ChapterOne

Introduction / Parachutists and Ballroom Dancers

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Scholars didnt get away with these kinds of experiments in the United States. Why the University of Triers Ethics Board approved of her experiment, we still dont completely understand. What we do know is that, at some point, Renate Deinzer received her universitys blessing. And there she stoodin the middle of a tiny airfield in the Mosel wine region of Germanyfacing sixteen terrified people she had convinced to go skydiving for the very first time. In a single day, each was going from Total novice who had never done anything like this, to Mastering advanced free fall. Scaring people to death was exactly the point of Deinzers experiment. She was trying to discover how the body responds to incredible stressors: she wanted to know if there was a biochemical expression of fear to match the frightened expressions she saw before her. Before and after their jumps, Deinzer asked each person to chew a small gauzy sponge and then spit the sponge into a test tube. From these saliva samples, Deinzer could discern exactly how the acute stress of skydiving manifested itself, biologically: she could measure the telltale psychoendocrine cocktail of the skydiving rush. Three to four people went up in the small plane each timebuckled into the floor. Their hearts felt as if theyd pound right out of their chests if not restrained by the straps of their chute packs. In just five minutes, the plane reached 10,000 feet in altitude over the drop zone. As nervous as they were, for the greater good of science, none chickened out. As the plane slowed to a hundred miles per hour, one by one they climbed onto the rails and dropped off the trailing edge. They tumbled once, then stabilized in the arch positiontheir bellies and faces to the earthfree-falling at 120 miles per hour. For a long minute, the newborn parachutists felt the extraordinary sensation of hurtling toward the vineyards below. In a first free fall, people can get so scared that they forget to breatheor they hyperventilate. Which is a particular concern because at a 10,000-foot altitude, people already start to feel the effects of the reduced oxygen supply, and the air pressure alters how arteries function. If severe enough, this can trigger hypoxia, a condition that results in temporary blindness and impairment in memory and

reasoning. The moment of pulling the ripcord to save oneself is sometimes so intense that, for some, they faint just as their canopy opens and remain unconscious for part of the flight down. None of Deinzers subjects experienced complications, though. Hearing instructions via radio sets in their crash-helmets, they were guided toward the landing strip, where most were able to glide in standing up. However, this wasnt a Do this once and check it off the bucket list day. Instead, they had to do it again. Deinzer had asked each person to make three separate jumps that very day: after theyd landed, they chewed a sponge and waited their turn to go back up. For some, they did all three jumps within the span of a single hour. Why did they have to jump three times? Deinzer was also interested in whether people habituate to the rush of skydivingdo you get used to it, such that it doesnt trigger the same degree of blast? Analyzing the jumpers saliva samples, Deinzer wasnt surprised to learn that they had a huge rush response to the first jump. But with each subsequent jump, the rush was reduced by about a quarter. By just the third jump, there was still a pronounced rush of stress, but (on average) it was now only half the first jumps intensity. It was more akin to the stress you get from driving in slow traffic thats making you late. Apparently, hurtling to the earth in a free fall is something you can get acclimated to, rather quickly. Now, there are many people who go skydiving frequently and love it. But if repeated skydiving doesnt reliably trigger a massive surge in natural hormonesthen whats the ongoing appeal? Stephen Lyng is a scholar who studies edgework, a term borrowed from Hunter S. Thompsons description of anarchic human experiences. During the 1980s, Lyng was a jump-pilot at a local skydiving center. He contrasted what he learned there from skydivers with what he learned later by studying car racers, downhill skiers, combat soldiers, and business entrepreneurs. Lyng eventually concluded that the true high of skydiving, and other edgework, stems from the way skilled performance brings control to a situation most people would regard as uncontrollable. All of the safety rituals used to minimize the danger (in situations of extreme risk) engender this sense of control, but edgeworkers fundamental skills are the ability to avoid being paralyzed by fear and the capacity to focus their attention on the actions necessary for survival. The feeling of selfdetermination they get from conquering the risks is the real payoff. Its not pure thrill they seek, but the ability to control the environment within a thrilling context. Now lets compare parachuting against . . . ballroom dancing.

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Hunter S. Thompson would never have described ballroom dancing as edgework. Theres nothing anarchic about it. Its not an uncontrollable situation. Death is not a potential outcome. About 280 miles northwest of the previous study, this time near Dortmund, Germany, there was another scholar also interested in the psychoendocrine cocktail induced by vigorous experience.

Nicolas Rohleder was himself equipped with sponges to chew. In much the same way as in the skydiving study, he also analyzed results of subjects, comparing practice days and rest days to contest days. But his subjects were ballroom dancersfor the most part, couples whod been doing this for years. They were competing in the Nordrhein-Westfalen Regional Ballroom Dance Competition. There was no money at stake whatsoever, just bragging rights. Dancers had flown in from all over Europe for the fun. Held on a Saturday, the contest stretched for hours and ran continuouslywith only minor breaks for the winners of each preliminary heat to be announced. In the Modern category, the men wore white tie and tails, with their hair gelled back; the women were attired in silk and sequined ball gowns, with stage makeup. When they heard their number called, each couple joined the others on the dance floor, performed a slow waltz for about 90 seconds, then rushed off for a drink of water and waited to be called again. Next was a tango, then a Viennese waltz, a slow foxtrot, and a quickstep. During the competition, the couples were referred to only by their numbertheir names were not used until the final winners were announced at the end of the day. But this anonymity provided little safety; the sense that any mistake in their posture or floorcraft would be seen by the five judges was palpable. Every gesture counted: the smoothness with which they stroked their feet across the floor during the foxtrot; the staccato action of their tango; the extension of their ankles and pointing of their toes to enhance their line; the rise and fall of their waltzes. During each round, as well as in the hours prior and after, the couples chewed a sponge. By the end of the night, Rohleders refrigerator was filled with almost 900 saliva samples. Back at his lab, Rohleder froze and then thawed the saliva samples, to prevent mold growth. He spun the saliva samples in a centrifuge at 3,000 rpm, and then, with a pipette, transferred 25 microliters from each dancers sample onto an assay plate that had been coated with goat antirabbit antibodies. He added enzymatic peroxide and antiserum to each sample, then rinsed away all the free-floating molecules with a phosphate bath. Transformed by the chemicals, the assay plate now glowed, eerily. Finally, a luminometer measured the glow strength from each sample, which gave Rohleder a precise account of the chemical messengers of stress he was looking for. Just how much stress had the dancers been under? The pressure of ballroom dancing induced a stress rush just as strong as someones second parachute jump. Many of the ballroom dancers stress response was every bit as high as a first parachute jump. Dont forgetthis was not the dancers first competition, or second. On average, the competitors had been in 131 competitions, and they had been going to dance contests for eight years. Yet even with all that experience competing, plus thousands of hours of practice, ballroom dancing was still enormously stressful. Rohleder ran the data, specifically looking for experience effects. He broke the dancers into three groups, sorted by their level of experience. The first group were the dancers whod attended fewer than 80 competitions; most had just a couple years of experience. The second group had competed more than 80 times, and they had been dancing for a number of years.

The third group had been to more than 173 competitions: they were the masters whod practiced and performed repeatedly for over ten years. One dancer had been in over 400 competitions. In theory, these were the true experts. According to what science tells us, dancing at that point in their lives should have required very little cognitive control. All the muscle memory should have been driven down into the cerebellum region of their brains, where it was automated. There should have been no worry over forgetting to vary the inside and outside of their feet to create style and line. But that wasnt the case. The intense stress reaction was no different between the three groups. The psychoendocrine cocktail didnt lie. The cutthroat world of the ballroom remained terrifying no matter how long theyd been at it. The contestants did not habituate. Even ballroom dancers with over ten years of continuous experience might as well have spent that Saturday in northwestern Germany jumping out of an airplane. Why might that be the case? How is it that someone can immediately get used to skydiving but can never get used to ballroom dancing? Because the real difference between skydiving and dancing isnt defined by the physical environment of the activities. Its not even about the actual jeopardy to life and limb. The real difference was the psychological environment. The expert dancers were in a competition, and the novice parachutists were not. To be more precise, it wasnt the dancing that was stressinducing. It was being judged. It was winning and losing. Competition is special. It has a danger and excitement all its own. Lets think about what that means in the big picture. The last few years, it has been argued that the secret to success in any activity is accumulating ten years worth of deliberate, effortful practice. Its practice that makes you an expert. Stick at it, and youll have a chance to succeed. As that argument was spread far and wide, we felt that something was missing from the success formula. People arent judged on how they practice. Practicing is not the same as competing. You can rehearse a speech about how you deserve this job a thousand timesbut how do you respond when you see 30 other people in a waiting room all vying for your same spot? A broker can have a Ph.D. and ten years spent studying stock valuationwill that be enough when a portfolios lost half its value overnight, and the client wants to know why he shouldnt move his account to the other trader down the street? You can pitch a million baseballs to your child until he perfects his swingbut wait until he faces a pitcher who wants him to miss. Practicing the piano may develop finger dexterity, but that alone wont remedy the sick twisting feeling in your stomach the first time you are in front of an audience. To be successful, you have to be able to perform when it counts. You have to be able to handle that pressure. You need to not wilt in the competition.

We wanted to knowwhat makes someone good at that? What the ballroom dancing study tells us is that the stress of competition doesnt go away with experience. The inescapable conclusion is that years and years of practice are not, automatically, enough. In addition to the deliberate practice, success also depends on how well people compete. It hangs on how well they handle that psychoendocrine stress response, manage it, and even harness it. What well learn later in this book is that everyone has that stress response, but we can interpret it differently, which drastically affects our performance. Ten years of practice may make you an expert. But even then, it just gets you in the door. Youll still have to dance against other expertsmost of whom have put in their ten years, too. The winner is not the person who practiced more. Its who competes better. Its who lives up to the moment when the band is playing, the lights are bright, and judges are watching. The same fundamental skills that matter in edgework turn out to matter in any competitive situation: the ability to avoid being paralyzed by fear, and the capacity to focus attention. And the truth is, nobody puts in ten years of experience before he starts competing. The world doesnt work that way. We all are thrown into competitive situations, long before weve had enough practice. Our results are still judged; our fate is still determined by how we do. To survive these trials, we need more than practice. We need competitive fire. This book is an investigation into competitive firewhat it is, and how to get it.
From the book TOP DOG: The Science of Winning and Losing. Copyright (c) 2013 by Pro Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Reprinted by permission of Twelve/Hachette Book Group, New York, NY. All rights reserved.