WindDoll

Yesterday at Berkeley darling girl Astrid was back windsurfing after three weeks cruising the Caribbean. Her first session 5.0 and 90 liter rrd freestyle twintip, she couldn’t land any of her tricks. She was overpowered in 23 mph average and bumming. She waited a bit and went out again, same stuff, and landed everything, including a Gecko!

One evening in the early 1990s at a Golden State Warriors basketball game, I watched Tim Hardaway run up and down the court and miss every shot. Afterwards a news commentator asked him how did he feel missing all those shots. He replied that he DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE. Now there’s a lesson in being in the Flow.

Hardaway was at the top of the NBA for average points and assists per game, but the other players were a head taller. (Hardaway is reported to be 6 feet tall, but I would have told you he was 5 foot 6, he looked so odd on the court.)

I get frustrated with myself when I blow tacks, but when I make them easily—sometimes in the gnarliest of conditions—I feel great. My brain feels light and clear.

I think we get bummed when we don’t make moves we think we should be able to make. We tell ourselves, I should be able to do this. Other people do this. If I can’t do this I’m stupid!

My yoga teacher Suraya says, “Don’t judge your insides by other people’s outsides.”

In order to be a happy athlete, you have to get into the Flow, like Hardaway.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi makes a study of happiness. In his book Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he says “The joy of surpassing the limits of the body is open to all.”

Even the simplest physical act becomes enjoyable when it is transformed so as to produce flow. The essential steps in this process are: (a) to set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as are realistically feasible; (b) to find ways of measuring progress in terms of the goals chosen; (c) to keep concentrating on what one is doing, and to keep making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges involved in the activity; (d) to develop the skills necessary to interact with the opportunities available; and (e) to keep raising the stakes if the activity becomes boring. (page 97 paper back edition)