superstitions .

When the word superstition is spoken I would imagine that a large number of people are reverted back to the age old tales of bad luck that comes with it: a black cat crossing your path, walking under a ladder, looking into a broken mirror, etc. It also would be an understatement to say it's fairly common in sports of all kinds, where players have their lucky apparel, pre-play rituals, and all of the other little quirks that most would say are unimportant or trivial.


Originally I came up with the idea for a post about superstition at random. Perhaps it subliminally came from all the times I'm walking under ladders at work for various reasons, though most of them revolve around replacing light bulbs.

But then later on I was watching Stage 10 of the Tour and the announcers were talking about how cyclists are extremely particular about their shoes, and one guy even took off his shoe during a descent and handed it to his mechanic in the respective team car to have it adjusted, riding without a shoe for a mile or so.

It all sounds really ridiculous, admittedly. But perhaps it all revolves around the placebo effect: that if you are convinced that these things will help you, then they actually will. Other people sometimes say that these things are just lucky, and basically nothing has gone wrong thus far, so why risk the chance of changing it up? Makes sense to me. One of the members at the country club won't let the caddies touch his clubs because he thinks it will bring bad luck. However if he has a bad day he'll willingly and often hand his clubs off to the caddies, in hopes of luck being changed (this particular story comes from a caddy himself, so I'm pretty sure it's legit).

Despite the silly and perhaps childish notions of superstition, I think it's okay for all of us to carry a good bit of it around. Whatever floats your boat right? And if you're an athlete and it seems to help you perform better, even if it just makes you feel better emotionally and mentally then perhaps it actually is a good thing after all.

That's all I really have to say about it. Whether there is such a thing as good luck and bad luck, karma or not, or if all of our superstitious fears and rituals are really real or not, it brings a bit of magic to everyday life and I'm sure it will continue to do so for a very long time.