 Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My book Beyond the Lines is about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, and finding greatness, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is an extraordinary woman who represented the United States in the 1992 Olympics, helping her team win the bronze medal in gymnastics. She is Betty Okino Benson, and today we are going Beyond the Olympics. Hey, Betty, welcome to the show. Hi, Rusty. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's so great to see you. I mean, you're so legendary, Betty. There's some moves named after you, the Okino, right? I mean, you invented some great stuff. I invented some things. Now, Betty, I want to ask you, your father is from Uganda. Your mother is from Romania. How did they meet? My parents met in university in Romania, in Bucharest. My father had obviously gone there to study, and he studied veterinary medicine there in Bucharest, and my mom was going to university also at the same time. Like most college romances, that's kind of how that blossomed. They fell in love, and then my father, after he finished his PhD, they both went back to Uganda so that he could continue actually practicing veterinary medicine there and working with large animals in different reserves there. Well, I just find that fascinating, and Betty, you and your teammates and your competitors, you guys were the best in the world, I mean, on the planet. How did you first get interested in gymnastics? So, I was first introduced to the sport by my mom, who's Romanian. So, one of the most legendary gymnasts, I mean, to this day in the sport was Nadia Cominic. She kind of like made gymnastics popular, I think, for the whole world, not just only for that country. And so, of course, she was legendary in Romania. Romania, my mom from Romania, had the book Nadia, and so she would, that was like my version of a fairy tale or fairy tale princess, books that she would read to me from early childhood when I was very young. And so, I became enamored by the sport of gymnastics, and I would always beg my mom, could I please put me in gymnastics, please put me in gymnastics. But she wanted me to be a dancer, so she put me in dance classes. And I, throughout all of my dancing, I always wanted to tumble to do the gymnastics part. And then when I watched Mary Lou Ratni win the 84 Olympics, so that was the first time I watched the Olympics and paid attention to it. And it was like, it was the best thing ever. She looked like she was having so much fun. And I was like, I need to do this. I want to do that. And so I begged them again, like, please put me in gymnastics, because where we lived at the time in rural Illinois, there wasn't gymnastics around. I mean, now there's gymnastics everywhere. But then there wasn't any around me, anywhere. Like we had to drive two hours, two and a half hours to get to a gymnastics facility. So finally, she put me in gymnastics. And since there was no gymnastics facility around us, she started coaching me. We found a small, like local gym that caught tumbling and they had gymnastics equipment, like very old gymnastics equipment. They just didn't teach it and they allowed us to rent the gym. And so my mom watching videos and watching different tutorials, learned how to teach me in gymnastics. I had a great foundation and had a lot of talent. So that kind of helped with that whole initial process, which was my first coach. Wow. And Betty, I saw pictures of like a balance beam that I think your dad had made right there that, you know, is it made of like lumber and carpet? It's lumber and some quality late 80s 90s shed carpet. So that's when you were inventing the okino moves, right? I did. I practiced that on that beam. I would be on that beam for hours every single day, just dancing and dreaming and imagining myself at the Olympics while I'm making up routines on the beam. Yeah. And so Betty, our connection together with me, you and your husband, Jacob, is through my book. And, you know, you guys had read the book and sent me a review of it. It's so thoughtful of you guys to do that. What are some things that stood out to you in the book? So I think the main thing that stood out to me was that you achieved greatness through teaching character and morals. And that you were creating whole people and focusing on the whole person and the person they were going to be inside and outside of the sport, and not just the athlete and, you know, winning for you was matches, winning matches. That wasn't like the main focus. I think when the focus is, and that was unique to me because in so many sports and definitely for the longest time in my sport of gymnastics, the, especially at the elite level, the focus was result. The result being how many medals you're going to win. Winning, the result being winning however we can, however you can get there. The end. How's that the means determined the end the end did not determine the means. Yeah, you know so and I appreciated the fact that you were able to like so many legendary coaches like you think of John Wooden, similar. Where you, the reason you had such longevity I feel and such a great career and so far as wins what people would consider great and so far as wins was because of that you were training the whole person and building the whole person and not just it wasn't about the results. That's that's you're totally right because you know that's how you really that's how I found that you can not just achieve success but to sustain success because you know a business could be number one in business that year but how do you be number one in business for 10 years or 20 years. Correct. But yeah so it's it's doing all the things that you need to do beyond the lines which really affects everything that's inside the lines and and not you're so right and I want to ask you, you know, the Corollies Bella and Martha Corolley were the best coaches in the world at that time. How, how did you connect and start training with them. So I, it was of course because I mean obviously you saw how I started in gymnastics there's Nadia was an influence and the very Lou was an influence so both of those athletes. Oh, who happened to be there in that photo. That's funny work trained by the Corollies so naturally that was my dream, along with going to the Olympics was I had to be trained by them and I was, you know, bagged my parents again to allow me to go and train with them. So I was already at the elite level junior elite level. By the time I went to them so they had seen me at a couple of competitions national competitions. So my mother called them and asked if I could come for a trial. They said sure so I came out there for a weekend and tried out with them and it was like the hardest weekend of my life. I thought I was going to just die just making it through the practice but I knew like I had to be tough and not show it on my face and just do my absolute best to get through it. And at the end of that weekend, they said, I can come back and train, but they're not going to, they're not going to put me in their group they're going to put me in a group with another coach, who's just like the feed in group to their group and they're going to give me a month till the first qualifier. And depending on how I prove myself within that month of training they're going to observe me and how I prove myself at the qualifier will determine whether or not they will accept me into their group and whether they'll start training me. And so I decided to go for it. Of course I had to move away from home. My flat family lived in Illinois and the Corolles were in Texas in Houston, Texas so I lived with a host family there. And I trained for a month and then I went to the qualifier and at the beginning of the qualifier he wasn't coaching me it was the other coach but by the end of it, fellow was the one coaching me. And I ended up surpassing several of his athletes in the final results. So by the end of the competition they had started training me already. And so that's how I ended up training with him. Now Betty, what did the Corolles do that made them such great coaches? So I think the main thing with them was that they knew beyond a doubt because they had already done it before that they were going to go to the Olympics and they were going to take the athletes with them. It was just a matter of how many. And that level of self confidence that they had and that the sort of knowing of already how to do it and already having the experience bled into their athletes. And that was the main thing that shifted with me when I went to them because my skill level didn't necessarily improve that much. I mean some skills but for the most part I was doing a lot of the same gymnastic skills prior to moving to train with them that I did once I went to the Olympics. But what changed was my level of confidence. I went from being a very uncertain athlete, hit or miss, sometimes I'd make it, sometimes I'd do well. Necklace is falling. To being a 100% confident athlete, I never missed and I knew I was going to make the routines. I knew beyond knowing and it was that level of confidence that they had in themselves that just sort of I ate up and I allowed to sort of like blossom through me and it changed me as an athlete. I bet knowing all that and knowing that superior level that the trainings were way way harder than the actual competitions. Yes. And I think maybe that's part of it like prior to going to train with them competitions were challenging. You know they're mentally taxing they're physically challenging relative to my training. But once I did go train with them like competition was a break. We get up there you do one routine you make it good we're training you know you have to require to do several in a row and they require to be great so it was like it was a breather. In a sense and the pressure that we that they kept in training was you know at a higher level or at the same level as competition so it wasn't like a new thing to experience pressure or those nerves once you got into competition we had already trained for it. So we knew how to make our body respond to that because that's what we experienced in practice. No and you know that's so true because that's what I would do in my trainings with my players because you know if the competition if the matches are are tough then your practices aren't more aren't challenging aren't tough enough. And I guess that's the same with all these successful athletes and successful coaches but I want to ask you this Betty you know you really loved representing the USA and you guys were so popular and you're even featured on a magazine cover. How did that make you feel well you know it was it was it was mixed mixed feelings of course being recognized always feels wonderful. I think all individuals love to be all humans like to be to be recognized and celebrated. So that part felt really great but then at the same time because of that there felt like there was also this expectation. The expectation that the world had of me to be something that I perhaps wasn't ready to be at because all of this happened during my teenage years in my very very early 20s. So a lot of my character hadn't developed yet I it was a challenge going between to not allow that to feed the ego. Side of me and I think that was probably the most challenging. Yeah part was to kind of have a little bit of a spotlight on me I mean nothing compared to what athletes today have because of social media and so much access to them but to have a spotlight on me and to to be afraid to make mistakes or to grow or to evolve and that was probably the most difficult part. So you know before having you on the show today I went on YouTube and I was watching some of those classic competitions that you had and I want to know I mean you look like you just really enjoyed competing. I mean did you did you love competing. For me the competition was kind of it was the reward. I got like this sort of high off of it that feeling of and the high was that feeling of the pressure and the nerves. And then once you sort of use that energy the pressure and the nerves as energy to fuel your body and being in it the experience of being in it like I mean the best way to describe it as like of being in the zone. That timeless space sort of where all of the practice and the training sort of takes over and the presence of mind simply allows for that to happen in your body and you get to observe it. And it's that sort of feeling of sort of like standing outside of your body while your body is going to the motions of observing it and just like having fun like inside of this ride. It's that feeling of total presence that I access now through meditation I can experience now through meditation but the only other time I would experience it before was in competition when pressure met opportunity and then what came out of that. So how did how did you view pressure. For me pressure. Pressure was was an opportunity, I viewed it as the moment I would feel that and I can feel like kind of pressure and nervousness are kind of one in the same because when pressure comes in you you notice that feeling of sort of nervousness. For me I started doing it as energy. I knew the moment I felt that that something great wonderful is going to happen. And because I would tell myself that so I always tell athletes this you have an opportunity when that ceiling rises up, you can either fall down to it. Allow the nerves to get to you and start saying you know, qualify it as as fear or as weakness or as you know I can't do this because I'm feeling nervous and shaky, or you can take that and qualify it as energy and tell yourself. Oh, that's my trigger. Something awesome is about to happen. Okay. That's kind of how I viewed it. And because of that competition ended up being this like wonderful experience rather than something that was terrifying. You know, before you would get on the world's biggest stage to compete. I mean, you look you look like you had calm intensity and I want to know you mentioned about mindset earlier. You know, right before you would get on you know the balance beam or do the floor routine. What was what was your mental routine like just minutes before getting getting into that performance. So my objective before I would get on the apparatus was always to to completely calm myself and and do to the best of my ability, bring myself into presence and sort of just allow allow my body to do what it knew knew how to do get out of the way. And so I always did a breathing routine, which was about three, three deep breaths and always, you know the in breath was a power statement, I am power, I dynamite, I am strength, I am calm, depending on what event I was going to you know vault needs power be needs calm. And then the out breath would be the release of tension the release of fear the release of nervousness and then it would always be I can do all things. I'm ready. And that was my routine. I can do all things. I'm ready. And the moment I said that I would zone in the green light go and I'd go and I just would allow like nature to sort of take over practice training to take over. When brilliance happens when brilliance happens. So Betty, let's talk about the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. I mean you guys won the bronze medal and you guys really set the foundation for many future gymnastics teams. And I want to ask you Betty, you know what were some of the highlights you remember at the Olympics. The highlights the highlights always for me the team competition is a highlight because gymnastics is such an individual sport. It's you and the apparatus. And so the only time we get to like kind of experience that team aspect is in a team competition. The whole person score counts towards a team it's not about you the individual. And so that's always the most fun, since I'm a very sort of social person and, you know, and I like, I like inspiring people and motivating people and feeding off of people at the same time. So the team competition was was the highlight like feeling that momentum build and realizing we were kind of we were about to make history because it would be the first team that ever won a medal for the U of S in gymnastics and a non boycotted games and a fully attended games. And so that's sort of like that's feeling of each of us building on the other's performance was was really exciting and having the crowd behind us and also that was a couple of the members of the dream team, the basketball team were in the audience watching. And so at our last event, they were standing up and they were wearing their USA sweats, and they were cheering for us and we were like, Oh, my God, these are like our basketball heroes and we were more like preoccupied with that than our last event, which was vaults like to the point where one of us was like, you have to it's your turn go. Waving at Michael Jordan in the stands. So did you get to meet Michael Jordan and magic Johnson and the dream team. We did. Nice. Which is a great story because we were at the at the Olympic Village. And of course they didn't stay at the Olympic Village they rented a whole hotel just for them because it would have been madness for them to stay there. So we were in peace. So we were in the training room getting physical therapy after one of our practices and one of like we heard somebody say the dream teams here. They were there getting their credentials. And we're like, Oh my gosh. So we took off running from the training room with our coach Marta behind us. And we're like, do we wait too slow and we're just like forget it we just took off running. We didn't wait for her we're like we'll deal with the consequences after this. So we ran to where they were getting their credentials and they were on their bus. And there was just a sea of people surrounding the bus like it couldn't go anywhere. So we kind of like pushed our way through to the very front of the sea of people. And we were trying to wave. You couldn't see them because the windows were tinted and Larry Bird came out of the bus open the door and he pointed to us. You guys are the gymnasts, right? And we're like, yes. And he's like, come on. And he invited us up onto the bus. So we got to hang out with the whole dream team and take pictures with every single one of them. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippin, Carl Malone, David Robinson, who else. He named it like just legends. It was it was so amazing. You know, I remember watching that Olympics. I mean, watching you guys and watching them obviously too. But it's so great that you guys got to meet them and that they were there watching you guys in the in your gymnastics competition as well. I know. And I think that's probably the highlight of the Olympics being with so many other athletes from different countries, all together with one unified purpose like it. There's nothing exists anymore there's no like separation of genders of colors of religious beliefs of, of nations nations that otherwise are warring together our standing arm and arm and celebrating during you know the closing ceremonies that the fact is just the celebration of a human achievement of human spirit and it just transcends everything else. And I think that's probably was probably like biggest highlight of the whole event for me. Well, Betty, let's talk about your peak training camps. I mean you and Jacob, I mean you guys are making such a great positive impact on so many kids across the country. What is it that you guys do during the training camps. So the, I mean, it's gymnastics, obviously the vehicle is gymnastics, but the purpose of each camp is we focus on building character we focus on mindset we focus on team building activities and mainly we focus on building their understanding of gymnastics and sports to to being about the journey and not only about getting the skill or winning this medal or getting to that level. It's about the person that they're being in that process. They are dealing with fears like giving them the tools with which to handle all of these things to deal with fears to deal with anxiety to view pressure and nervousness as an opportunity, rather than an obstacle. Well, that's going beyond the lines that's what you guys are doing. I definitely took things from your book and I'm like, Oh, really, I'm going to find that understanding. Use it use it for for anything anytime you want to do it. But Betty, I want to ask you how did sports really help you in your life. Besides the obvious things of teaching discipline, obviously, and time management and what it taught me was, I noticed this with individuals that were never athletes, really, is it taught me what that my mindset and my mental focus has an actual physical effect that it has an effect on me physically, and it has an effect on how I move through life and what I draw to me in life. And were it not for sport, I don't think I would know that it's such a huge part of competing or doing anything in sport. And like you, you can't not know that right away. And especially in gymnastics you can't not know that right away because there's an instant fear of doing something on a four inch wide piece of apparatus that's lifted off the ground. And that's like one of the first things gymnast space from the moment they get up on a beam to walk let alone flip is that nervous feeling. What are you going to do with it. So are you going to back away from it and say I can't do that because I'm shaking and I feel this energy, or are you going to view it as energy and shifted and realize that you can do hard things and understand how to take that thing that is fear or nervousness and lays through it rather than turn away from it and then standing on the other side of it realizing Oh, I didn't die, or I didn't perish or fall down or I didn't, you know, and I think that's the most valuable thing that sport has taught me that I've taken into life. Betty I want to ask you one more thing before we wrap up. What's the best advice you ever received in your life. Wait three seconds at a stop. See that's that's brilliant advice right there. It's so simple but I do it now like literally all the time and I can't tell you how many times like, you know, a car runs that that light between yellow and red. And I thought to myself, ah, so glad I waited three seconds. Probably not what you wanted to hear or thought I was going to say but that has been like life saving advice. No, you know, I think I think that's great advice because sometimes people just react too quickly, and it's good if you can take three seconds to just kind of absorb what just happened or digest it and then before you respond or before you have a reaction. So I think that's that's great advice. Betty, I've used it in so many situations, especially before I verbally respond to something that triggers me. Yeah, for sure. Hey Betty, I want to thank you so much for taking time in your schedule to join me on the show today. Well, thank you so much for having me. Really, really great interview. And it was fun talking you and thank you for everything that you're doing in the world through sport and through inspiring young people. Oh, and you guys go out as little pods of leaders that then go affect the world around them and around them and around them and that's how we create a global movements. Well, let's continue that movement and I'm going to look forward to hopefully seeing you and Jacob in Hawaii sometime sooner rather than later. Okay. Yes. And I look forward to receiving the new book. Yeah, you're going to get the new book very soon. Thanks Betty. Thank you, Rusty. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Betty and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.