Visualisation

For those of you who know me you will know I like good conversation and that I have had some strange conversations in my time. The most notable of which have been with random drunks and psychiatric patients. I have even had entire conversations with inanimate objects, the one which sticks in my mind is the one I had with a vibrating caterpillar toy. Anyway, I digress.

Where we train there is a gentleman who lost his arm below the elbow. However he does not let this hinder him, he manages to do all the exercises, has super human strength and pushes everyone in training. Obviously he has had to adapt to overcome this adversity, over the weeks I have seen a big development in his high guard game and he has been using the remainder of his arm as a vicious choking tool.

Last night after training we were talking about this particular gentleman and admiring the way he had over come this adversity, when the subject of the conversation turned onto other people in similar situations and the power of mind. Below I highlight two athletes who have over come such adversity and then I finish the post with an example of the power of the mind.

One of the first persons who sprung to my mind was Og De Souza. Og is a professional skateboarder from Brazil who skateboards using only his hands. He was born with a condition which caused his legs to stop developing at a young age. Originally Og learned to skateboard as a way to get around, much like most people use a wheel chair. Here is a video of Og in action:



Next is Kyle Maynard. Kyle was born with congenital amputation of the forearms and lower legs. He is now a motivational speaker but has competed in many sports including wrestling and even MMA. Below is a short news article on Kyle.



People often talk about the power of the mind and whether the mind can influence the body or vice versa...I will spare my thoughts on the subject for now but here is a striking example of how the mind can influence the body. Tibetan Monks have shown that by mediating one can increase the body temperature. Here is a snippet from a documentary that was aired on the History channel.



One guy Deepak Chopra, reckoned that by ridding oneself of negative emotions and developing intuition by listening to signals from the body, health can be improved. According to Chopra, slowing down or reversing the aging of the mind through his methods can increase one's lifespan up to the age of 120 years. Who knows if this is true one thing I do know is that you always see old monks!!!