Reflection on Billy Mills

Running Brave is a movie based on a true story about a Native American, Billy Mills, who won the 10,000 meter Gold Medal in the Tokyo Olympics from 1964. Throughout the movie, we can see how Billy has to deal with "both worlds": his internal and external journey. The movie shows up racism and marginalization taking from the point of Billy's origin; of Billy's way of being. Billy was raised in an Indian Reservation in South Dakota and he encounters with the opportunity to go to the University of Kansas because of his marvelous performance in running. As he arrived at the University, he started facing his external journey. Everything was different from his life at the reservation. He started to dealing with racism for being an Indian. Something that caught my attention and relates to this racism is the scene where Billy was asked if he was from Puerto Rico. Why did that student asked him this? I think it's all about the racism not only with the Native American people, but also with people from other countries and ethnicities.

Do people must change and leave back his feelings and emotions away to try to fix in a group? No, and this is what specifically Billy teaches us. Here is the point when both internal and external journey merge together. Instead of the request from the coach to play dirty, he was convinced in himself and on what he can do and therefore he followed his feelings and emotions. Billy's decisions shows how his principles were defined.  It's not about to live and survive the unexpected situations from the external journey; it's about to deal with the feelings from the internal journey to succeed in the external way. 

"But my thoughts changes from 'one more try, one more try' to 'I can win, I can win, I can win'." -Billy Mills

About Billy Mills: http://indianyouth.org/billy-mills

Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F5iCsymMj0