In the first two videos, the cyclists are riding up mountains basically at their physiological limits. They cross the finish line and promptly collapse:
Stage 2 of the 2013 Amgen Tour of California (Skip ahead to 4:30 or so to see what I'm talking about):
Stage 5 of the 2013 USA Pro Cycling Challenge (Watch from 1:00-1:30 or so):
It seems to me that their minds are pushing their bodies past their limit. The finish line is some sort of psychological trigger that "snaps them back" into reality: once they know they can stop, they do.
This next clip is of a different sort: it's from the 1982 Ironman in Hawaii. Julie Moss is determined to make it across the finishing line:
Here, her body shuts down before her mind; however, she manages to will herself to the finishing line despite the apparent shutdown of all of her systems.
So I've been thinking about the relationship between the body and the mind lately, as exemplified through these excerpts. There's obviously a strong connection between the body and the brain. Looking at Moss, clearly her body is out of fuel: she can barely stand, barely walk, and she crawls over the finish line. If her body was so depleted of fuel, her brain must have been also. How is it, then, that she was able to maintain motivation to cross the finish line? Is there some evolutionary biological survival strategy at play here, an adaptation of something that our hunting and gathering ancestors needed to survive? In these cases, it looks like the mind was able to overpower the body.
On the other hand, I think there are times when the body can trump the mind. Consider:
(Disclaimer: I don't much care for this guy's playing, but the fact that this is a Guiness Book of World Records attempt/spectacle/game show/whatever plays into my point.)
Gyorgy Cziffra playing Liszt (start around 5:10):
Feats of dexterity like this are impossible to accomplish if you think about every note, every gesture: they must become internalized, automatic. There's something, too, about listening to these performances in an "embodied" kind of way that I find thrilling: I know how fast my fingers can move, and I've heard other people who can play fast, etc., but every time I hear the Cziffra recording, I wait for him to go off the rails at around the 6:00 mark.
I would also argue that we watch sports in an embodied fashion as well. As a rather skilled cyclist and runner myself (I'm far from a pro--don't get me wrong), I feel my legs tighten when I watch the final sprint of a stage race--my body is recreating what it's like to accelerate on a bike, even though I'm on my couch.
In my running, I've been practicing a kind of irregular rhythmic breathing: I breathe in for four steps and out for one. If I'm going fast, it might be a 3:2 ratio; if I'm going slowly, it might be 5:4. One very pragmatic goal of this approach is that it helps to eliminate side stitches by alternating which foot hits the ground as you begin to inhale. It also helps even out the stride, forcing you to "accent" alternating feet at the beginning of each 4:3. I've also found, though, that this entrainment moves me toward a more meditative state as I run. I never run with music (save for the occasional very long run; I haven't run with music in about two years). Music offers another method of entrainment. None of this is news to anyone who practices yoga, meditation, or something similar.
I don't really have a grand conclusion here, just some questions:
- What can moments such as those documented on the videos above tell us about the relationship between the mind/brain and body, particularly in the pursuit of extreme physical feats?
- How does something like entrainment and/or meditation play into this?