I started out with a question - "Why are the chinese so darn good at diving?" and tried to figure out an answer. I also recognize that I'm not exactly treating this group of divers / athletes / people as individuals, and i'm sorry for that, but I don't have enough info. So... take it for what it is, and i apologize if it's offensive.
Ah, the Chinese. Those dang Chinese. They've won 4 out of 8 golds already like it was nothing. No events so far have even been close. If Michael Phelps were a country, and his sport was diving, he'd be China.
A little about Chinese divers:
Chinese divers are "discovered" in their preschools by scouts who measure everything from vertical leap to width of shoulders to parents' height. They're then shipped off to private sports schools - around the age of five or so - where they sleep 5 to a room, wake at dawn, practice basic skills (no games... no competitions), and see their parents every few months.
Unlike American kids, Chinese children do not choose their sports - they are chosen. And once they are chosen - maybe I'm wrong, and it's true that I've seen more of this on paper than in real life - they're sort of just machines for a while.
The little divers hardly touch the water for their first few years of training. They certainly don't compete - they don't even dive! They drill and drill and drill, spending days, weeks, months, years conditioning their bodies, being physically stretched past normal breaking points, and repeating the tiniest of diving motions over and over again. They are not allowed to progress until they're perfect in the basics.
(A lot of the info and ideas in this post came from the following article... You should check it out, if interested!)
In America, we place so much emphasis on winning and losing - from the beginning, we are taught to play, to have fun, to enjoy the competition, to savor the game and to believe in the power of "a little something extra." Mommy and Daddy take their kids from one team, gym, pool, or rink to the next, trying to make their little children little winners. Learning skills don't matter as much as instant success.
Kids learn to rely on raw talent rather than developed skill. Because they begin competing before they've really developed much skill, they learn to think they can win without it. They can do what "feels right" or what "they've always done" and it will carry them as far as they want. I see that in myself - I think I've at least partially learned, throughout my career, how to practice and how to value learned skills as much as my own natural strengths - but it was a hard switch to make, and it would have been easier if I'd been better at the basics from the beginning.
Dig deeper, find that mental edge, go out there and compete and surpass your wildest dreams. And never forget to have fun. Isn't that what the sports movies tell us? Be an individual, be quirky, beat the system, beat the man. Bring a little something extra to the game, or the meet, or the match, or whatever it is you do from within yourself, and that's the trick. I think that's sort of why we all like the underdog - there's something more exciting and more worthy to us about someone coming from behind and beating the guy on top than about someone good enough and solid enough to be the guy on top.
I am NOT saying that any of the athletes currently representing the US in any sport have been slacking. Our men and women have worked their butts off, sacrificed tons, and done repetitions of whatever it is they do until collapse. And it's not like we're not successful... the US team is breaking records, meeting and surpassing expectations, and winning left and right. The US athletes currently training for the games probably work just as hard as the Chinese athletes currently training for the games. But... it's not the same system. We don't have scouts in every school, conditioning from dawn til dusk at age 5, parents who are happy to ship their children (in many cases, only children... this is, after all, China...) miles and miles away for the honor of their country's sports programs, and a government that pays 100% of the expenses of all up-and-comers in the program and 1000 times that to its eventual success stories.
I like to think that we have things on our side that they don't - while they were developing bodies, our athletes were developing passions and true love for the game. The act of choosing one's own destiny - which sport to play, how much time to devote to it, what directions to travel - that has to count for something. Maybe that makes us more innovative, and more able to withstand and excel under pressure. Maybe that makes us better at winning.
As the games continue, I hope the American Team will prove me right.
Kids learn to rely on raw talent rather than developed skill. Because they begin competing before they've really developed much skill, they learn to think they can win without it. They can do what "feels right" or what "they've always done" and it will carry them as far as they want. I see that in myself - I think I've at least partially learned, throughout my career, how to practice and how to value learned skills as much as my own natural strengths - but it was a hard switch to make, and it would have been easier if I'd been better at the basics from the beginning.
Dig deeper, find that mental edge, go out there and compete and surpass your wildest dreams. And never forget to have fun. Isn't that what the sports movies tell us? Be an individual, be quirky, beat the system, beat the man. Bring a little something extra to the game, or the meet, or the match, or whatever it is you do from within yourself, and that's the trick. I think that's sort of why we all like the underdog - there's something more exciting and more worthy to us about someone coming from behind and beating the guy on top than about someone good enough and solid enough to be the guy on top.
I am NOT saying that any of the athletes currently representing the US in any sport have been slacking. Our men and women have worked their butts off, sacrificed tons, and done repetitions of whatever it is they do until collapse. And it's not like we're not successful... the US team is breaking records, meeting and surpassing expectations, and winning left and right. The US athletes currently training for the games probably work just as hard as the Chinese athletes currently training for the games. But... it's not the same system. We don't have scouts in every school, conditioning from dawn til dusk at age 5, parents who are happy to ship their children (in many cases, only children... this is, after all, China...) miles and miles away for the honor of their country's sports programs, and a government that pays 100% of the expenses of all up-and-comers in the program and 1000 times that to its eventual success stories.
I like to think that we have things on our side that they don't - while they were developing bodies, our athletes were developing passions and true love for the game. The act of choosing one's own destiny - which sport to play, how much time to devote to it, what directions to travel - that has to count for something. Maybe that makes us more innovative, and more able to withstand and excel under pressure. Maybe that makes us better at winning.
As the games continue, I hope the American Team will prove me right.
(A lot of the info and ideas in this post came from the following article... You should check it out, if interested!)
4 comments:
I am amased that you seem to understand your opponent from inside and out. Nevertheless your source of information is mainly from one piece of web article.
I hope you can realise that such a complex issue is not a matter of black and white. Especially there is a huge cultural and social difference between the West and the East. What is acceptable in one side could be totally unacceptable in another, and vice versa.
What is more important is that you go there and have fun. It's not always about winning or losing. I believe everyone in the Olympics is a true hero in their own world, and that certainly include yourself.
Enjoy the rest of the Olympics and try to make some foreign friends and find out what they really think. Why not have a chat with those Chinese divers to verify your concern.
All the best.
A Chinese blogger who lives in the West for over 6 years.
Now i'm no genius, so i'm not up to date on everything that is going on in the world, and i'm sure that there are many persons like me. I'm not saying your post is absolutely right or wrong, but i'm just wondering where you got your facts from, did you interview these Chinese children and got their version or is it the version of US/other media sites or other bloggers? are you sure that there is no bias/jealousy involved in those reports and/or your blog just to make them seem inhumane? i'm just saying... The Chinese on a whole strick me as being pretty hard working in whatever they choose/"are forced" to do and i wish them success.
One can fail many times, but he's not a failure until he starts to blame somebody else
The entry was based mainly on rumor and speculation and off-the-cuff observations, and I've now amended it to admit that from the beginning. It's a blog entry, not a researched article, although this is a topic I'd like to look into more...
I also wasn't really slamming the chinese... I feel like I slammed the American way a bit too. By all means, there is bias/jealousy involved... this country is fairly dominant in a sport I compete in. I'm not blaming anything or anyone on my own failures - it's a sport. People win, people lose. That's how it's always been.
Anyway, thanks for the constructive criticism.
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