I can only control what I do when I go compete.
Simone BilesRead
Sometimes I hear the crowd cheering, and most of the time your body's on auto pilot, so sometimes even after I do a floor routine, I'm like, 'Did I really just do that?'
Interpretation
This quote reflects the experience of performing under pressure and the dissociation that can occur during intense moments.
Simone Biles speaks to the paradox of performing in front of an audience where one can feel both the thrill of the cheer and the disengagement of the mind from the body. This highlights the intense focus and dedication required in gymnastics, where athletes often find themselves executing routines on 'auto pilot', creating moments of disbelief in their own achievements despite the external validation.
In practice
This quote can be used during a motivational speech for athletes.
I can only control what I do when I go compete.
I always say my biggest competitor is myself because, whenever I step out there on the mat, I'm competing against myself to prove that I can do this and that I am very well trained, prepared for it.
It was a very long and hard decision. My dad kept telling me, 'You can always go to college, but you can't always go pro.' That made sense to me.
Always work hard and have fun in what you do because I think that's when you're more successful. You have to choose to do it.
We've always had each other's backs in and out of competition. We support each other the most because we're the only ones that know what it's like to go through what we do, and so we can't be more thankful for each other. We're like sisters.
A successful competition for me is always going out there and putting 100 percent into whatever I'm doing. It's not always winning. People, I think, mistake that it's just winning. Sometimes it could be, but for me, it's hitting the best sets I can, gaining confidence, and having a good time and having fun.
Stand through life firm as a rock in the sea, undisturbed and unmoved by its ever-rising waves
I think that nonviolence is one way of saying that there are other ways to solve problems, not only through weapons and war. Nonviolence also means the recognition that the person on one side of the trench and the person on the other side of the trench are both human beings, with the same faculties. At some point they have to begin to understand one another.
In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal.
I don't think people would climb mountains or jump off bridges with parachutes or kayak Class V rapids if those things didn't offer the brief and horrible illusion of imminent death. They would just be complicated, time-consuming endeavors that we'd steer well clear of because they got in the way of real life.
As a career Army bomb technician, I have seen real heroism in the Ranger warfighters I stalked Afghanistan with each night and in the injured combatants whom I healed alongside in Walter Reed Army Medical Center after losing the two legs God gave me.
I got no quarrel with them Vietcong.
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