In 1960, Johnson arrived from Bakersfield Junior College to set world records for legendary Coach Bud Winter. The coach was just developing his renowned program at SJSU when Johnson arrived. By 1968, Winter had produced Olympic stars Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans. In all, he coached 37 world-record holders and 27 Olympians.Johnson’s two years in San Jose would stay with him. He returned to his native Jamaica after graduating and decided his country needed a U.S.-style college athletic program. He started working out of his car as sporting director of the University of Technology in Kingston, but three decades later, he is enjoying the culmination of his lifelong pursuit.
Who teaches relaxation now? I have been perusing that quest as many athletes need to learn to combine shear brute explosiveness, calm demeanor, price coordination, and harmonious relaxation. Yet when I see youtube feeds of performance facilities I see robots that get into the right joint positions and with good rhythm but seem to be missing that seductive smoothness I see with better trained athletes. After researching more about Bud Winter I actually ran into a WW2 Pilot that learned the relaxation methods. I read many books to prepare my questions and the gentlemen explained that they learned to sleep during times when their ship was being bombed so they can fly again hours later during battle. Learning to sleep during war. Awesome.
Relaxation can be conjured by the dark magic of pedagogy- meaning repetition, rhythm, and creativity. Relaxation is about a frame of mind that is beyond the track and is summoned by coaches who are relaxed themselves. What looks like a lazy Jamaican coach is a guy that is not stressing out athletes. What I think the Jamaicans are doing is nothing special but relax in win is an art that can’t come from crappy DVDs and coaches that look to get quick results. Don’t be a Contraction Coach .
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