Sri Chinmoy plays tennis at Jamaica High School track in Queens, New York.
Sri Chinmoy and Robert Zmelick
A meeting at Annam Brahma Restaurant in Jamaica, New York
The following excerpts are from a conversation between Sri Chinmoy and Robert Zmelick, Czech Olympic gold medallist in the decathlon (1992):
Sri Chinmoy: If you practise your 100 metres more, it will definitely, definitely help you in your long jump and in other items as well. But if you give more importance than is due to 1500 metres, then it will ruin your long jump and high jump. You are an excellent sprinter. One hundred metres, shot-put, long jump and high jump go together because of the speed and the spring that are needed. The first thing that 1500 metres does is take away the spring. No matter how slowly you run, 1500 metres is so bad for sprinters. Up to 400 metres you can practise, but 800 or 1500 metres is bad for sprinters. You can get stamina, but stamina is not speed. If you practise 800 metres, it may help you get stamina for 400 metres, but if you practise 800 metres more, definitely you will lose some spring for your 100 metres.
You will not get endurance for the decathlon from running long-distance. You have to get endurance by practising the individual events. Suppose you are doing shot-put or discus. You do not have to do your best performance; you do not have to use your maximum capacity. You can increase your endurance not by running 1500 metres, but by practising the events that you are already very good in. For example, you can do two or three hurdles instead of ten hurdles to get stamina. Then in pole vault, you can jump, but not at your maximum height. For stamina, you can do the pole vault at a very low height. If you want to get endurance and stamina, you can practise the items that will not take away your spring. If you run 1500 metres, it will ruin your spring, and then it will affect your high jump and your long jump.
The 1500 is nothing, less than four rounds on the track, but if you practise it many times, then your spring disappears. So kindly be very careful with your 100 metres, long jump, shot-put and high jump. Definitely I want you to do well in 1500 metres, but not by running it more times. You can increase your stamina in some other way. If you want to, you can even try sprinting 30 or 40 metres many times. You know your speed for 100 metres, so you can do it a few times more to get stamina.
So many items in the decathlon depend on speed. The shot-put definitely requires speed. It comes from the elbow or from the shoulder or somewhere else, but speed is absolutely necessary. Even very strong people cannot throw the shot well if they have no speed, and that speed you have.
How much time do you spend in taking exercises, such as weightlifting? How many days per week do you lift weights?
Robert Zmelick: I was lifting four times weekly, but now I do it two times a week. Now I am in a special programme using a medicine ball, with exercises for the abdominals and the torso. These are very important for turning and for force. Your record of 7,000 crunch sit-ups is unbelievable! I do 500, and then my abdomen hurts!
Sri Chinmoy: In your case, you have to compete in ten events. You do not need to do something like 7,000 sit-ups.
My only request to you is that this coming month, before the Olympics, you should not adopt anything new that you have not done before. If you want to increase, increase; if you want to decrease, decrease. But do not be greedy to try something new. Whatever you are doing, you can do the same thing a few times more or a few times less. But you are taking a great risk if you try to practise anything new. Many athletes make that mistake. It is our eagerness or greed: “If I do this, perhaps I will do better.” At that time problems arise because you have a very, very high standard. At this standard when you want to adopt something new, you take a risk. But the things that you have been doing are safe. If you want to do more repetitions or fewer repetitions, you can. Only do the things that you have been familiar with for at least six months. Anything new at this point, when it is only a matter of a month, may create problems because you are not accustomed to it.
You may feel, “Oh, this may help me.” It may help you, but again it may create some problem for you. The last month before the competition, everything you must do with utmost confidence. You will throw, run and jump with utmost confidence. If you adopt something new, at that time you may not have confidence. When you do not have confidence, that is the time when you may get injuries. Confidence removes all fear and doubt. If we do something new, we may get freshness in our mind, but again the same mind can give us doubt. If we do something for the first time, we can have tremendous happiness because it is a new adventure. Again, when we want to enjoy a new adventure, we may be attacked by self-doubt. This is not the time for you to have any kind of self-doubt in anything you do. Everything you have to do with utmost confidence — you have done it, you have done it, you have done it. But if it is something new, you may not be able to say that because you do not have the preparation from before.
So everything that you practise — shot-put, discus, javelin, jumping or running — do with utmost confidence because you have been doing it for so many years. But if you feel that by taking a particular exercise or by doing something else, you will increase your capacity, you will be entering into new territory, an unknown field. That unknown field can give you beautiful flowers or it can give you something else.
Will your coach be with you?
Robert Zmelick: No, I am training alone because I know my body. I have a special training programme.
Sri Chinmoy: Your body does not sometimes tell you that you are doing more than you need to do or that you are not doing as much as you are supposed to do? What kind of message do you get from your body?
Robert Zmelick: I feel that all year I worked very hard in San Diego with no rest, just working and working. Now I feel my body is telling me, “Robert, you must now be smart because it is getting very close to the Olympics and you need a special programme.”
Sri Chinmoy: But does that special programme include a little more rest?
Robert Zmelick: I have a special tape of Carl Lewis on training, and I like his programme — one day hard training, the next medium, the third easy and the fourth rest. For me, it is very hard because I feel that a rest day is much harder than a hard workout.
Sri Chinmoy: Do not allow your mind to be your boss. You be the boss of your mind. Suppose one day you have taken rest. Then the mind will tell you that you have not practised for many days. All kinds of worries and anxieties will come to you and make you feel that you have taken many days’ rest. The mind may tell you that you have lost a little capacity or that you are not eager any more, you are not sincere any more, you are not serious any more. This roguish mind can tell you the following day that had you been very sincere, had you been very serious, then you would have practised yesterday as well. By saying that you are not serious and you are insincere, the mind is weakening you.
At that time you have to become the boss of your mind. You have to tell the mind, “My body is like a machine. In a factory, after a few hours, a big machine needs refueling. Everything needs rest, and rest brings energy. Yesterday I took rest; I needed it desperately. I cannot do anything for twenty-four hours a day. Even though I like to eat, can I eat for twenty-four hours? Impossible. When we eat, we are satisfied. Similarly, after taking exercise for a few days, if the muscles get rest, they get nourishment. So when the mind is telling you that you are no longer serious, no longer sincere, no longer disciplined, challenge your mind by saying, “O mind, I am wiser than you are. Why should I have to be in the battlefield every day, every hour? I have to come back home to rest.”
The day you did not practise, you did not go to the battlefield. Why? Not because you are a coward, not because you are weak, but because you wanted to regain more strength. Then the following day you will go to the battlefield and defeat everybody. You were wise to take rest so that you could get more strength and defeat your rivals. But your mind can play a trick on you by convincing you that because for one day you took rest, your whole world has collapsed — you are no longer disciplined, you are no longer serious in your sports. This is what happens with some athletes. Always the mind is playing tricks. Again, if you have practised hard one day, and the following day you are quite satisfied, the mind can tell you, “This is not enough. You should have done more.” You have done more than enough; you are satisfied. But the clever mind is taking your joy away from you by telling you that you have not practised enough.
Perhaps you will go home and lie down, saying, “Oh, I have done so well in javelin.” Then your mind takes away all your joy by saying, “It was not enough. If I had thrown once more, I would have thrown two metres more.” The mind all the time makes a fool out of us, always takes our joy away. At that time your heart has to be the judge. Your heart will say, “No, I did as much as I wanted to do. I wanted to do fifteen throws, and I did fifteen throws. It is enough for me.”
The final judge has to be the heart. Whatever you do, the heart will say you did the right thing. If you stop after fifteen throws, the heart will say you did absolutely the right thing. The mind will say, “No, I should have done two or three more. Then I would have done better.” But if you had done more, perhaps you would have injured yourself instead of doing better. So do not listen to the mind at all. Whatever you do, do happily and cheerfully. The day you are taking rest, feel that that is absolutely the right thing for you. The day you practise, feel that you are doing absolutely the right thing. Whatever you do, feel that you are doing absolutely the right thing. While you are doing something, if you think that you are not doing the right thing, the mind will take away all your joy, enthusiasm, eagerness and readiness.
When you are throwing the shot, please feel that you are doing the right thing. Do not say, “I should be doing something else. Yesterday my 400 metres was so bad! I should practise it a little more.” When you are doing shot-put, your heart is telling you, “This is the time for me to do the shot-put.” At that time, do not think that yesterday you did not do well in the 400 metres. Your heart has to be the judge, from the very beginning.
You said that you are your own coach. That is excellent. But the real coach has to be your heart. This means that you have to do everything cheerfully. Each time you do something happily — whether you are throwing, jumping, doing hurdles or anything else — you have to feel that you are doing the right thing. When you are not happy in what you are doing, it is the mind that is making you miserable.
How many hours rest do you get at night?
Robert Zmelick: Now I am sleeping nine hours a night. It is very good for me, and after lunch I sleep one and a half or two hours.
Sri Chinmoy: That is very good. One week before the Olympics start, please do one thing for each event. Suppose the first event is 100 metres. Imagine that you are running the fastest in 100 metres. The first time you will imagine you have gone at a particular speed. The next time when you imagine you are running 100 metres again, imagine that you are going still faster. Imagination has its own speed. Outwardly I may run 100 metres in 17 seconds. But imagination has a much faster speed. Again, new imagination can have still faster speed. With today’s imagination, you are imagining that you are running very fast. Tomorrow when you are imagining, try to feel that you are going still faster, and the day after tomorrow feel you are going faster than the fastest. While throwing also, imagine that you are doing more. This imagination is not hallucination.
Robert Zmelick: I use imagination every day.
Sri Chinmoy: Every time, imagine that you are doing better. In the high jump, when you have reached a particular height, the mind will say, “Oh, this is the maximum height.” Forget about the mind. Imagine that you have jumped two inches higher. Keep the height there, not lower. While imagining, be very, very happy. Feel that you have done it.
Always make yourself happy by imagining something higher, something longer, something faster. When it is running, just imagine that you are going faster. When it is high jump or pole vault, imagine jumping higher. Each time you imagine, feel that you are very happy, very happy that you have done it. Your imagination has absolutely no barriers. When you are imagining something, do not think that there are hurdles that you have to jump over. No, feel that the road is absolutely clear; there is only you and nobody else on the road.
I am very, very happy to speak to you on the eve of your Olympic championship. Your happiness is your strength. Happiness will give you confidence; confidence will give you happiness. If you are doing the high jump or anything else, feel that you are doing it to make yourself happy. If today you are not doing your best, only tell yourself: “It is not necessary. When the time comes, I can easily do it.” Do not say, “Today if I am not doing it, how will I do it in the Olympics?” No. You have to say, “It is not necessary. I will be able to do it easily.”
At every moment challenge your mind. You be the boss of your mind. The mind will always try to create self-doubt. The mind never gives us joy. Even if it gives us a certain amount of joy for five seconds, after five minutes it takes away even more joy. We may get limited joy from the mind. Then the mind takes away this limited joy plus it brings unlimited unhappiness. One dollar it gives. Then afterwards it takes away that one dollar and tries to steal ten dollars more from the heart. The heart has joy, so secretly the mind enters into the heart-room and takes away the heart’s joy.
Whatever you do, do it happily. Do not have any regrets: “Oh, I should have done this; I should have done that.” No, whatever you have done, feel that that is absolutely the right thing. That will give you joy. Once you do it, feel that you have done your best. If you say, “I should have done something else,” it will weaken you. Then you will not be able to do your other events well. Always do everything well and say, “I have done the right thing. If I have taken rest, it was absolutely necessary. If I have not taken rest, it is because it was not necessary.” Always convince your mind with happiness, happiness.
I wish you good, better, best of luck in every event!
Published in Sri Chinmoy Answers, part 24