The sports world has it’s own version of “everything now,” as athletes strive for Higher-Faster-Stronger performance goals. Scandals, for the most part, enhance popularity.

As everything speeds up, toughens up and leaps exponentially ahead, the social and sports psychologists continue to opine that the “everything now” attitude leads to alienation, loneliness, fierce global competition and produces universal disillusion, not to mention an ever-increasing focus on the question, “Why Am I Here?”

As a BonesBaller, I say everybody calm down and get into what we call ”The Need” –“the need to get beyond the limits of a body that could break or die.” It’s normal.

BonesBallers ask, “Who would sell- who would buy that kind of need?” Now that’s the question we really want answered.” Because a BonesBaller sees life as a constant game of Higher- Faster- Stronger but ¬¬– we play that game on our own terms, focused on our personal goals. Manufactured needs get rejected

Today, we present Kim Spradlin as our Higher- Faster- Stronger obsession survivor. In fact, for those who may not know, Kim was just named the “Survivor One World“ million dollar prize winner! Jeff Probst, in his “post – game” interview, praised Kim as one of the best contestants ever – but her win left him a little flat. Kim was just too normal.

A quietly distraught Jeff somehow got the words out and said, “I actually think Kim is in the top grouping of winners. She was great at the social game. So many faces and great at reading a situation and equally good at stopping a disaster before it starts. The challenge with Kim is she is not as dynamic – ie, she’s normal. She did it all without raising any fuss at all and so though one of the nicest and most well rounded players, she may be less remembered than others.”

Jeff is saying that regular old normal is not good enough. “Where’s your edge Kim?” he’s asking. In his view she did not help the ratings as much as an outsider, an anarchist, someone who was totally disruptive but touched a nerve. The “winners” we want to cheer today, whether we love or hate them, touch a psychological nerve in us that says, “I’m so tired of being normal.”
Barry Orms

The Olympics are coming. The Olympics are the ultimate expression of our universal need to transcend “normal.” The entire premise of the Olympics is that someone can and will reach “Higher-Faster-Stronger” than anyone in history.

The same holds for the NBA playoffs. Lebron James and Kobe Bryant are on individual quests this year to somehow surpass Michael Jordan’s six NBA championships. They feel that will make them the greatest NBA player of all time.

We BonesBallers know that the quest not be normal has always been there and is now at a fever pitch. Kim, please allow us to see you as a BonesBaller. You took it “beyond a body that would break or die.” You did it your way and still won.

Individuals also choose to practice yoga at home or in a private setting with audio instruction, music, or a calming, meditative silence.

In any practice environment, yoga can reap benefits for physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. Its popularity and appeal lies in its uniqueness to inspire wellbeing. Rather than a focus on the self and pushing the limits to be better and do better, yoga inspires the individual to transcend the self-conscious mindset. While some forms of exercise emphasize the transformation of the physical body, yoga emphasizes the connection between the mind and the body. The individual’s perception of his or her body, the relationship with the body, is transformed through yoga. Once this perception is transformed, the body itself can change.

By transformation, I mean changing negative and destructive views about the body into view that are positive and healing. In a society where progress and pushing oneself towards ideals of being are important, we often propagate and absorb adverse ideas about body image. Social standards inform the way we think about ourselves, and so, on a daily basis, we believe that we should look and feel a certain way as a result of working at a certain level to be at the top of our game. Yet, what the “top” actually means has become skewed. The “top” is not one universal model of achievement; rather, it is subjective and varies from person to person. At Bonesball, we strive to redefine the “top” as a state of individual wellbeing and becoming your best self.

Your best self is a state that only you can recognize, and it manifests when you work and act for yourself rather than for other people. The social habit of competing and comparing against other people distorts the idea of the best self. When you are constantly worried about others, and how your performance measures up, you can become disconnected from your own individuality. Your personal aspirations and self-confidence can become lost within the competitive social web.

Yoga is a positive means of extricating yourself from this web. Though the practice may seem daunting with unfamiliar poses and breathing, yoga is great because it is a gradual process of learning and self-awareness. When we first start practicing, our bodies seem to be in competition with the postures. However, as we continue, we find that we are not working against the rigidity of our bones or body. We are in harmony. Yoga teaches us to embrace our body by reconnecting to it. In this reconnection, we can transcend old concepts, fears, images, and the personal issues that can plague our minds. Negative thoughts, competitiveness, and perfectionism are thus banished in the yoga practice room. Yoga fosters uniqueness and love of the self. The goal in yoga is not to be perfect or to be the best. Yoga teaches patience, respect and whole nurturing for the whole body. Incorporating yoga into your lifestyle is an excellent way to begin to appreciate yourself away from the stress of competitive society. Don’t judge yourself, but let yoga be an exercise in releasing judgment and simply embracing the moment. Once we do this, we can adopt a healthier view of the world even as it becomes seemingly more difficult to navigate with growing demands and stresses.

I believe there is a turning for people who practice yoga, a turning point that makes you want to continue practicing as yoga becomes a reward or a pleasure. Continued practice makes yoga into something you want to do for yourself rather than something you have to do to please others. This essential difference in perspective comes with a turning point, and it happened for me within the first couple of months since I began to practice.

I had been attending yoga classes 2-3 times a week at the gym on my college campus. A particular class was focused on stress relief, which included slow, deliberate stretches and deep breathing. As I moved through the sequence of movements with the guiding words of the instructor, I felt totally connected to myself. With closed eyes, I was aware of how I felt on the physical and emotional level. I was in tune with myself and my surroundings so as to fully enjoy the present moment. Yoga encouraged me (and encourages everyone who practices) to release thoughts of the past and the future. Worries and anything external is irrelevant—what matters most is the present moment, and recognizing the full potential of the experience you are having. The experience could be physical, where a sequence or stretch feels great and strengthens the body; it could be emotional, where sensations from within are released and you are filled with positive energy in the form of hope or rejuvenation.

Whenever I practice, I purposefully set aside time to take care of myself by focusing on my mind and body in the present moment. Our lives are so hectic and filled with obligations, and we tend to constantly look forward and backward, that we sometimes forget to appreciate the present. Yoga is a reminder of the enjoyment that you can feel by simply living in the moment.

This process of living in the moment, of fully enjoying the experience of yoga, is called being in “flow.” Flow is a concept defined by psychologist and author Mihaly Cskiszentmihayli, and the term epitomizes living fully in the moment. Flow occurs with concentration and immersion in a current activity. Yoga, as a mind-body exercise, can lead you effortlessly into flow. Cskiszentmihayli states in his book, “The similarities between yoga and flow are extremely strong. In fact, it makes sense to think of Yoga as a thoroughly planned flow activity. Both try to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration which is made possible by the discipline of the body.” Yoga entails discipline—focus, balance and steadiness, and gradual precision in moving through poses—and we completely engage ourselves in the practice. Though it may seem difficult at first, the relaxation that accompanies discipline in the practice of yoga steadily contributes to a state of flow, a state of happiness.

Bonesball embraces the flow lifestyle with the incorporation of activities like sports and yoga into our schedules. Attaining a state of flow can allow us to take a step back from the competitive world. We can succeed in our endeavors and live a better, happier life when we take the time to live in flow.
Take time to live in the moment each day. Feel better, and be better.

By Sarah Gross

In two short weeks the fortunes of three of the most storied professional sports teams were turned upside down, possibly for the foreseeable future and beyond. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, Derek Rose of the Chicago Bulls and Amare Stoudemire of the New York Knicks, all went down with injuries that make us go, “Hmmm—how did that happen and why?”

When Mariano Rivera, the all time saves leader in major league baseball, went down with a torn ACL while shagging fly balls in the outfield most people cried, “What A tragedy!” At age 42, how can he possibly come back from such an injury and pitch again? What a terrible way to go out for one of the class acts the sport has ever known.”

The sports psychology experts will crow about the ultimate end that comes to every great athlete – and the surefire depression and even suicides that can follow the loss of the battle with father time or Karma. Was Junior Seau’s apparent suicide a destiny fulfilled? Rest in peace Junior.

Somehow the lives of elite athletes are now thought to be societal barometers for the game of life and the day to day soap opera that it entails – starring all of us in our self generated personal, societal and even political dramas.

But wait! What if Mariano – in line with a destiny embedded in his soul from the beginning – was preordained to go out not in the heat of battle but in the innocent playground of shagging fly balls in the outfield? What if it was his destiny to leave the game in such a way that he will learn a great life lesson that he could have learned no other way? And what if he says that he must come back from this injury that has literally brought him to his knees –clutching one knee in tremendous pain? If we knew that either scenario was true for sure, we might quietly rejoice for Mariano rather than have a pity party for a great player and scandal free athlete who has reached the ultimate in his sport.

We are sure of nothing in sports except that we love the nothing we know. We love the experience, the fun of telling each other that we know the unknowable about our beloved and hated heroes. If only we were so certain about our own lives as we are about the why and what for of everybody else who we think were put on the earth for our pleasure.

This is the beauty of sports that BonesBallers understand. The “game” is the playground for life lessons and the fulfillment of undiscovered destiny we had from the beginning – “To get beyond the limits of a body that could break or die. Who would sell who would buy that kind of need?” (Lyrics from the “BonesBall theme song). Well, we all have “The Need” whether we like it or not. Sports Psychologists, preachers, teachers, fans, mothers and fathers try to sell us on the ultimate marketer of this “need,” the one who’s somewhere out there urging us to make signs at games like, “We believe.”

But for Mariano Rivera, Derek Rose, Amare Stoudemire and even the new, all time great of the moment Jeremy Lin, being brought to their knees with torn ACL’s etc, it’s all just another chapter in the destiny book
Tomorrow – the BonesBall “inside” scoop on the Derek Rose knee injury and the Chicago Bulls attempt to write their own chapter. Hint, hint. It’s already in the books.

Barry Orms
Former NBA player and now BonesBaller

Everyone would get to grade themselves just by participating and helping to complete this paper. Here are the participants in the May-June battle to be number one in our minds:

One World Trade Center. As of tomorrow, it will be the tallest building in the U.S. Take that you terrorist wannabees – try to bring that one down! Yes, it’s easier to see and I know all the reporting on how proud we are of it excites you. But don’t try it cause now you know we will just build another one even taller. So we are still – and will remain – number one no matter what you do.

The NBA playoffs are in full effect after the lockout. Everyone has something to prove albeit from a different perspective. No one knows who will win. We love it. The stakes are so high. Forget the Mayan Calender – End of the World Playoff in December. The world ends for the defeated NBA teams and players by end of their playoffs in June.

But wait there’s more! The NBA draft just finished this weekend and now we have a full-fledged battle between the NBA and the NFL for our love and devotion. The sports world wants to be our religion as it pumps us up to have faith that our team can win against all odds. Just take a look at that new World Trade Center building.

Let’s not forget that the Baseball season is going full steam. Baseball is our American pastime. And Baseball will not be denied it’s place as the sport that best exemplifies that we are indeed number one, at least until the football season officially starts in September. Of course he NFL ignores all that, and as mini-camps gear up and Tim Tebow speaks to thousands on Sunday, the NFL pumps out its chest and says “We’re number one!”

Let’s not even go into the political fight between the Republicans and Democrats. These in and out fighters push the same “we must be number one “ message from totally different points of view (they say). We stare transfixed at the TV watching the polls which are our political game scorecards as they predict victory or defeat.

But wait! The Olympics are coming to London in June and we have rocket launchers to be placed on the roofs of buildings to take out any terrorist air attacks. Religious psychos, the “best of the best” athletes from all over the world, and whole countries will be fighting to be number one in London. Worlds collide!!!!
But if the slugfest among your favorite sports and politicians is wearing you Bonesballers down, take heart. It’s only an opportunity for us to realize that we’re all in college studying how to transcend all the messages aimed at our heads by all the sports, all the politicians, all the religions and just enjoy the game of life.

As the sports and political, religious and all other “worlds” collide, let’s just sing that great American favorite – “It’s a wonderful time of the year.”

Kaboom!

Barry Orms
Former NBA player and now BonesBaller

“BonesBall is the game of life played in the mind, where standard definitions of right and wrong and the traditional oppositional ‘them against us’ mentalities are understood as inadequate to serve the moral issues of the day. It’s the BonesBallers in every walk of life, with their unbridled need to succeed, who are everywhere adjusting the scales of judgment, playing a day-by-day, moment to moment game of life to become heroes, sometimes in the world but more often, in their own souls.

As I was writing this I realized that I had forgotten that I was once a pro basketball player and was often feeling very stressed about the need for redemption through excelling in sports – especially after my team lost. Where was psychotherapy for athletes when I was playing? Well, it may have helped me but now we know that such man-made tools don’t solve the problems of our challenging global society. As James Hillman, the father of Archetypal Psychology has remarked about Psychotherapy. “It makes every problem a subjective, inner problem. And that’s not where the problems come from. They come from the environment, the cities, the economy, the racism. They come from architecture, school systems, capitalism, exploitation. They come from many places that psychotherapy does not address. Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong. What I’m trying to say is that, if a kid is having trouble or is discouraged, the problem is not just inside the kid; it’s also in the system, the society. I don’t think anything changes until ideas change. The usual American viewpoint is to believe that something is wrong with the person. We approach people the same way we approach our cars. We take the poor kid to a doctor and ask, ‘What’s wrong with him, how much will it cost, and when can I pick him up?’ We can’t change anything until we get some fresh ideas, until we begin to see things differently. My goal is to create a therapy of ideas, to try to bring in new ideas so that we can see the same old problems differently.”

Watch for new ideas from “Bonesball” and feel free to send us some of yours.

Barry Orms
Former NBA player and now BonesBaller

While the jury is literally out on that one- we can’t have it both ways people. Thank God we got those Lehman Brothers guys that created some financial concussions of their own. Oh I forgot. We didn’t get them. Oh well, but we are gonna get Metta World Peace. We can’t try to make role models out of athletes and then show video of the World Peace incident over and over as if it is a special brand of violence that cannot be tolerated especially from someone we already forgave multiple times. But we can praise the ratings improvements in NHL games as horrible violence is not only condoned but quietly celebrated for bringing success to the sport. “Yes we can”! It’s a story that could only have been better if James Harden was white. Well he does have a Mohawk, so the crime was actually even worse in some ways if we see James Harden as a Native American. Everybody knows that Blacks hate Native Americans don’t they? Now that would be the real story. Yes I can find a way to make this a story of race if I try hard enough. Wasn’t the whole thing Obama’s fault because he loves basketball? Ok enough already!!

Barry Orms
Former NBA player and now BonesBaller