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Book.

The Discus Thrower and his Dream Factory

Dreams can come true if you try

Book

Published on Monday, April 2, 2018 by Gideon Ariel

Gideon Ariel / Autobiography

As a child in Israel, Dr. Gideon Ariel had five goals—breaking the Israeli records in the shot put and discus, representing Israel in the Olympic Games, studying at a university in America, becoming a multimillionaire and owning a Cadillac. These goals might have seemed unobtainable to a young man on his way to juvenile delinquency, but picking up the discus changed all that. And one sailing, floating throw in a single competitive event set him on a path to becoming a world-renowned biomechanist and operating his own dream factory.

Following Ariel from his birth in Tel Aviv in 1939 to a kibbutz where he met the people that would change his life, The Discus Thrower & His Dream Factory describes the journey in great detail. Once a troubled youth, his love of shot put and discus improved not only his physical performance but his emotional performance as well. He gained confidence and dared to dream. And when the Olympics came calling, Ariel was ready to answer. Not only a fascinating life story, The Discus Thrower & His Dream Factory teaches an important lesson to our children. Dreams have no boundaries if you follow them. Imagination, luck, and hard work are necessary ingredients for success.

If your mind bubbles, creates, and breathes life into dreams, then dreams can become real. The mind is the factory, which forges the dreams.

Online Chapters

Click any of the thumbnails to read the chapter online.

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Chapter 0 - Introduction
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Chapter 1 - Family
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Chapter 2 - Hadassim
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Chapter 3 - Unexpected Feats
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Chapter 4 - An Olympic Effort
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Chapter 5 - Cowboy at the University of Wyoming
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Chapter 6 - Discovering a New Life in Massachusetts
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Chapter 7 - Love and Work
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Chapter 8 - Munich Olympics
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Chapter 9 - CBA Grows and the APAS system
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Chapter 10 - The Learning Ivory Tower
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Chapter 11 - The War Between Universal and Nautilus
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Chapter 12 - The Olympic Connection
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Chapter 13 - Scientific Life Systems
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Chapter 14 - The Ariel Computerized Exercise System
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Chapter 15 - The Horse Connection
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Chapter 16 - The Coto Research Center
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Chapter 17 - The NASA Connection
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Chapter 18 - Our New Life in Coto de Caza
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Chapter 19 - You Can’t Have One Without the Other
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Chapter 20 - The Reunion
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Chapter 21 - The Kidney Connection
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Chapter 22 - Now and Forever
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Page 251476 Autobiography - The Discus Thrower and His Dream Factory
Page 251482 Chapter 00 - Introduction
Page 251483 Chapter 01 - Family
Page 251484 Chapter 02 - Hadassim
Page 251485 Chapter 03 - Unexpected Feats
Page 251486 Chapter 04 - An Olympic Effort
Page 251487 Chapter 05 - Cowboy at the University of Wyoming
Page 251488 Chapter 06 - Discovering a New Life in Massachusetts
Page 251489 Chapter 07 - Love and Work
Page 251490 Chapter 08 - Munich Olympics
Page 251491 Chapter 09 - CBA Grows and the APAS system
Page 251492 Chapter 10 - The Learning Ivory Tower
Page 251493 Chapter 11 - The War Between Universal and Nautilus
Page 251494 Chapter 12 - The Olympic Connection
Page 251495 Chapter 13 - Scientific Life Systems
Page 251496 Chapter 14 - The Ariel Computerized Exercise System
Page 251497 Chapter 15 - The Horse Connection
Page 251498 Chapter 16 - The Coto Research Center
Page 251499 Chapter 17 - The NASA Connection
Page 251500 Chapter 18 - Our New Life in Coto de Caza
Page 251501 Chapter 19 - You Can’t Have One Without the Other
Page 251502 Chapter 20 - The Reunion
Page 251504 Chapter 21 - The Kidney Connection
Page 251505 Chapter 22 - Now and Forever
Page 251506 Index
Page 251476

Autobiography - The Discus Thrower and His Dream Factory

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Gideon Ariel / Autobiography

As a child in Israel, Dr. Gideon Ariel had five goals—breaking the Israeli records in the shot put and discus, representing Israel in the Olympic Games, studying at a university in America, becoming a multimillionaire and owning a Cadillac. These goals might have seemed unobtainable to a young man on his way to juvenile delinquency, but picking up the discus changed all that. And one sailing, floating throw in a single competitive event set him on a path to becoming a world-renowned biomechanist and operating his own dream factory.

Following Ariel from his birth in Tel Aviv in 1939 to a kibbutz where he met the people that would change his life, The Discus Thrower & His Dream Factory describes the journey in great detail. Once a troubled youth, his love of shot put and discus improved not only his physical performance but his emotional performance as well. He gained confidence and dared to dream. And when the Olympics came calling, Ariel was ready to answer. Not only a fascinating life story, The Discus Thrower & His Dream Factory teaches an important lesson to our children. Dreams have no boundaries if you follow them. Imagination, luck, and hard work are necessary ingredients for success.

If your mind bubbles, creates, and breathes life into dreams, then dreams can become real. The mind is the factory, which forges the dreams.

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Information last reviewed on 4/2/2018 10:42:45 AM.

Page 251482

Chapter 00 - Introduction

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What a crazy title for a book. How do sports and fantasy share the same planet let alone merge into a book? It is easy for me to tell you because this is all about me—I am that discus thrower and my mind is that factory where all those dreams were created. To explain, you should know that one sailing, floating throw of a discus in a single competitive event propelled me to become the successful person that I am today. Throwing the discus saved me from a life as a juvenile delinquent and one fantastic victorious throw set me on the path to becoming a world-renowned biomechanist and operate my own dream factory...

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Page 251483

Chapter 01 - Family

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I cannot say what my first childhood recollections are. I remember living in a small apartment in Tel Aviv and my family life was simply as people in Israel experienced at that time. We had a small kitchen, a tiny living room, and a small balcony with a few flowers. My mother worked full time as a secretary to the mayor of Tel Aviv. My father was the head of customs at the Jaffa port perhaps because of his fluency in seven languages, including English, since these were the days of the British Mandate when the country was called “Palestine”...

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Page 251484

Chapter 02 - Hadassim

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From the moment I arrived at Hadassim, a scared and traumatized child, my world became brighter and my life blossomed into a garden of growth, happiness, and dreams. The WIZO-Hadassim School Village, where I was sent, was a small collection of buildings near the town of Netanya, just north of Tel Aviv. It had been specifically created to educate traumatized children. One question that the Hadassah-WIZO Canada organization had wrestled with before the conclusion of World War II was what would happen to all of the Jewish orphans in Europe. One idea was to create special schools and home-like environments in Israel for these anticipated groups of children. The Hadassah-WIZO Canada organization financed the school in 1947 with approximately one million dollars in today’s economy. The school’s main mission was to house, restore, and educate Holocaust orphans. Some of these children had lived for ten years in basements, boxes, and window-less hiding places, in constant fear and hunger, and frequently without their parents. More than a few of them had witnessed their parents being murdered and a few had been the victims of medical experiments...

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Page 251485

Chapter 03 - Unexpected Feats

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My quest began, and it was every bit as daunting as Don Quixote’s. I started training immediately. Fortunately for me, some incredible teachers were there to assist in achieving my goals. They remain, forever, lodged in my heart and mind. My first mentor at Hadassim was the physical education teacher, Dani Dassa. He was a trim, muscular and a good-looking man in his twenties, and had heard about my devotion to bodybuilding exercises. One holiday period, Dani was the counselor for the students who stayed at Hadassim rather than going home. I was sitting on the grass in front of the dining hall. Dani, suddenly, came up to me on the grass, and asked me if I wanted to go run with him. I was surprised and immediately agreed. I got up, and together we started running toward the sand dunes bordering the Mediterranean beach. It was a pleasant day, cool, with a sea breeze, but after only five minutes of running, I felt that I could not go on anymore. However, I would never admit to Dani what I was sure was a fatal weakness. I never stopped running, but thought for sure that I would die soon, from exhaustion. Dani saw, out of the corner of his eye, that I was about to collapse and suggested, “Let’s walk for a while.” ...

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Page 251486

Chapter 04 - An Olympic Effort

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The day finally arrived for the Israeli athletes to board the airplane for Rome and the Olympic Games. Friends and family members were there to wave goodbye, and wish everyone success. It was a special moment for me to see my friends there. These were the friends who had initially laughed at my statement that I was going to compete in the Olympic Games, but were now proud and excited for me. I carried my official Israeli Olympic bag, filled with the competitive and dress uniforms which all the members of the team had been given to wear at the Games. My long-held dream of representing my country had finally materialized. The Rome 1960 Olympic Games were the 14th occurrence of the modern Games. Surprisingly, Rome was hosting the games 54 years later than they had originally been scheduled. The city had been awarded the 1908 Summer Olympics, but nature had other ideas. After the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Rome was forced to decline the opportunity of hosting the Games and passed the honors to London...

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Page 251487

Chapter 05 - Cowboy at the University of Wyoming

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In September 1963, I flew from Israel to New York City. Although I had been to New York City before on the exchange program, things were different for me on this trip. There were no friendly, smiling faces waiting to assist me. I was a tall, muscular young man with poor English language skills, surrounded by suitcases in one of the busiest and least friendly airports on the planet. I had left the old land, the beaches, the ironic laughter, and the ten million opinions in Israel and just landed in a what seemed to be a frantic, enormous ant colony. No one seemed to notice me, let alone stop their own busy activities to ask if I needed help. What a change from my last visit. However, I knew that there would be a solution, and I would find it one way or another. The Israel that I had left was a very small country, roughly the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The shortest distance from east to west is nine miles, near Netanya, where I had attended Wingate College. The longest north to south distance, as the crow flies, is 290 miles. At that point, I did not yet know about the shocking size differential. All I knew was the frantic and unfriendly crush of people at this huge airport complex in New York City...

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Page 251488

Chapter 06 - Discovering a New Life in Massachusetts

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Amherst, Massachusetts, in the Berkshire Mountains, is an intellectual, bustling, lovely town full of bookstores, winding streets, New England clapboard homes, and lots of trees. We were met with the splendor of a New England fall as the leaves turned yellow, red, and orange, and it felt as though we had entered a painting. We rented an apartment in the university complex and I began my two jobs. My primary job was as a graduate student working towards a Master’s of Science degree and the second one was my teaching assistantship which supported my family. The subjects I was assigned to teach were weight training and physical fitness. Since I had experience working in physical therapy during my army service at Tel Hashomer Hospital in Israel, I also was assigned to help in the physical training room. Here, the university athletes were treated for injuries or had their joints taped prior to their practice. In addition, I occasionally assisted several professors grading the undergraduate student exams...

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Page 251489

Chapter 07 - Love and Work

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The doctoral program curriculum was similar to the one I had pursued for the master’s degree. There were academic requirements within and outside the focus of the individual’s interest and there was a mandatory research project. I registered for fall classes in statistics and for several new courses which sounded intriguing. One was cellular physiology, with a new professor, Dr. Eddington, and the course description suggested how students would become proficient with the electron microscope. I was surprised to learn that in the one year I had been away, the university had acquired such a sophisticated tool for the study of human movement. Another new course which set my heart ablaze was biomechanics of performance, to be taught by Dr. Stanley Plagenhoef. He was a new professor and the class had a promising title. I eagerly anticipated the biomechanics class since it sounded more promising to my way of thinking than even kinesiology had. I had my fingers crossed when I went to the first class. When I stepped into the classroom for the first day, I was in for another surprise. There was my nemesis from before. The tough pretty girl, who had stood up to me after statistics and slammed the door in my face outside of Dr. Kroll’s lab, was sitting in the front row. I considered my options. Then, selecting bravery over cowardice, I sat down next to her...

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Page 251490

Chapter 08 - Munich Olympics

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The United States Olympic Trials are held every four years approximately two to three months prior to the beginning date of the Games. The purpose of the trials is to select, based on the best performances of the athletes, the team members who will represent the U.S. in the Olympics. All of the summer sports have these team selection events, but I am most familiar with the track and field trials. Without a doubt, the U.S. Olympic Trials is one of the best national track meets in the world. There is no other athletic meet quite like it as far as performance level and the enthusiasm of the participants and spectators. The Olympic Games and the World Championships may have higher overall standards of performance, but no other national track championships can compare with the quality of the U.S. It is not just the statistical performance, but also the rather intense competitive process of the sudden-death form of selection that heightens the excitement. Make the top three in your event, and you are on the team. Have an off day, and you become an observer...

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Page 251491

Chapter 09 - CBA Grows and the APAS system

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CBA was inundated with projects. One of our projects was to examine the progression of movement changes in muscular dystrophy. Muscular Dystrophy (MS) refers to a group of hereditary muscle diseases that weakens the muscles that move the human body. Muscular dystrophy is characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue. Nine diseases—including Duchenne, Becker, limb-girdle, congenital, facioscapulohumeral, myotonic, oculopharyngeal, distal, and Emery-Dreifuss—are classified as muscular dystrophy, but there are more than 100 diseases in total with similarities to muscular dystrophy. Most types of MD are multi-system disorders with manifestations in body systems including the heart, gastrointestinal and nervous systems, endocrine glands, skin, eyes and even brain. The condition may, also, lead to mood swings and learning difficulties...

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Page 251492

Chapter 10 - The Learning Ivory Tower

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While CBA was flourishing, I continued my affiliation at the University of Massachusetts. In addition to the classes I attended in the Computer Science and the Cybernetics Departments, I was also an assistant professor in the Department of Exercise Science and Computer Sciences. The Exercise Science Department was headed by a gruff-speaking physiologist, Dr. Harry Campney. Dr. Campney was the head of the department and taught a statistics class as well. His brainchild, however, was the establishment of the first department of Exercise Science which he started at the University of Massachusetts in 1967. Dr. Campney was an educational visionary who hired professors from various disciplines related to human movement. Although Dr. Campney had been trained as a classical physiologist, he recognized that the future for his students would be challenged by a narrow academic concentration. Future students would need to have more broadly based academic backgrounds if they hoped to find university employment or to find work outside of the university. They would need to be proficient in at least two disciplines. To that end, Dr. Campney hired professors with strong academic credentials in biomechanics, nervous system controls and integration, and biochemistry...

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Page 251493

Chapter 11 - The War Between Universal and Nautilus

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I previously described that one of my first projects was with the Universal Gym Equipment Company and the inaugural use of our newly invented sonic digitizer installed in my kitchen. My work with the Universal Gym Company resulted in a beneficial relationship for both CBA and Universal. I created new designs and changed the old styles from ordinary standard exercise machines with which everyone was familiar into ones that were specifically built according to scientific principles. Harold Zinkin, the owner, and his entire Universal staff were open to this new way of providing exercise machines that automatically adjusted to the exerciser’s body and assisted the person in each lift. Harold had been a superb weight lifter and body builder during the days of bar bells and dumb bells on Muscle Beach, California. Harold was one of the early devotees of strength development in the armies of exercise and fitness enthusiasts who trained for many hours every day on the sunny beach of California. Although he was relatively short in stature, he was enormously tall when it came to thinking about exercise and equipment to increase strength...

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Page 251494

Chapter 12 - The Olympic Connection

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Despite the tragic events in Munich, which weighed on my heart, I could not stop thinking about what I had seen during my visit to the East German Olympic training facility in Leipzig. Perhaps it was merely a protective thought process to focus on a positive future rather than the terrible past, but I was determined to find a way to create a system where we could train American athletes and attain higher performance levels for competition against the East Germans and the other Soviet bloc countries. Those countries used a communist system as the foundation and operational protocol to conduct their programs. The administrators, coaches, and athletes operated under a regimen of total discipline directed from the top down to the athletes. The philosophy of complete devotion to the State governed the people and their system. In the United States of America, the land of freedom and capitalism, people would never tolerate such a system. You could never take children away from their parents and give them to the state to raise and train them. No American parent would allow their young children to be housed and trained in a special “state program”. In addition, Americans athletes are too free in their attitudes and mental perceptions to train in a method with military-type discipline, without flexibility, or in the shadow of “don’t ask, just do it” directions...

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Page 251495

Chapter 13 - Scientific Life Systems

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The establishment of the U.S.O.C. Training Center in Colorado Springs was a promising beginning for America’s athletes in future Olympic competitions. However, merely having a facility for training and analyses of their performances would not be enough to sustain them. What was needed was a system where athletes could work for a salary and have time to train. I pondered the situation while I exercised, when driving the car, and when I was supposed to be sleeping. Suddenly one day I had an idea, maybe crazy, but, at least, a possible solution. What if we started a nationwide chain of exercise clubs with the United States Olympic Committee (U.S.O.C.) official endorsement and hired Olympic athletes as staff members? The athletes would be paid to work with individuals on their own private exercise regimens and the Olympians would be paid for their work. At the same time, the Olympians would be able to use the exercise facilities for their own sports training while they earned money to support their existence. This arrangement would not violate their amateur status...

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Page 251496

Chapter 14 - The Ariel Computerized Exercise System

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I have discussed previously my association with the Universal Gym exercise company. I was involved with them for about eight years and helped to design the most advanced exercise system of the time. However, the designs were for equipment constructed of metal, utilizing cams to provide resistance which varied throughout the exercise movement. These were appropriate types of exercise equipment for a gym, school, or athletic setting since they could be used by many people continuously all day long. Many of the people who trained on this type of equipment were young and, frequently, insensitive or uncaring about the wear and tear on the systems. For this reason, the equipment had to be rugged and able to sustain the stress and abuse of the exercising public. The Universal Gym equipment was designed specifically for this marketplace and the type of exercise users who, in general, were indelicate when working out on the equipment...

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Page 251497

Chapter 15 - The Horse Connection

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I was sitting at the desk in the front office in Amherst, looking out of the window at the cars whizzing by on the road and the people walking in front of our office with the quizzical expression that our company name generally evoked. Ann and I were discussing some of the on-going projects when the phone rang. I answered it and the man said, “I’ve heard about your motion analysis system and I want to know if you can meet me to discuss a project on racehorses.” By now, I was used to people and companies asking about our abilities to quantify movement for all types of applications. Most of them had been with humans, excluding the cats and the study on Daisy the monkey, and the majority had been associated with sporting applications. However, our company motto was “If it moves, we can measure it,” so I was willing to listen to his proposal. “What type of business do you have?” I asked. “I have several business interests here in the greater Miami, Florida area, but I also own 50 horses which live on my farm near Orlando, Florida,” was his answer. “My name is Irving Pollock and I would like you to fly to Miami so I can discuss some of my ideas and see if your motion system can help me.” “Ok,” I answered, and we agreed upon a date....

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Page 251498

Chapter 16 - The Coto Research Center

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In 1975, Vic Braden, a friendly-appearing man with a cherubic smile and a sunny disposition walked into my Amherst lab. I had never met Vic before this meeting, but I had heard several stories about him. Vic attained his degree as a psychologist from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and advanced degrees from UCLA and California State, but he achieved greater fame in tennis. He was introduced to tennis at the age of 12 and had been quoted in Sports Illustrated about hitching a ride to Detroit to watch Don Budge play Bobby Riggs. His reason for the trek was to discover how Budge hit his backhand. While a student at Kalamazoo College he had served as the captain of the tennis team. As Vic was relating these and other stories during that first Amherst visit, he described his crazy work history that began when he was very young. In fact, during college, he had lived in an upstairs closet in the athletic facility because he could not afford to live in the dorm. Times may have been tough for him as a youth, but he was a happy, funny adult that day in Amherst....

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Page 251499

Chapter 17 - The NASA Connection

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My first association with NASA was when I met Captain James Lovell. This was an amazing experience for me since my Israeli background in sports had never included an opportunity to meet an actual NASA astronaut. I grew up in Israel, where we had our heroes in the Air Force, but no astronauts in a space program. Meeting such an accomplished astronaut as James Lovell was both awe inspiring and slightly intimidating. When I returned to Amherst after my first committee meeting with Captain Lovell, I immediately began to research his background. James Arthur “Jim” Lovell, Jr. (born March 25, 1928) was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1962 after having served as a captain in the United States Navy. Lovell was selected as a backup pilot for Gemini 4, which put him in a position for his first space flight three missions later as pilot of Gemini 7 with Command Pilot Frank Borman in December 1965. This flight set an endurance record of fourteen days in space. Lovell was later scheduled to be the backup Command Pilot of Gemini 10, but after the deaths of the Gemini 9 prime crew Elliot See and Charles Bassett, he replaced Thomas P. Stafford as backup commander of Gemini 9A. This positioned Lovell for his second flight and first command of Gemini 12 in November 1966 with pilot Buzz Aldrin. Lovell’s two Gemini flights gave him more time in space than any other person as of 1966. However, his career was far from finished at that point. Lovell was originally chosen as the Command Module Pilot (CMP) on the backup crew for Apollo 9, planned as a high-apogee Earth orbital test of the Lunar Module (LM), along with Neil Armstrong as Commander and Buzz Aldrin as Lunar Module Pilot...

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Page 251500

Chapter 18 - Our New Life in Coto de Caza

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“Times they are a’changing” was a line from a popular song in 1964 by Bob Dylan, but it seemed to be appropriate for our situation in 1987. The introduction of the personal computer had a profound effect on the world as PCs seemed to arrive and overwhelm instantaneously and ubiquitously. Many of our clients, such as Wilson Sporting Goods, Spalding or AMF, could now buy their own in-house computers and pay a license fee to use our software. This allowed them to process their own research without the concern that the information could leak to competitors. Although we had derived great enjoyment being involved in the projects we had executed, the thrill of developing new software on newer hardware had an intoxicating appeal. Nothing could replace the Olympic athletes and their enthusiasm. There was no replacement for analyzing a violinist, or calculating forces on three-wheeled recreational vehicles, or evaluating the science of behavior of sporting equipment. But the vast majority of companies wanted to keep their secrets to themselves while, at the same time, we had discovered a vast new horizon of computer technologies ripe for exploration. From this new, smaller computer world perspective, our own corporate needs no longer required a large dedicated computer room with special air conditioning and elaborate hardware. The women’s volleyball team had left after their silver medal victory in 1984. As I mentioned before, most of our corporate clients were more interested in licensing our software for in-house use and, thus, our need for extensive space was eliminated...

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Page 251501

Chapter 19 - You Can’t Have One Without the Other

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Life in Coto de Caza continued for our companies, our two continually evolving products, and ourselves. After all of the anxieties with the Coto Research Center and the debacle in La Jolla, Ann and I were enjoying the positive atmosphere of productivity and a pleasant staff of hard-working individuals. It seemed that we could concentrate on the positive aspects of our work and our lives. In the previous chapters, I described our mode of operation. We were a small corporation and tightly controlled the details of product development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales. To that end, it seemed as though I was the best person to explain to potential customers the attributes and numerous options that the two products, the CES, and the APAS, could provide. This meant that I was the one who traveled to customers and trade shows for presentations. I was thrilled when our old friend, Tony Payne, from Johannesburg, South Africa contacted me to come for a sales and training clinic. Tony had sold several of the CES to a university located in the center of the country. He wanted me to help train the university personnel as well as Tony’s sales staff on all of the options available with this computerized system. Needless to say, I was more than willing to go, and I saw that this was an opportunity to take Ann with me. Ann and I had traveled to South Africa several times in the past, and I knew how much she loved Africa. She loved the wilderness bush experience. She was obsessed with animals in general, and African wildlife in particular. This seemed like a perfect opportunity for us to travel for business and to add some fun experiences as well. Since I did not believe that Ann would let me go to Africa without her, it was the perfect situation...

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Page 251502

Chapter 20 - The Reunion

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It was the 5th discus throw at the 1960 Olympic trials in Israel which changed the path of my life to one of studies, inventions, unbelievable experiences, and love. Without that throw, I simply would have become an excellent physical education teacher at Wingate, and I would not be writing this book. What gave me the courage and the confidence and the drive to make that throw? The answer, in retrospect, were the eight years at Hadassim. Those years produced enduring friendships that were a lifeblood to me, academic challenges and interests that survive to this day, and tenacity to confront and resolve every situation that came my way. The discus and shot put throw that made my life are shown on page 526. I broke the Israeli records in each event and this qualified me to compete for Israel in the Olympic Games in Rome, 1960. Seven years of training in Hadassim made me the athlete and tenacious individual that I was then and remain today. Fifty-five years later, I looked back to those formative years of my childhood and remembered all of the people I knew at Hadassim. The teachers were like parents to us, and the other students like brothers and sisters. We had been a family and not recognized it as such. Our class, the Class of 1958, had fused each individual into a unique family. Although I had traveled to Israel many times to meet with Hadassim friends during the intervening years, we had never had a gathering of our entire class...

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Page 251504

Chapter 21 - The Kidney Connection

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One of the things that Ann and I love to do is travel. We have traveled all around the world during the last 30 years, always trying to learn as much as possible about our destination on every trip. We are not the type of people to sail around on large cruise ships and eat 24 hours a day. We are more active physically and, in a constant search for new information, love to learn. Ann found that the Stanford University Travel Service offered an excursion to Patagonia which looked interesting. Patagonia would be a new destination for us. We had taken several previous trips with the Stanford Travel organization, and found them to be perfect for our style of travel. They selected interesting places, provided excellent teachers and guides, utilized wonderful hotels in exquisite locations, and handled all of the normally aggravating travel necessities, such as handling suitcases and transportation. So in February 2014, we flew from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, Argentina where the trip would begin. Normally, our travel plans are to arrive at our initial destination a few days early. This allows us to recover from jet-lag since it affects Ann greatly. While we were in Buenos Aires, we had an opportunity to meet our old and dear friend, Dr. Bill Laich. Bill and his girlfriend graciously spent time taking us around the city, and helped us sample a variety of the delicious foods. When the time came to leave to Patagonia, we said farewell, with promises to meet again soon...

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Chapter 22 - Now and Forever

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This is the end of the book but not the end of anything else. Ann and I continue to study, travel, and enjoy life. We continue selling our APAS system around the world. I spend countless hours on the phone helping customers understand how to implement and operate their newly acquired software. Our CES has undergone new revisions and been readily received by new customers. I could retire, I suppose, but sitting around watching television and failing to contribute or learn things does not appeal to me. I continue with my inventions since my life has always been about exploring opportunities. My technologies, unlike so many other technologies, have not become outdated. As long as there are muscles, bones, and ligaments that need to be studied, whether for athletic purposes, health reasons, product testing, or other reasons, my technology can be applied. It may seem odd that a man who grew up running barefoot in a land of the ancient Middle East should end up in California able to provide shoes which he designed. I was a man who discovered a fascinating technique to study the body through biomechanical analyses and was able to build a career with it. Biomechanics allowed me to create endless products that helped people win awards and Olympic medals, become stronger, and some other things that created the ability for people to simply enjoy life more than they had previously. These successes came from creating real things that had once only been in my imagination...

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Index

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The Discus Thrower and his Dream Factory

Dreams can come true if you try

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Autobiography - The Discus Thrower and His Dream Factory
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Autobiography - The Discus Thrower and His Dream Factory

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Gideon Ariel / Autobiography

As a child in Israel, Dr. Gideon Ariel had five goals—breaking the Israeli records in the shot put and discus, representing Israel in the Olympic Games, studying at a university in America, becoming a multimillionaire and owning a Cadillac. These goals might have seemed unobtainable to a young man on his way to juvenile delinquency, but picking up the discus changed all that. And one sailing, floating throw in a single competitive event set him on a path to becoming a world-renowned biomechanist and operating his own dream factory.

Following Ariel from his birth in Tel Aviv in 1939 to a kibbutz where he met the people that would change his life, The Discus Thrower & His Dream Factory describes the journey in great detail. Once a troubled youth, his love of shot put and discus improved not only his physical performance but his emotional performance as well. He gained confidence and dared to dream. And when the Olympics came calling, Ariel was ready to answer. Not only a fascinating life story, The Discus Thrower & His Dream Factory teaches an important lesson to our children. Dreams have no boundaries if you follow them. Imagination, luck, and hard work are necessary ingredients for success.

If your mind bubbles, creates, and breathes life into dreams, then dreams can become real. The mind is the factory, which forges the dreams.

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Chapter 00 - Introduction
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Chapter 00 - Introduction

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What a crazy title for a book. How do sports and fantasy share the same planet let alone merge into a book? It is easy for me to tell you because this is all about me—I am that discus thrower and my mind is that factory where all those dreams were created. To explain, you should know that one sailing, floating throw of a discus in a single competitive event propelled me to become the successful person that I am today. Throwing the discus saved me from a life as a juvenile delinquent and one fantastic victorious throw set me on the path to becoming a world-renowned biomechanist and operate my own dream factory...

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Chapter 01 - Family
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Chapter 01 - Family

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I cannot say what my first childhood recollections are. I remember living in a small apartment in Tel Aviv and my family life was simply as people in Israel experienced at that time. We had a small kitchen, a tiny living room, and a small balcony with a few flowers. My mother worked full time as a secretary to the mayor of Tel Aviv. My father was the head of customs at the Jaffa port perhaps because of his fluency in seven languages, including English, since these were the days of the British Mandate when the country was called “Palestine”...

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Chapter 02 - Hadassim
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Chapter 02 - Hadassim

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From the moment I arrived at Hadassim, a scared and traumatized child, my world became brighter and my life blossomed into a garden of growth, happiness, and dreams. The WIZO-Hadassim School Village, where I was sent, was a small collection of buildings near the town of Netanya, just north of Tel Aviv. It had been specifically created to educate traumatized children. One question that the Hadassah-WIZO Canada organization had wrestled with before the conclusion of World War II was what would happen to all of the Jewish orphans in Europe. One idea was to create special schools and home-like environments in Israel for these anticipated groups of children. The Hadassah-WIZO Canada organization financed the school in 1947 with approximately one million dollars in today’s economy. The school’s main mission was to house, restore, and educate Holocaust orphans. Some of these children had lived for ten years in basements, boxes, and window-less hiding places, in constant fear and hunger, and frequently without their parents. More than a few of them had witnessed their parents being murdered and a few had been the victims of medical experiments...

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Chapter 03 - Unexpected Feats
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Chapter 03 - Unexpected Feats

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My quest began, and it was every bit as daunting as Don Quixote’s. I started training immediately. Fortunately for me, some incredible teachers were there to assist in achieving my goals. They remain, forever, lodged in my heart and mind. My first mentor at Hadassim was the physical education teacher, Dani Dassa. He was a trim, muscular and a good-looking man in his twenties, and had heard about my devotion to bodybuilding exercises. One holiday period, Dani was the counselor for the students who stayed at Hadassim rather than going home. I was sitting on the grass in front of the dining hall. Dani, suddenly, came up to me on the grass, and asked me if I wanted to go run with him. I was surprised and immediately agreed. I got up, and together we started running toward the sand dunes bordering the Mediterranean beach. It was a pleasant day, cool, with a sea breeze, but after only five minutes of running, I felt that I could not go on anymore. However, I would never admit to Dani what I was sure was a fatal weakness. I never stopped running, but thought for sure that I would die soon, from exhaustion. Dani saw, out of the corner of his eye, that I was about to collapse and suggested, “Let’s walk for a while.” ...

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Chapter 04 - An Olympic Effort
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Chapter 04 - An Olympic Effort

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The day finally arrived for the Israeli athletes to board the airplane for Rome and the Olympic Games. Friends and family members were there to wave goodbye, and wish everyone success. It was a special moment for me to see my friends there. These were the friends who had initially laughed at my statement that I was going to compete in the Olympic Games, but were now proud and excited for me. I carried my official Israeli Olympic bag, filled with the competitive and dress uniforms which all the members of the team had been given to wear at the Games. My long-held dream of representing my country had finally materialized. The Rome 1960 Olympic Games were the 14th occurrence of the modern Games. Surprisingly, Rome was hosting the games 54 years later than they had originally been scheduled. The city had been awarded the 1908 Summer Olympics, but nature had other ideas. After the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Rome was forced to decline the opportunity of hosting the Games and passed the honors to London...

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Chapter 05 - Cowboy at the University of Wyoming
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Chapter 05 - Cowboy at the University of Wyoming

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In September 1963, I flew from Israel to New York City. Although I had been to New York City before on the exchange program, things were different for me on this trip. There were no friendly, smiling faces waiting to assist me. I was a tall, muscular young man with poor English language skills, surrounded by suitcases in one of the busiest and least friendly airports on the planet. I had left the old land, the beaches, the ironic laughter, and the ten million opinions in Israel and just landed in a what seemed to be a frantic, enormous ant colony. No one seemed to notice me, let alone stop their own busy activities to ask if I needed help. What a change from my last visit. However, I knew that there would be a solution, and I would find it one way or another. The Israel that I had left was a very small country, roughly the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The shortest distance from east to west is nine miles, near Netanya, where I had attended Wingate College. The longest north to south distance, as the crow flies, is 290 miles. At that point, I did not yet know about the shocking size differential. All I knew was the frantic and unfriendly crush of people at this huge airport complex in New York City...

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Chapter 06 - Discovering a New Life in Massachusetts
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Chapter 06 - Discovering a New Life in Massachusetts

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Amherst, Massachusetts, in the Berkshire Mountains, is an intellectual, bustling, lovely town full of bookstores, winding streets, New England clapboard homes, and lots of trees. We were met with the splendor of a New England fall as the leaves turned yellow, red, and orange, and it felt as though we had entered a painting. We rented an apartment in the university complex and I began my two jobs. My primary job was as a graduate student working towards a Master’s of Science degree and the second one was my teaching assistantship which supported my family. The subjects I was assigned to teach were weight training and physical fitness. Since I had experience working in physical therapy during my army service at Tel Hashomer Hospital in Israel, I also was assigned to help in the physical training room. Here, the university athletes were treated for injuries or had their joints taped prior to their practice. In addition, I occasionally assisted several professors grading the undergraduate student exams...

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Chapter 07 - Love and Work
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Chapter 07 - Love and Work

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The doctoral program curriculum was similar to the one I had pursued for the master’s degree. There were academic requirements within and outside the focus of the individual’s interest and there was a mandatory research project. I registered for fall classes in statistics and for several new courses which sounded intriguing. One was cellular physiology, with a new professor, Dr. Eddington, and the course description suggested how students would become proficient with the electron microscope. I was surprised to learn that in the one year I had been away, the university had acquired such a sophisticated tool for the study of human movement. Another new course which set my heart ablaze was biomechanics of performance, to be taught by Dr. Stanley Plagenhoef. He was a new professor and the class had a promising title. I eagerly anticipated the biomechanics class since it sounded more promising to my way of thinking than even kinesiology had. I had my fingers crossed when I went to the first class. When I stepped into the classroom for the first day, I was in for another surprise. There was my nemesis from before. The tough pretty girl, who had stood up to me after statistics and slammed the door in my face outside of Dr. Kroll’s lab, was sitting in the front row. I considered my options. Then, selecting bravery over cowardice, I sat down next to her...

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Chapter 08 - Munich Olympics
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Chapter 08 - Munich Olympics

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The United States Olympic Trials are held every four years approximately two to three months prior to the beginning date of the Games. The purpose of the trials is to select, based on the best performances of the athletes, the team members who will represent the U.S. in the Olympics. All of the summer sports have these team selection events, but I am most familiar with the track and field trials. Without a doubt, the U.S. Olympic Trials is one of the best national track meets in the world. There is no other athletic meet quite like it as far as performance level and the enthusiasm of the participants and spectators. The Olympic Games and the World Championships may have higher overall standards of performance, but no other national track championships can compare with the quality of the U.S. It is not just the statistical performance, but also the rather intense competitive process of the sudden-death form of selection that heightens the excitement. Make the top three in your event, and you are on the team. Have an off day, and you become an observer...

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Chapter 09 - CBA Grows and the APAS system
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Chapter 09 - CBA Grows and the APAS system

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CBA was inundated with projects. One of our projects was to examine the progression of movement changes in muscular dystrophy. Muscular Dystrophy (MS) refers to a group of hereditary muscle diseases that weakens the muscles that move the human body. Muscular dystrophy is characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue. Nine diseases—including Duchenne, Becker, limb-girdle, congenital, facioscapulohumeral, myotonic, oculopharyngeal, distal, and Emery-Dreifuss—are classified as muscular dystrophy, but there are more than 100 diseases in total with similarities to muscular dystrophy. Most types of MD are multi-system disorders with manifestations in body systems including the heart, gastrointestinal and nervous systems, endocrine glands, skin, eyes and even brain. The condition may, also, lead to mood swings and learning difficulties...

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Chapter 10 - The Learning Ivory Tower
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Chapter 10 - The Learning Ivory Tower

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While CBA was flourishing, I continued my affiliation at the University of Massachusetts. In addition to the classes I attended in the Computer Science and the Cybernetics Departments, I was also an assistant professor in the Department of Exercise Science and Computer Sciences. The Exercise Science Department was headed by a gruff-speaking physiologist, Dr. Harry Campney. Dr. Campney was the head of the department and taught a statistics class as well. His brainchild, however, was the establishment of the first department of Exercise Science which he started at the University of Massachusetts in 1967. Dr. Campney was an educational visionary who hired professors from various disciplines related to human movement. Although Dr. Campney had been trained as a classical physiologist, he recognized that the future for his students would be challenged by a narrow academic concentration. Future students would need to have more broadly based academic backgrounds if they hoped to find university employment or to find work outside of the university. They would need to be proficient in at least two disciplines. To that end, Dr. Campney hired professors with strong academic credentials in biomechanics, nervous system controls and integration, and biochemistry...

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Chapter 11 - The War Between Universal and Nautilus
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Chapter 11 - The War Between Universal and Nautilus

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I previously described that one of my first projects was with the Universal Gym Equipment Company and the inaugural use of our newly invented sonic digitizer installed in my kitchen. My work with the Universal Gym Company resulted in a beneficial relationship for both CBA and Universal. I created new designs and changed the old styles from ordinary standard exercise machines with which everyone was familiar into ones that were specifically built according to scientific principles. Harold Zinkin, the owner, and his entire Universal staff were open to this new way of providing exercise machines that automatically adjusted to the exerciser’s body and assisted the person in each lift. Harold had been a superb weight lifter and body builder during the days of bar bells and dumb bells on Muscle Beach, California. Harold was one of the early devotees of strength development in the armies of exercise and fitness enthusiasts who trained for many hours every day on the sunny beach of California. Although he was relatively short in stature, he was enormously tall when it came to thinking about exercise and equipment to increase strength...

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Chapter 12 - The Olympic Connection
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Chapter 12 - The Olympic Connection

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Despite the tragic events in Munich, which weighed on my heart, I could not stop thinking about what I had seen during my visit to the East German Olympic training facility in Leipzig. Perhaps it was merely a protective thought process to focus on a positive future rather than the terrible past, but I was determined to find a way to create a system where we could train American athletes and attain higher performance levels for competition against the East Germans and the other Soviet bloc countries. Those countries used a communist system as the foundation and operational protocol to conduct their programs. The administrators, coaches, and athletes operated under a regimen of total discipline directed from the top down to the athletes. The philosophy of complete devotion to the State governed the people and their system. In the United States of America, the land of freedom and capitalism, people would never tolerate such a system. You could never take children away from their parents and give them to the state to raise and train them. No American parent would allow their young children to be housed and trained in a special “state program”. In addition, Americans athletes are too free in their attitudes and mental perceptions to train in a method with military-type discipline, without flexibility, or in the shadow of “don’t ask, just do it” directions...

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Chapter 13 - Scientific Life Systems
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Chapter 13 - Scientific Life Systems

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The establishment of the U.S.O.C. Training Center in Colorado Springs was a promising beginning for America’s athletes in future Olympic competitions. However, merely having a facility for training and analyses of their performances would not be enough to sustain them. What was needed was a system where athletes could work for a salary and have time to train. I pondered the situation while I exercised, when driving the car, and when I was supposed to be sleeping. Suddenly one day I had an idea, maybe crazy, but, at least, a possible solution. What if we started a nationwide chain of exercise clubs with the United States Olympic Committee (U.S.O.C.) official endorsement and hired Olympic athletes as staff members? The athletes would be paid to work with individuals on their own private exercise regimens and the Olympians would be paid for their work. At the same time, the Olympians would be able to use the exercise facilities for their own sports training while they earned money to support their existence. This arrangement would not violate their amateur status...

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Chapter 14 - The Ariel Computerized Exercise System
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Chapter 14 - The Ariel Computerized Exercise System

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I have discussed previously my association with the Universal Gym exercise company. I was involved with them for about eight years and helped to design the most advanced exercise system of the time. However, the designs were for equipment constructed of metal, utilizing cams to provide resistance which varied throughout the exercise movement. These were appropriate types of exercise equipment for a gym, school, or athletic setting since they could be used by many people continuously all day long. Many of the people who trained on this type of equipment were young and, frequently, insensitive or uncaring about the wear and tear on the systems. For this reason, the equipment had to be rugged and able to sustain the stress and abuse of the exercising public. The Universal Gym equipment was designed specifically for this marketplace and the type of exercise users who, in general, were indelicate when working out on the equipment...

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Chapter 15 - The Horse Connection
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Chapter 15 - The Horse Connection

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I was sitting at the desk in the front office in Amherst, looking out of the window at the cars whizzing by on the road and the people walking in front of our office with the quizzical expression that our company name generally evoked. Ann and I were discussing some of the on-going projects when the phone rang. I answered it and the man said, “I’ve heard about your motion analysis system and I want to know if you can meet me to discuss a project on racehorses.” By now, I was used to people and companies asking about our abilities to quantify movement for all types of applications. Most of them had been with humans, excluding the cats and the study on Daisy the monkey, and the majority had been associated with sporting applications. However, our company motto was “If it moves, we can measure it,” so I was willing to listen to his proposal. “What type of business do you have?” I asked. “I have several business interests here in the greater Miami, Florida area, but I also own 50 horses which live on my farm near Orlando, Florida,” was his answer. “My name is Irving Pollock and I would like you to fly to Miami so I can discuss some of my ideas and see if your motion system can help me.” “Ok,” I answered, and we agreed upon a date....

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Chapter 16 - The Coto Research Center
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Chapter 16 - The Coto Research Center

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In 1975, Vic Braden, a friendly-appearing man with a cherubic smile and a sunny disposition walked into my Amherst lab. I had never met Vic before this meeting, but I had heard several stories about him. Vic attained his degree as a psychologist from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and advanced degrees from UCLA and California State, but he achieved greater fame in tennis. He was introduced to tennis at the age of 12 and had been quoted in Sports Illustrated about hitching a ride to Detroit to watch Don Budge play Bobby Riggs. His reason for the trek was to discover how Budge hit his backhand. While a student at Kalamazoo College he had served as the captain of the tennis team. As Vic was relating these and other stories during that first Amherst visit, he described his crazy work history that began when he was very young. In fact, during college, he had lived in an upstairs closet in the athletic facility because he could not afford to live in the dorm. Times may have been tough for him as a youth, but he was a happy, funny adult that day in Amherst....

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Chapter 17 - The NASA Connection
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Chapter 17 - The NASA Connection

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My first association with NASA was when I met Captain James Lovell. This was an amazing experience for me since my Israeli background in sports had never included an opportunity to meet an actual NASA astronaut. I grew up in Israel, where we had our heroes in the Air Force, but no astronauts in a space program. Meeting such an accomplished astronaut as James Lovell was both awe inspiring and slightly intimidating. When I returned to Amherst after my first committee meeting with Captain Lovell, I immediately began to research his background. James Arthur “Jim” Lovell, Jr. (born March 25, 1928) was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1962 after having served as a captain in the United States Navy. Lovell was selected as a backup pilot for Gemini 4, which put him in a position for his first space flight three missions later as pilot of Gemini 7 with Command Pilot Frank Borman in December 1965. This flight set an endurance record of fourteen days in space. Lovell was later scheduled to be the backup Command Pilot of Gemini 10, but after the deaths of the Gemini 9 prime crew Elliot See and Charles Bassett, he replaced Thomas P. Stafford as backup commander of Gemini 9A. This positioned Lovell for his second flight and first command of Gemini 12 in November 1966 with pilot Buzz Aldrin. Lovell’s two Gemini flights gave him more time in space than any other person as of 1966. However, his career was far from finished at that point. Lovell was originally chosen as the Command Module Pilot (CMP) on the backup crew for Apollo 9, planned as a high-apogee Earth orbital test of the Lunar Module (LM), along with Neil Armstrong as Commander and Buzz Aldrin as Lunar Module Pilot...

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Chapter 18 - Our New Life in Coto de Caza
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Chapter 18 - Our New Life in Coto de Caza

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“Times they are a’changing” was a line from a popular song in 1964 by Bob Dylan, but it seemed to be appropriate for our situation in 1987. The introduction of the personal computer had a profound effect on the world as PCs seemed to arrive and overwhelm instantaneously and ubiquitously. Many of our clients, such as Wilson Sporting Goods, Spalding or AMF, could now buy their own in-house computers and pay a license fee to use our software. This allowed them to process their own research without the concern that the information could leak to competitors. Although we had derived great enjoyment being involved in the projects we had executed, the thrill of developing new software on newer hardware had an intoxicating appeal. Nothing could replace the Olympic athletes and their enthusiasm. There was no replacement for analyzing a violinist, or calculating forces on three-wheeled recreational vehicles, or evaluating the science of behavior of sporting equipment. But the vast majority of companies wanted to keep their secrets to themselves while, at the same time, we had discovered a vast new horizon of computer technologies ripe for exploration. From this new, smaller computer world perspective, our own corporate needs no longer required a large dedicated computer room with special air conditioning and elaborate hardware. The women’s volleyball team had left after their silver medal victory in 1984. As I mentioned before, most of our corporate clients were more interested in licensing our software for in-house use and, thus, our need for extensive space was eliminated...

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Chapter 19 - You Can’t Have One Without the Other
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Chapter 19 - You Can’t Have One Without the Other

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Life in Coto de Caza continued for our companies, our two continually evolving products, and ourselves. After all of the anxieties with the Coto Research Center and the debacle in La Jolla, Ann and I were enjoying the positive atmosphere of productivity and a pleasant staff of hard-working individuals. It seemed that we could concentrate on the positive aspects of our work and our lives. In the previous chapters, I described our mode of operation. We were a small corporation and tightly controlled the details of product development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales. To that end, it seemed as though I was the best person to explain to potential customers the attributes and numerous options that the two products, the CES, and the APAS, could provide. This meant that I was the one who traveled to customers and trade shows for presentations. I was thrilled when our old friend, Tony Payne, from Johannesburg, South Africa contacted me to come for a sales and training clinic. Tony had sold several of the CES to a university located in the center of the country. He wanted me to help train the university personnel as well as Tony’s sales staff on all of the options available with this computerized system. Needless to say, I was more than willing to go, and I saw that this was an opportunity to take Ann with me. Ann and I had traveled to South Africa several times in the past, and I knew how much she loved Africa. She loved the wilderness bush experience. She was obsessed with animals in general, and African wildlife in particular. This seemed like a perfect opportunity for us to travel for business and to add some fun experiences as well. Since I did not believe that Ann would let me go to Africa without her, it was the perfect situation...

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Chapter 20 - The Reunion
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Chapter 20 - The Reunion

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It was the 5th discus throw at the 1960 Olympic trials in Israel which changed the path of my life to one of studies, inventions, unbelievable experiences, and love. Without that throw, I simply would have become an excellent physical education teacher at Wingate, and I would not be writing this book. What gave me the courage and the confidence and the drive to make that throw? The answer, in retrospect, were the eight years at Hadassim. Those years produced enduring friendships that were a lifeblood to me, academic challenges and interests that survive to this day, and tenacity to confront and resolve every situation that came my way. The discus and shot put throw that made my life are shown on page 526. I broke the Israeli records in each event and this qualified me to compete for Israel in the Olympic Games in Rome, 1960. Seven years of training in Hadassim made me the athlete and tenacious individual that I was then and remain today. Fifty-five years later, I looked back to those formative years of my childhood and remembered all of the people I knew at Hadassim. The teachers were like parents to us, and the other students like brothers and sisters. We had been a family and not recognized it as such. Our class, the Class of 1958, had fused each individual into a unique family. Although I had traveled to Israel many times to meet with Hadassim friends during the intervening years, we had never had a gathering of our entire class...

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Chapter 21 - The Kidney Connection
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Chapter 21 - The Kidney Connection

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One of the things that Ann and I love to do is travel. We have traveled all around the world during the last 30 years, always trying to learn as much as possible about our destination on every trip. We are not the type of people to sail around on large cruise ships and eat 24 hours a day. We are more active physically and, in a constant search for new information, love to learn. Ann found that the Stanford University Travel Service offered an excursion to Patagonia which looked interesting. Patagonia would be a new destination for us. We had taken several previous trips with the Stanford Travel organization, and found them to be perfect for our style of travel. They selected interesting places, provided excellent teachers and guides, utilized wonderful hotels in exquisite locations, and handled all of the normally aggravating travel necessities, such as handling suitcases and transportation. So in February 2014, we flew from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, Argentina where the trip would begin. Normally, our travel plans are to arrive at our initial destination a few days early. This allows us to recover from jet-lag since it affects Ann greatly. While we were in Buenos Aires, we had an opportunity to meet our old and dear friend, Dr. Bill Laich. Bill and his girlfriend graciously spent time taking us around the city, and helped us sample a variety of the delicious foods. When the time came to leave to Patagonia, we said farewell, with promises to meet again soon...

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Chapter 22 - Now and Forever
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Chapter 22 - Now and Forever

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This is the end of the book but not the end of anything else. Ann and I continue to study, travel, and enjoy life. We continue selling our APAS system around the world. I spend countless hours on the phone helping customers understand how to implement and operate their newly acquired software. Our CES has undergone new revisions and been readily received by new customers. I could retire, I suppose, but sitting around watching television and failing to contribute or learn things does not appeal to me. I continue with my inventions since my life has always been about exploring opportunities. My technologies, unlike so many other technologies, have not become outdated. As long as there are muscles, bones, and ligaments that need to be studied, whether for athletic purposes, health reasons, product testing, or other reasons, my technology can be applied. It may seem odd that a man who grew up running barefoot in a land of the ancient Middle East should end up in California able to provide shoes which he designed. I was a man who discovered a fascinating technique to study the body through biomechanical analyses and was able to build a career with it. Biomechanics allowed me to create endless products that helped people win awards and Olympic medals, become stronger, and some other things that created the ability for people to simply enjoy life more than they had previously. These successes came from creating real things that had once only been in my imagination...

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Index
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Index

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