Mindfulness and Awareness in Figure Skating

Mindfulness and Awareness in Figure Skating

BY LEE CABELL, EDD, MFF

Figure skating is a beautiful sport, but there is a lot of physical training behind it. Figure skaters devote a lot of time practicing at an ice rink and exercising in a gym every day, but how much time do they spend preparing mentally for the precious minutes on the ice during training or competition? How do figure skaters and coaches improve their cognitive control, making their minds stronger and strengthening their attention control? One answer can be found in taming their minds through the practice of meditation, increasing mindfulness and awareness.

In the last 20 years, meditation and mindfulness/awareness have gone from being “kind of cool” to becoming an omnipresent Band-Aid for fixing everything from weight to relationships to achievement level. Cutting-edge research has revealed meditation’s many benefits and, as indicated below, how it can help practitioners achieve their goals.

At its root, mindfulness is about staying focused on what is happening in the present moment. The mind is like a wild horse that needs to be tamed. Finding a “focal point” can help tame the mind’s wild tendencies. We can focus on any object, but breath is the best object to focus on because it is always with us. Mindfulness means attention to detail; however, our mind must be calm in order to be focused.

Awareness means using your five sense perceptions at every moment. You are fully present sensing the outside world with the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. You notice we are here, facing the external reality we need to relate to. Do I like or dislike this reality? What is my personal feeling about it? And we project our prejudices into this reality. We never see it as is, we only see our projection of it. That is why that it is like a dream, the rainbow or magic show. We only see our version of the external world.

We can learn about mindfulness and awareness by practicing meditation. In the West, more than 10 million people practice meditation every day. What is meditation and how it can help us? There are many kinds of meditation that influence the body and the brain, and scientists have just begun to scratch the surface of meditation’s possibilities. There is no need to become Olympic-level meditators or a yogi in a Himalayan mountain cave to learn about meditation and how to be mindful and aware. We can do it in the comfort of our home if we can have a quite space to sit on a meditation cushion or a chair.

You can begin mindful meditation by sitting with the back straight on a meditation cushion with legs crossed or sitting on a chair with both feet touching the ground and focusing your attention on your breathing. Basic and simple, is not it? Not quite. The breath is always with you and gives you a bridge between the body and the mind. If we are happy, sad, excited, or angry, our breathing patterns change. Our breath accurately reflects our state of mind. As we focus on breathing, our breathing gradually becomes slower, then the frenetic activity in our minds becomes slower. We cannot breathe in the past or the future, we can only breath now. If we are conscious at the time of breathing, then we are in the present moment.

Your eyes should be semi-open with the gaze about three to four feet to the front. If you are too distracted at the beginning of meditation, close your eyes for a few minutes first then open them slightly again after you quiet your mind a bit. This can be repeated during your meditation session. I prefer my hands comfortably placed on my thighs to create a closed circle. Your sitting should be as natural as possible, not too tight and not too loose.

As we practice mindfulness meditation and sit and focus on our breath, we suddenly realize we are not the masters of our minds, yet the mind is with us all the time! The mind feeds us with anything imaginary possible, and thoughts are coming and coming. We like these thoughts, dislike them or are indifferent; we do not have to follow our thoughts out. If our minds wander and we are aware, then we can notice our thoughts and bring our attention back to our anchor—our breath, “touch and go,” so to speak.

We should not be judgmental or pushing our thoughts away during the time of meditation. We are becoming friends with our minds and with ourselves. We certainly do not beat ourselves up because we are not the “perfect” meditators. We accept ourselves as we are. We observe our minds and what our minds are doing. We can see positive and negative states of mind, so we become more and more the masters of our minds rather than our minds’ slaves. We are in control.

While we practice mindfulness meditation, we want to also practice awareness meditation: a more global concept of space, i.e., panoramic awareness. We are aware with our whole being rather than just seeing with the eyes alone. Either we are conscious or not conscious, there is nothing in between. We are aware of our emotions, we have a moment of clarity, and we are aware and conscious of what is actually occurring. At the same time, we areaware of other peoples’ emotions and genuine communication can take place.

Meditation is not about getting to a state of bliss, ecstasy, blanking out, or becoming thoughtless. It is about developing a clarity of mind, so we can see how much we are—or are not—imprisoned in our conceptual mind.

Most people identify with their thinking and feelings which are interconnected. We are thinking about the past or we are planning what we will do next, but all that is just a thought. It doesn’t exist. The past is gone; the future has not yet come. The only time we have is right now.

But even now is not now because the moment I say now, it is gone. We need to be aware of the space, not just the clouds covering the sky. There is nothing wrong with thinking, but if we cannot stop thinking, then we are in trouble. It is especially about how we recognize our negative emotions, so we become the masters instead of slaves of our destiny.

How often we should meditate? Even 10-15 minutes of sitting meditation in a quite space every day can make a difference. Regularity is key, however. Children as young as eight years old can meditate by lying on a soft surface, placing their favorite toy on their stomach and focusing on it rise and fall during breathing.

A practical effect of mindfulness/awareness meditation for figure skating coaches is the ability to focus and concentrate on the student during a lesson. How I feel inside is how I see people outside. My thoughts become my speech and my actions, and therefore affects others and the outer world. If I am there for my student at the present moment and can give her my full attention without any anger or distracting emotions, I know I have done my job. The same can be applied to our mind and behavior during a competition. There is nothing technically new we can teach our skater during a competition. We are only focused on our skater, “holding the space for her.” If we concentrate, we will start hearing and seeing more clearly and both the skater and coach can benefit.

Also, coach’s ego can hurt the skater. It is one thing to be proud of our skater’s achievement, and another to “massage” our ego. It is the skater’s achievement, and we have helped our skater to achieve her goal. Nothing more, nothing less. Compassion and caring for themselves and others are other benefits of mindfulness/awareness meditation. Coaches can change their relationship for themselves and others.

A practical effect of mindfulness/awareness meditation for figure skaters is that mindfulness/awareness can help students to learn by focusing on the coach’s instruction rather than being distracted by their surroundings. They can skate on the ice with 100% attention on their coach’s instruction during a lesson and practice afterwards. They are aware of the space around them, and what the coach is saying. Their attention is fully present, mindful of sense perceptions at the very moment.

When skaters perform their program, they must be in control and totally in the present moment. If they make a mistake in the program, they need to let it go and not allow it to negatively influence the rest of the program.

Today’s kids have a video babysitter and have less human and personal interaction than previous generations. There are more distractions these days than any time before. A wealth of information means poverty of attention.

There is some scientific evidence about meditation that can be helpful to our coaches’ health. Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, published more than 190 scientific papers and 12 books about how meditation helps cardiac arrythmias, allergies, anxiety, bronchial asthma, depression, diabetes, blood pressure, and cholesterol. By meditating, you can become happier, concentrate more, and change your brain.

Most scientific studies train participants to focus on their breath—to pay attention, for instance, to what it feels like when their breath moves in and out. But other types of mindfulness—related to physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions—can be employed with the same effect, according to Dr. Gaelle Desbordes, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School who studies mindfulness.