"Performance by the aggregation of marginal gains. It means taking the 1% from everything you do; finding a 1% margin for improvement in everything you do."
Sir Dave Brailsford

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Can you guess what we did?

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Motto:

“Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.”
by Michael Burke

Under the GBE2 WEEK #11 word: Instinct

So picture this, me waking up, opening my computer and going on the GBE2 group and reading Beth's entry for today and wondering: what am I suppose to write about this? I look at my husband and he kind of understood my questions without even hear it. His reaction: wait you will figure it out.

Sunday walk, in the park, not wonderful weather, but dry. And then we see in the distance cyclists at amazing speed, we get nearer and nearer and realised they are children. And we both remembered this is the Bad Homburg Cycling Race, called actually the 32 Grosser Preis von Bad Homburg



They even get famous cyclists from the Tour de France, like Tony Martin from Team HTC-Highroad, Danilo Hondo from Lampre-ISD, Kurparksieger and Marcel Sieberg from Team Omega Pharma-Lotto. Plus the Olimpic Champion from Athen 2004, Luke Roberts from Team SaxoBank-Sungard will attend. Quite an event even for non-cyclist like myself.

We had the chance to see the U15 race and it was an amazing lesson in respect to instinct. We were sitting quite at the beginning / end of the race, and close to us were families (mom, dad, sisters, brothers, grannies, granpas, dogs ...) who were cheering their youngsters. While listening to them I got some of the rules, like actually the winner will not be the one who crossed first the line, but the one who gathered more points after each round.

The one who one was a pretty young boy who used his instinct to move at the right time, he was winning the prize rounds all the time, he was ahead by one or two mms ahead of his competitors and he was in the end only the third to cross the line. Somehow he used his energy and power at the right time. For sure he had training, for sure he raced and raced for many miles before, but he knew what to do and when. I am truly sorry that I did not capture his tactic better, but at least here are some photos. Nevertheless he was a naturak talent and I wonder if we did not experience the next German champion.








In the end, we daily grip towards our instincts, we sometimes duck and suddenly we avoid a brick falling down, or we take a different road and then we realise that the first choice is blocked.

During the 19th century the concept of instinct was developed, there is also a theory which says that all actions, thoughts, and intents can be traced back to being caused by instinct.

Two very different instinct theories of motivation were developed by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the functionalist William James.

Freud's view of instincts was very broad, almost on the order of the later concept of a drive. In Freud's view, human behaviour was motivated by two biologically energized instincts, respectively termed Eros, the life instinct, and Thanatos, the death instinct. The life instinct was considered to be the basis for sexual motivation, while the death instinct underlay aggressive motivation.

As for James, he emphasized the survival value of instinctive motivation. He argued that humans were born with a score of instincts - such as fear, sociability, cleanliness, and love - which underlay all more complex behaviour.

Inspired from here

This is the theory, I had the chance to see it in practice today, but for sure one thing is clear. Without the hint from Beth I would have probably not reflect so intensely!

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