the attention towards force; 4) modern life with its pace, its value on individualism and competition over collaboration and collectivism, orients the organism toward force energy; 5) finally, since we are bathed in force energy as our cultural amniotic surround, we often have no frame of reference for flow energy.  We have to stumble upon it, or channel it from the flow state we may have once known but have since lost.

In the next post, I'll talk about how to cultivate this primordial treasure to start enjoying peak performance and peak experience.  Stay tuned!

*Csikszentmihaly, M. 1990.  Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.  Harper Collins.  New York.