More to Yoga: Dealing with Results

Watching the winter Olympics I find myself intrigued and curious about the emotional state of the athletes.  How do they deal with the pressure and the build up right before their event, and the result after it’s all over?  How did they begin on their path to extreme excellence and what made them stick with it? Its thrilling watching the athletes on the starting line; when the buzzer goes off they lay everything on the line. If they win the gold medal, they shed tears of joy, scream, pump their fists in the air, and collapse on the ground, with a feeling of complete ecstasy and validation- a feeling you can’t buy with any amount of money.   Then there are the other 95% of athletes at the Olympics, who worked just as hard but came up short, perhaps even got physically hurt in the process- something that’s painful to watch, let alone experience. 

I am intrigued by this because I’m a yoga instructor and trained to learn and observe the workings of the mind. As a life- long athlete, I was good at, but never great in a hand full of sports.  I’ve had a bunch of disappointing moments and I know I’m not alone.  It sucks and it can take years before we stop dwelling on what went wrong.

So, what does this have to do with yoga?  Yoga is far more than a physical exercise; it’s a state of mind.  One reason you may be interested in achieving a yoga state of mind is to more easily handle the emotional roller coaster of being a competitive athlete- in good times and in bad.  Yoga teaches non-attachment and for athletes non-attachment can be related to results.  During interviews, we often hear athletes say things like “I’m just going to go out there and do the best I can do.”  That’s literally all they can do, it’s quite simply all any athlete can do.  But it’s their reaction to the outcome that’s important when “the best they can do” isn’t good enough, or worse, they didn’t perform to their capabilities.  My guess is that most Olympic athletes already have a check on their emotional responses and understand that they can’t dwell on their last race, this is necessary for their level of competition.  But what about the rest of us?  How do we teach younger athletes this very important lesson of non-attachment?  A lesson that I, and millions of other athletes, never grew up learning.

If you are fortunate enough to have an impact on an athlete, either as a parent or coach, let them know that they are not defined by their last competition.  The last competition is now over and what’s important is how they (and you) react to the outcome.  Help the athlete understand that the result, whether positive or not, is of no consequence and empower them to move on by recognizing what they did well and how to further improve.  Learning to handle defeat and graciously accept victory is an essential skill for the longevity of the competitive athletic.  In yoga, non-attachment is approached by recognizing your responses and training yourself not to react but to reflect, learn, and persevere.

Gabrielle has been practicing yoga since 1999 and is a certified and registered yoga instructor with Yoga Alliance.  To have Gabrielle lead your team in a yoga practice, contact gabriellecclark@yahoo.com

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of The Athlete Village.