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The Instagram Toilet thoughts #1: There’s nothing wrong with being mediocre

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* About 15% of instagram posts, especially in the morning, are about achieving excellence and outstanding performance (with a strong bias on achieving higher status and recognition). * Humans are social animals. Therefore, hierarchical. By pure biological logic, a small number of individuals in each group will assume leadership and manifest excellence (in other mammals, […]

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Questions I receive – an example of users’ entitlement and abuse

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Questions I receive – an example worth sharing for many (bad) reasons   (I have corrected punctuation and grammar errors and translated in readable form: it was originally in bad Portuguese) Question: “Hello Marilia, I would first like to congratulate you because I think you are one of the best female Brazilian powerlifters. You have

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More on Ronda Rousey vs Holly Holm: the humility enigma

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Some thoughts. 1. Athletes don’t deserve do win or lose: a sport is an institutionalized game. By definition, athletes deserve only fair judging (not winning or losing). Winning or losing, if under fair judging, is neither good or bad. 2. Athletes don’t lose or win because of any moral factor. Our wishes about the outcomes

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Rousey versus Holm and the fighting fans

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Yesterday Ronda Rousey was defeated for the first time in her career with the UFC in a fight with Holly Holm. As far as very knowledgeable commentators say (and published), in spite of Rousey’s favoritism for many technical reasons, Holm’ victory was no surprise, either: she came in as a world champion boxer who, up

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Into the mind of the coach: Richard Ficca

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(Read the other interviews – links at the project’s page, “Into the mind of the coach“) Please tell us something about yourself: where and when were you born and places you lived. Where do you live now? I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida.  Between college and the US Military I have also lived

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Laissez-fair athleticism

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Sunday was an interesting day: as in many international meets, we had the chance of comparing local institutional components for sports development in different countries. As one of us described in detail the conditions in which corruption and/or outright organized crime ruled the strength sports, the fights and other sports in South America, our friend

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The Powerlifting Watch “a brainstorm with strong women” project

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I devised this project some time ago as an experiment: instead of individually interviewing a number of strength athletes, the idea was to leave the question as a discussion item for anyone who identified herself as a strong woman. What did strength represent for them? How did strength interact with their self-representation as women or

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Customer service, Enterprise and Elitefts: highlighting corporate responsibility and building a reputation

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What does a car rental company have to do with a sports goods sales company that also provides free information? Apparently nothing. Read on. I am presently dealing with a case of miscommunication between corporate office and the local Miami office in which I rented a vehicle. In lay terms, “something went wrong, someone failed

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Recharge batteries, clear my mind, sharpen my tools and enjoy freedom: five months in the USA – part 2: a strategy is born

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If you read part 1, you are probably screaming at the screen: “get out of this shithole, for god’s sake!”. Three of my doctors agree with you. One straightforwardly said that during the last years, he never saw me clinically compromised, but that now I was. That it was time for a sound, true break

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Recharge batteries, clear my mind, sharpen my tools and enjoy freedom: five months in the USA – part 1: when enough is enough

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I came to the United States for five things: first, to get some perspective on the many problems I faced in Brazil that only distance can provide; two, to recover, train with my coach and prepare for a very selective elite competition, RUM (Raw Unity Meets); three, to be with “my tribe”, be with my

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