Unless someone is an amateur sports fan, there is a good chance they know the unwritten rules in place when it comes to jinxing, this is the act of saying something like We are going to win. When the game is still in question. In the event that the team does lose, and the jinx is to blame many fans will be the onslaught of verbal assault from their fellow fans, at times a jinx can even inspire a physical altercation between fans who believe that the insignificance of one persons words made the team to play worse and ultimately lose. But fans are not the only ones with these superstitions, many players have something they do before or during competition to help them achieve the thrill of victory. One of my favorites comes from one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time, Lyoto Machida, who has said to the media that he starts off his mornings with a nice glass of his own urine. Machida says he learned this from his father and that this is something that his whole family has done with the belief that it is a form of therapy and has many
health benefits.
While many of these rituals seem very farfetched there is scientific evidence that shows that athletes with rituals may perform better than their counterparts, the idea is that athletes with superstitions feel a stronger internal locus of control which means that mentally they feel more in control of external things and can even feel less effects of external stimuli such as a bad play or negative crowds. Superstitions provide a way for an athlete to gain more perceived control of their surroundings, and for athletes, this is invaluable in sports where athletes can often feel the outcome of a game or play can be completely out of their control. Many experts have even put superstitions in the category of sports psychology, which also features things like meditation, visualization, and guided imagery to help athletes sharpen their mental edge and in turn improve their physical performance. Superstition on the surface may seem like athletes doing very weird things that dont matter but they may be the key to athletic success.