Smile, breathe and go slowly! Thich Nhat Hanh

I play squash three mornings a week, when I am in Mombasa.  I love the game of squash; it is very varied and gives a great cardio work out.  It is also very competitive and I like competition.

So playing squash allows me to keep fit without really noticing. It also allows me to exercise my mental agility and speed.  Because squash is a fast game one must think quickly and react even quicker.  I play mostly with men, not many women play the game.

In my experience men generally play very hard, very fast squash, yet ironically the very good ones play a very slow very deliberate game.   When playing squash against a man, who will normally have strength as a huge advantage over me; my strategy is to slow things down.   I have learned that no matter how fast or how hard the ball is coming at me, the key is to slow it down.  Shot after shot my opponent will fire the ball at me and on each return I slow down the ball and concentrate entirely on strategy. I also use this tactic after a particularly strenuous volley where I have been running all over the court and am out of breath and tired.  When it is my turn to serve, I pause, take several deep, deliberate breathes and purposely slow down my breathing and my reactions.  This very conscious act allows me to regroup and reorganize myself before my next serve.  I am better able to control the game by controlling its momentum.  A slow deliberate game frustrates players accustomed to fast games and they begin to make mistakes, making a win against them easier.

For those who have played or watched a football match, think about a team mounting an attack on the opponent’s goal; if they are unsuccessful in their bid and the ball remains in play and  in their  control, it becomes imperative that the team regroup’s and refocuses themselves before mounting the next attack.  They need to calm down, take a few breaths and re-strategize so as to maximize on the next bid on their opponent’s goal.  Same concept; slow things down and take time to think about what is next.

Okay enough about examples in sports, it’s just that I believe that sports are a reflection of our lives, if one plays sports in a frenzied manner then chances are that is their true character in life; if they are uncoordinated and awkward in sports, same in life, if in following, they are graceful, disciplined, precise and in control in sports, then check their lives and you will find they live in a similar way.

What about in an argument does the same concept hold true? The nature of arguments and disagreements is such that,  with the back and forth volley of words, things are tense, and the tension escalates, at times the breaking point becomes one where rash words are spoken and reconciliation becomes very difficult.  What if, the next time one is involved in a heated debate, argument or disagreement, one was to STOP……..  And take some deep deliberate breaths the results might be very different.  This very obvious act will firstly confuse the opponent unsure of what is going on, and it will definitely decrease the momentum of the engagement and at the same time give one time to restrategize and change the trajectory of the  issue in contention.

Okay so what if we used this in life, when we are being bombarded with activities, people, things.  Daily we have things coming at us from all directions and most times it comes in a frenzy of speed.  If we just stopped……… took a deep breath or two or three and then slowly make a decision of how to move forward.  It is my opinion that if we deliberately slow down all the things that bombard us in life, we might end up focusing more on the quality of what we are doing, instead of reacting to frenzy by being frenzied ourselves.  We might be able to eliminate the mistakes when speed becomes more important than precision. So just Breathe!