August Miles Funk-Levenson. August was born Feb 8th of this year, and has already spent months in the NICU. August and Janet visited Felix at Emanuel this summer, and it was such a blessing to be with the two young warriors.Last night I couldn’t stop staring at Nastia Liukin’s scowling face as she processed her loss to He Kexin on the uneven bars despite their tie score. Her features expressed almost a painful dissatisfaction with the present moment. Nothing around her—not her father, the cheering crowds, or her own lithe and muscular body—was able to penetrate her utter rejection of her loss.
Her clear disdain for the silver medal she would receive brought to mind the words of a Japanese Go master at the U.S. Go Congress held in my hometown a few weeks ago. “Don’t play to beat your opponent,” advised Takemiya Masaki, 9 professional dan. “Play to make the most enjoyable moves at your level.”
How different would Liukin’s face have been had she focused on the pleasure of springing up to those uneven bars and circling them at blazing speed, gripping and releasing through turns and soars. She could have sunk into her chair delighted in her good fortune to inhabit a body so strong, flexible, and capable.
I understand that one becomes an Olympic athlete precisely because one is driven to win, yet how much gets lost in this narrow focus. I even turn off the sound when I watch the games because the announcers single-mindedly reduce each performance to a series of mistakes. In contrast, as I watch the athletes’ amazing exploits, I do not care about the minutest separation of legs, the barest quiver of a torso, the slightest stumble on a landing, the rise of a shoulder, or the lack of a pointed toe. To me, they are super-human, doing things with their bodies that I can only dream of.
Takemiya’s advice points us in a new direction. Rather than make victory or being number one our goal, we could free ourselves to take pleasure in the skills and insights we possess at the moment. We could fully inhabit the activities in which we are engaged without hinging our enjoyment on some external marker of success—a medal, a prize, a win, or even praise. We could explore the inherent potential in whatever we are doing and delight in our ability to enter its world.
At the Go congress, I watched some of the highest ranked players on the planet happily engaging in matches against children and amateurs, who were equally delighted. Go seeks to neutralize the skill difference between players through the use of handicap stones. The point is not to crush your opponent, but to play as close a game as possible. Ideally, a match is settled by a single point as both players perform at their very best. Only the immature or rude rejoice when their opponents lose because of blunders.
To be sure, there are Olympic athletes who clap for and embrace their opponents, able to celebrate their peers’ achievements. However, plenty more burst into tears or stalk out of the arena when they fail to live up to their goals. To "enjoy making the best moves at our level" doesn’t mean to cease striving. Instead, we merely change its focus, dedicating ourselves to celebrating the present with the abilities we have.
