I think first when we look at the quote ‘Winning is everything’ or other such quotes like “Winning isn't everything it's the only thing"(Vince Lombardi the author of this quote was a football coach who took the worst team in the league, the Green Bay Packers, and made them into a perennial powerhouse) it is acceptable for a team environment as the end result doesn’t fall on one persons shoulders and can be used as a doctrine for the development of the whole team. Where as for an individuals performance it is the level of competition the person is in and how they found themselves in that situation that depends on when and how the quote 'Winning is Everything' is used.

For some people being involved in a particular sport or activity maybe just a by product of being good at an early age and being encouraged to attend competitions, and at the start it’s just something fun to do. Another reason is emulation. Maybe they have seen something or somebody on the news or TV and have become fascinated enough with the idea to try and become or attain it. How many people do what they are doing because of seeing it on the news? It’s well documented that when we do well as a country at a sport what ever that may be; clubs and trainers are inundated with new members. For other people it may just start off as a desire to keep healthy and fit, they try something new and take to it, and the momentum needed to keep this as a lifestyle steers them in to competition as an easy way to keep up the training.

No one likes to lose, yet for races or competitions to run there has to be many losers. There have been times when I have watched athletics or various sports competitions and there has been some person swimming, being lapped many times or a boxer, beaten easily in front of a big crowd or by the time a runner had finished everybody had gone home and I ask myself, why do they still do it, what’s the point? People get used to winning but can people get used to not winning, and in so doing will never do any better and if so is this their fault or their coaches, or is it a result of that person just wanting to keep healthy, and it is this that is the only motivation that keeps them training. It maybe that the competition is yourself, overcoming an injury, a problem in their life, or the need to be healthy. The reason I say this is that for some people competition is the reason to actually get up and do something and may be a long term motivational tool as others would carry on as normal having no reason to do anything. If say a person got injured with no sports history and doctors said they would never walk again then it maybe the only striving force to say “yes I am going to walk again because I am going to compete in that race”. For these types of people I would say that a large part of the winning essence is already there as sometimes for some people taking part is winning.

In my own experience, not being in particular a very competitive person, I have attended many different competitions mainly martial arts fighting and forms competition and my drive to do this was purely fitness and a confidence that I could protect myself. Winning didn’t have much bearing on what I was doing, but how I performed to me was more important. I have also done archery competitions and like a lot of other similar sports, darts, bowls etc, consistency is the key to winning and for me on a personal level this was more important. Don’t get me wrong the drive is there to win, but this a means to an end for me and that is to get better and if that takes me down the road of actually winning, I’m definitely not going to complain.

In teaching Tai Chi I use the principle “invest in loss”, which basically means you can learn a lot from losing. It’s about finding your boundaries and comfort zones, usually meant for pushing hands training but can be easily put in to other areas. Pushing Hands is a little like wrestling but you are looking to find the balance of another person while still maintaining your own equilibrium. This is quite a hard concept to enforce as ego limits the success of the method as most of us will use everything to stop ourselves being pushed over but, when a level of letting go of the ego is achieved, you can relax and let the other person put you in positions that normally you would not allow yourself to be in and, in the process of this, you will become comfortable in that area, no longer tense or stressed out when it happens. I can see this principle also used in sports like boxing, when a larger sparing partner is used so the boxer gets used to fighting in this situation and not mentally put off when in a real bout the opponent may look bigger or stronger. To the fighter it no longer matters, because he has had to deal with bigger, even though it may have been an obstacle in the beginning. He is now more relaxed and comfortable in his sport.

The quote 'Winning is everything' definitely has its place, but for training purposes, and when the person is very young, it could damage the potential of that said person by making the metaphorical hill just too big to climb. If a child is given a colouring book and is repeatedly told off for “that’s the wrong colour” or “keep it within the lines”, how can they develop an enjoyable learning process if it becomes a chore. However on the starting line, before the bell rings or when walking up to the oche, you have to believe that all your training, the sacrifices you have made, comes down to this point and is funneled into one goal, winning.