Shoshin. The beginner's mind.

It’s my pleasure to be able to speak to you as you embark on this year - as an individual, as a mentoring pair, as members of your mentoring pod, and as a kaleidoscope of True Athletes - playing a crucial role in our ever growing movement to change the world through a fresh approach to sport, and through a reimagining of what it means to be an athlete.

?I want to talk to you today about Shoshin - or “the beginner’s mind” - which is a concept in Zen Buddhism all about being open to possibilities, clear of preconceived ideas, receptive to the wonder contained in ordinary things, and unshackled from what has gone before.?

In mindfulness practice, the beginner’s mind is something that we hope for, even as we get more and more experienced. And it can be particularly helpful to athletes aiming to learn new skills, and maybe even un-learn old habits.?

As you’ll see, it’s been crucial to the growth of The True Athlete Project, and I think there are few better concepts to wonder about at the beginning of a new year, with a new person in your life.

The term Shoshin is seen in the 13th century writing of the Zen monk Dogen Zenji, and was popularized by another monk, called Shunryu Suzuki, in the 1960s. It can be summed up by this quote: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few”.

Shoshin is a combination of two Japanese characters: sho (“initial”) and shin (“mind”).

In the zen tradition, there is a story to explain the term...

Imagine an experienced university professor who goes to seek the counsel of a Zen master. The professor is filled with knowledge, proud and confident of all his experience and intellectual prowess. The master, undeterred, offers the professor a cup of tea. The master pours the tea into the professor's cup and it begins to fill up and fill up. The master continues pouring and the tea begins overflowing, and yet he still continues pouring. Tea going everywhere. The professor shouts "Master, the cup is full! Stop. It can hold no more!" The master says: "Much like this cup, your mind is brimming with knowledge. How can you expect to learn anything new unless you first empty your cup?"

When I reflect on the story of The True Athlete Project so far, the concept of the beginner’s mind has been central, if only by accident…

So I wanted to give you a sense of The True Athlete Project as viewed through this lens of Shoshin, and encourage you to embrace this mindset in your role as a mentor or as a mentee.?

I want to first take you back to the roots of TAP, because...despite covid, the challenges of running a sustainable international charity, economic downturns, other groups catching onto the key principles and messages of our work, the changing trends in society, the new language used by our cultures, and the knock on effects to sport…despite all that, the initial spirit of TAP has stayed so special, resonating with people deeply and powerfully…clearly showing a continual need for our fresh approach… and for what we have breathed into life.?

And the idea of a beginner’s mind has truly enabled TAP to happen - this sense that maybe that which seems most obvious, and solid, and that we-are-almost-tricked-by society-into-thinking-is-real….is not the only possibility, not the only truth.

It’s a little known part of the TAP story, but before I was properly introduced to mindfulness, and before I moved to the United States, and had all the experiences I had there - as a player and as a coach - that informed the creation of TAP, I had been a young athlete. I’d moved away from home at 16 and was playing full-time tennis in London. My family were back in Norfolk. My twin sister suffered with depression, and my Mum had just been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Everything in me was conflicted about following my dream to work as hard as I could as an athlete, or to be back home where there was warmth. I was homesick.. I felt alone…I was bullied - I felt I hated the people I was around in London.. And I began to be quite unwell. I used to make the journey back from London to home-in-Norfolk every few weeks, travelling the London Underground with my big tennis bag, cold, worn out, and pretty unhappy.

I remember looking at all the people on the Underground thinking what a missed opportunity it was for spreading some positivity. When all around us there is misery, when I felt so bad in myself, why are we just adding to it by avoiding glances, intentionally not smiling at others, not forming connection, not learning new things, not becoming a better athlete…

So I created a game… called Underground Hero. I had to collect points in my made up points system, as I travelled the Underground..some were physical challenges, like standing on one leg while the train came to a stop… or using the steps in the station as plyometric training….or overtaking as many people as I could through the concourse..or beating my best time from one station to another... Some were more emotional challenges like taking deep breaths and being present with my body rather than worrying about missing the connection, or smiling and speaking with someone on the train.

At the heart of this game was the sense that there was something potentially extraordinary in everything ordinary….and that it mattered. That we could make a difference - to ourselves, and to the world around us.

And while every so often in life we get these wonderful moments of awe…like when we look at the stars or connect with someone new, much more often we are absorbed with pettiness and the mundane, we let the ordinary be ordinary. And so this idea that we are just unbelievably lucky to exist - that for billions of years we didn’t exist - and that we can feel life with fresh wonder, is right at the heart of TAP, and the idea of a beginner’s mind.

A beginner’s mind helped me to see the madness of how people are on the London Underground..

It helped me to go to a place in the United States without knowing anyone there..

Helped me say yes to going to my first ever meditation class… and to create a PE program that experimented with ideas about what it means to be an athlete..

Helped me to spark new conversations, and listen to others from different cultures…

It helped me to not necessarily follow traditional dogma, but also to not necessarily follow new mainstream currents either…

Helped me to be naive enough to think it’s possible to create a movement for change in sport - despite the huge forces that run counter to it…

Helped me to approach the amazing people that make up the TAP team, that I am and that you are so lucky to work with, so that we could build this thing together…?

And yet when I founded TAP, none of it seemed strange or revolutionary to me…. It just seemed like good people coming together to do good things that SHOULD be done…. And yet people gravitated towards it… Articles were written about TAP being revolutionary and novel… but it was only revolutionary compared with so much of sport being locked into the way things have always been done. When you strip away sociocultural forces, why shouldn’t developing as an athlete have more to do with who you are than with how good you are?

Why WOULD sport be structured so heirarchically?

Why SHOULD sport become more serious and less fun as we get better at it?!

Why should being an athlete be contained to when we’re on the field of play?

And yet it’s not easy to remember this “beginner’s mind”...when we’ve been trained to operate so differently to this…so to finish, just a word from my experience of failing…to mentors and then mentees…

Mentors you may resonate with this, now or in time…. I remember being at a national sport’s training camp. A young athlete came to me at lunch and asked for a mental health support conversation. They disclosed to me that they were addicted to drugs and were so fearful of anyone finding out. I tried to think on my feet, and offered gems of wisdom that I thought might stick. I could see nothing much of my well intentioned but somewhat desperate approach was having an effect. I started to share the difficulty I had in my own life, and the boy began asking questions…about what I do to help myself. I got stuck. I wasn’t going to lie to him. I said how difficult it was. I said I didn’t know. I said I try to have hope but it’s hard when you keep trying things and it doesn’t work. He immediately looked lighter, like a weight had been lifted. He said “that was so helpful. Actually seeing you say “umm” and not get out your words, and clearly struggle with it - thank you.”?

It was a huge lesson for me. My well-intentioned gems of wisdom, borne out of years of experience, were not what mattered in that moment to that young man.

Mentees…? Some of my most disappointing memories are looking back at conversations I’ve had with great people, and thinking about how much I said, but how little I got from the interaction, because I so wanted them to be impressed…. So instead of listening well, and asking questions..I spoke proudly about what I was doing, and how much I knew.?

It’s hard to get that time back… ? so I encourage you to share and talk of course…but also to allow time to be curious, to listen, and ask questions…

As with any skill or attribute, the way to cultivate it is not just to hear a talk, think about it, and hope. We can cultivate it. Through just sitting. Through listening. Through open questions. Through meditation.?

You can cultivate a beginner’s mind by noticing the times we do not have a beginner’s mind. Noticing what it’s actually like to breathe, to communicate, to move. Not what we think it’s like, but experiencing what things are really like.?

Gradually we can get better at feeling and seeing things as they really are, not as we’ve been conditioned.?

And you’ll have amazing chances to formally practice meditation in this year, but I encourage you to also cultivate and embrace this spirit of a beginner’s mind throughout your time with your mentor or mentee, beginning today. Wonderful things can happen….and we have no idea what they’ll be!

So I wish you all the best for a year filled with wonder, difficulty, hope, connection, and we are just so excited to be in your corner, with you every step of the way. Thank you for being True Athletes, what you’re doing matters. You matter.