MeDotOrg wrote:Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Hrm. I chose the language thing because I kinda thought my brain would hold onto some of the learning I would experience. Hey, MeDotOrg. Under your scenario how much of what do we get to keep from assuming the assets of someone else for the day? Like, do Steuss and Xeno retain one day’s worth of training, and then they’re sore because they were just lifting, or do they get a +5 strength enhancement?
I originally thought of this as just having the physical abilities of someone else inside your own skin for a day. There are certain aspects to greatness that are not strictly physical. For example, you could give me the physique of an iron man triathlete, but the part that gets you across the finish line is mental toughness. Sometimes it is difficult to separate body from mind. Think of soccer star Pele, and the marriage of mind and body in his attacking style.
I once read a book about the sport of rowing called The Amateurs by David Halberstam. He explains that you spend virtually all of the stored energy in your muscles is gone in the first 100 yards or so, and after that everyone is pretty much running on fumes. To win a race like that takes something more than physical stamina. And that, to me, belongs to the athlete.
If you wanted to improve, I think it would be better to have the mind of an athlete for a day. See how that mind dealt with your body. Play basketball with Larry's Bird-Brain. Pitch a baseball like Greg Maddox or Satchel Paige.
I think you need to include mind with body. The countless hours of training and practice involved in making the person a top-tiered whatever would be impossible without the muscle memory and neural pathway development that allows the difficult to appear effortless when performed by the true pro. I could wish to have the finger dexterity of Eric Clapton but without his mind I still couldn't play the guitar like he does. I couldn't drill shots from the half court line like a pro-basketball player warming up, pound serve after serve into the corners of the court like a pro tennis player or, as I hoped, maneuver through a pipeline with the ocean rolling around just because my body had the conditioning of a pro big wave surfer. I would need to rob them of their hours of effort and practice to make that dream realistic, too.
That said, will or spirit is very much a differentiator as well, and that is an interesting point. If I could have the will of any one person, it would be that of Dan Gable the Olympic and collegiate wrestler. The man is legendary.
Going back to the OP, it also reminds me of one of my favorite Bo Jackson stories. Bo was my personal football hero when younger and I still consider him my favorite football player of all time. I had a poster of him on my wall as a kid, and my daughter gave me small desktop plaque with three of his collectable cards in it including the Pro Set card from the year he was injured that I had an original off back then but gave away. Sometime in the late 90s during the lead up to that year's Super Bowl a reporter caught up with him and asked his thoughts on the teams and game. His answer was part of what made Bo special. He told the reporter he didn't play football anymore so he wasn't wasting his time watching other people play, he was working on his businesses. I don't recall the exact words but the message he had his own life to live, he didn't have time to waste watching other people live theirs left a mark on me. Granted, I've seen him since give commentary on players and teams so who knows if that reporter caught him in a bad mood or was bothering him. But underlying the comment was his focused will on being the best at what he was doing. I think a lot of "greats" in their fields have that, if not all of them. Some keep it sharp by carrying a chip on their shoulders, facing each day as them against the world like Jordan or I suspect Tom Brady. And others feel the weight of generations or a bigger group of people on theirs like Megan Rapinoe. Where ever it comes from, it seems the difference between the greats and the good at the pro-level is almost entirely decided at the mental game level.