This week I want to first speak about competitiveness and then I will give you a 5-exercise circuit that I have been doing this spring as base-conditioning.

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For as long as I can remember people have commented on how competitive I am.  Often times, it would be stated in an almost negative way, as if I’m not having fun because I’m competitive.  Granted, in my younger days, I may have let my competitive nature get the best of me at times, but even today I feel that my competitiveness has been negatively stigmatized.  I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I think I’ve gotten to the bottom of it- at least to the bottom of where my competitiveness comes from and the purpose that it serves in my life.  As for others’ interpretations of my competitive nature, well, that’s purely speculation, but I’ll throw some thoughts to the wind.

There is a large spectrum of intensity in life.  We can go for a walk, power walk, jog, run, sprint or we can run marathons in 6 hours or in 2 hours, and if that isn’t even enough we can run ultra-marathons.  You get the idea.  Everyone has a different preference and a different tolerance for activity, there is no right or wrong here, no good or bad, just differences.  For me, I enjoy exploring the idea of potential in everything that I do.  If I’m going to run a 5K I’d like to see how fast I can do it, I love living right at the edge of what is possible for ME. I happen to carry that trait into everything that I do, from playing bocce in the backyard, to ringing out groceries at Whole Foods when I worked there, I thrive on the notion of high performance and I examine what that means even in the most mundane of tasks.  It seems to make life more interesting, more enjoyable, and often more efficient.  I love efficiency.

Where the issue comes into play is when others are involved in the game, event, activity, what have you…  I am operating at a high level of intensity, at the reaches of my max.  But it is not to try to be better, faster or stronger than the people I am with, it is to see how good, how fast and how strong I CAN BE!  Sometimes this gets misinterpreted, understandably, and creates conflict.  I don’t think that I’m alone in this…  I’m working on being okay with being called “competitive” and not feeling the need to be defensive about it, or to even explain myself .  This is a part of my character, and I’m guessing, a part of yours.  It is what makes us good and lets us experience life fully.

As William Faulkner says, “Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

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Now onto the workout!

This is a series of 5 exercises that are to be performed back-to-back with speed and efficiency while maintaining proper form.  Circuit training is a great opportunity to practice the aforementioned concept of trying to better than yourself by timing each round and trying to shorten the duration of the rounds every time.

Once adequately warmed up and stretched out, find a light to medium weight that allows you to complete 6 reps of each exercise back-to-back.  Use the same weight for each exercise.  You can use a barbell as shown in the images or dumbbells depending on your preference and weight selection.  Once the round is completed, spin for 3 minutes and then repeat the circuit for a total of 4 rounds.  At the end of the circuit be sure to spin for 15 minutes and don’t forget to stretch and foam roll!

On crutches at the 2012 Nine Queens event in Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis, Austria. I was 6 weeks post-op from a major knee reconstruction. One of 7 knee surgeries that I’ve had.

Hello everyone and welcome. I am here to tell you that anything you want to achieve in life is possible and not only is it possible, it is entirely worth pursuing.

I grew up in the suburbs of Hamden, Connecticut.  I have one older sister, two amazing parents, and always seem to have a pet of some kind.  As a kid, our dog was a Golden Retriever named Rusty, and as an adult, I have a dog, Milo and two cats, Bella and Bucky.  Life was pretty simple as a child as I look back on it 20+ years later.  My family encouraged my energetic nature and I played many sports; traditional ones like soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, and the less traditional ones like climbing, kayaking, and skiing.  My parents loved the mountains and for as long as I can remember, our weekends involved a 3 hour drive up into the Green Mountains of Vermont, where we had a rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere, our closest neighbors being coyotes, deer and trees.  Spending time up there was always magical- it gave me awareness from an early age that there were alternative places to live and alternative ways of living.  I often felt like a different child when I was in Vermont, a more liberated version of myself.  I could play outside in the backyard tracking gardener snakes and frogs and bring them proudly inside to my parents who were generally frightened and appalled!  But there was a spirit inside of me that really came alive in those mountains and as I grew up, my desire to spend more time up there increased.

Through my time in Vermont, I also found a passion for skiing, alpine skiing, the adrenaline filled kind.  From an early age I took to the sport and would often leave my dad bewildered as I took off straight downhill at top speed as he helped coax my sister one pizza wedge turn at a time.  I would always wait at the chairlift for both of them, ready to head back up and do it again.  By the age of 9 I was keeping up with my father on all of the terrain at Okemo Mountain, and where we both would truly come alive was through the mogul fields.  What could be better than a snowfield of hundreds of mounds of snow—unrelenting obstacles asking to be overcome?  We would chase each other like cat and mouse, beaming extensively, smiling ear to ear.  Our days were long.  We would ski from 9 until 4 in the afternoon, with only a short lunch break of chicken tenders and the world’s most delicious curly fries.  And upon returning home to our cabin, we would collapse on the floor in front of the fire in our wood-burning stove, trying to rejuvenate so we could do it again tomorrow.

Eventually my dad encouraged me to join the Freestyle Team at Okemo so that I could utilize the knowledge of coaches.  We would see the team training, and though I had a desire to get better I was scared about meeting new people and not being able to ski with the comfort of my dad every day.  Ultimately I took off my training wheels and joined the team, but my first year was very challenging.  I was the new kid, and as all the other skiers went to each other’s slopeside houses for lunch, I would meet up with my dad and continue skiing moguls, continue training.  I felt that the only way for me to really be accepted into the group was to come out skiing really hard, to earn respect through my talents and my skill, perhaps why I still feel I need to be good at everything that I do.  But my talents and skill were not shining through under such pressure.  I began to fall a lot more than I ever had.  By the end of the season I was pretty discouraged and doubted whether or not I should continue.  Again, my desire to overcome the obstacles in front of me, the moguls of snow and emotions, convinced me to push on.  The next year went a little more smoothly and as my skiing began to give me confidence, my personality started to shine through.  Soon enough I was being invited to lunch at the fancy slopeside houses, where we would watch ski movies and make assembly line grilled cheese sandwiches.  It was at one of these lunches where I would fortuitously see a girl, Marie Martinod, do a 540 in a halfpipe, on a TV screen.

I wish I could say it was smooth sailing from there, but it wasn’t.  That season, it was suggested that I learn how to jump so that I could eventually enter a mogul contest, which consists of 3 sections of moguls with a jump in between each section.  One of the best skiers on the team told me to go straight toward the jump, no turns, make a few pole plants for extra speed, lean forward and when I get to the end of the jump pop really hard.  He didn’t realize that even at the age of 11 I was very analytical and I took his commands verbatim.  As I left the jump, I began to flip, I tucked my head intuitively out of fear and landed on my back, after executing ¾ of a front-flip to ironic perfection.  Instantaneously both coaches were standing above me, very concerned, there were gawks and gasps from everyone on the team, and I knew I did something unexpected.  I was mortified.  I wanted to crawl in a hole, to turn back the hands of time and do it right.  But that wasn’t an option.  I just had to carry on and my embarrassment didn’t stop there.

Once I started skiing better with the team, I was encouraged to start competing.  Again, I was put under pressure to perform my skill, alone.  There is no one else to hide behind when you are competing in ski competitions, no one else to blame for your mistakes.  In my first competition I fell 4 times in one run. I even fell as I was crossing the finish line, sliding dramatically into the fencing at the bottom of the course just narrowly preventing me from catapulting into the trees.  I was off to a bumpy, pun intended, beginning.

But for some reason, I kept going.  It must just come back to LOVE, right?  I just loved skiing so much that I kept returning to these difficult situations.  No, that wasn’t it.  If it was just love and all I wanted to do was have fun, I would have gone back to my 9-4 days of skiing with my dad.  I wanted to overcome this. I wanted to conquer my demons, stare fear in the face and win.  I wanted to master my craft.  And when I would make it through one of these obstacles, the feeling that I would have afterward was virtually indescribable.  It was (and still is) a feeling that suggests that everything at first seems impossible, but actually, nothing is impossible!  How empowering.

I realize today that I am the same as I always have been.  I am the same girl that wants to overcome, the same girl that saw obstacles and trouble as a place for growth and opportunity not as some horrific unconquerable mess.  There are so many parallels to my journey as a young girl just entering this sport to my journey now as an accomplished pro.  Setting aside the ego, ignoring feelings of embarrassment and shame, feelings of not fitting in or being understood, feelings of doubt, these are all issues that I continue to manage, just with a greater awareness now.  As a kid, I did so instinctively, and now as a socialized adult I have to do so consciously.

This process becomes more familiar with age, but not really any easier.  Now, there is a lot more to lose- a career, a house, a lot of money, but just as much to gain.  The longer I continue down this path, the more I learn about myself and the more I have to share with others; I gain pride and a sense of accomplishment with every passing day, I have more opportunities surrounding me, more doors waiting to be opened than ever before.  I continue to look past my doubts and fears because I have confirmed over the last decade that focusing on those is the fastest way to make your doubts and fears your reality.  I suppose that my mission in following my dream is to pass along the word to others, that if it’s easy, it’s not worth it.  There is so much to be gained in the struggle, so much to be gained in following your heart.

The Salt Lake City skyline juxtaposed against the Wasatch Mountains. Home.

I have been living in Salt Lake City for 4 years now.  In that time I have found back routes from my house to locations that I frequent- the gym, Whole Foods, Sugarhouse Coffee, or Guthrie Bicycle for example.  If you were to measure the distance of my side-street-ventures, it would likely measure longer than taking the main roads, but I love my back roads.  There is less congestion, fewer traffic lights, and an ease with which I seem to flow from locale to locale.  Clearly I am not the only person who has lived in Salt Lake City for 4 years, I can’t be the only person who has had the option of taking these alternate pathways, and yet, my back routes still remain full of flow and free of others.  More often than not there is uncertainty involved in choosing the backroads; they are the alternative, not the first choice, and everyone wants their first choice. It dawned on me recently that these opposing paths are much like life.

I fractured my tibial plateau just over a month ago in Russia.  In a season where I was returning from a major knee surgery the year before, getting injured again was not something that I had planned on; I suppose no one ever plans an injury, but I certainly didn’t see it coming in such a flukey way, and definitely not if I was taking all the right steps in a gradual return to competition.  Last week I had a day where I was really down about having another season (my third in a row now) cut short by injury.  I asked myself, “when are you going to learn? when are you going to change so that you don’t get frustrated and down?”  The reality is that we will never change; at least not completely.

There will never be a time that we are unaffected by difficult situations that arise in our lives.  We are human, and when bad things happen, it hurts.  But we can become more aware of how we handle these moments.  This awareness is what will allow us to flow through life with more ease, even when things go awry- just like my back roads.  The traffic on the main roads never really goes away, stop lights don’t always stay GREEN, but if we are aware of the back roads we can begin to flow with what is happening around us.  Instead of remaining controlled by our ego, which was fixed on taking the main road, we open our eyes to other options.  When a light turns red ahead of us, we turn; where there is traffic, we get out of it.  We begin to see that there is more than one way to our destination and our future doesn’t have to be exactly as we had envisioned.

Every now and again life catches up with us.  Our goals and dreams suddenly seem more daunting than motivating, we dwell on the past or fret about the future, instead of staying grounded in the present moment.  Once again this year, the path that I had outlined had taken a major detour; the future I had envisioned hadn’t arrived.  The path to fulfillment is often a challenging one.  We set our heart’s intent on achieving something outside of ourselves, something over which we don’t have complete control.  Whether this goal is ending a war in Congo, like my friend Sean Carasso founder of the Falling Whistles Campaign for Peace, or winning an Olympic gold medal, there are only so many aspects of the pursuit that fall directly in our control.  The important part is following our hearts and creating the path along the way, remembering always that there is more than one road. For me right now, this means taking a little more time off of snow and a little more time giving my body what it needs more than anything: a break.  What does it mean for you?

“You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up, but you don’t give up.” – Chuck Yeager (first man to break the sound barrier)

“It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It has been over a decade since I set out to become an Olympian in the sport of halfpipe skiing. When I began there were only a handful of contests a year, and only a handful of competitors.  There were no Olympic Games for us, just the idea of them.  Many of us take on goals that initially seem insurmountable.  Some of us achieve them, others fall short; but reaching a goal is not the entire purpose of having a goal.  Besides loving skiing, the concept that has propelled me to continue over the years is the process of self-reflection & growth that comes with the journey and the notion of self-actualization.  It is for these reasons that I have been able to come back from several knee surgeries, dislocated shoulders, broken eye sockets, wrists, elbows, and ribs; that is why I am continuing to fight through my current limitations with my knee, to pursue my goal of becoming one of the first Olympians in the sport of halfpipe skiing.

For some time, I got caught up in the winning- the piece of the pie that seems to illustrate one’s success.  It was in this time that my experiences had very little to teach me.  Sure, I was acquiring feedback that confirmed that what I was doing was good- more sponsors, awards, and attention, but it only made me temporarily happy, until of course, there was even more of that, which there not always is.  We enter this world with nothing and we are going to leave this world with nothing- material possessions, wealth, fame, and success will all be left behind. So why get caught up in trying to attain such things?  Why allow those concepts to determine our worth?  If we are too focused on the finish line we won’t see the speed bumps and pot holes, twists and turns, that may set us off track.  And if we only see them as obstacles in our way, challenges to merely ‘get through’ because we have to in order to reach our goal, we will likely burn out before we ever cross that finish line.

As I sit here writing this, I am sidelined from my sport once again because of a fractured tibial plateau.  In the year before our sports’ Olympic debut, returning from a major knee surgery in 2012, I have yet another obstacle in my way.  But instead of getting frustrated this time, I am loving it.  I have embraced this opportunity for what it is- a chance to be home, sleeping in my bed, going to my gym, eating home-cooked meals, focusing on health and healing.  It is not often in the life of a professional athlete, that we really get to just sit back and enjoy our lives, there is always another goal to be attained, or record to be broken.  But now I have realized that each step is a goal in itself, regardless of what that step may be.  These steps are no longer just inching me closer to my ultimate goal, these steps make up my life.

This is the same for everyone, regardless of what it is he or she is trying to achieve.  For me it has been rehabilitation and time in the gym, for my graduate school sister, it is writing papers and creating presentations, for the aspiring musician it is teaching music not just performing music, and for the photographer, shooting weddings not just landscapes.  But learning to LOVE these other aspects of our journey that allow us to work toward our goals will make all the difference in the world.  Putting these steps into the category of a “goal” themselves is a good start in making each step more fulfilling.

So, get out there. Chase your dreams!  But don’t forget to enjoy yourself along the way.

Nothing like grandiose mountains to bring you back to the present.

We are told from a very young age about these things called goals and dreams.  Some of us are taught not to chase dreams because they are unattainable, others are told to “dream BIG!” because anything is possible, and some are just in between, directionless.  For those daring enough to dream, to set goals that will take some time to achieve, the road can be rocky.  Why?  Because that is how it is, the reward of chasing your dreams lies in the process, overcoming obstacles and growing as a person along the way.  But sometimes we make ourselves miserable during this process.  Why?  Because we write storylines.

When I first ventured into halfpipe skiing I didn’t really know what it was, what it would mean if I was good at it, or how it could possibly affect my future.  So I did it purely because I loved it, it was fun and it engaged every part of my attention, my body and mind at once. Absolutely enthralling!  Within a short period of time, I began experiencing success. Then I began to PLOT MY FUTURE (imagine this being said in Denzel Washington’s voice over a megaphone).  I began to imagine my future life (XGAMES GOLD MEDALIST, FAMOUS PRO SKIER, MAGAZINES, MOVIES, blah, blah, blah) down to the tiniest details.  But more than imagine, I began to feel entitled to this future, and when things didn’t fit in with what I had imagined, I struggled. Hard.  I would create such a concrete idea of “what my life was” that I would force-fit people, places and things into my imagined reality.  Trying to craft and mold and control the world around me.  I also fabricated this concept of “permanence” that once I achieved x, y and z that those things would be with me forever (true) but also that they would continue to happen on and on, for eternity; that the satisfaction in achieving said goal, would be one that would constantly bring my joy and satisfaction forever. False.

When you create such a false reality, when life throws you a curve-ball (like your dad has a very rare and aggressive form of leukemia) the illusion begins to crack and fade, become sheer, until you can see right through it.  That piece (dad with cancer) didn’t fit into your imagined reality, but it happened.  Then you start questioning what you’ve created. Everything you’ve convinced yourself of begins to fall apart.

We do this kind of story lining a lot.  Like when we me meet a wonderful person with whom we want to fall in love.  We focus on the aspects of that person that fit into our created, imagined reality of life, our ideas of what we want and need become the only pieces of that person that we see.  But eventually it catches up with us and this character that we created to fit into our fictional world is no longer hiding.  We begin to see the other pieces and sides that we chose to overlook in the beginning, and the pieces no longer fit- right shape, wrong color; right color, wrong shape.

I just finished watching a movie called Ruby Sparks about a writer, Calvin, who began writing a love-story about meeting his ideal woman, Ruby Sparks.  As his story went on and more and more details were created, Ruby became real, Calvin manifested her into existence, and she appeared living in his home. But over time Ruby needed to be who Ruby really was, not Calvin’s Ruby, and the love story began to fall apart.  The more Calvin tried to control her with his writing the worse things got.  Ruby was pushed away by this overbearing grasp.  It wasn’t until Calvin was able to release her and return her freedom to her, that Ruby was able to reenter Calvin’s life in another form. This is an extreme metaphor for this “story lining” to which I refer, but it is surprisingly accurate.

We cannot possess anything in life fully, not a goal, not a person, not a dream.  The only possession that we have is within ourselves.  Everything else will come and go, some people and things will stay bonded to us for longer than others, but everything is temporary.  All that we seek in life, money, success, love, family, it is all fleeting.  So stop wasting time writing the storyline of your life and start truly living life for what it IS!

It begins with being conscious, being present and aware of your thoughts.  When they start running wild and taking you to made up places of the past and future, bring yourself back to the current moment- the reality that is unfolding before your eyes.  This doesn’t mean that we can’t set goals or dream BIG or imagine the kind of person we want to be with, it just means we need to be real. Real with ourselves about what IS here in front of us.    Let go of expectations, of definitions, and bask in the beauty of what IS.

Because ‘what IS’ is truly all we have.

I recalled how excited I would get each year heading into town, thinking of the great halfpipe that we would be able to ski, story-lining my imagined success of landing new tricks and landing on the podium.  I’ve never driven to Aspen for X without the belief that I could win, but this year I have.  My knee is not yet 100% normal from my injury sustained over a year ago on January 10, but my strength is at 98% of what it was at my strongest in the fall of 2011.  I am able to ski, but the image that I have of the skier I once was is something I have let go of.  That’s not to say that I will never do the tricks that I once did before, or that I will never stand atop a podium again, but it’s not going to happen right now.  It’s a humbling feeling and an honorable one, to still want to go out, naked, exposed and vulnerable, to allow a judging panel to tell me that I’m not number 1.

For the first time in my career I’m not worried about wining, being the best, or being better than everyone else.  I’m focused on doing the best that I can, with what I have, where I am.  It’s a mindset that I’ve been told about for the last decade, one that is written about in every sports psych book on the market, but one that is scary to adapt, when the will to win carried you so far for so long.  It’s exciting to be in a place where I can watch these young girls throwing both way 900s, filling their runs with more technicality, switch hits, amplitude and grabs, and just feel proud- proud for them, and proud for myself, that I am still here, now, just skimming above the dogfight, doing my own thing.  I can’twait to do some of the big tricks that are in my arsenal, but if I don’t respect my body and I don’t accept where I am right now, I will never be able to do them again.

My sights remain set on competing in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia and the only way to get there is through living every day doing all I can.  Though my circumstances have changed, my end goal doesn’t need to.   Sometimes we have to take a few steps backward in order to move forward again.  It’s in this time that people often doubt themselves, doubt their ability to improve and decide it’s time to quit.  But a lot of the time, this is when you are inches away from your greatest success.

“The secret of life is to fall seven times and get up eight times.  Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.” Paulo Coelho

On November 2, 2012 I woke up around 7:30, ate breakfast with my US Freeskiing teammates & coaches and headed to the gym. I rode a bike, stretched, did some light plyos and finally stretched some more.  It was a typical morning in a sense, but not typical for me over the last 10 months. I was, for the first time since January 10, 2012, going to put on ski clothes, ski boots and skis, get on a chairlift, and glide down the snow.

I love what I do.  I have always loved it.  Skiing on flat, icy terrain back east, somehow hooked me.  And when I found myself nearly sponsorless in 2007, and thousands of dollars in debt, I really evaluated what I was doing with this whole skiing thing.  It became clear that my main reason was simply that I loved to ski. I loved to carve turns down a mountain, to feel the forces of gravity, to throw my skis side to side on the brink of losing control just to feel my edges grab hold and throttle me into another turn.  I loved the feeling of dropping into a halfpipe, the surge of adrenaline, the feeling of your stomach rising into your chest as your body drops down the wall so forcefully, pumping, driving and creating speed.

So, I recommitted myself to skiing regardless of sponsor support. I focused on my love of the sport and was motivated by my own desires to progress.  After 2 successful seasons and some of the best results I had yet to achieve,  I found myself about to have my 3rd knee surgery.  Throughout the rehabilitation process I constantly visualized the skiing that I wanted to return to.  I imagined my run, felt how it would feel to do it perfectly, I saw myself standing on podiums and completing what I had set out to accomplish.  Coming back from that surgery I was skiing better than ever.  I came into the season without expectations, just willing to do whatever I could every day.  I went on to win almost every contest that next season (2009-2010), I won X-Games, European X-Games, US Nationals, and WSI to name a few.

After that season I was on cloud 9. I had thought about and dreamed about winning X-Games for 7 years and it finally happened.  I was having so much fun skiing and I wanted to ride the wave for as long as I could.  But as time passed, a thought crept into my mind that became very dominant over time.  I don’t want people to think that my one year on top was a fluke.  I wanted to continue skiing well, to show people that I was good, to prove my worth.  Suddenly my motivation shifted from the pure intrinsic motivation that helps us get things done and keeps us happy, to that superficial extrinsic motivation, the stuff that wears us down, stresses us out and isn’t much fun.  Suddenly I was back to my 2007 self, forgetting that I do this sport purely for love and to challenge myself.

The following season I was skiing even better but the results weren’t coming in how I wanted them too.  Because my focus had shifted to the people pleasing mentality, I was never happy with being 2nd or 3rd.  I tried to fight my mindset, but it wasn’t genuine.  That season ended a little short when I crashed in Europe dislocating my shoulder and spraining my knee. Injury is never fun, but it can serve as a time for reflection, for evaluating our current state and shocking us back into reatlity, reminding us of what is truly important.  But this crash was scary and processing it was even scarier.  So, I jumped straight into rehab and back into my training.  I was putting all of my attention on the physical, not the mental, part of what I do.  My focus was still on proving to people I was capable of greatness, not on just skiing for the love of it.  Sure enough at the start of last winter, I was bogged down with pressure and expectations, now carrying a bigger monkey on my back because I had suppressed all of my fears from that crash the previous winter.  It didn’t take long for it to all catch up with me, and then some.  Mid-January I blew my knee out… badly. And a week later Sarah passed away.  There I was. Rock bottom. The perfect time to rebuild.

The following 9 months have been grueling.  My rehab was slow, and a build up of scar tissue required a second surgery in July.  Running became hard, jumping even harder.  But as the winter neared I reminded myself why I was working so hard.  I love to ski.  That’s why I’m here and that’s why it’s all worth it.  I’ve worked hard for this life I live and sometimes I take it for granted.  I focus on the have-nots instead of the haves.  But I’m hoping that the lesson learned this time will stay with me.  I have never been so excited to ski again, for the good and even the bad. I’m excited to have frozen toes, and a frostbitten nose; to miss a flight because of bad weather; to have swollen legs after an 11 hour flight; to get lost for 5 hours driving around Europe because I insisted on not needing a GPS; to miss a podium spot even though I thought I deserved it; but more than anything to continue working hard for my dreams.

My first few days back on snow were great.  By my new standards they couldn’t have been better.  Sure, my knee hurt and I have a lot more work to do before I’m in competition shape, but I was on the hill with my friends, some of whom are in the same boat, I was skiing, yes on groomers of man made snow and even in the rain, but I’m still in pursuit of my goals.  As Teddy Roosevelt says “do what you can with what you have where you are.” Go out and get it.

Danica Patrick is a professional racecar driver. You’ve probably heard her name, or seen her scantily clad in GoDaddy.com commercials during the superbowl.  She spent many years competing in the IndyCar Series and recently switched to the more lucrative NASCAR.  Her racing profile is strong.  In 2011 she ranked 26^th in the Nascar Nationwide Series, competing in less than half of the races and she is currently ranked 10^th in the world amongst women and men alike.  But that is not why people know her name.  Have you heard the names Brian Scott (currently ranked 9^th), Tayler Malsam (currently ranked 11^th), or Johanna Long (currently ranked 18^th)?  Probably not.  The issue with Danica Patrick racing in NASCAR isn’t over her ability to drive, but about how she earned her spot to race.

With a net worth $18 MIL- ranked 3^rd on the Forbes list of Highest Paid Female Athletes, only behind tennis stars Maria Sharapova and Caroline Wozniaki, Danica Patrick brings a lot of financial support to NASCAR.  (www.therichest.org) And, NASCAR being a sponsor driven (pun intend) sport, Danica brings not only herself but also a slew of sponsors with her.  In the 2012 Superbowl, she was in a GoDaddy.com commercial shown to be applying body paint to a model, as shown in the images below.

If a male athlete were to be in such a commercial, they would receive such incredible amount of negative attention, it would likely require a formal apology.  Though this commercial was criticized, Danica never had to apologize for her actions.  It is shocking that Danica Patrick, someone who has a platform to be a positive influence on many women, squander it in this way.  As we observed in “Killing Us Softly,” the images that we see in the media, not only sell us on a product, but lifestyles and concepts of how we should be, act, or look.  Being nude with the words “GET NOTICED” written across the model’s chest, women are being told that their bodies are the way to gain attention, not their talents, abilities, or intelligence.

If Danica Patrick was a man, her winnings from races would be the same, but her earnings from sponsors would be far less.  Sponsors like the “selling power” of Danica, so they pay her very well, better than the number 9 ranked NASCAR racer, Brian Scott, whose income doesn’t crack the top 10 of highest paid NASCAR drivers for 2011.  (www.therichest.org) The other shame in this situation, is that if Danica Patrick wasn’t taking off her clothes for advertisements, or wasn’t as attractive as she is, her earnings would likely be even less than Brian Scott- an equal caliber racer.  As we learned when studying sexism in the work place, women make about 77 cents to every dollar a man makes.  This ratio is probably even more dramatic when a woman is doing a “man’s job,” as Danica does with her racing.  Also, it was noted that children usually describe females based on appearance and males based on traits and activities.  Perhaps this is something that perpetuates into adulthood, which causes Danica to overemphasize her feminine appearance.

Which brings us to the second point.  When you google images of Brian Scott, you find images of him in a firesuit, next to a racecar, or actually driving.  When you google images of Danica Patrick, you get Danica in a bikini, next to a model car, wearing stilettos, or in a firesuit pulled below her hips in a bikini.  Out of 9 images screenshotted collectively above, there is only one of Danica in a firesuit at a press conference after a race.  But, there are zero photos of Brian Scott in a Speedo.  Even google searches of the better-known Dale Earnhardt Jr. yield only photos of him on the track or in a firesuit. However, this is not entirely Danica’s fault.  We are given what we demand, and there is very high demand for Danica dressed scantily clad.  This creates a perpetuating cycle of Danica in a bikini, then saying that she just wants to be seen as a “driver,” but both worlds cannot coexist.  Her appearances away from the track influence how people view her on the track, even if she is only there to race.

The oversexualization of Danica makes it harder for her to talents on the racetrack to get noticed.  It also makes people more critical of her driving.  When Danica made her NASCAR debut this year, she was involved in 3 crashes, none of which were initiated from mistakes that she made.  With a male driver, this fact would have been considered bad luck, but many commentators began to question her presence in NASCAR and blamed her gender as the source of the crashes.  Gender was not the reason that Danica had these crashes, neither was lack of experience.  Cognitively, there are very few differences between men and women.  The sport of racing requires endurance and some strength, but mainly gusto and skill.  But, there is an overarching perception that females are worse drivers than men in day-to-day living- a stereotype that makes its way to NASCAR.  Throughout many studies on visual/spatial skills, including one conducted by Voyer, Voyer and Bryden in 1995, there are only small difference in spatial abilities between men and women, slightly favoring males.  These are the kind of skills that would most directly affect one’s driving ability.  If Danica were male her mistakes would be judged without consideration of her gender.   However, many people feel that Danica’s looks are the only reason she has a professional driving career.  If that were the case, she would be ranked 35^th on the NASCAR circuit, like fellow convert Travis Pastrana.  Pastrana used to race motocross, transitioned to rally car driving and gained significant celebrity clout, eventually earning him a spot in the NASCAR circuit.  No one is saying that Travis Pastrana isn’t ready for NASCAR because he’s a man.

Overall Danica Patrick has a challenging road to walk.  Being marketable is an integral part of being a professional athlete, being really good at your sport is not enough by itself.  If a male in her position was sexy and showed it, he wouldn’t be criticized for selling out, exploiting himself or being a bad example for other men.  But Danica is.  I am extremely critical of Danica Patrick and how she chooses to make her money, but women are not men.  Even if we are equals in all cognitive capacities, we are still fighting stereotypes and working to earn equal treatment.  By exploiting her sexuality, she is making a more challenging path for women, demeaning women and our abilities, and even demeaning her own talents as the 10th fastest human on 4 wheels.  At a press conference Danica asked a reporter “I don’t quite understand why when you’re referring to a girl, a female athlete in particular, you have to use the word “sexy.”  Is there some other word that you can use to describe me?” To which news reporter Ross Shimabuku commented, “Oh, I got a few words.  It starts with a ‘B’ and it isn’t ‘beautiful.’”  Implying that if Danica would like to be referred to as something other than sexy, then she’s a “B*TCH. (www.feministe.us) Granted, Danica sends us mixed signals, wanting to be seen as sexy in photoshoots away from the track, but expects us to forget all of that on the racetrack.  However, this would never happen if she were male.

Gender and gender rolls affect us all greatly.  We are all perceived differently because of our gender and our actions, even if they are the same as actions of the opposite sex, are held to a unique standard.  Over time this can change, but we need to view ourselves as equals and act like equals, before we will be treated as equals.

Sources:

www.nascar.com

http://www.therichest.org/sports/highest-paid-nascar-drivers-2011/

http://www.therichest.org/tag/danica-patrick-net-worth/

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/03/03/ross-shimabuku-is-a-word-that-starts-with-a-and-its-not-awesome/

http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/Danica-Patrick-Daytona-500-NASCAR-should-she-have-been-out-there-writer-debate-030112

www.travispastrana.com

For the last month I’ve been anticipating this trip to Whistler to Celebrate Sarah Burke.  I was not sure how it would feel to relive the emotions of such a great loss, to be reminded of this beautiful woman taken from us too soon.  After 2 days dedicated to celebrating Sarah, I feel lucky to have had her in my life, even for the short 10 years that I knew her.

There seemed to be an overlying theme of the past few days that WE are the lucky ones.  We were lucky enough to have had Sarah impact our lives in so many positive ways.  She was a living example of chasing your dreams, setting aside fears and going for it.  She showed how a smile and a laugh could uplift even the darkest of hours.  She danced freely, without thought of judgment, and she judged none.  Sarah lived her life, her 29 years, fully.

Instinctively I think, “I cannot believe this happened to Sarah.  She had so much more to give.  She was going to change the world!” and then I stop for a minute and realize, she already did.  Sarah gave gifts that will keep on giving.  She passed her spirit on to every one of us whose lives she touched.  Seeing the group of people in Whistler, all here in Sarah’s honor, proved this.  The amount of love that was emanating from every corner of the cobblestone streets in Whistler was overwhelming.  She brought worlds together- one small woman, with one huge heart.  We will Celebrate Sarah Forever.

(For a recap of the tribute in Whistler Village view this link.)