In every training process — whether technical training for kicking or shooting, athletic training, or mental training — there is great emphasis on following the coach’s instructions as the sole key to success. “If only we execute the instructions as they were given to us, we will reach our goal,” the trainee chirps in their heart. Yet at the same time, something in their general consciousness knows that not everyone can arrive at the same result; otherwise, how would they distinguish themselves on their path upward and become a preferred product over the competition on the same axis they seek to conquer?
After all, hard work is a kind of standard among elite professionals at all ages. And if we have gathered together some 500 professionals in a league who all work hard and complete numerous training sessions with various emphases — will we produce 500 identical robots, befitting an Orwellian production factory?
Hence there is a tremendous need to discuss the difference between following instructions out of values of “pedantry and excellence” versus developing personal style, which sometimes requires traits of rebelliousness mixed with loyalty and vision.
Much has been written in books of the 2000s about the importance of excellence in sports, almost like an artificial and clichéd remedy for a generation presumed from the outset to be interested only in outsourcing their consciousness to various chemicals while perpetually resting their eyelids. Does the healthy human mind not know that one must excel in the small things and work hard to engage in any profession? Was the famous “wake up at 5 AM” so contrary to your initial thoughts about excellence that you needed to wait for a book to direct you toward it? And if so, who knows what other basic things you are missing simply because you are waiting for instructions from others? Simply because you are waiting for inspiration, simply because you have fallen so in love with the passive state of waiting and receiving from the other, and hiding behind “payment for service” or “payment for the book” or something that will help you justify why you are allowed to continue breathing air and hoping that some new wave of opinion will sweep you upward in next week’s podcast?
“Hard work,” you continue to tell me, “love of the game” — noble slogans shared by losers and winners alike, to the point where one cannot distinguish the “lover of the game” from a compulsive middle-aged gambler who bit no fewer than four cigarettes while filling out his form.
And on the other hand — shall we leave personal style, the unique magic that is supposed to distinguish you from the rest, to the dregs of the Turkish coffee and the shape of the stars on that particular night? For personal style is in the heavens, in the shape of a circle with an infinite ratio between its circumference and diameter, shadowed and constantly changing — while excellence is in the shape of a square with angles clear to all, and feels comfortable written in a journal or quoted by a lower-back tattoo.
It sounds as if these two things cannot coexist in the same house, and that every athlete must choose whether they are made of stars or made of earth. But how convenient for each side to dismiss the other in its weakness — for if we were to tell a trainee that “they cannot be improved because they were not born to be fast,” we would be accused of heresy. Yet when it comes to the overall development of the athlete, suddenly we are required by consensus to choose sides in the comprehensive development process? And in the name of what — the convenience of instructing 100 athletes in exactly the same manner, as if it were a pastry stand open only on Friday afternoons?
If so, the question arises: why is excellence alone insufficient and sometimes leads players straight to the benches of lower leagues in complete bewilderment and bitterness — how is it possible that such an “excellent” child who never missed a team practice ends up where they are?
Earth: Love of Structure, Excellence, and the Clear Map
Athletes who are blessed with earth traits on their path upward will love structure in training. They will seek clear instructions on how to execute things and will invest considerable time in precise, one-to-one replication in pursuit of technical or mental excellence.
Sometimes they will have a clear three-year plan for how to reach a certain ability or how to become the people they dream of being. They will purchase a journal and write down every action each evening.
They will hire coaches who tell them with great technical precision how to execute things and will avoid any “distraction” not directly related to that micro-drill.
They will buy books and listen to podcasts that provide them with clear action points that can be copied one-to-one and implemented immediately — whether it is waking at 5 AM or installing a special breathing exercise each evening before sleep.
They will eat according to a nutrition menu known in advance, and any deviation from it will be considered “straying from the path” and will lead to depression due to the general ideal that “whoever follows the map stubbornly wins.”
They admire players known for their organized work, who speak extensively about what they ate, what exercises they did for success, and how they woke early in the morning to push additional training sessions.
To find the treasure, they will use the map published on the back of the cereal box.
In general, they are the type who will search ChatGPT for how to improve in sport X, print the answer given to them, fold it into their wallet, and live by it.
Stars: Love of Style, Uniqueness, and the Secret Map
“Stars” athletes are primarily passionate people, and this is evident in their manner of work on the path upward. They will seek what excites them even if it is an absolute mistake according to the professional consensus of that period.
Stars athletes cannot tolerate anything that binds them beyond conquering that mini-goal — such as bouncing a ball 1,000 times or succeeding in kicking ten consecutive shots at the crossbar, and so forth. From their perspective, the path to success is success itself, and they will prefer to “run a lot” to run faster rather than break down running into its components and improve them, as is ostensibly desirable in a healthy process of improvement.
They will listen to podcasts about spiritual life and will forgo “ritualistic structure” in the form of how much tea to brew per cup in the morning and what time to go to sleep each evening.
They have no journal; they manage their professional day solely by passion and the mood of that day, and they admire players upon whom success landed as a direct result of their passion for the game and the unique challenges they experienced in their youth.
They do not trust any treasure map they did not find by accident, under a stone, through their own efforts.
Between Technical Instructions and Personal Style Development: Between Knowledge and Attainment
There is no doubt that everyone will find themselves connecting more to one approach than the other; but in truth, demanding that you choose between “two such successful suitors” is not the purpose of this writing.
Whichever side you find yourself on, your secret sauce will be peace with the other side. If you are in the earth approach, make peace with the child within so that you can work with passion, find a style unique to you, and use your inherent work ethic to take more lateral paths that will lead to the discovery of treasures others will fear to seek.
If you are in the stars approach, make peace with the stable adult within you; for it is known in legends that one who affixed wings to themselves in order to fly close to the sun may fall when the glue melts. Ultimately, if you are in the child approach but have a weight problem — all the passion in the world will not help if you are not structured and clear in your eating habits.
Indeed, technical instructions carry great weight in the training process. Yet we must not sever them from the development of personal style — the development of optimal style, which is both passionate and mechanical where possible, with the understanding that a marriage between the athlete’s soul and the material being learned is far preferable to installing foreign but perfect material.
This is expressed both in innate physiological form and in acquired physiological form — which is why people have different heart rates, different blood pressures, different heights, and different spatial awareness. In the Olympic 100-meter final, each runner employs their own style — whether in knee or hand placement, ground contact time, and so forth — and all are Olympic finalists with the means to install any technique they desire. Yet what can be done when Usain Bolt’s technique, when installed on another runner, makes them slower? The chicken-and-egg question arises: What came first — Bolt’s technique that waited for Bolt to be born so it could be installed upon him, or Bolt himself who distinguished his own technique?
The only correct technique is that which achieves compromise between personal style — the athlete’s inner world — and the structured, scientific, statistics-guided world in the vein of “we took the 100 fastest people in the world, and this is what they have in common technically.” If installing an item from the latter requires erasing a trait in the athlete’s intuitive inner world — then that material is harmful.
And to the most difficult question — how can we even know the depths of our inner world, and what external material will suit it so that knowledge becomes attainment? This is a question whose very existence negates the answer.
To coaches, we say: Pizza is generally delicious, cucumbers are generally delicious, and fine organic popcorn is also perfectly acceptable. But the combination of all three into a single recipe is ineffective, to say the least. A great chef is perpetually in conflict between the desire to innovate in the restaurant’s menu and principles of what works and what does not work in terms of taste. On one hand, they want to invent the next dishes that will bring customers currently at other restaurants; on the other hand, they do not want to simply throw ingredients together in the name of originality, for it is still a human palate that will taste the dishes to come.
To trainees, we say: What do you want to do with what you are trying to learn? What is the difference between you and the trainee who comes after you to the same coach and will also learn technique from them? What is your name? Or perhaps you prefer that the coach call you “Athlete 1” and the second trainee “Athlete 2”?
Maimonides, in the introductory epistle to one of his important works, wrote that the only way to transmit knowledge destined to become unique personal style (attainment of knowledge) is through the transmission of chapter headings alone, in the form of hints ranging from subtle to thick — but not the entire information.
Rabbi Kook continued this refinement and argued that all information learned from another is a kind of necessary idolatry, since the transmitted information belongs to the other and was not developed through the student’s personal style. Nevertheless, it is a necessity of reality to learn from the other; and in the future, says the Rabbi, no one shall teach their neighbor.
In sports, there is no other way but to transmit knowledge with the goal that one day it will be attained and merged into a unique personal style, because the tactical conditions of a competitive professional career do not permit access to the “knowledge” regions of the brain — for the simple reason that these regions are embedded in the past, in memory — while the game is alive, breathing, and happening in perfect improvisation in the present.
The perpetual rift between learning and inspiration is necessary, and reconciling it is an unrealistic goal, for knowledge is never complete. Sometimes a lack of knowledge will be the obstacle to progress; but many times it is a lack of inspiration — or in other words, the application of knowledge with enthusiasm — that requires attention.
Two musicians can pick up the same guitar and touch different hearts and audiences, provided they play from their hearts while using the technical instructions from their youth — not the reverse.
“What is your name?” is thus a question whose answer contains both your knowledge and your inspiration and personal attainment — and describes precisely what the coach wants to see: you alone, using the tools transmitted to you by them with elegance and personal enthusiasm, so that they can smile a half-smile from the audience at your success in battle. For you bought the ingredients the coach requested, but you cooked a different dish destined to compete with theirs — the perfect pride of coaching.
