While many know me as a sports psychologist and certainly I use much from that approach, most of those 115 championship teams I've helped I did so with sports spirituality and philosophy. Here is a perfect example at the college level although I use same approach with H.S. and Pro athletes.
MARYLAND WOMEN LACROSSE WARRIORS:
Lacrosse is a sport with deep, sacred, spiritual roots. It is so much more than an athletic game. Its legendary beginnings can be traced to the Native American culture with its connection to the great spirit and is highly recognized as a ceremonial event. As a gift from the creator, it is a sport that is meant to teach the athlete the value of community, family, teamwork, working together for each other and the greater good while releasing tension and stress with positive energy, enriching the lives of the entire community. Symbolically, the stick used to play the game is referred to as “the cross”. When one dies, tradition says that you get buried with the stick because then you can play in heaven. Thunder is the sound of a lacrosse game in progress, or so it was believed.
In 1995 head coach, Cindy Timchal of the Maryland women’s lacrosse team reached out to me after reading my best-selling book THINKING BODY, DANCING MIND, to ask if I would bring my spirituality of sport message to her team. I couldn’t refuse and that became the start of a 25-year relationship that continues to this day. Using Buddhist, Taoist and Native American tradition, coupled with western psychology, we managed to master our game on the road of winning seven consecutive national championships, a record that has never been broken. And, may I add that the coaching staff of Cindy Timchal and legendary Gary Gait made it all possible by implementing the competitive spiritual principles that I taught.
My first act to help this storied program was to introduce everyone to the Buddhist Vipassana tradition of mindful meditation. The athletes became dedicated to become astronauts of inner space. You see, mindfulness (and we’ll dive into this in Part Three) is simply being consciously aware of the present moment, our thoughts and actions to know what you are doing, how you are doing it and why. Athletics is the perfect venue to practice mindfulness for mastery, leadership and spirituality in sports and life.
From mindful meditation, we were able to explore and absorb other finer points of Buddhism such as compassion, letting go of outcomes, happiness, being present, selfless teamwork, joy, right speech, preparation, cooperation, right action and other concepts on the Noble Eightfold Buddhist path. We learned to tame the “monkey mind” and compete more often in the “zone.” We, in fact, often becamethe game itself, aware of being one with the ball, the stick, the field and each other for a purpose bigger than any one of us.
This experience of bringing Buddha wisdom to sport and having the freedom to experiment with that was the beginning of my journey for many years to come, introducing these sacred, spiritual ways to unlock the competitive gate and inspire mastery in 115 championship teams. The goal was not ever to win these championships; the goal was to create safe, spiritually enlightened and aware environments where the athletes and coaches could maximize their opportunities to
approach living life up to their full competitive capacity. That said, there were many other non-championship teams who were successful in this regard. The mindful women of Maryland happened to have not just the spiritual talent but the necessary physical and mental talent as well as awesome coaching to enable them to go the distance each year.
I will say this, that after all these years, these women still keep in touch with me saying how these Buddha truths have helped them be successful in all of life. Gary, Cindy and I still work together with different schools. We use the same timeless indomitable Buddha precepts creating harmony of body, mind and spirit for physical enjoyment and personal growth and fulfillment as we help ourselves and others to master competition and the bigger game of life.
In a related but important note, while Cindy has been gone from the Maryland program, for the past 15 years, present head coach Cathy Reese, a student-athlete when I began my work there, has continued the winning ways as the Terps are perennial contenders for the National championship. I have to believe that some of that Buddhist stuff is still in the air on some level and it really works.
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