Be One with the Hurdle
“The thought of a distracted man cannot be sincere. Man’s mind and his behavior are one, his inner thought and outer expression cannot contradict each other.” –Bruce Lee
The title of this article comes from a quote from hurdling legend Renaldo Nehemiah. He said it in an interview that I conducted for a profile I wrote on him for this website back in 2005. He was explaining his conceptualization of hurdling as an art form. The aim, he said, is not to dominate, not to conquer each hurdle, but to become one with it.
“Be one with the hurdle” means embrace the danger, embrace the risks. It means harmonize your motions with the barriers that appear before you.
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It’s a different approach. Much different from the norm. But it’s one that has always made sense to me, primarily because I’ve always loved hurdling. For me the joy never lied just in the winning or in the setting of personal bests, but in the hurdling itself. Hurdling is fun.
And I’m convinced that any hurdler, at any level, who takes hurdling seriously, does so first and foremost for that same simple reason: there’s nothing else they’d rather be doing.
I wonder sometimes about hurdling. About my fascination with it. About my dedication to it. And when I see it in others, I’m filled with the same wonder. When I go on Coach Terry Reese’s YouTube page and see him drilling over 42-inch hurdles at the age of 48, I feel that wonder. When I see videos of Coach Richard Holmes out in California demonstrating drills, I feel that wonder. When I talk to Hector Cotto of Puerto Rico and www.sprinthurdles.com, who at the age of 30 is training to make another run at another Olympic Games even though he knows the sacrifices involved in training without a contract are tremendous, I feel that wonder. When I think of Niklas Rippon driving hours upon hours back and forth each day while he trains full-time and holds down a full-time job, I feel the same wonder. I’m in awe of the fact that such people keep making their way back to the track. It just proves that there’s something about the hurdles, something that words cannot explain.
I remember reading in Ken Doherty’s Track & Field Omnibook a brief section in which he addressed the philosophical/biological question of why men run. He was saying how there are plenty of explanations that could be offered, but that ultimately, the only answer to that question is to go ahead and run. I feel the same is true of hurdling. Any attempt to explain the thrill of hurdling to someone who doesn’t hurdle is going to fall short. So there really is no point. Just hurdle.
As a coach, I try to instill in my athletes a love for hurdling while they are still in their beginning stages of development. I know I can never successfully communicate the message of “be one with the hurdle” when they are at advanced stages of development if their approach to hurdling in the early stages is rooted in fear and doubt. Fears and anxieties inhibit the flow. They prevent the body from executing the motions. So there can be no fear. There is no room for fear.
As I’ve grown older, wiser, and more aware of how everything in this life, in this world, is inherently connected, I’ve learned to look for the hurdling-related lesson in everything. Because if I look closely enough, with an open mind and open heart, I will find it. Recently I read a couple articles on Maria Popova’s www.brainpickings.org website about Bruce Lee – the martial arts legend and famed actor from the 1970’s. The website features many interesting articles about writers, artists, and thinkers from all over the world throughout human history. The articles on Lee caught my eye because I’ve always recognized him as someone whose approach to martial arts had much in common with my approach to hurdling.
Of the two articles, the one I really sank my teeth into was the one entitled “Bruce Lee on the Power of Repose and the Strength of Yielding.” In this article, I could see the principles involved with being “one with the hurdle” clearly articulated, even though the article had nothing to do with hurdling. Really, it was not much of a stretch at all to apply the things Lee was saying about gung fu to hurdling. For the most part, it was quite easy to replace the word “opponent” with the word “hurdle,” and the exact same point could be made. For Lee, engaging in the challenge of mastering Gung Fu was a total-person experience. Physical exercise, for Lee, was an essential component in spiritual development. By cultivating his personal growth in his chosen art form, he was cultivating his growth as a human being.
In the article, Popova quotes extensively from a book entitled, Bruce Lee, Letters from the Dragon – a collection of letters Lee wrote from 1959-1973. In one passage, she quotes him as saying the following:
“Wishing to cultivate oneself, one first rectifies the heart. Wishing to rectify the heart, one seeks to be sincere in his thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in his thoughts, one first extends to the utmost of his knowledge – such extension of knowledge lies in the investigation of things.”
What is Lee talking about here? He’s talking about honesty. He’s talking about reality. The hidden reality that guides the whole journey, that informs the whole experience. What does he mean by “the investigation of things?” He means that we must search to discover our hidden motivations, the ones that lie deep within us, the ones that will make no sense when we try to explain them to others.
If we search with sincerity, we will eventually discover a very simple truth: that we hurdle because we love to hurdle, even if we don’t understand why we love to hurdle. The moment this realization occurs, a surrender takes place. A letting go. A letting go of the need to prove ourselves, to establish our credibility, to win every race and set every record and claim every medal. The need to be better than….
Usually, this realization occurs after an especially bitter disappointment, when we feel like a failure, when we doubt the practicality of continuing on, when we contemplate giving up on hurdling altogether. There are no lies to cling to anymore. When you’re not winning, not setting records, not grabbing medals, the simple joy that you feel when running over a hurdle is all you have left.
That letting go is what enables us to return to the track time and time again, after every disappointment, after every heartbreak. It is the only real thing we have.
For Lee, practicing gung fu was, first and foremost, a matter of the heart. To “rectify the heart” means to come from a place of balance, where the heart leads the way, where an awareness of the simple childlike joy serves to quell all fears and doubts even when the pressure is at its highest, even when the competition is at its most intense. When one acts from the heart, one becomes still inwardly. The inner stillness creates a calm, which sharpens the senses, quickens the reflexes, giving one a supreme feeling of control.
But how to find this inner stillness? How does one allow the heart to lead the way when the mind is constantly chattering away with its “practical” considerations?
Popova, through Lee, offers the following: “Only in repose can the mind begin to investigate the nature of things, empty itself of interferences, and learn not to let the external triggers induce internal states of fear, anger, sorrow, and anxiety.”
She goes on to quote Lee directly: “A gung fu man rests therein, and because he rests, he is at peace. Because he is at peace, he is quiet. One who is at peace and is quiet, no sorrow or harm can enter; therefore his inner power remains whole and his spirit intact.”
Let’s look at some of the words used in the above two paragraphs: repose, rest, peace. How can someone practice gung fu while resting? How can someone run over hurdles while in a state of repose? When Lee says that “a gung fu man rests therein,” he’s referring to a place within – a state of inner peace, inner calm. I would say that such a place is more difficult to find than any place one might search for on a map. To me, the key is to stay connected. Stay connected to the joyful self, the Child self, the Beginner self. The world wants you to win. The world embraces you if you win. So many people expect so much from you, demand so much of you. All of your hard work must “pay off” in a concrete, tangible way. But that’s not reality. That’s the lie built around the experience – by oneself, with the help of others. The reality is, all one ever has is this moment, right here, right now. The reality is, there are no expectations nor demands that one must meet. The reality is, failure does not exist. The reality is, success does not exist. Again, there is only this moment. And in this moment, you are a hurdler. Be a hurdler, run over these hurdles, and drop everything else.
This is repose. This is rest. This is peace. Enter into this space, and you won’t have to explain anything to anyone, you won’t have to justify anything to anyone, not even to yourself.
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Source:
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/02/bruce-lee-letters-yielding/
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