THE JOY OF SOX

One of the many tributaries that feeds the EVO Sports “river” began as a stream in Eastern Massachusetts almost twenty years ago. EVO co-founder Rick Leskowitz grew up in the area and was therefore a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. His professional work with chronic pain patients led him to explore the rather arcane world of invisible healing energies at Harvard Medical School. But it wasn’t until his beloved Red Sox won the World Series Championship in 2004, after a drought of 86 years, that he discovered a much more widespread application for his work with energy and healing.

Like most New Englanders at the time, he had been swept up in a wave of euphoria that was extremely contagious, even improving the mood of his chronically depressed patients. As he explored the parallels between energy medicine and baseball, he realized that this same energy underlay such phenomena as team chemistry, fan energy, the home field advantage, and being in the Zone. His filmmaker cousin Joel convinced him that the best way to tell this story was through the medium of film, so they spent the next 7 years producing a documentary film that explored the scientific basis of these so-called “intangibles” in sports, and in life.

The film used the Red Sox as a case example, and focused on the way positive emotions are experienced by fans and by players. The Joy of Sox: Weird Science and the Power of Intention also showed several live demonstrations that measured these energies in the biofeedback lab and at Fenway Park itself.  He interviewed star players like David Ortiz, as well as leading researchers  like Larry Dossey, Michael Murphy and Rollin McCraty in collaboration with the Institute of HeartMath, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Princeton University’s PEAR Lab, and others.

As Rick began to present his findings at various conferences, he met sports psychologists, athletes and coaches with similar interests and experiences. And so an informal collaboration began with Greg, Barry, David and Scott, initially calling itself “The Sports, Energy and Consciousness Group”, and now known as EVO Sports.  The 58-minute film was broadcast nationally on PBS in the Fall of 2012, and is now available for free viewing on YouTube. Here is the link that will take you to the headwaters of the EVO River: The Joy of Sox: Weird Science and the Power of Intention