Tournament 12 - Lesson 1 - Dealing with pain is easy

We were a little short on guys this weekend at the Chicago Heavyweight Championship with only 18 guys for 8 competitive games against the best in the central region. The reality is you're going to be tired and in pain after each game.

Depending on the type of pain (soreness vs injury) I find that sore pain or chronic pain that I'm feeling are best forgotten as the pull occurs. On defense, I go into the dog like state and run down the field chasing the disc as fast as I can, and on offense, I totally immerse myself on focusing on the disc and the speed of the defense coming towards us to determine how safe the first pass is. From that point on until the end of the point I feel no pain.

There's no doubt that pain is one of those sensory focus things (lacking a proper technical term). At extremes pain will take over your mind, but nagging pain like sore muscles and appendages can quickly be ignored when you focus on something else. A simple test is how you can pinch yourself somewhere to refocus your brain on this new pinching pain.

The key on the field is to focus in on the point as soon as possible. That's all you need to be aware of for the next X seconds, and there is so much going on that there should be no time to think about the pain.

With our low numbers this weekend there were higher levels of exhaustion and pain, but our captain captured it before the last game on Sunday when he said that pushing through this one last game will make the long trip home that much easier.

PJ