Gu Ailing's fear, Yu Sheng's persistence, and some kind of call of this era

（1）

About 3 years ago, I once listened to Bai Yansong's speech on the spot, and he said a sentence to the effect that it was like this—

"There is a big lack in our education system that has to do with sports.

Because, in fact, every child needs to learn two things in sports competitions -

1. How to win through rules and struggle.

2. How to be able to 'lose' decently. ”

This sentence has always been fresh in my memory and resonates deeply.

And, with a lot of things happening inside and outside the Winter Olympics in the past few days, re-savoring this sentence will have a different taste.

I even began to feel a little that with this Winter Olympics, our time may have begun to call for some new view of education.

（2）

2 days ago, Gu Ailing made the last jump, won the championship in a shocking reversal, and instantly became the top stream.

This 18-year-old girl has become popular in an all-round way, and there must be a lot of superposition of heavy elements behind it, such as the current "Sino-US dispute", such as her high appearance and good temperament, model or a super bully, and her good results - in the past 2 years, she has won 12 gold medals for China.

But, putting aside all of the above, at least one thing is particularly important —

Gu Ailing herself is indeed a confident, pure, simple and pleasing young girl.

Or rather, she is a girl with a strong sense of inner security and energy that she can overflow at any time.

After Gu Ailing won the championship and became the top class, I saw an article in the circle of friends about herself written before the Winter Olympics and published in the New York Times, entitled "I admit, I fell in love with fear."

In this short essay, the little girl, who is destined to be in the spotlight for a long time to come, writes—

While athletes in extreme sports can easily be labeled 'fearless' or 'willful,' whether it's the countless hours I've spent conceiving techniques or the countless hours I've spent in foam pits (the kind of foam particles everywhere) and airbags, it's a sign that this isn't the case.

We want to go against our biological instincts and put ourselves at risk. While we will make every effort to be physically prepared, no amount of safety net simulation training can match the snow slope we will face when we take off from a steep slope, throw our bodies into the air and are about to land. Rather than ignoring fear, we develop a deep sense of self and conduct a deliberate risk assessment to build a unique relationship with fear.

Unfortunately, the sense of uncertainty in your heart can easily overwhelm your self-confidence.

……

The expectations of family and friends, periods of intense competition, and even the opportunity to obtain sponsorship can all underpin a high-pressure external environment. For those racers who can grasp the balance, pressure can turn into a positive force to help them meet the challenge. But stress can also overwhelm you on your own.

But for this buried feeling of "proof of themselves," athletes may choose to either suppress it or strengthen it, depending on their self-confidence.

While my personal and world perspectives will always evolve over time, one thing will not change: no matter how long time passes, I will be a hopeless romantic in the face of fear. ”

Can you imagine an 18-year-old talking so freely about "how to deal with your relationship with fear"?

In an interview with The New York Times, when asked about a particularly sensitive U.S.-China issue, Gu Ailing replied, "I can do a backflip in a U-shaped snow field about seven meters high, which is not politics, but challenging human limits and connecting human beings."

In contrast, domestic 18-year-old children are probably overwhelmed by the pressure of the "college entrance examination".

It is also true that we can rarely see such a free and energetic state in an 18-year-old child, and Gu Ailing will be more eye-catching for us.

（3）

After Gu Ailing became popular, there was a lot of content, digging into her growth history and education history.

Then, many people felt that the education she received was so different from the mainstream education in China.

In the special article of "People", Gu Ailing's mother Gu Yan said in an interview: "My education for Gu Ailing since I was a child is that the first is to sleep, the second is to study, and the third is to play." Gu Ailing still has to ensure that she has ten hours of sleep — when she was a child, the number was 15 hours, and after elementary school, it was 13 hours. Mom kept telling her, "I don't sleep enough to have the energy to play."

To a large extent, I will be able to feel that when Gu Ailing participates in the competition, she shows more pressure and nervousness, but how much she looks at her game with a "playful" and "curious" mentality - she is curious about what kind of challenges she and other peers who compete with her can complete, and how she can enjoy the process of "trying to win".

My good friend Classical teacher once had a saying called "Play seriously in your favorite field." Frankly speaking, the state that Gu Ailing showed in the face of competition and competition, I think is a good interpretation of this sentence to a certain extent.

（4）

Compared with Gu Ailing, Yusheng Knot is being seen and talked about in another way.

This morning, figure skating legend Yu Yusei completed his 2022 Winter Olympics performance, challenging his 4A jump failure in the final that he regarded as his life's mission – the first time ever that someone had declared the use of this technique in an official competition.

Similarly, the story of Yusei knots and his 4A jump has already sparked an overwhelming spread.

"People" also mentioned in the Yusheng special article issued today that as the youngest Olympic figure skating champion in history, after winning the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Yusheng Yuxian has talked about it in many interviews with the Japanese media that winning the Olympic gold medal was a dream, but after winning it, it has a feeling of "burning out". And 4A, let him have a new motivation and chase.

"With 4A, I can live so vigorously, and (4A) is my last dream as a competitive figure skater to gamble on my life." 」

He said, "I want to jump 4A because I want to satisfy myself, so that I can hold my chest up and say, this is the best feather knot string, this is the ideal feather knot."

He said, "I can really skate for myself."

You might ask what 4A is, in short – it's considered the limit of human physical abilities, an unprecedented move that no figure skater has ever successfully made in a race. The godfathers and godmothers of former Russian figure skating agreed that it was an action that transcended human limits and that it was impossible to see anyone do it in their lifetime.

This action is an extremely difficult move that no one has ever done before, but the extra points in the official game are very small.

This means that if what you're after is "winning," it's definitely unwise to stick to that action.

After the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, many players began to gain higher scores by adding more 4 weeks of jumping in the competition, only Yu Yu was alone, returning to the ice rink where he practiced ice as a child, alone, practicing the 4A jump again and again.

During the same period, there were more voices from the outside world that he was not optimistic about him - the younger American Player Chen Wei had been able to outperform him in several World Series scores, and his body was slowly aging, and it was becoming more and more difficult to withstand extremely heavy training.

To a certain extent, Yusheng is already sliding completely for himself, rather than sliding for "winning or losing".

When I wrote this paragraph, I happened to see an interview with Yusheng after the game on the APP, and he said——

"I've shown it all today, without any reservations. Today I was in full swing from the start and I felt like my 4A jump did a good job on the spins and I worked hard for it, an experience I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

Looking back on this game now, i have a lot of things in my mind. Today's performance reflects the name of my song "With Heaven and Earth". I fell both the 4A jump and the back jump, but in the following races, my jumps were done very well. There are still ups and downs in the game.

It's a shame it turned out, but I feel like I tried my best. I want to thank everyone for your support, I don't know if my performance has met everyone's expectations, if not, I'm sorry. ”

In the next many years, when people recall the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, they must mention that in this year's figure skating arena, the king of the figure skating era, Yu sheng, challenged the unprecedented 4A jump for the first time in the Olympic Games, but ended in failure. Still, it's a big enough moment in the history of the Winter Olympics, one that deserves to be recorded.

Yu sheng knots the strings, which perfectly explains to us what is called "decent loss".

（5）

In fact, everyone will have fear, and naturally will be afraid of uncertainty.

On a person's path of psychological growth, exploring and understanding one's own fears is the most valuable. Because fear is often the root cause behind almost all of your patterns, such as seeking approval, loving face, controlling desire, jealousy, flattery, passivity, arrogance, and perfectionism.

Behind the fear, it must be "uncertain".

The biggest significance of competitive sports is that you can better understand your fears with the help of him in a certain extreme state, and he can better get along with various pressures, and ultimately achieve dialogue, reconciliation and transcendence with himself.

As mentioned by Gu Ailing in the previous article, it is impossible for a person to be without fear, but if a person can begin to smoothly transform fear into his own kinetic energy, then this person will be able to bloom with a moving light.

Unfortunately, in our education system in the past few decades, "sports" is indeed too weak, and even many people often see it as "affecting children's performance".

（6）

During this Winter Olympics, I can always feel that the two trends of public opinion are alternately existing.

First, we are still surrounded by a lot of populist public opinion that is completely "win or lose". Behind these voices, in fact, no one really cares about the athletes' efforts, hard work, and mental journey, they just need to find some "winners" to give praise, and then find some "losers" to step into the bottomless abyss.

These sounds will always make people feel a little bit of palpitations.

But second, I can also feel that, at least in some parts, some ideas and concepts will begin to change slightly but significantly—in some places, we can be less concerned about having to pursue "one-dimensional correct answers."

Typical examples, such as the opening ceremony and ignition ceremony of this Winter Olympic Games, no longer blindly pursue "grand and gorgeous", but begin to use some slight and clever expressions to present our ease and some "cultural self-confidence".

For example, behind Gu Ailing and Yusheng knots, although there are still many "brain residue fans" and "brainless sprays" that alternate, there are always people who pay attention to and are more willing to amplify, not their achievements, but more moving and worth seeing things on them.

There is no doubt that of the above two voices, the former is still mainstream. But the latter has also begun to be recognized by more people within a certain range.

Over the past few decades, China has long been in a state of "urgent need to seek recognition from the outside" throughout the world, and the entire country has completely governed the country with "efficiency first" as the supreme principle.

In the context of "efficiency first", sometimes we only need a one-dimensional and efficient answer, and many times, we have to pursue stronger certainty, and we are particularly concerned about pursuing a "winning" result. So, sometimes, as long as there is a winning result, everything else does not matter.

This is especially true in education.

But from now on, maybe a lot of things will slowly change a little.

（7）

Every era has its own wave of the times. The tide is unstoppable.

We cannot change the trend of the times, but we are often defined by the trend of the times.

But, as I mentioned in my year-end report at the end of last year, in this day and age, our best expectation, perhaps—

Strive to be a person who conforms to the times but is not overwhelmed by the times.

If you really want to do this, the two suggestions at the beginning are actually quite important.

You have to learn to win through rules and hard work, and you have to learn how to "lose" decently.

May we all try to practice these two things in more things, and start playing for ourselves in more things.

(End)