I will talk to you about something, I’ve had over 40 people in the last 18 hours, either text me or instant messaged me about the Simone Biles situation at the Olympic Games. I really had to break the thing down into three separate categories so that we don’t get this discussion conflated
That’s why I keep myself organized. I took a look at it from the standpoint of a parent, from the standpoint of athlete and from the standpoint of the coach. Now, I’ve had opportunity to be the parent of two #1 ranked players in the country in terms of judo.
I had opportunity athletically, to compete in college at the division one level and football, wrestling and track then also going to the Olympics in 2004. competing internationally, Medal of the Panam championships.
On the coaching side, I’ve had opportunity to coach UFC world champions Brazilian JiuJitsu World Champions, Olympians, i had opportunity to serve as one of the advisors on the outside during the scouting reports for Kayla Harrison who was a two-time Olympic gold medalist. So, my experiences in terms of the electric Olympic movement is very, very rich, and with high level sports.
In this particular introduction, I want to say this, let me get this out of the way in the beginning. There’s nothing that Trumps anybody’s emotional health and wellness. When it comes to emotional health and mental health and spiritual health. That trumps everything. I also have a core following like some coaches do and you get the rah rah rah speech, but I’m going to talk about something that I never talked about when it comes to the Olympic Games because it is not what we normally do or what we put forth when it comes to the Olympics. I’m going to give you the truth about high level sports, a high-level competition. I’m going to tell you; I’m going to give you a couple of names really quick.
These are all judoka these are judo players, high level judoka.
JACK Hatton 2019 Judo, committed suicide.
Elena Ivashchenko from Russia, 2013 Judo, committed suicide.
Craig Fallon from Great Britain, 2019 Judo, committed suicide.
Claudia Howe from Austria in 2011. Judo, committed suicide
Marinda Singh 2016 from India, Judo, committed suicide.
Robbie Gallagher From Great Britain in 2010, Judo, committed suicide.
Here’s the thing. We can have the ‘rah rah rah’ discussions as much as we want. Simone Biles has parents. She has family members and she has friends and they would all rather her be on the planet than to pursue another gold medal and put that in the casket. I am telling you, as someone who has been on the side, I’ve seen people push to the right of the bell curve. I have pushed people to the right of the bell curve. I’ve seen people deal with mental health issues. I’ve watched people in the Olympic movement, fall out with family members, relationships be emotionally mentally scarred. I will be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that I was emotionally mentally scarred from the situation. This year was the first time and 16 years that I was able to watch the opening ceremonies from the Olympics. I was the first time I’ve watched the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. never watched it, couldn’t watch it.
I enjoy the discussions that that I hear and I see in social media where people come in with their different ideals and the different thoughts and different opinions and what I want to do is I kind of want to synthesize everything here so that you kind of get a really good understanding of what’s going on.
My particular makeup if you know me personally, I don’t have a problem saying I have my points where I’m a little bit off. I’m an extremist. I’ve met people like me, I hang around people like me, I enjoy being around people like me, I really have a really, really tight knit circle outside of my circle on the periphery, because a lot of people don’t understand the way we talk and the conversation that we have and the lead athlete space, it’s hard to get people to accept our reality is their reality. So, let me jump into my discussion. As a parent. I have two children, Rufus and Robbie. And I have no problem saying that my ex-wife left in 2019, my divorce was 2018. My divorce was finalized i”n 2019 and my Olympic journey and training my kids, and all the things that come with that were part of all the variables on the table, which attributed to somebody say, Hey, man, I’ve had enough of this shit, I’m out.” I don’t have a problem with that, because that’s the makeup of my person. I appreciate who I am, what I got, and what’s available.
I know genetically what my children have on the inside of them. Because I know where my dad came from. I know his athletic background, I know what was required to get me where I am and I know what’s required to get my kids where they are, if that’s what they want to be. In the beginning, 4,5,6,7,8,9 years old children aren’t making the decisions for themselves, somebody was doing this crazy comparison of me and Simone Biles. There’s no comparison between me and Simone Biles we are two different people, 2 different sports, two different things.
My mom put me in dancing and then tap early. Why good footwork, good for football, good for wrestling good for Judo Good, good for all those little things that I do tumbling early. Yes, I did tumble early to really early then I started Judo really early. As a parent, you have to know what to put your child and then there is a small push then there’s a hard nudge and then there’s some pushback from the child “do I want to do this? Or do I not want to do this?” As a parent, you have to ask yourself, “How far do I want this to go?” The hardest part that I see.
As a parent you have to have the How far do I want to push most parents Okay, Take a Bell Curve. On the left side of the bell curve, you have your people who need help, those of your special needs people. In the middle of the bell curve, you have your normal population people. On the right side of the bell curve, you have what they call a talented and gifted or elite. At the extreme left, where the kids need assistance to get out of the car to get into the classroom on the extreme left. It is no different than on the extreme right you could just see the problems on the extreme left you can’t see the problems on the second extreme right. You cannot access the genius of a Bill Cosby or a R Kelly or any top-notch scientists without also taking with you those experiences that exist on the right side of the bell curve.
There’s a reason why those people are like that, on that end, they’re not normal people and they’re not supposed to be normal. And when you’re parenting, you have to ask yourself, do I want to parent as a normal parent and make my child or allow my child to be safe.
You can play it safe as a parent, your child could be a doctor, they could be a lawyer, they could be a pharmacist, they could be teachers, they could they could grow up to be philanthropists or high-end millionaires and listen, and they will be good people, quality citizens, they are never have an Olympic medal. They’ll never make an Olympic team. They’ll be a division three, Division Two, division, one person riding the pine a little bit and they will be fine. They can go to school, be quality citizens have families, four or five kids, they will be fine.
As a parent, you have to ask yourself, what do you want. If you choose to push your child to the right of the bell curve, understand that there’s a point where it goes to the point where you can’t pull the kid back.
I thought when I was competing, that I had great emotional regulation, I’m able to do what needs to be done, put the stuff out of my mind and move forward. What you learn at the elite level of sports, you don’t learn emotional regulation, you learn emotional detachment and emotional detachment is great in that context in the environment of sports. But what happens is when you understand emotional detachment on a high level, it doesn’t carry over well when you get into the general population, because I know how to emotionally detach myself based upon it doesn’t matter how I feel, it doesn’t matter if I’m sick, doesn’t matter if I got to pull a muscle, it doesn’t matter if I’m hurt, it doesn’t matter if I don’t feel it. Nothing matters. The only thing that matters is I need to do what I need to do but they tell you champions do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.
Simone Biles and I Naomi Asaka are most definitely heroes. Why? Because of the names that I mentioned earlier. These people could have had a different outcome. If they were able to go somewhere, get some help and speak out and not be called weak.
You have to make space to listen to the people who don’t believe what you believe. You have people who are Christian, they’re hardcore Christian, they may believe that homosexuality is a sin and somebody in the LGBTQ community, you may not believe that, just because they don’t believe what you believe that doesn’t make them homophobic and that doesn’t make them hateful. They just don’t believe what you believe they don’t hate, you know, are they afraid if they don’t believe what you believe? And just like you want somebody to accept your lifestyle and accept your conceptual framework, and accept how you think you have to be tolerant to accept that somebody may not think like that, and that doesn’t make them a name.
I know the family of jack Hatton. I know the family of Atlanta. I know the family of Craig, the family of Claudia, the Calvin family and the render the family room. I know the family of those Judo players, but much rather have them here. They’re not here.
If you act or behave like a regular person, there’s no reason to watch the Olympics. People don’t tune into the Olympics to see normal people do regular shit.
So contextually understand what you’re watching contextually. When people saw Simone Biles, quick contextually, let me say like this, you know how you go out to eat. And you save that piece of dessert to have a piece of cake happy to carry cake in the refrigerator, and you go to bed and then you wake up and around 11 o’clock on Sunday. You want to go on now you want to finish out the last piece of carrot cake and then somebody has gone in there and may have eaten the happy as a character you are pissed. Why are you pissed?
So please, those people who are defending Simone Biles, as you should understand and give space to also to the other people where there was a build up of expectation. You know, she had the goat thing on her shoulder and she’s going through the thing and she’s holding the goat during the during the during the commercial. There are an X people did not expect Simone Biles to do that.
It did not meet their expectations. They built up what she was in their mind. And in their mind. She’s not human. She’s superhuman. She literally she literally flies through the air. Literally and those people will let down by the decision that he or she made. Now here’s the thing.
As an athlete, the whole time that you come up as an athlete the whole thing that you don’t understand is do not quit, do not quit, do not quit! The reason why you’re going to hear that because if you quit, you’re never going to become what you need to become. Whenever you fucking stop is when you stop. That’s why people ask why don’t you believe in burnout. I don’t believe in burnout. Because there’s only so many people that can exist at the top. When you’ve gone as far as you can go, you’re done. That’s not burn out. You’re just done. You can say it burnt out if you want to. Everybody doesn’t belong at the top. So when you go and you reach as much as you can go, if you reach as much you can do physically, you reach as much as you can do emotionally when you reach as much as you can do find out, whenever you reach as much as you can do you’re done. You didn’t burn out, you’re not the one you’re not Neo, you’re stick the matrix. Everybody’s not gonna make it.
I’m not a metal copy. Somebody argued with me about how many medals she has. You only went to one Olympics. Listen, man, Judo and wrestling and boxing are not like swimming and gymnastics and track and field. It is you don’t have multiple events. Like one person can go to the Olympics and get eight medals and four medals but you can’t do that here. That’s it.
I wanted to give you guys some truth about the whole Olympic experience. Somebody asked me if I would do it all over again. Man I would do it all over again.
For sure.
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I just want you to see how people change based upon the things that they hear, what they read and what do you think you believe! So, go to www.enhanceordestroy.com and pick that up today.
Remember,
I love you. God loves you best
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