Brace or Embrace?

I have coached a number of rugby sides over the years, both junior and senior. One of the issues I have to broach with them is weather conditions and how to deal with them. The thing is - the weather, rain or worse, wet ground or otherwise, is not anything within our control. However, what we can control is how we can mentally adjust to those conditions – both on the outside and on the inside.

The other thing we cannot control is how our opponents make their own mental adjustments. Of course there is a resultant level of relativity between our mutual adjusting abilities, and this is the pivotal point of how the weather effect will affect both teams during the contest.

The approach is really about whether to Brace or Embrace. Do we brace ourselves against the conditions – or do we embrace the conditions and conduct our activities not so much alongside them, but within them. Both Brace and Embrace are about being prepared – however the notion is that one is helpful and the other debilitating. And with that notion comes the conclusion that it is ALL about our thinking, our mindset.

If we pre-frame our mindset as being one of brace, then there comes with it the idea of ‘steeling ourselves’, ‘gritting our teeth’, ‘being on our guard’, ‘biting the bullet’, ‘setting our jaw’. There is a sense of protecting what is inside from the ravages of what is outside.
Now in terms of the level of extremes this WILL be a useful consideration. Divers, generally, need to wear wet suits and skiers need to wear warmth retaining clothing. This is very much common sense, and no way does it come under the umbrella of Brace or Embrace. No, Brace or Embrace really encompasses enabling our ability to apply our skills within all reasonably fluctuating conditions.

Conditioning

So in rugby this will involve dealing with a wet or ‘greasy’ ball, wet and possibly cold conditions at our own skin level. And isn’t this perhaps the true sense of ‘conditioning’?

In the warm-up the players can get outwardly familiar with the conditions, by making their hands and certain areas of their bodies wet. This gaining of an outward familiarity with the conditions is going to be accelerated when the players really get in touch with how they are feeling about their surroundings. If they verbalise their feelings by reactive comments then it’s obvious that they are Bracing rather than Embracing. Likewise if their body language is stiffened, especially with elbows tucked into the torso, then that body language is an expression of how they are feeling. Our warm-ups on a wet and windy day are all about relaxing into, engaging with and totally embracing the conditions. There is a direct correlation between a relaxed and ‘embraced’ mindset and a lower level of handling or passing errors.

The Mindset

There was a curious example in the recent Wales v France Rugby international at the culmination of the 2012 Six Nations Championship. The game was held at the Millenium Stadium, Cardiff on a wet, showery day and there is a roof at this stadium. Wales needed to win the game to gain a ‘Grand Slam’ of victories in the competition and there were generally held notions that the greatest advantage would accrue to Wales from favourable or more ideal conditions, and that France were there to disrupt or ‘spoil the party’. Whatever the major thinking behind it was – the French team management chose to ask for the roof to be open thus allowing all the rain and associated weather conditions into the playing arena. The irony was - once the game got under way and there was a higher overall level of handling and other errors involving the wet ball – most of these were errors from the French players! The thinking behind their choice of an open roof had ‘backfired’ badly purely from, I would venture to suggest, their ignorance of Brace or Embrace. It was a classic case of “Fail to Prepare -> Prepare to Fail”. Whatever was thought and said to or by the French players, they clearly lost the quality of their skill-sets versus the Conditions, let alone versus their real opponents, the Welsh team.

Brace or Embrace and us

There are huge implications for Brace or Embrace in our own everyday lives. We all have occasional, one-off or regular and ongoing issues that we could deal with in a much better or different way once we change from Brace to Embrace.

Brace is not a fortress that keeps us safe from the marauders. Brace actually keeps inside the fortress a whole range of negative emotional thought and experience – so much so that actually it would be best for us to lower the drawbridge and ‘let them out’. To brace ourselves keeps that subversive 5th column in the midst of all our other thoughts and emotions – blighting our feelings, actions and decisions.

This can be noticed across a wide range of responses such as stress, anxiety, anger, frustration, pain, loss of confidence etc.

“Hold tight everyone – it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!” This is counter-intuitive! The tighter we ‘hold on’ - the more bumpy the ride gets, and we get to feel and notice every single pothole and rut in the road. If everyone was encouraged to relax and ‘embrace with your surroundings’ then the ride would be so much better.
In any equestrian activity the best riders are in tune with the horse and its movements – not ‘hanging on for grim death’! For doing things that way, grim death could arrive much quicker than they think, like when they fall off!

Sound familiar?

“I’ve got a meeting later and X will be there. X always makes me feel uncomfortable and I always react in a way I’d rather not, to be honest. Shall I brace myself for what I think will happen? Or should I relax, be natural and behave in a more useful way by embracing the memories?”

“I’ve a dental appointment tomorrow – or I’m flying to Florida next week – I know what’s coming ‘cause I’ve experienced one or both of these instances before. Shall I brace or embrace?” Of course pain or anxiety and phobic responses are awfully real, yet even if there’s a logical back–up of thinking, (if God had meant us to fly he’d have given us wings is one that I’ve heard), it is still only thinking.

Pain is just a message from an invaded or damaged area of the body to the brain – which we have thrown a load of emotion at. If we brace ourselves for the dentist we’re keeping inside ourselves all the negative emotion from the last visit and all previous visits. Let’s face it – if we liked going to the dentist we’d remember all the ‘nice’ things about doing that. And, more to the point, we’d relax and embrace all those good feelings to enhance our anticipations!

I had a very restricting issue with swallowing liquids which cut across my unconscious ability to swallow. With every mouthful (or eventually every sip) I’d brace myself for the consequences if some of the liquid ‘went down the wrong way’. As soon as I stopped trying to think my way to a solution for this and realised I needed to embrace my own condition – things dramatically improved for me. With some help and guidance from some dear colleagues, I got inside, embraced and really got to know the pain and discomfort I was causing myself.

Conclusion

Protection is one thing – like appropriate clothing, or preparatory action, or sometimes plain common sense – and then there’s bracing against or embracing with the conditions, whether that’s the weather, the bumpy road, people or ourselves.

Consider some of your strategies in terms of brace or embrace and look at them another way. What different outcomes might you have got if you’d made those changes, and what needs to happen for you to embrace next time instead of the bracing you may have done in the past?

Of course it’s all a matter of our choice - not so much at the end of the day, but – at the beginning of ‘the day’. Because if we choose at the beginning of the day to Embrace then, at the end of the day, we will have had a much more rewarding, fulfilling and potentially happier day as a result.

Just a thought you understand!