A couple months ago, I listened to a podcast episode called “Sports Superstitions” on a wonderful podcast called Fearless Conversations with Abby Wambach (which, by the way, is a wonderful podcast on a variety of social issues from the perspective of a professional athlete). It brought back memories of long ago (high school) days when I used to pole vault. For a long time I blamed my youth for the rituals that I would perform before and during competition.  How I removed the pole from its cardboard tube, the number of times I rocked back and forth before I started down the runway (three), and even the side of the pit that I used to jump off after I completed a vault (always the left)… 

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