.David.Auker.

http://www.esalen.org/air/essays/spiritinsport.htm

(Article starts off a bit slow, but picks up about 1/4 way down the page)

==
Some rather "elevated" thoughts on what "sport" is. Talks about intense
concentration, becoming so engrossed as to become the game itself,
"zone" stuff. I think this is especially true for cycling...like,
there's no idle thinking when it comes to setting up for a criterium
corner, a 'cross barrier.

Andrew Cooper writes:

> Ancient Greece was, of course, the site of an extraordinary
> flourishing of sacred sport. For the Greeks, athletic contests were
> offerings to the gods. They were surrounded by ceremony and celebrated
> in poetry. Within this sacred context, sport was a container in which
> aggressive passions were channeled and transformed and an arena in
> which virtues were cultivated and displayed. Participation in sport,
> whether as contestant or spectator, was seen as an activity that
> educated, enriched, and emancipated the soul.

> In his autobiography, Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man,
> written in 1979, basketball Hall-of-Famer Bill Russell evokes the
> "mystical feeling" that would on occasion lift the action on the
> hardwood to the level of magic: “Every so often a Celtic game would
> heat up so that it became more than a physical or even mental game,
> and would be magical. The feeling is difficult to describe, and I
> certainly never talked about it when I was playing. When it happened I
> could feel my play rise to a new level. At that special level all
> sorts of odd things happened. It was almost as if we were playing in
> slow motion. During those spells I could almost sense how the next
> play would develop and where the next shot would be taken. Even before
> the other team brought the ball in bounds, I could feel it so keenly
> that I'd want to shout to my teammates, ‘It's coming there!’—except
> that I knew everything would change if I did.”

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

David