“Sport has the power to change the world… It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does… It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination…” – Nelson Mandela, Laureus World Sports Awards, Monaco 2000. Operative words:   Change. Power. Unite.    The fact is this: 9/10 times I watch an individual athlete prepare for a match, a trial, a race or a round, something happens. A flame, small but steady, is quietly ignited in me, glowing ever brighter as the athlete gears up to compete. I almost feel like I’m there with them, rehearsing mental cues, exhaling slowly, shaking out some tightness somewhere, anywhere, everywhere (!). I suspect a similar flame is ignited in every athlete in every nation who knows what that anticipation feels like. Infinitesimal, it is immovable. Hidden, it holds its bearer silently rapt, watching with intensity, willing the athlete – her muse in that moment – to achieve excellence for the sake of excellence itself. It is a light that transcends space, time, language, race, wealth and pedigree to encircle like a purse string, to illuminate like a constellation – a common light shining brightly in uncommon people. Even in girls. Even in persons with disabilities. Even in whomever you think of as “them” or “other” or “different.”   Them, they… The other… Their breath is just as much a gift as yours. Their heart beats with the same life-sustaining vigor (and wonder) as yours. They are, therefore you are. Sport forces you to recognize this, especially when you’re wearing the same jersey as your “other,” “them,” or “they.” As Nelson Mandela described, sport laughs in the face of discrimination, creates hope, inspires and unites with unforced ease. It is one of the world’s most powerful tools of social inclusion.   It’s hard to remember exactly when I made the shift from “them” to “us,” but during the 10th annual All-Africa Games, para-athletes (my original “them”) and able-bodied athletes (my original “us”) wore the same yellow jersey on totally different terms. Reflecting their deep-seated and perhaps unconscious disdain for persons with disabilities, Team Ghana paid for a single square room for all of our male para-athletes and a second square room for all of our female para-competitors. In contrast, able-bodied athletes like me (“us,” in my head, at the time) shared a room with only two teammates!     The sight of my para teammates crammed onto a string of undressed, adjoining mattresses covering the rooms’ floors with weathered wheelchairs  piled into narrow kitchens like surplus storage, reminded me of the phrase “three-fifths of a human.” It shook me. And it stood in stark contrast to what I saw outside those stuffy quarters.     On the streets of the 10-block Village, we trained. It was best to train first thing in the morning before full light (and heat) and let me tell you, I loved those mornings. Listening to the rhythmic songs of Team Kenya, their perfect harmonies dancing blithely around the beat of their synchronized footfalls, made my heart swell with pride for being African. Who doesn’t run well to a good beat and perfect harmonies? All this time, I thought it was just genetics!   An acapella warm up: http://www.theartofflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Acapella-Warm-Up.mp4   Watching my para teammates practice turned my definition of sport on its head: graceful, artful, seemingly unstoppable, impossibly perfect vessels of speed, they flew down the streets of the Village during practice runs. They looked like human bullets (!), embodiments of light or better, electricity, their bodies seemed so perfectly in tune with racing chairs, crouched, heads cocked, like Africa’s big cats on the hunt at dawn. The swishhhhhhhhhhh of their wheels was made more captivating by the Doppler effect and consistently compelled my head to turn and follow their trails, half-way losing track of whatever 20-meter drill I was doing. I couldn’t concentrate. So impressed, so taken was I by the beauty and sheer power of it all, I imagined they moved the ground beneath them, beneath me, beneath us (ah, maybe that’s where the “us” started…). And I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth I hadn’t seen or been shown this brand of athleticism before. Why hadn’t this obvious display of strength, power, grit, grace been depicted in billboards, coffee table books, magazines and films? And why hadn’t I seen, known or articulated what I recognized then: that sport is, in the end, perhaps the strongest tool we’ve got for inclusion. Because at the end of the day, when you share a jersey and a journey, mutual respect inevitably builds. How could it not? You know what it’s taken for you to get to a certain point/place/event. Your sport forces you to the extreme of (pick a noun, any noun)…   To me, there is no purer expression of the above than through sport. And the most amazing part is… Sport is available to us all (similar to some but distinct from other forms of creative self-expression). Sport at any level, from recreational to elite, requires only the ability to move…something. One, two, three, four or five legs… Five, four, three, two or one arm… As long as there is a physical component to your existence, the opportunity to move is inherently available to you. And you can be completely human (read: complex!) in that space. You can for example be tenacious and doubtful at the same time, be...

There is a West African folktale I love “Fly, Eagle Fly!” about a baby eagle raised among chickens. The eagle walked, ate, played and slept among chickens, but didn’t realize who he was. An aged man in the village understood the eagle was different in size, shape and destiny and twice brought the great bird to various heights, from a rooftop to a small hill, encouraging the eagle to fly.   “You belong not to the earth but to the sky,” he would say, “Fly, Eagle, Fly!” The exercise would inevitably end in calamity: the eagle, terrified, would unceremoniously clamor to the ground, the villagers would laugh uproariously and the old man would go home disappointed. But not deterred. Early one morning, the old man set out on a long journey with the eagle in tow. He made his way to the highest cliff edge on the highest mountains he could find where the air was thin and cold but the vistas, breathtaking. When they reached the top of the cliff, as the golden rays of dawn emerged, the old man whispered, “it’s okay to try but you must flap your wings; you belong not the earth but to the sky; fly, eagle fly!” and sent the eagle into the air. The eagle had no village earth beneath him, no squawking chickens as a point of reference. No safety net. This time, I doubt it was fear that gripped him, but a heightened focus. His true nature asserted itself and he flew.   Majestic wings he didn’t know he had unfurled and a powerful wind he didn’t know he’d love arose, rustled and buoyed him. And he flew. High above the highest heights, as he was meant to, never to return to the village again. The circumstances we create for ourselves (note active voice) have a tendency to either allow or prevent our true nature from emerging. The eagle was born strong but raised shuffling. It took a cliff edge, the first golden rays of sun and a powerful wind to re-orient him to who he was and compel him to do that which he was built to do: fly, and to do so with majesty, with divine ease. His true nature asserted itself on a cliff edge. I used to suffer from the fear of flight (being in the air), of flying (actively making flight happen) and the performance of flight (in a competition, for example). Tough phobia for a long jumper to have. Weird as it sounds, I found being in the air — any air, from roller coaster air to long jump pit air, intolerable. Being uncertain of how or when to land, having my stomach in my throat even temporarily, feeling that (previously) unfamiliar feeling of total vulnerability and allowing; I hated it. I didn’t tell this to my track coaches. Rather, I’d excel at all flight-related drills (plyometrics) and at short-approach jumps (less speed, more control) and inexplicably, when competitions came around, I’d almost forcibly land. That was my version of jumps: forced landings. To my team and coaches’ chagrin, the contrast between my leaping ability and performances was striking. I don’t think it was exactly “choking,” that fascinating psychological state of moving routine movements back into the processing area of the brain under stress (competition), and under-performing; though there was certainly an element of that. But perhaps next to that explanation, there was another, simpler one: I was afraid of flying. My sense of who I was, my domain (land versus air) and my true nature was dramatically off. Video 1: Training. Still afraid… http://www.theartofflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Brief-Track-Clip-2011.mpv_.mp4 God-given leaping ability is undeniable. Anyone who sees an athlete with “hops,” on the basketball court or above the long jump pit, will inevitably say/think something like “wow, they float.” Leaping ability, while it can be improved through training, is fundamentally God-given and the key to a sort of alternate playground, the air! But truly understanding that one belongs to the air — that the air is one’s intended domain, this is what will allow an athlete with exceptional leaping ability to fly. And to delight in their flight.   Perhaps the eagle needed a cliff edge without a safety net, a taste of the golden majesty of dawn and the powerful rumblings of the wind to unlock his true nature; perhaps we all do. “Do not pack a parachute” is a call to radical vulnerability, one of my sister’s favorite phrases. It’s the realization that this state — of complete allowing, of radical vulnerability and of absolute, almost shocking newness, is the key to being completely alive, being precisely who we were built to be, with majesty and divine ease. Put yourself on cliff edges happily and often. For me, cliff edges include flying (actively making flight happen), performing flight (competing), and even seeing patients. Video 2: Getting closer to flight in Maputo. Not there yet… http://www.theartofflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Maputo.mp4   NOTE: This is not a “take risks” message. The term “risks” simplifies and dilutes what the cliff edge represents. At the cliff edge, at dawn’s first light, there is a still and expectant moment when streams of beautiful light pierce the horizon, when wind gathers and one feels enlivened by and compelled towards this new domain of adventure, excitement, challenge, reckoning and exploration. “Take risks” may or may not imply “be afraid.” Bringing yourself to the cliff edge mandates a simple decision. Without fear, but with heightened focus, you must decide that in the end, the air is your domain. My friend Miriam once told me (about jumping) to “go meet God up...