Mental+Chess

home ​ We​lcome to Mental Chess Introduction: **Name:** Aaron Sekulich **__What I love about teaching at St. Francis:__** I love feed back from students after the fact telling me that my class has prepared them for what they are doing now.
 * Organization:** Saint Francis School
 * Classes Taught:** Conceptual Physics, Honors Physics, Anatomy/Physiology
 * Background:** Physical Therapist, PAC-5 Wrestling Coach, 27 years of wrestling experience
 * Interests:** Wrestling, Fly-fishing for bone fish, my kids

**Burning Question:** Considering that I'm 5'8" and weigh 175lbs, how big is that fish really?

So what is mental chess? I chose this title for its metaphoric quality as it pertains to wrestling. It was explained to me by Les Gutches, a two time world champion wrestler, when describing what is going on between two adversaries on the mat. They are trying to think several moves ahead of their opponent in order to score. In essence, they are playing chess with each other. Believe it or not, wrestling requires a tremendous amount of mental strategizing, combined with the extreme physical demand and the act of executing the strategy. To me, pretty cool...

Mental chess can also be played with yourself. This means coming up with strategy and setting goals to achieve. I've always believed this and teach it in classes and for my wrestlers. I recently ran into this TED talk by David Blaine after he set the world record for holding his breath (recently re-broken at 20 min. 10 sec). I was most impressed by Blaine's report of the experience of determination, planning and preparation, and then execution under pressure of his plan. It's a different approach to demonstrate the point of positive mindset and preparation.

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