1. The Coach’s Corner
by Jack Bray, MA
“It is of great importance that the need for creating unity is recognized. The human spirit is
nourished by a sense of connectedness.”
I Ching No. 8
April Athletes Wayfarers All
Perhaps it is time for all of us to leave our daily endless cleaning and work and
go out on the road of life and discover what we can be; how much more fun we
can have challenging our own limited beliefs in ourselves; working together we
can achieve significant things.
It is time for all of us to harness any energy we can find to move us forward. For
6 1/2 years, the Marin Race Walkers have been working out together, going to
races locally, nationally and internationally.
It is great to have a group of people to work out with, some of whom have been
to Nationals or to the WAVA Games... and some, who by their courageous spirit
and example give us hope for the later years of our life.
For most people, having company to workout with is good motivation. It is so
much easier to skip workouts when no one is waiting for you - it’s raining, it’s too
cold, I don’t feel well - but if someone is there waiting for you, you don’t want to

2. disappoint them.
Some have challenged us about the efficacy of competition to move us forward;
they are afraid of it and how powerful it might make them feel or how terrible if
they are the last person in the race.
In sports and in life, your opponents are valuable gifts; great teachers who can
help you achieve great things that wouldn’t have been possible without them.
Originally compete meant “to seek together,” therefore your competitors are your
spiritual advisors, they help you understand yourself better and give it your best.
We are all seeking together to have the best club and the best racewalking
events and speeds that we can have. Focus on how you can improve yourself
being aware that our racewalking club will help empower your spirit through the
efforts of working together.
When there is dissension, it obstructs the flow of life. So much more is possible
as an individual and a club when we work together. Take time to notice why we
are together and celebrate what is good about our positive energy and see the
good in other club members and praise them for it.

3. The Coach’s Corner
by Jack Bray, MA
“Do not indulge in extremes... Strive for moderation in all you do... In this way, you use the
balancing tendency of the current forces to center yourself. This aligns you with the Tao,
thus bringing you into harmony with forces that can work for you.”
Tao Te Ching No.15
Rediscover Harmony and Balance in the New Year
Now is an excellent time to reflect on what is important in our lives; the quality of
our health-emotionally and physically. How is our health account doing?
Many of us run frantically in place. We have the perception that balance means
continuing to juggle everything at once just more effectively. That’s a no-win
situation because there is always one more item to be juggled.
Take a moment to think about what’s really important to you. If you like, list them
and rank them in order of importance. Think about a time line for implementing
these new priorities.
Take a deep breath; breathing keeps us in a space of balanced regulation. Take
another breath. Create small important goals and work toward them. That will
bring a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.

4. If you focus on things that are important to you at the deepest level, then you are
free to pursue those desires in step with your own heart and in balancing the
world. In the process you may have to let go of things that you used to think were
important. We may think the external world of work, careers and money decides
our external balance and status but our true center of gravity and balance is
internal. If we are aware and alive in our own program, the external chaos of
change is like a ride on a roller coaster, just an experience.
If we define our lives by what keeps us in balance and our center of gravity intact
in all the things that really matter; all the external trappings become just a human
drama, a play that we watch rather than defining who we really are.
The short cold days require us to be moderate in our race walking training. We
can do cross training, stretching, yoga, tai chi, spinning, weight lifting and more
stretching.
Eating a balanced and varied diet; getting enough sleep, spending time with our
family and friends and laughing and sharing stories, sharing emotions and time;
spending some time every day exercising, letting your body move finding the joy
of stretching, of walking fast and breathing in the air.
Yes, there is important work to be done too and household chores; they have not
yet invented the self-cleaning house.

5. The Coach’s Corner
by Jack Bray, MA
“Perceive purity; embrace simplicity; limit desires.”
Tao Te Ching No.19
Energy and Peace in the New Year
Take a deep breath and contemplate the natural world. Notice how golden, how
hushed and quiet it is. The light this time of year is very precious because the
day is so short. Enjoy every ray of sunshine.
Inside the shell of a seed, energy is racing. Inside each walker and walker-to-be,
energy is circulating. All that is needed is intention and focus to develop the
seed, to spout it, to start growing.
The energy of the universe is in us all. In it we move and have our being,
physical, mental and spiritual. The inner universe is vaster than the outer visible
universe. Inner joy makes all joy that is experienced in the world of senses seem
meaningless. When the universal energy within you is experienced directly, it
adds radiance to life, unlike anything that can be described with words or
pictures.

6. What is the way to have more energy, more peace? Simplify your life. That will
create more harmony and freedom. You will be able to focus and be in the
present moment more easily.
In all your activity for the holiday season, think about what will give you or others
joy, peace and harmony - get rid of the rest. Is it really necessary to do all that
running around, all that worrying?
The best gift you can give yourself or others is some time in quiet contemplation
or meditation to focus on what is important in your life. Spend some time thinking
about what you want to be like and what you want to do in the next few years.
The purest simplicity of enjoying a sunrise or sunset, a quick walk after a rain
shower may give you more joy than the most extravagant jewels. Then again,
maybe not for you. The more you clutter your life with material possessions, the
more likely it is that they will possess you. Pressure, anxiety and tension will
interfere with your performance in sports and in life.
This time of the year, nature is stripped down to basics. Perhaps we too could
think of concentrating on basics. Think about our race walking technique. Get it
as pure and correct as possible. It is a good time too, to put in a good base of
distance work; it will make us strong and help work off those extra calories that
slip in this time of year.
If the weather doesn’t cooperate, find an indoor mall, early or late and walk.
Some use treadmills or other machines. Whatever works to help keep you at
peace with yourself. Discover that sacred core within you, start the quest in life
and walk with energy and peace. May your holiday season be full of joy and
much energy and peace in the coming new year!

7. The Coach’s Corner
by Jack Bray, MA
“Reflection. Attain the highest openness. Maintain the deepest harmony. Become a part
of All Things. In this way, I perceive the cycles.”
Tao Te Ching No. 16
Silence of Autumn
It is time to reflect on the lessons of the year: both the successes and failures,
to store up the harvest of positive fun, companionship on the way and to learn to
grow from the things that were less than hoped for.
If you ask Dorothy Robarts, she would tell you that coming in second in South
Africa was a shock but it has given her great motivation for Gateshead England
in two years- What a gift to receive in your eighth decade of life--a desire to be
even faster and to have better technique!
Fall workouts, going to Phoenix Lake and beyond is a good metaphor for being
reborn in the fire of the ashes of this past year. We are working on endurance
and strength and the beauty of the surroundings refreshes our souls and gives us
energy.

8. This is the time of the year to work on technique. Race walking is an intellectual
sport; you always have to be thinking about what you are doing--it really doesn't
become rote - there are always new things to learn.
When it is so quiet and the air is golden with the light of the changing leaves, it is
natural to reflect on the changes that our own efforts and time have made.
Resolve to find anew your purpose for being here; that essential core of your
being, that reason that you are here - that special gift that you have come to
bring to the world and show it forth in all its glory.
It is time to reflect on what it is that you wish to accomplish, how far on the path
you have already come and to study the road map to see where to go next.
Some of us are already far into that territory marked unknown, that no one else
has yet explored - all the more reason to try to become conscious and to
understand the secret thereby that life is always young and we are ever moving
onward.
Listen to the silence of autumn and learn.
“No one spoke,
The host, the guest;
The white chrysanthemums”
Ryota

9. The Coach’s Corner
by Jack Bray, MA
“The Great Tao extends everywhere. All things depend on it for growth. And it does not
deny them.”
Tao Te Ching No. 34
Spring into Action
Spring is almost here. Time to get the two most important tools for racewalking
and life tuned up and ready for action.
The tools all of us have to work with are our mind and our body. What kind of
condition are they in right now? It’s time to clean off the mud and lethargy of
winter. Start making plans. Activate your mind. Shake off the cobwebs the winter
doldrums caused. Get happy; get out and walk.
How is your body looking and feeling? Get out a pair of walking shoes and the
lighter walking clothes you put away last fall and if you are really daring try on
last year’s bathing suit. If it doesn’t fit, you still have time to get active and lose
some of those pounds.

10. Like spring-cleaning, spring into exercise but do it sensibly and praise those cool
days. Bless them for only getting you out for a short time to retrain those muscles
of body and mind slowly and steadily.
If you start now you still have time to train for the WAVA Games in Gateshead,
England or whatever other goal you have set up for this year. If you start now you
can change the shape of your mind and body into a newer more sleeker and
wiser you. Take a lesson from my gardening friend Max Green. Doing a little bit
each day prepares his garden and him for the summer. Sensibly now, not all in
one day or one weekend.
Spring is the time for rebirth and rebuilding; a time when all of nature begins
anew and we choose to do so too.
We all know about those winds of negative adversity either from the outside as
gale force winds or our own internal doubts gnawing away at us. Those ones that
tell us we will never go faster than our competitors. That the winter has been
wasted and now the time is too short and besides....
Stop! You CAN do it. Your mind and body need the positive words of
encouragement. You need the joy of knowing that you will succeed if you but try.
With intelligence, with a good training plan, with someone to work out with... All
winners know it is at least 90% getting out the door and starting every day or at
least every other day...
Do your best. Let the others fool themselves in their minds that they can’t win.
You start with a positive attitude; you can win, and by making the positive effort
fun you have already won the most important event, the control of your own
winning mind.
Spring is the time for rebirth, a time for all of nature to begin anew and you are
part of nature. With the help of this new spring, you can bring about a new you -
a champion—the best you there has ever been.
How exciting to watch the transformation of the apparently dead tree branches!
How much more exciting to watch us sleeping people stir back into action and
life!

11. The Coach’s Corner
by Jack Bray, MA
“Those that cultivate the Tao, identify with the Tao. Those that cultivate Power, identify
with Power.”
Tao Te Ching No. 29
Racewalking for Masters
Mastering our self, mastering the sport: we walk for many reasons. Most of us
walk for health. Some of us also walk for competition and enjoy going to races
around the nation and world as well as locally.
It is interesting if disheartening to notice that the violence of our society has
invaded sporting events. We like to think that a small family group like race
walkers could be immune. Unfortunately, that has not proved to be the case for
some of us.
How can we deal with this kind of behavior? A person who would hurt another
person has many problems: extreme narcissism and selfishness. Violence
begins when a person values power and control above love and compassion.

12. Sometimes extreme views on having exclusive control of the "truth" have led
people of principle to forget human worth and integrity.
Am I angry? I don't have the time or energy to spare on such negative feelings.
There is too much to do to change racewalking and the world to become a more
enlightened place to have time for it.
We Master racewalkers walk for pleasure and exercise. If difficulties or
unpleasantness occur what can persuade us to continue on? Certainly not the
great financial reward we receive nor the great praise for being an Olympian!
Only a rigid purist could be pleased with the results of the new judging rules for
master walkers. I have personally observed much discouragement of walkers
who have marginal concerns; who with just a little work could be "legal".
A master walker walks for fun and for a health program; most do not have
ambitious goals nor do they like unpleasantness. All too often, the fear of being
judged and disqualified discourages people from our great sport.
There is a need for greater common sense especially in the judging of master
walkers. Perhaps judging could be tailored to the age and expertise of the racers
and the quality of the race. What is the purpose of judging? To ensure a fair
contest? To make sure everyone is perfect?
After all, what is the point of having a race? Let's try to train our master race
walkers to be the best and most efficient walkers they can be and have fun doing
it! Masters of our self, masters of the way, masters of racewalking.

13. The Coach’s Corner
by Jack Bray, MA
“The enlightened person knows the Secret Source and moves with the Divine Force
without delay.”
I Ching (Great Appendix
YES, I CAN. YES, I CAN DO IT! I CAN HAVE FUN, I CAN REACH
MY HIGHEST DREAMS
Find that core of joy within yourself. Think of all that you love and fill your life with
that. There are so many more goals to meet, so many more people to meet and
dreams to dream.
“The best is yet to come, my dear”, so says the song and isn’t it true? We were
so proud of our walkers who went to the WAVA Games, who took the challenge.
They looked great!
We learned so much about ourselves and others. We found our courage in that
moment on the starting line. All the training, all the affirmations helped. We
discovered those areas that need more work in the future. After all, if we were
perfect we wouldn’t be here!

14. We dared to dream, to visualize and to risk. How could we not succeed! We have
determination and commitment. We have found a sport that fills us with joy and
we love to walk.
Medical science is catching up with the fact that the body needs to move to be
healthy; that the mind needs to stretch and exercise to stay alive. In our hearts
we know this is true.
To be healthy is to be needed, to be a valued part of a family and of society and
to remain flexible and flowing and full of love. Love is another word for positive
energy doing, believing and being in the ever-evolving world that we create with
our dreams of a better reality.
Live your life on purpose. Examine what it is that gives you true happiness and
follow that.
Allow yourself to enjoy the benefits you can achieve by flexing your feet and your
hips. Find the fun not the routine in exercise. Call up the good in life; find the
funny, silly child within you. Look the world in the face and say, “Yes, I can. It is
good, it is fun. I love it. Yes, I can walk. Yes, I can do it.” Now this is true.