If an athlete is not educated on the principles and mechanisms of the problems he is facing, training is mostly an inefficient use of energy and time because he will react as before under the same circumstances and cause the same problems and repeat the usually undesirable result. That way, he will get caught in the loop of repeating and potentiating actions with more will and determination to the point where the body, which must work according to physical laws, will give way and put the athlete in a depression of movement and behavior on a physical or psychological level, and often both.
Teaching must be done without pointing the finger, assigning the blame, or judging the past mistakes of an athlete and without the abuse of power a teacher has over their student. When working with athletes, I use a comparative analysis of facts that led them to desirable results and facts that led them to undesirable results. That way, I can accurately determine which relationships and behavioral patterns are the ones that prevent the athlete from reaching his goal, despite his clear intention and strong will. Afterward, I teach him according to the guidelines of the AEQ method and lead him to understand these facts and insights that this understanding enables and to accept them regardless of whether they align with the desired goals. Only accepting learned facts from the past can enable a holistic change and thereby raise the body-consciousness connection, without which it is impossible to raise emotional maturity and gradually but permanently eliminate unwanted results.
When working with athletes, I notice that the main cause of chronic pain and injuries is precisely the discrepancy between the beliefs set by the body and the will that comes from consciousness. If the will and the body are out of sync and thus at different levels of development, this difference causes bodily contraction preventing it from functioning effectively and relaxing even when the work is well done. The biggest obstacle is the fact, characteristic of the vast majority of athletes, that they are very poorly aware of the feelings and sensations in their body, which allows them to go easier and further beyond their physical capabilities, and that they are less influenced by the pressure of the environment when they need to at the right moment give your best and maintain high concentration to achieve the best possible result.
But this ability is a double-edged sword for the athlete since, on the one hand, it allows him to achieve the impossible, while on the other, it deprives him of the vitally important connection between the body and consciousness through which we become aware of the actual condition in the body which can be very different from what we require to achieve a desired result especially if the result is above our actual physical capabilities.
A strong urge to prove importance or need is often included in the process, which leads to self-destruction due to self-disrespect and the perception of the body as a machine. The body will do everything the consciousness demands from it without hesitation despite them being separated.
In these conditions, the athlete’s attitude towards the body is similar to that of the CEO of Amazon towards his employees in fulfillment centers. The consciousness doesn’t care how the body will do what is needed, but only that it reaches the goal no matter the cost. The athlete actually takes good care of his body and provides it with everything he can to make it function as best as possible, the same way a cyclist maintains and cleans his bike to keep it in top shape. However, a bike is a machine and doesn’t possess a sensory-motor feedback loop and functions well without it because the cyclist and mechanic efficiently replace them.
In the case of the body, this feedback loop is the key to constantly ensuring appropriate coordination between the body and consciousness and is the only one that enables the determination of realistic goals and an appropriate leap from the area of normality to the area of learning, where time and energy are directed to growth and improvement. Sufficient time spent in the learning zone allows one to express oneself and regulate everything necessary for an appropriate balance between the athlete and the environment in which he lives and works. Relaxation of the body is possible only when you are convinced through actions that you can manage your life with emotions. But it’s impossible to be truly relaxed if you can’t do that. And precisely the inability to relax after training or a performance is the biggest obstacle for a modern athlete.
Without a sufficiently good connection, it is impossible to determine what is right and what is wrong, what is just right and what is too much, nor is it possible to perceive that due to exaggeration, regardless of good intentions, we have gone from the zone of learning to the zone of destruction, where time and we invest energy in increasing internal contradictions and prevent the proper functioning of life systems because the athlete increasingly uses the energy he produces in self-destructive ways, which is of course not in the interest of the body and the old brain.
In this war between the primary (body and old brain) and the secondary (consciousness – subconscious), the secondary may win battles, but in the end, the primary attachment will always win, mainly because the energy that enables the secondary system to function is received from the primary and is completely dependent on him, just like the CEO of Amazon is completely dependent on the workers in the distribution centers. The CEO is also very well aware of this and invests a lot of time and resources to replace people who act like machines but still have at least some free will and emotions with robots and artificial intelligence that do not have these disturbing processes.
Modern sport is similar to Amazon in most areas, so, logically, the participants in this sport are also more and more like robots because this is the only way they can achieve the desired, but at the same time unrealistic goals, at the cost of an increasingly rapidly deteriorating and more chronically painful condition.
