Interviews with Inspiration

James Willstrop

Description

Interviews with Inspiration is a forensic study of what it means and what it takes to be outstanding in the world of sport. It is written by world number one squash player and Commonwealth gold medallist James Willstrop; throughout his squash career he continuously 'did what it took', both physically and mentally, to reach the highest levels - often to unnecessary and somewhat damaging lengths. James talks to some of the sporting and cultural figures who inspired him and reflects on what they do and what drives them to do it. As well as profiling some great athletes of our time, he also delves into the worlds of writing, theatre, and even eye surgery: exploring parallels and differences that exist when people do things across the highest levels. Interviews with Inspiration provides a fascinating insight into a cross-section of icons and achievers, from the viewpoint of one of the most successful English athletes of a generation.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 08 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785318993
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
James Willstrop, 2021
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785318238
eBook ISBN 9781785318993
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Contents
Introduction
Jessica Ennis-Hill
Tony Smith
Jonah Barrington
Julian Barnes
Katherine Grainger
Alexander Hanson
Jonny Wilkinson
Alison Rose
Alistair Brownlee
Ali Jawad
Stefan Edberg
Stuart Pearce
Denise Gough
James Brining
Steve Redgrave
Chris Hoy
Simon Stephens
Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby
Ramy Ashour
Dominic McHugh
Malcolm Willstrop
Vanessa Atkinson
David Campion
Photos
How do you measure achievement?
I can t measure achievement in my own work because I can t look at it that way. If I read a book, go to a play, see a painting or hear a piece of music that makes me expand the parameters of my response, makes me think differently, more completely about something, then that s a useful experience. Otherwise it s merely decorative and a waste of time.
Edward Albee (2005)
Introduction
THIS BOOK is ostensibly bound by interviews with characters who have been a source of interest and inspiration - in varying degrees and from all manner of worlds - to many people, but certainly to me. They come together in this book for different reasons: primarily, I ve been interested or moved in some way by what they have done. There s a personal aspect at work, which I won t apologise for, but it s why you will see areas studied that interest me. I ve been a professional squash player in my time, so naturally there are squash people involved, but not too many.
If the characters don t draw you, the reader, in by name alone, then I hope all is not lost and that the content itself can supersede the superficial draw of the character in terms of fame. I ve tried to bring out of the interviews everything that can engage anyone in a broader sense. If I ve got this right, then a ball-sport-hating mathematician should elicit something enlightening from what Jonny Wilkinson says about playing world-level rugby or maintaining balance in his life while doing so; and I hope I ve worked cleverly enough in order that someone who has never read a novel in their life can be pleasantly informed by what Julian Barnes says about writing them.
There were obvious constraints on who would be interviewed. I aimed for diversity of subject and character, but to an extent I was governed by who agreed to an interview or turned me down. There were many of the latter, which is why I must say now, I m profoundly grateful for all the people in this book who very selflessly and patiently gave me their time. I m not famous and I m a dreadful networker, so drawing them in was challenging. Had I had a name in modern day celebrity society, were I attached to the BBC or David Beckham, they d have been lining up. The famous could near bring back the dead for an interview, but, when you re an unknown, people understandably are reluctant. Indeed, there were pools of heroes I fantasised about speaking to but there was only so much chasing around and waiting for agents I wanted to or was able to do.
At stages I was urged by experts in the industry to scrap the format and try to deliver something with more arc, more thesis, but I was fairly set on not attempting to write another How people find greatness book. I m not armed for it, and lack the will to get to know enough, or the capacity to be academic. Why would I be academic anyway, when as a squash player I was fortunate enough to reach the top of the world in squash and had been through it all? Surely, I should lean on the fact I could talk about it in real, perhaps romantic, terms, rather than through figures and research and statistics. And to chew it all over in its finished format with some of the people I ve admired was a lively thought.
And I love reading interviews. I go back to things like Lunch with the FT or Richard Eyre s Talking Theatre interviews and evince little nuggets of pleasure and knowledge every time. I m a slow reader who finds long linear stories challenging, so great sprawling novels can be problematic. I love books I can dip in and out of, start at the end or in the middle of, or where I can jump to a particular interview. One interview is a good length for a sitting, and if I put the book down for a few weeks it doesn t mean I ve lost the plot and can t return to it. I hope there will be others who are the same and can appreciate the format. I may have tree-chopped any chances of a bestseller in the first move of the chess board, but hey ho, at least I can serve my instincts.
Added to all this was the selfish and ambitious conceit I have to aspire to writing scripts for film or the stage, so I m energised by the dance of dialogue, the interplay between people through words; exploring just what a good simple conversation can throw up.
Speaking of format, standing contrapuntal to the dialogue sit my own interjections, which could bugger the whole thing up and prove to be a particular annoyance, but I couldn t help it, and if nothing else it may break things up a little in this bible of wisdom you have in your hands.
I hope I ve succeeded in revealing to the reader, without any filler, how some of the greatest athletes, writers, actors, chefs, surgeons, etc. reach their level and achieve brilliance.
I m guarded about using the word brilliant . I did try for another, yet in this case it does just seem right. When writing the book, I often found myself talking about success , but success can mean anything. To be truly brilliant is to add colour and contrast and to steal the breath of the voyeur; to move an audience, reader or partaker profoundly; to change something inside another person. As Edward Albee said, to expand parameters . In fact, it might not always be successful at all. Brilliance leaves a footprint, certainly in the minds of people, whereas success, which can t be quantified easily, doesn t always do the same. Apart from the word brilliant being hideously overused, it s actually, I feel, an adjective that does justice to its meaning the way I m using it.
Having had a life in sport, why then delve into other worlds, rather than focus it all on sport? Simply put, I ve had a lot of sport in my life, and I think that many of us are invested in drawing on the comparisons that exist between different forms of expertise in all areas. There are parallels that exist between many disciplines and they stimulate intriguing questions and answers. As a professional squash player, it would have been intensely narrow-minded of me to study only squash all my life, and I m a huge subscriber to the fact that inspiration can come from all sorts of places. The outside world, life itself, is a great source of illumination for us, and perhaps the world of sport, culture and the arts is an obvious specific prism for accessing this.
It s curious to think about what we consider artistic. Sport is an art form yet it s often not deemed so in the way music or dance or literature is. Neither too is being a physiotherapist or doctor. We could do to rethink this: these people perhaps accomplish the most basic artistic sentiments of all by actually saving lives or helping people to walk again. In the end, the artist rouses emotion or changes something in people, and all of the people in this book do or have done that in some way by the sheer standard and poetry of what they do.
I ve learned things about my squash career by doing an acting class, reading a book, or so often simply by listening to what people have to say. I ve certainly found morsel after morsel in these interviews to help me look afresh at the way I play squash at high levels. The more knowledge we take on from anywhere, the broader and wider our horizons become in our own worlds.
Every question or answer that I have included in this book I included because it has the potential to offer any reader - whether from a sport, business, arts, culture, music, finance, politics or any other background - insight into what makes high-class, brilliant performance and how we might learn about advancement.
After all, there s some basic urge for all humans to want to better another or themselves, to want to improve at something, however seemingly insignificant. By dipping into the words on these pages I hope to simply entertain the reader, yet I would be doubly encouraged to feel that they can gain inspiration and knowledge, and initiate ideas about how to discover.
As I got further into this, the question wasn t just: how do these people become successful? It was asking what success means to these different people and what it does to them. Is success about the inspiration it gives to others? Or is it simply about winning the gold medal? How do people going to great lengths to achieve in their field retain balance and stay healthy, and what s the cost of this so-called success ?
I ve tried to preserve the charm, humour and sheer entertainment value I shared with these people, the idea being to fascinate, titillate and entertain more than be academic, knowin