Fire and ice. Darkness and light. Strong and weak. We divide the world into binaries. As humans, this typically helps us to understand what is safe and what is dangerous. We instinctually categorize, separating things, ideas, and constructs in the simplest way possible: into two distinct categories. This helps us to quickly identify what is us and what is other, what is welcome and what is a threat.
 
However, this survival mechanism comes with drawbacks. Looking at the world in black and white can be boring, can deny the nuance of identity, can trap a person in oscillation between crisis mode, responding to the threatening “other,” and conformity, making sure we fit into the appropriate in-group boxes. This can be the case in sport as in life.
 
In sport, we are often expected to make decisions, foresee outcomes, and execute calmly. However, as athletes we are also expected to display a certain level of competitive fire, a desire for victory, and a drive to achieve. While competitive fire and levelheadedness might appear to fit nicely at opposite poles of a binary, this is an oversimplification. And such an oversimplification can deny us the nuances of our identities as not only individual athletes, but as members of our communities, athletic and otherwise.
 
The All Blacks are New Zealand’s national rugby team. They are one of the most successful sports team in the history of sport. Many an article, book, and documentary has examined the All Blacks’ success. Notably, James Kerr published Legacy in 2013, distilling lessons in sport and leadership from the All Blacks’ team culture. Beyond an abundance of knowledge about how to lead a meaningful and ethical life, this book highlights the All Black aspiration of having a “blue head.”
 
What is a blue head? A blue head is a mental headspace where you can make effective decisions and execute tasks appropriately. For details on how the All Blacks operationalize a blue head, please read the following article:
https://www.the42.ie/red-heads-all-blacks-mental-skills-gazing-3055185-Oct2016/
 
A blue head might be termed levelheadedness. Fundamentally, it’s about recruiting the full power of your cognitive and executive functioning in order to perform well. Knowing this, what happens when we routinely categorize a blue head as the polar opposite of competitive fire?
 
The above article discusses the movement from a red head to a blue head, meaning a shift from poor mental preparedness, and thus poor decision-making, to clarity and strong mental preparedness. In pondering this shift, we should be sure not to conflate a red head with competitive fire. Metaphors of heat and flame aside, we can be competitive, fiery, hungry, and also operate with a blue head, from a deliberate and controlled space.
 
When we routinely categorize a blue head as the polar opposite of competitive fire, when we conflate flustered decision-making with ambition and drive, we turn up the contrast on our athletic pursuits, eliminating the grey spaces and nuances that characterize life and which can lead to meaning.
 
It may be useful to think about competitive fire as having either an internal or an external impetus. Internal competitive fire might be termed drive, discipline, ambition, hunger. Conversely, external competitive fire might result from watching a competitor out-lift you, hearing a coach yell encouragement, receiving a slap on the shoulders from a teammate. These external motivating factors can be awesome and helpful, but they may also lead to irrational decision-making.
 
This poor decision-making is more likely to occur when we are unable to apply an intellectual framework to an emotional sensation we are feeling. It is likely easy to hear a coach yelling encouragement and fit that nicely into an existing paradigm of “my coach cares about me; my coach yells to improve my performance.” Similarly, a slap on the back from a teammate likely fits into the same paradigm of “I am part of an athletic community where my goals and the goals of my teammates are respected and mutually supported.” A slap on the back from a competitor, however, may be harder to process. We may find it difficult to convince ourselves that such a competitor wishes us well, wishes to motivate us. Or, that slap on the back may fit into an existing emotional framework where we actively believe the competitor wishes us harm, which may have an exacerbating effect. In this latter case, or if we can’t fit our opponent’s gesture into an appropriate intellectual framework, such an external impetus may prevent us from getting into a blue headspace.
 
The danger of conflating competitive fire with having a red head, the difference between a red head and a blue head, and the ways motivation may come from internal and external stimuli may be familiar notions for athletes, especially weightlifters. So where is the deeper meaning?
Broadly, the capacity to examine and apply a cognitive framework, to call upon that framework and use it to mentally prepare, and then to lean upon that preparedness when it comes to making effective decisions, is an important skillset to living a meaningful and ethical life. Any time we are able to examine not only the decisions we make, but why we make those decisions, we are engaging in a level of personal meta-analysis that allows us to know ourselves and grow as humans. As athletes, we tend to be deeply invested in self-growth, in the pursuit of goals that we find meaningful. Yet, let’s take yet another step into meaningfulness.
 
Weightlifting is an individual sport, often thought of as the ultimate individual sport. And while our time on the platform is solitary, we are not isolated bastions that exist in a contextual or societal vacuum. We are part of a complex fabric that weaves in the various elements of our sport, our culture, and our society, as well as the experiences of our competitors, teammates, coaches, and even our community members.
 
The All Blacks have an adage that good people make good All Blacks. It is not enough to consider the ways we motivate ourselves and make decisions for ourselves. Part of our drive, part of our competitive fire, must also take into account the impact we have on the community around us and the impact we will have on the community yet to come. Are our actions in this moment serving our sport? Are they serving our loved ones? We cannot divorce our performance in our sport from the ethics of how we live our lives. It may seem a vast, philosophical jump to link how we behave as weightlifters with the generations of lives yet to come, but it is not. It is merely a matter of taking a step back and seeing more of the forest, including the forest that has yet to burst from the undergrowth of the forest floor; this will enable us to recognize the importance of ethical behavior on the platform. Consider, as a salient example, the lack of access women have had to sport historically. Consider the challenges facing Muslim women who choose to cover their heads as they train and compete. Consider the scourge of traumatic brain injury facing many American gridiron football players. We cannot divorce our athlete-ness from our whole humanness. As we endeavor to better ourselves as weightlifters, we must also endeavor to better our world.
 
This brings us back to having a blue head. If we cannot make thoughtful decisions from a place of cognitive clarity, we are both more likely to succumb to distraction on the platform, but also less likely to consider the full nuance of the human experience in other domains of our lives; we are less likely to possess the openness, the perspective, and the compassion that makes us strive to better the experience of the person who steps onto the platform after us and the generations of people in weightlifting and beyond who we will never meet.
 
Be a good person. Be a good weightlifter.