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Comment by donclark | Hacker News Reader

I like to play sports (participate). I dont care to watch them - unless its my kids. For me, I think of great sports people like other top tier predators on the planet. Sure, they can be exciting to watch, but its just entertainment no? Do I (or we as humans) stand to learn something important from them?

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Didn’t bliblah’s last paragraph address this? Also, so what if it is just entertainment. It’s still fascinating to some people how much of an outlier among outliers these people are.

I did mixed martial arts for 10 years and sparred with someone who eventually went on to be a semi finalist on The Ultimate Fighter. He easily destroyed me and he couldn’t make it in the UFC. How much more of an outlier is Khabib or Mcgregor? I did Ph.D. studies in mathematics at a group 1 reasearch imstituion. Went to a talk by a graduate student from Berkeley in the same area as me and in school for the same length of time as me. It was clear I would never know as much as him or be as good as him. I quit my Ph.D. program shortly afterwards. I knew I wasn’t good enough to do worthwhile research in math. Outliers among outliers.

I think there's something that can be learned from witnessing excellence in any area - writing, coding, music, sports...seeing the processes, discipline, out-of-the-box thinking, teamwork, etc. that lead to a great outcome can transfer over into other fields. Yes, sports are mainly for entertainment (and a series of never-ending cliches) but are also a microcosm of life.

That being said, I agree that you'll learn much more from reading books, taking a course, etc. than sitting down and watching sports for the equivalent amount of time.

I coach soccer for my kids. The primary obstacle to players development is that they've never watched a game therefore you have to teach them everything.

>you learn more about sports from reading than watching

I'm not sure that's true, game tapes - if strategically cut together - can be very effective in teaching strategy and individual techniques for sports. Video games can also be very effective in this regard. This works because it activates mirror neurons when you imagine you're doing the thing you're watching.

To clarify, I meant you'd learn more (in a general sense) from activities other than watching sports.

If you're looking to build expertise in a given sport, I agree that watching it is probably one of the best ways to do so.

Well, games and play have been a part of the human condition for thousands of years. It's not rational, but its definitely human.

Instead of thinking "what can I get?" just revel in the players own sense of joy and mastery.

Athletes are performing difficult, demanding physical and mental tasks, in a team environment, and without a "safety net". Programmers are not performers, and we have a huge set of safety nets, but we can still learn focus, how to stay cool under pressure, and how to reach 'flow' from athletes. Exercises like Yoga and Tai Chi stress the mind body connection more explicitly than the NFL, but it's there in every sport.

Their exercise, nutrition, recovery, and rehabilitation regimes are valuable information for the rest of us. Michael Phelps' affinity for fast food aside, professional athletes tend to adopt newer technologies and fitness modalities years befoe they become mainstream.

This is a good point. When I grew up in Chicago during the Bulls dynasty era, Michael Jordan’s trainer Tim Grover wrote a book on explosiveness training mainly through body weight type exercises and flexibility versus heavy weights, now which is finally in vogue 20 years later. Meanwhile, Phil Jackson was very into mediation, which was adopted years later by Google with mindfulness training, and now mindfulness studios are popping up everywhere. Today, information is more accessible, but it’s still probably better to learn what Federer or Lebron does versus what your local trainer is recommending.

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