Chapter Seven
Excerpt from Testimony of Dr. Gerard Westin
Ada Olson: Would you say the skaters were afraid of Dawn Sumner?
Dr. Gerard Westin: In a sense. It was part of the training. They feared Dawn more than what they had to face on the ice.
Ada Olson: And you helped them turn that fear to rage? Is that accurate?
Dr. Gerard Westin: It’s not quite like that.
Ada Olson: Okay—what is it like, then?
Dr. Gerard Westin: Fear causes three responses. Fight, flight, or freeze. I help the skaters channel the fear into a fight response, which helps them take the necessary action on the ice.
Ada Olson: You don’t work with them to calm the fear? Isn’t that the most common practice in sports psychology?
Dr. Gerard Westin: For competition, yes.
But for training—to override the innate fear of falling, of speed and height—no amount of mindfulness can stop the brain from a real and immediate threat, like hurling your body into the air over a sheet of ice.
That requires a kind of fire in the belly. In the mind.
Ada Olson: The fight response?
Dr. Gerard Westin: Yes.
Ada Olson: And fight is born of rage?
Dr. Westin: Yes. Rage at the obstacle. The threat.
Ada Olson: Of losing Dawn’s approval? Her affection?
Dr. Gerard Westin: Yes.
Ada Olson: Like the kinds of things a girl might face in the field?
Dr. Gerard Westin: I wouldn’t know about that. The training is about what skaters face on the ice.
Ada Olson: But did you ever consider what might happen off the ice—if you started that kind of fire in the mind of a child?