Gabe Hernandez

Athleticism

Gabriel Hernandez / Carol Dweck

Self-Theories
20 October 2014

I’ll start with some backstory. All through middle and high school, I was very athletically involved. In that span of six years, I played football, soccer, baseball, basketball, tennis, ran cross-country, track, and participated in several field events (discus, shot put, long jump, and triple jump). This was a consequence of my “general athleticism” and I never really became amazingly successful in any of the sports I played, though I did enough to play at the varsity level in several of those sports. For the most part, I never did a good job at stretching and never became super flexible. Also, my vertical has always been of low quality, and since most of what I did came somewhat naturally, I never really felt the need to “develop” a certain area of my athleticism, per se. This class has made me look back and realize how, subconsciously, I never really strived to accomplish personal goals of getting faster or jumping higher or becoming more flexible, all of which are traits that every athlete should have. I was always comfortable with the abilities I had, and my quickness and agility usually made up for the things I lacked. Now, looking back, I could have done a lot more to improve my skills and perhaps I would have had a shot at enjoying the “sports life” I sometimes wish I had.

Now, on to my “growth mindset” challenge, as I’ve come to call it. In the past week, I’ve read several articles on how to increase my vertical and speed. In regards to the vertical leap, I have found many sources that all encourage jump roping, squats, leg curls and “bleachers” (running up and down some sort of staircase). In terms of flexibility (perhaps a more obvious suggestion), all sources encouraged stretching and promoted a healthy diet (something I haven’t been actively monitoring). In terms of being able to run faster, running was obviously encouraged along with several techniques and workout strategies that would help. Among these: planks, leg raises and swings, fartleks, breathing exercises, and eating healthily. Most of these things are no-brainers when it comes to gaining athleticism, which makes it interesting to point out that I seldom worked on these areas individually, isolating my growth to what the coach drew up in practice, making me largely dependent on others for my athletic development.

As I was thinking about what I wanted to do that was outrageously growth mindset, I thought: “Why not do something that I love?” So I decided to put the plan into action. I measured my vertical by jumping with a marker next to a light pole and marking how high I jumped. Throughout the course of this past week, I have jump roped for 20 minutes every other day and done a lot of abdominal and legwork in the new Arrillaga gym (I was already going often, but my workouts became significantly focused on this new goal of mine. Probably the hardest thing to do was maintaining a healthy diet, and I’ll admit that I cheated here and there with some of the desserts they offer in the dining halls. This goal is also something I am motivated to attain because I am currently in the process of trying out for the Bloodthirsty ultimate Frisbee team here on campus. The process began with open practices every Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30 to 6:30 pm for a few weeks. Afterward, they began holding invite-only practices on Sundays, to which I got invited. Up until this point, I had felt pretty comfortable with where I was at relative to all the other people trying out, but I was in for a big wake-up call. The Sunday practice consisted of 8-10 new guys (all amazing athletes) mixed with all the veteran players, which made the intensity level skyrocket. For the first time, I felt like one of the lower caliber players on the field. I started overthinking and trying to make everything perfect and felt like I was making a lot of mistakes. I started to back down, looking for the easiest guy to defend (which, of course, was flawed because they were all amazing) and started to feel inadequate.

Practice ended on a one-on-one play between the team captain and I (a contest that he won) and I left, feeling defeated. When I learned of the topic of this week’s paper, Frisbee was still on my mind and I decided at once to improve my game. I borrowed a jump rope from my RA and started to do work. My mindset, of course, was the first thing to change, and I went back to open-practice on Tuesday with a “bloodthirsty” mindset, if you will. I committed to making life miserable for the man I was guarding and felt the competitiveness flow through me. At one point, one of the captains said, “great defense Gabe,” and I felt a wave of accomplishment. The rest of the week, as mentioned before, was dedicated to improving my jump and increasing my speed in order to outplay the guys currently on the team. I saw my vertical increase by an inch in one week and I started to see the potential long-term benefits that I could attain if I kept going. During practice, I refused to match-up with any of the other guys trying out and made a point of defending only the veterans, preferably the captains of the team. I began to get a sense of timing my jump in order to snag the disk before anyone else and began catching more and more during the game. Also, after Sunday’s practice, I went back to measure a vertical that had increased one inch in one week, something I wasn’t expecting at all.

Tryout season is starting to reach its final stretch, and I plan on working as hard as I can to become better than all the guys that are currently on the team. I’m going to increase my vertical (first on my priority list), get faster, and eat healthier. About a year ago, I know for a fact that I would have never put in this much work into working for something as small as a couple inches, partly because – as mentioned before – things have generally come easy for me. I don’t really have a way of explaining it, but I feel that my own experiences have made it harder for me to fully delve into this whole aspect of having a growth mindset.

At first, I thought that we were establishing that nobody could be born with any kind of advantage; that nobody could be “gifted.” As we continue to discuss, however, I begin to realize that there is more to it. I think that some people can be naturals at something, but only to a certain extent. Why do I say this? Well, one of the first things that come to mind is my junior year in high school. One day, I was leaving cross-country practice when I saw one of my friends on the tennis team. I asked him what he was up to, and he told me they were in day one of the tryouts and that I should totally give it shot. “Dude, I’ve never held a tennis racket in my life,” I replied. “Well,” he said, What do you have to lose?” At the end of the week, I found myself on the varsity tennis team, in a position on the line-up above several of the guys that had been playing for quite some time. I definitely wasn’t the best, and I had lots of stuff to work on, but I mention this as an example of how a number of things have just kind of “happened” to me. I also think, however, that at this stage in my life, this natural ability concept was about to become a curse, and I now realize that I am going to have worked hard for a lot of things. People get better, faster, and smarter every day, and I am definitely not getting left behind.