An Old Friend

The mind is inconceivably powerful and influential. Consciousness is more than just nerves and synapses, or secretions of chemicals. Consciousness is real and one doesn’t have to be “knocked out” to be deemed unconscious. A friend and teammate of mine in high school first opened my eyes to the power of expanding consciousness. We were teammates on the varsity wrestling squad in the fall of 1996. Mike was average wrestler at best, fairly new to the sport but had a world of potential. Most wrestlers begin their careers between ages 5 and 8, Mike didn’t start wrestling until his sophomore year of high school. His first two years as a wrestler were losing efforts, finishing both seasons well below the .500 mark. Mike worked hard in the off season and was improving dramatically but he had a long way to go to in order to compete with athletes that had nearly 10 years of experience on him. He was severely behind the learning curve. I noticed a marked progression in his ability and we both looked forward to his final season as a senior. Our team opened each season with a tough dual meet against cross-town rival Kenwood High, Mike would be matched up with their best wrestler, a former state champion. Mike fought valiantly but lost the match by a few points. He did better than anyone expected, but he still didn’t win. He was knocking on the door to success but he hadn’t quite put all of the pieces together yet.

Following that meet, Mike met with his counselor who suggested hypnosis and meditation as a supplement to his wrestling training. Desperate for a winning season, Mike followed the doctor’s advice and began to meditate. He underwent a session of hypnosis and then meditated on his own from there on out. Our teammates and coaches knew nothing of this at first; Mike didn’t say a word and went about his normal routine. Two weeks and a few unimpressive wins later, Mike defeated a 2x High School All-American at a tournament in Delaware. He didn’t get lucky, it wasn’t a fluke or aberration. He flat out beat the kid! We were dumbfounded, what happened to this guy in the period of two weeks? “I’m hypnotized,” Mike said. We laughed it off, it sounded comical of course. This was the type of thing you’d see on a made-for-TV movie right? Well, Mike went on to explain the hypnosis and his meditation practice but we were still skeptics to say the least. A week later he did it again. Wrestling for the championship at the Dundalk Tournament, Mike absolutely throttled an undefeated wrestler and eventual state champion that year at 130 lbs. Now we were convinced, something extraordinary was going on here. Mike finished his senior season as a county champion, region champion and state runner-up, defeating some of Maryland’s best wrestlers along the way. I didn’t understand what that extraordinary factor was at the time, but since researching Transcendental Meditation I’m quite convinced that expansion of consciousness was largely responsible for Mike’s new-found success. He was able to make mind-body connections that would have otherwise taken years in a matter of weeks. I’m not claiming that this same process could work miracles on any wrestler, or athlete in general, that wants to step their game up dramatically in a short period of time. Mike had the potential, the foundation was there. He was ready to take shape as an athlete but just need time. Without those tools, none of this would have worked for him. Without meditation, those tools would have taken much longer to sharpen.

With a new perspective and more functional understanding of meditation and consciousness, I spoke to Mike on the telephone a few weeks about this situation. We haven’t communicated much since high school but I still speak to him every now again. He’s now twenty eight years old and works as in the Computer Information Systems field in Alabama. After sharing war stories with Mike for a few minutes I asked to fill me in on his experience with meditation as a wrestler and what role it’s had in his life since high school. Mike initially struggled to put into words exactly how meditation and hypnosis transformed his wrestling career overnight. He eventually described the phenomenon in these words. “Prior to meditation, I was an excellent athlete and an average wrestler with little experience. I understood the sport of wrestling and what it takes to be successful but I just couldn’t make the connection come to life on the wrestling mat. In the practice room I would have moments of greatness but they were too few and far between. I was very inconsistent, I just didn’t have the time or experience to put the pieces together. After I started meditating, those moments of greatness were more and more frequent. At 18 years old I couldn’t really explain what was happening to me mentally, I just knew that I could trust and act on my instincts more often than ever before. I would find myself in a tough situation and I no longer hesitated, I reacted with confidence.”

Mike also went on to mention that meditation had an impact on other areas of his life as well, although they were less obvious. He started to do slightly better in school and was overall a happier, more satisfied person. In the 10 years since high school Mike has gone through phases in which he still meditates but he says it is something that he has been inconsistent with. To this day, he stands by the power of meditation and is thankful that at one point in time it had a profound impact on his life.