TAO of Sunny Garcia
By: Dr. Steve @SportsShrink with @Sunny_Garcia Surf Champion & Icon
Just Flow
Like the ocean water Sunny Garcia lives to surf…
Some people are natural born warriors with an elite mind set. But these days, they must find a healthy way to use their gifts to be productive and ultimately successful.
It’s the Warrior Way
A select few occupy a mental state of Flow.
Flow is the mental state in which a person is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
Simply, Flow is when challenge is met with the needed skill.
Many athletes and individuals of all types spend hours upon hours of their life meditating, practicing, and trying so hard to Achieve… Flow… Mindfulness… Bliss…
On far fewer occasions there are examples of successful individuals, albeit rare, those who do not try at all, they Just Flow…
When discussing mental preparation, Sunny Garcia proved to be one of these successful and rare individuals that… Just Flow.
In brief, Sunny Garcia is not only mentally prepared, he lives mentally prepared and does it all by not trying at all…
Is there such thing as Effortless Mental Preparation?
Do not be fooled
This is not the typical champion way and actually it is very rare, even for the #Elite.
Sunny Garcia is Special
Therefore, I have coined a phase especially for him:
TAO of Sunny aka The Way of Sunny
Sunny is a natural born, elite warrior that manifests his destiny via the great International Sport of Surfing. Surfing is an awesome Way of life that integrates & exemplifies the Body, Mind & Soul.
When studying mental training, research focuses on what successful individuals do to become successful. In turn, this compels them to do more (e.g., goal setting, imagery, relaxation, etc.). Ironically, certain mental training tactics teach us to do less, such as various forms of meditation that actually promote less action and greater awareness of the here and now. Consider: “Just Be” versus “Just Do it.”
When inquiring into the mind of surfing icon Sunny Garcia, his words regarding mental preparation exemplified the optimal state of Flow even without making any efforts.
Sunny Garcia’s mental preparation is seemingly effortless as he explains:
I don’t really think about what I’m doing or how I’m going to do it, for me it just happens.
Compare Sunny’s statement to the famous quote by legendary Chinese Philosopher and founding principals of the Taoist Religion:
Practice not-doing and everything will fall into place. – Lao Tzu
Do you understand the mind of Sunny Garcia yet?
Let’s GO…inside the Elite Mind of Sunny Garcia & make #SunnySense of his effortless approach to mental preparation.
Sunny Garcia faces danger on a daily basis. As part of his chosen profession he rides waves that are so dangerous that most people would drown or avoid all together because of the harsh conditions including possible shark attacks, injury via reefs, unforgiving power of the ocean and labile weather patterns.
When faced with such regular adversity one would imagine serious mental preparation is involved for your “normal” person encountering such a feat. When asking Sunny his mental state before facing a possible near-death challenge, he answered:
When the waves are big all I can think about is how much fun I’m going to have, deep behind the peak I can take off and what can I do to this wave.
Not only is this the example of a fearless warrior, it exemplifies the fact that he lives mentally prepared with no action required (aka Effortless Mental Preparation).
Sunny lives to perform via surf and he has lived this way his entire life. A wave that may pose a threat and is a danger to most, he has befriended and knows them all very well. Every obstacle that may lie ahead he awaits with the idea of how fun it will be and how he will enjoy it harmoniously, just him and the nature of the wave.
When discussing the highest level of competitive surfing the legend Sunny puts it plain and simple. Again making perfect #SunnySense. Before a professional competition against the best in the World, the events in which his livelihood depends, Sunny’s mental preparation is not complicated.
He explains that he has only one mental focal point:
Winning is the only option in my mind.
When discussing motivation to train day in and day out to compete at the highest-level Sunny says:
I’m motivated by the fact that I really hate losing more than anybody and not wanting to be average in anyway
When discussing specific types of mental training practices that are often used for mental preparation Sunny Garica answers were simple.
Q&A Summary:
Q: Do you practice meditation or spiritual activities?
A: “I do not…”
Q: Do you engage in pre-competition or pre-performance routines or rituals?
A: “I like to watch the waves before I compete…”
Q: Do you have an organized mental training regimen?
A: “Every morning I get up and do a little bit of weights then run for a hour on the treadmill then maybe a spin class and surfing or I just get up and hang out LOL.”
Q: How do you mentally prepare yourself?
A: “When I was younger I always did better in competition when I was angry about something but I learned to just compete no matter how I feel.”
When discussing mental training tactics above Sunny exemplified a well-known technique called Transferring Energy. This is when an athlete successfully learns to transfer negative emotions such as anger, fear, disgust, and or contempt into emotions that facilitate performance.
Transferring Energy is a natural way to harness the negative energy around us to use for the good. I refer to this as using The Force.
Please Note: When discussing Sunny Garcia, “natural” and “natural born” does imply gifted, but no one is born successful.
- Sunny Garcia’s success is a result of giftedness combined with serious commitment to his sport and hard work.
- Sunny trains hard, lives to practice his craft and loves to compete.
- He also loves to win and he really hates to lose.
This is the Way of Sunny, and thus…
TAO of Sunny
Keep it simple
Have fun
Be cool
WIN
