GQ How to Win at Life

by Charlie Burton

  Today, Shaw’s swimming technique has been taught to thousands of people across the globe, from Greece to America, Britain to Japan. His company, Art of Swimming, counts among its clients professional swimmers – both current Olympians and former greats – as well as politicians and celebrities. The impact he has had on their stroke has afforded him a kind of cult status. We asked him to explain five steps to faster, easier front crawl…

  1: DON’T WINDMILL

  Only start pulling back with one hand as the other enters the water (fingertips first, with your thumb pointing down). That’s because if you were to pull back while your other hand was still behind you, says Shaw, “you wouldn’t be able to put all of your body weight on to the pulling arm”.

  2: EFFICIENCY IS EVERYTHING

  When pulling backward, use the whole of your lower arm as a paddle. As you do so, stretch the front “directional arm” forward (this is your rudder) and rotate the hand into a “handshake” position. “This opens up the hip on the other side, turning it up toward the ceiling.” Allow your body – but not your head – to rotate with it, thus reducing drag.

  3: NAIL THE BREATHING

  On the first arm cycle, look straight down, holding your breath; on the second, look slightly forward and slowly exhale; on the third, rotate your head with your body and calmly inhale. “Rather than ‘taking a breath’, allow the air to come in. It’s almost like the movement is breathing you.”

  4: DIG DEEP

  Keep the front, directional arm pointing downward. This will help raise your rear arm as it flies out of the water, affording you more time to breathe. To save energy, keep that rear arm loose as it comes forward again and re-enters the water. “That’s a non-propulsive movement; if you put effort into that movement, it creates counter propulsion.”

  5: FOR KICKS

  Kick from your hips, only putting effort into the downward movement and allowing your legs to float back up. Aim for two kicks for every arm cycle. “The front-crawl kick is primarily there for balance, rhythm and stability. The mistake people make is kicking too fast – that will wear you out.” It all comes down to this: relax.

  POWERTHROW AN AMERICAN FOOTBALL

  Even if you don’t follow American football or have never played it, there may come a time when you are required to chuck a football around at a barbecue. It would be churlish not to join in – and if you are going to take part, you ought to be able to throw a decent pass. “The ball is built to spiral so the receiver can catch it a lot easier,” says Emmanuel Sanders, who won the Super Bowl in 2016 with the NFL’s Denver Broncos. Here’s how you give the ball that crucial spin...

  1: TAKE HOLD OF THE LACES

  Grip the back of the ball. Generally speaking, your ring and little fingers should rest against the ball’s laces. “If you can’t find the laces, your chances of throwing a spiral go down,” says Sanders. The thumb should make an “L” shape with your index finger, which, in turn, should lie across the seam.

  2: COCK THE ARM

  Stand at 90 degrees to your target and bring the ball up to head height, using the other hand to steady it. Pull your arm back in preparation for the throw, your elbow behind you and a right-angle between your upper arm and forearm.

  3: FIND YOUR FEET

  Rather than rooting your feet to the ground, keep them moving and stay light on your toes. Initially, hold your weight on your back leg, then step into the pass with your forward foot for extra momentum as you throw.

  4: RELEASE THE MISSILE

  Project your arm powerfully forward, squaring up your body at the target and releasing the ball at the highest point of the arc. Follow through, allowing your back leg to come forward and your hand to come to rest by your opposite leg.

  5: GIVE IT A SPIN

  “The moment you release that football, you want to see it spinning off the tips of your fingers.” It should come off your index finger last. Physicists will tell you that spinning the ball gives it “angular momentum”, ensuring a longer, more accurate pass.

  FREEDIVE LIKE A MERMAN

  Some say that humans were born to dive. Like aquatic mammals, we exhibit a “diving reflex”: when immersed, the body redistributes its blood supply to the vital organs, the heart rate slows down and the spleen contracts to expel oxygen-rich blood cells. What’s more, our species has been exploring the depths for millennia. Plato, for instance, writes about Ancient Greeks washing with natural sponges that would have been picked from around 30m (100ft) below the surface. But it wasn’t until the 20th century, thanks to the invention of masks and flippers, that freediving – diving without breathing apparatus – took off as a recreational activity. Herbert Nitsch is one of its masters. The “deepest man on earth”, he holds the sport’s record for a descent of 253m (830ft) – and he is the only freediver with world records across all of its eight disciplines.

  To him, the appeal goes well beyond competition. “I used to scuba dive in the beginning, but I found I’d much rather freedive,” he says. The main reason was that it allowed him to see a greater abundance of marine life. “With scuba diving you only see creatures that are not afraid of noise – the bubbles from breathing are extremely loud. Also, with freediving, you can move much more easily in all directions, which is something that we land creatures are not used to.” So what makes him a better freediver than the next guy? “The main thing is mental, but the physical aspect is also important. It’s about understanding how your body works and influencing it in the best way.”

  Here’s Nitsch’s advice for beginners. Freediving is inherently dangerous, so only ever try this at your own risk and with the approval and supervision of a professional instructor…

  1: PRACTISE YOUR BREATH HOLDS ON LAND

  Relax, exhale everything and don’t breathe for, say, 30 seconds. Breathe normally for the same period then repeat, but for slightly longer. Continue repeating the cycle for about an hour. “If you do this daily for seven days prior to a freediving holiday, you can expect to double your breath-hold.”

  2: KEEP YOURSELF IN GOOD SHAPE

  It’s essential to keep the diaphragm and lungs flexible, in order to improve maximum and minimum lung volume. A good training tool is to breathe out and use your chest muscles to pull your diaphragm up and down multiple times. When the urge to breathe arises, take a sip of air and continue until you have to breathe fully.

  3: BUDDY UP

  Never dive alone. Most blackouts happen at the surface, and those who dive deeper than 60m (197ft) risk nitrogen narcosis, which has a similar effect to being drunk. “To get used to this, I recommend ‘narcosis training’ on land. This jolly good exercise consists of getting well liquored up and attempting practical tasks.”

  4: BREATHE UP TO GO DOWN

  Nitsch takes deep, long “breathe-ups” for five to ten minutes prior to diving, which causes hyperventilation. “Most freedivers think that hyperventilation is a no-go, but I strongly believe it is necessary.” The urge to breathe is due to carbon dioxide. Hyperventilation lowers CO2 levels, which extends your time below the surface.

  5: TIME TO EXPLORE

  While diving, get speed by scissor-kicking with bi-fins from your hips and knees. “To maximize a freedive depth or duration, you need to minimize oxygen consumption by keeping mentally calm and by physically moving as little as possible – otherwise, adrenaline rushes through your veins and your heart rate rises.”

  WIN BIG AT THE CASINO

  The old Wilson Mizner quip has it that gambling is “the sure way of getting nothing for something”. Yet mathematicians have long attempted to flip that idea on its head and topple Lady Luck from her pedestal – with a surprising degree of success. Some of their techniques are grounded in traditional problem-solving, but others have been gleaned through new breakthroughs in machine-learning and artificial intelligence. In the process, games that seemed impossible to model have revealed themselves to be laden with patterns. Take football. “Despite the messy, complicated series of individual i
nteractions that drives this game, we can still develop enough understanding to make decent predictions,” says Adam Kucharski, whose book The Perfect Bet (2016) offers a lucid survey of how smart gamblers are giving the house a run for its money. We asked for his advice on five games…

  1: PLAY HEADS-UP LIMIT HOLD-’EM POKER LIKE A BOT

  In 2015, the University of Alberta unveiled a computer program called Cepheus, which is unbeatable in heads-up limit hold-’em. We can learn from how it plays. Its behaviour confirms that the dealer has the advantage and that you should raise or fold on your first go, rather than “limping”. Contrary to received wisdom, however, supposedly useless hands (offsuit four and six, say) are occasionally worth playing, and even with a pair of aces it is rarely advisable to bet the maximum stake. “In poker your aim is to make your opponent’s decisions as difficult as possible,” observes Kucharski.

  2: CARD-COUNTING ISN’T THE ONLY BLACKJACK STRATEGY

  Not enough people make their decision based on the dealer’s upturned card – but they should. That’s because casino rules typically dictate that dealers must keep drawing cards until their total is greater than 16. There are more cards in the deck worth ten than any other. “So, if the dealer is showing a very low face-up card, because of the rules they have to follow, there’s quite a high chance that they have to draw too many cards and go bust. Even when you’ve got a 12 or 13 – if the dealer’s showing a five, stick.”

  3: EMBRACE FOOTBALL’S GOLDEN MINUTE

  Analysts have found clear patterns in football. In general, the betting marketplace overreacts to dramatic events, and this creates a window of uncertainty that usually lasts around a minute. You can exploit this by finding odds that underprice the likely outcome. There’s a misconception, for instance, the idea that teams are vulnerable after scoring a goal – stats show that’s not true, and nor are red cards as devastating as imagined. “In reality the team can adjust.”

  In terms of betting on a specific outcome, here’s a tip: if the score is 0–0 after 80 minutes, a draw becomes much more likely.

  4: TENNIS IS RIPE FOR ARBITRAGE

  Pros understand arbitrage, but beginners may not. “Arbitrage is when there’s something on offer for two different prices in two different places. You buy it at the cheaper place and sell it to the more expensive place.” So, with a tennis match, you may be able to use the internet to find two bookmakers each offering a good price on the other player. Whoever wins, the bookmaker with whom you had good odds for that player will give you a payout that subsidizes your loss with the other and vice versa.

  5: NEVER PLAY LOTTERIES

  There’s a formula called the Kelly Criterion that tells you how much money you should bet on a particular game. It argues that you should only risk a specific percentage of your bankroll, calculated by dividing expected payoff by maximum potential winnings. For lotteries, the Kelly Criterion suggests that it’s only worth playing if you have a huge bankroll. “If you have ten billion pounds, and the National Lottery rolled over for a few weeks, even then the Kelly Criterion would be telling you only to buy a few dozen tickets.” In other words, you may as well not bother.

  BOWL A STRIKE EVERY TIME

  It’s easy to be good at bowling but it’s difficult to be great. “A typical amateur might just throw the ball down there and probably one out of ten times they’re going to get a strike,” says Walter Ray Williams Jr. “A professional probably averages about 60 per cent strikes, maybe 70.” Williams speaks from experience. The Californian-born pro has been anointed Player of the Year by the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) seven times since beginning his career in 1980, and he holds the record for PBA Tour all-time titles. His nickname? Deadeye, for his precision.

  Williams’s first piece of advice is to pick the correct weight of ball. Plenty of amateurs believe that they should veer toward heavy. Actually, a lighter ball can help with spin. Got your rock? Here’s how to throw it…

  1: KNUCKLE DOWN

  Sink your middle finger, ring finger and thumb inside the ball. The thumb should go all the way in, but it’s up to you what you do with the fingers. “Typically a beginner bowler’s going to put their fingers down to the second knuckle from the tip – that would be the conventional grip,” says Williams. “But the fingertip grip – only inserting to the first knuckle from the tip – allows your fingers to put more rotation on the ball. Typically most of the pros are going to put their fingers just in to the fingertips.”

  2: POCKET IT

  See those arrows a short way up the lane? They’re to help you aim. Bowling alleys coat their lanes in oil and, under typical conditions, where the oil is distributed evenly, you want to throw the ball along the above trajectory. The aim is to hit the “pocket” between the pin at the front of the triangle, and the one diagonally backward from it to the right. Left-handers should aim for the pocket on the other side (and should flip right for left in all subsequent instructions).

  3: VISUALIZE YOUR APPROACH

  Plan a four-step run-up to the foul line. You’ll see a row of dots just behind it to help you judge your positioning. If a lane has been evenly oiled, you should bowl from the first dot to the right of the centre. As ball after ball is flung down toward the pins, however, the oil pattern will change, and you will notice the balls behaving differently. Adjust your positioning to compensate.

  4: SWING!

  For the first step of your four-step delivery, start on your right foot and extend the ball outward toward the pins before letting it swing down. On the second step, the ball should be swinging back past your legs. On the third step, the ball should be at the top of your backswing. As it comes down, embrace its pendulum motion. “Let the ball determine your arm swing and don’t fight it.” Then slide into the final step, at which point “you want to get a good knee bend, with the toe, knee and chin in a straight line”.

  5: ROLL WITH IT

  Release the ball at the bottom of your downward swing, by your ankle, letting your thumb come out first. “As you let go with the fingers, they are going to lift and put rotation on the ball.” This anticlockwise motion should come from the wrist, not the arm, and then you should follow through. Watch the pins tumble; celebratory Big Lebowski references optional.

  DE-STRESS WITH MINDFUL MEDITATION

  Mindful meditation may have its roots in Buddhism, but its effects are not a matter of faith. Scientific studies using MRI scans have shown that practitioners’ brains recalibrate to deal better with stress, for instance, and anxiety. So what exactly is mindfulness? Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is widely credited with popularizing it in the West, defines it thus: “The awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose in the present moment, non-judgmentally.” He has been advocating this kind of “awareness” since founding the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme at the University of Massachusetts back in 1979. Over the following decades, Kabat-Zinn’s theories slowly went mainstream. “All of a sudden it’s on everybody’s lips,” he says. “The reason for that is that the science of mindfulness has really grown exponentially.” Here’s his beginner’s guide…

  1: TAKE YOURSELF OFF

  Put on relaxing clothes and find a calm spot away from interruptions. “The most important thing is to find somewhere you feel at home. It could be a favourite chair – though a straight-back chair is better than falling into a plush couch or armchair – or a meditation cushion on the floor.” Decide how long you wish to meditate for; 15 minutes is a good place to start. “You can set timers, but if it goes tick-tock, it will drive you crazy,” he says. “I just put my watch in front of me and look at that.”

  2: SITTING COMFORTABLY?

  If you’re sitting on a chair, place both feet on the floor; if you’re on the floor, use a cushion, but make sure it’s stable. As for posture: “It’s important to sit in a posture that embodies dignity and wakefulness, whatever that means to the person. As soon as you do that, it’s very reassuring. It says, ‘You are dignified –
you already have that’, so operationalize that in your spine.”

  3: DE-FRAZZLE

  Shut your eyes or focus in the mid-distance. Allow your mind to calm, which can be easier said than done. “The best advice that I know is to assume that your mind will settle all by itself. If you take a bottle of apple juice, the kind with pulp in it, and shake it up, it’ll be cloudy. But if you put it on a shelf, it will eventually clear.” And if your mind doesn’t settle? “Don’t fight it. If you have an unpleasant thought, just notice that ‘that’s an unpleasant thought’. The importance is the awareness of that, as awareness is exactly what mindfulness is cultivating.”