bray racewalking coach's corner

The Coach’s Cornerby Jack Bray, MA

“It is of great importance that the need for creating unity is recognized. The human spirit isnourished by a sense of connectedness.”

I Ching No. 8

April Athletes Wayfarers All

Perhaps it is time for all of us to leave our daily endless cleaning and work andgo out on the road of life and discover what we can be; how much more fun wecan have challenging our own limited beliefs in ourselves; working together wecan achieve significant things.

It is time for all of us to harness any energy we can find to move us forward. For6 1/2 years, the Marin Race Walkers have been working out together, going toraces locally, nationally and internationally.

It is great to have a group of people to work out with, some of whom have beento Nationals or to the WAVA Games... and some, who by their courageous spiritand example give us hope for the later years of our life.

For most people, having company to workout with is good motivation. It is somuch easier to skip workouts when no one is waiting for you - it’s raining, it’s toocold, I don’t feel well - but if someone is there waiting for you, you don’t want to

disappoint them.

Some have challenged us about the efficacy of competition to move us forward;they are afraid of it and how powerful it might make them feel or how terrible ifthey are the last person in the race.

In sports and in life, your opponents are valuable gifts; great teachers who canhelp you achieve great things that wouldn’t have been possible without them.Originally compete meant “to seek together,” therefore your competitors are yourspiritual advisors, they help you understand yourself better and give it your best.

We are all seeking together to have the best club and the best racewalkingevents and speeds that we can have. Focus on how you can improve yourselfbeing aware that our racewalking club will help empower your spirit through theefforts of working together.

When there is dissension, it obstructs the flow of life. So much more is possibleas an individual and a club when we work together. Take time to notice why weare together and celebrate what is good about our positive energy and see thegood in other club members and praise them for it.


“Do not indulge in extremes... Strive for moderation in all you do... In this way, you use thebalancing tendency of the current forces to center yourself. This aligns you with the Tao,thus bringing you into harmony with forces that can work for you.”

Tao Te Ching No.15

Rediscover Harmony and Balance in the New Year

Now is an excellent time to reflect on what is important in our lives; the quality ofour health-emotionally and physically. How is our health account doing?

Many of us run frantically in place. We have the perception that balance meanscontinuing to juggle everything at once just more effectively. That’s a no-winsituation because there is always one more item to be juggled.

Take a moment to think about what’s really important to you. If you like, list themand rank them in order of importance. Think about a time line for implementingthese new priorities.

Take a deep breath; breathing keeps us in a space of balanced regulation. Takeanother breath. Create small important goals and work toward them. That willbring a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.

If you focus on things that are important to you at the deepest level, then you arefree to pursue those desires in step with your own heart and in balancing theworld. In the process you may have to let go of things that you used to think wereimportant. We may think the external world of work, careers and money decidesour external balance and status but our true center of gravity and balance isinternal. If we are aware and alive in our own program, the external chaos ofchange is like a ride on a roller coaster, just an experience.

If we define our lives by what keeps us in balance and our center of gravity intactin all the things that really matter; all the external trappings become just a humandrama, a play that we watch rather than defining who we really are.

The short cold days require us to be moderate in our race walking training. Wecan do cross training, stretching, yoga, tai chi, spinning, weight lifting and morestretching.

Eating a balanced and varied diet; getting enough sleep, spending time with ourfamily and friends and laughing and sharing stories, sharing emotions and time;spending some time every day exercising, letting your body move finding the joyof stretching, of walking fast and breathing in the air.

Yes, there is important work to be done too and household chores; they have notyet invented the self-cleaning house.


“Perceive purity; embrace simplicity; limit desires.”

Tao Te Ching No.19

Energy and Peace in the New Year

Take a deep breath and contemplate the natural world. Notice how golden, howhushed and quiet it is. The light this time of year is very precious because theday is so short. Enjoy every ray of sunshine.

Inside the shell of a seed, energy is racing. Inside each walker and walker-to-be,energy is circulating. All that is needed is intention and focus to develop theseed, to spout it, to start growing.

The energy of the universe is in us all. In it we move and have our being,physical, mental and spiritual. The inner universe is vaster than the outer visibleuniverse. Inner joy makes all joy that is experienced in the world of senses seemmeaningless. When the universal energy within you is experienced directly, itadds radiance to life, unlike anything that can be described with words orpictures.

What is the way to have more energy, more peace? Simplify your life. That willcreate more harmony and freedom. You will be able to focus and be in thepresent moment more easily.

In all your activity for the holiday season, think about what will give you or othersjoy, peace and harmony - get rid of the rest. Is it really necessary to do all thatrunning around, all that worrying?

The best gift you can give yourself or others is some time in quiet contemplationor meditation to focus on what is important in your life. Spend some time thinkingabout what you want to be like and what you want to do in the next few years.

The purest simplicity of enjoying a sunrise or sunset, a quick walk after a rainshower may give you more joy than the most extravagant jewels. Then again,maybe not for you. The more you clutter your life with material possessions, themore likely it is that they will possess you. Pressure, anxiety and tension willinterfere with your performance in sports and in life.

This time of the year, nature is stripped down to basics. Perhaps we too couldthink of concentrating on basics. Think about our race walking technique. Get itas pure and correct as possible. It is a good time too, to put in a good base ofdistance work; it will make us strong and help work off those extra calories thatslip in this time of year.

If the weather doesn’t cooperate, find an indoor mall, early or late and walk.Some use treadmills or other machines. Whatever works to help keep you atpeace with yourself. Discover that sacred core within you, start the quest in lifeand walk with energy and peace. May your holiday season be full of joy andmuch energy and peace in the coming new year!


“Reflection. Attain the highest openness. Maintain the deepest harmony. Become a partof All Things. In this way, I perceive the cycles.”

Tao Te Ching No. 16

Silence of Autumn

It is time to reflect on the lessons of the year: both the successes and failures,to store up the harvest of positive fun, companionship on the way and to learn togrow from the things that were less than hoped for.

If you ask Dorothy Robarts, she would tell you that coming in second in SouthAfrica was a shock but it has given her great motivation for Gateshead Englandin two years- What a gift to receive in your eighth decade of life--a desire to beeven faster and to have better technique!

Fall workouts, going to Phoenix Lake and beyond is a good metaphor for beingreborn in the fire of the ashes of this past year. We are working on enduranceand strength and the beauty of the surroundings refreshes our souls and gives usenergy.

This is the time of the year to work on technique. Race walking is an intellectualsport; you always have to be thinking about what you are doing--it really doesn'tbecome rote - there are always new things to learn.

When it is so quiet and the air is golden with the light of the changing leaves, it isnatural to reflect on the changes that our own efforts and time have made.

Resolve to find anew your purpose for being here; that essential core of yourbeing, that reason that you are here - that special gift that you have come tobring to the world and show it forth in all its glory.

It is time to reflect on what it is that you wish to accomplish, how far on the pathyou have already come and to study the road map to see where to go next.Some of us are already far into that territory marked unknown, that no one elsehas yet explored - all the more reason to try to become conscious and tounderstand the secret thereby that life is always young and we are ever movingonward.

Listen to the silence of autumn and learn.

“No one spoke,The host, the guest;The white chrysanthemums”

Ryota


“The Great Tao extends everywhere. All things depend on it for growth. And it does notdeny them.”

Tao Te Ching No. 34

Spring into Action

Spring is almost here. Time to get the two most important tools for racewalkingand life tuned up and ready for action.

The tools all of us have to work with are our mind and our body. What kind ofcondition are they in right now? It’s time to clean off the mud and lethargy ofwinter. Start making plans. Activate your mind. Shake off the cobwebs the winterdoldrums caused. Get happy; get out and walk.

How is your body looking and feeling? Get out a pair of walking shoes and thelighter walking clothes you put away last fall and if you are really daring try onlast year’s bathing suit. If it doesn’t fit, you still have time to get active and losesome of those pounds.

Like spring-cleaning, spring into exercise but do it sensibly and praise those cooldays. Bless them for only getting you out for a short time to retrain those musclesof body and mind slowly and steadily.

If you start now you still have time to train for the WAVA Games in Gateshead,England or whatever other goal you have set up for this year. If you start now youcan change the shape of your mind and body into a newer more sleeker andwiser you. Take a lesson from my gardening friend Max Green. Doing a little biteach day prepares his garden and him for the summer. Sensibly now, not all inone day or one weekend.

Spring is the time for rebirth and rebuilding; a time when all of nature beginsanew and we choose to do so too.

We all know about those winds of negative adversity either from the outside asgale force winds or our own internal doubts gnawing away at us. Those ones thattell us we will never go faster than our competitors. That the winter has beenwasted and now the time is too short and besides....

Stop! You CAN do it. Your mind and body need the positive words ofencouragement. You need the joy of knowing that you will succeed if you but try.With intelligence, with a good training plan, with someone to work out with... Allwinners know it is at least 90% getting out the door and starting every day or atleast every other day...

Do your best. Let the others fool themselves in their minds that they can’t win.You start with a positive attitude; you can win, and by making the positive effortfun you have already won the most important event, the control of your ownwinning mind.

Spring is the time for rebirth, a time for all of nature to begin anew and you arepart of nature. With the help of this new spring, you can bring about a new you -a champion—the best you there has ever been.

How exciting to watch the transformation of the apparently dead tree branches!How much more exciting to watch us sleeping people stir back into action andlife!


“Those that cultivate the Tao, identify with the Tao. Those that cultivate Power, identifywith Power.”

Tao Te Ching No. 29

Racewalking for Masters

Mastering our self, mastering the sport: we walk for many reasons. Most of uswalk for health. Some of us also walk for competition and enjoy going to racesaround the nation and world as well as locally.

It is interesting if disheartening to notice that the violence of our society hasinvaded sporting events. We like to think that a small family group like racewalkers could be immune. Unfortunately, that has not proved to be the case forsome of us.

How can we deal with this kind of behavior? A person who would hurt anotherperson has many problems: extreme narcissism and selfishness. Violencebegins when a person values power and control above love and compassion.

Sometimes extreme views on having exclusive control of the "truth" have ledpeople of principle to forget human worth and integrity.

Am I angry? I don't have the time or energy to spare on such negative feelings.There is too much to do to change racewalking and the world to become a moreenlightened place to have time for it.

We Master racewalkers walk for pleasure and exercise. If difficulties orunpleasantness occur what can persuade us to continue on? Certainly not thegreat financial reward we receive nor the great praise for being an Olympian!

Only a rigid purist could be pleased with the results of the new judging rules formaster walkers. I have personally observed much discouragement of walkerswho have marginal concerns; who with just a little work could be "legal".

A master walker walks for fun and for a health program; most do not haveambitious goals nor do they like unpleasantness. All too often, the fear of beingjudged and disqualified discourages people from our great sport.

There is a need for greater common sense especially in the judging of masterwalkers. Perhaps judging could be tailored to the age and expertise of the racersand the quality of the race. What is the purpose of judging? To ensure a faircontest? To make sure everyone is perfect?

After all, what is the point of having a race? Let's try to train our master racewalkers to be the best and most efficient walkers they can be and have fun doingit! Masters of our self, masters of the way, masters of racewalking.


“The enlightened person knows the Secret Source and moves with the Divine Forcewithout delay.”

I Ching (Great Appendix

YES, I CAN. YES, I CAN DO IT! I CAN HAVE FUN, I CAN REACHMY HIGHEST DREAMS

Find that core of joy within yourself. Think of all that you love and fill your life withthat. There are so many more goals to meet, so many more people to meet anddreams to dream.

“The best is yet to come, my dear”, so says the song and isn’t it true? We wereso proud of our walkers who went to the WAVA Games, who took the challenge.They looked great!

We learned so much about ourselves and others. We found our courage in thatmoment on the starting line. All the training, all the affirmations helped. Wediscovered those areas that need more work in the future. After all, if we wereperfect we wouldn’t be here!

We dared to dream, to visualize and to risk. How could we not succeed! We havedetermination and commitment. We have found a sport that fills us with joy andwe love to walk.

Medical science is catching up with the fact that the body needs to move to behealthy; that the mind needs to stretch and exercise to stay alive. In our heartswe know this is true.

To be healthy is to be needed, to be a valued part of a family and of society andto remain flexible and flowing and full of love. Love is another word for positiveenergy doing, believing and being in the ever-evolving world that we create withour dreams of a better reality.

Live your life on purpose. Examine what it is that gives you true happiness andfollow that.

Allow yourself to enjoy the benefits you can achieve by flexing your feet and yourhips. Find the fun not the routine in exercise. Call up the good in life; find thefunny, silly child within you. Look the world in the face and say, “Yes, I can. It isgood, it is fun. I love it. Yes, I can walk. Yes, I can do it.” Now this is true.

bray racewalking coach's corner

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