Hello.
Breathing pretty heavy over there.
Just a dream.
You sure you're okay?
Do you want me to leave or something?
No, stay. I'm gonna go get some air.
You know you got two different shoes on, right?
One's a little newer than the other.
Anything else?
Thanks for stopping by.
What the hell did you just do?
How did you get up there?
Be strong, fellows. We going, baby. Come on.
One of us has to move on some of that. Oh, yeah?
Well, some of us already have. Hi, Dory.
Hey, Tommy. Hey, Dan!
Looking good, all right.
Thanks, Trev.
Referring to the endless array of women, dickhead.
How can they all be in love with me? Exactly, how can they?
Incoming, gentlemen.
Oh, my sweet mama and papa.
See that smile she gave us? Yeah. Looked like a toothpaste ad.
Whitest teeth I've ever come across.
Faster, faster! Punch hard, punch hard.
Heel! Good! All right, Jensen.
You work hard and you get results. That's how it happens.
Nice, Kyle.
Excellent.
Now, who else has some good stuff to show me today, huh?
All right, Millman. Nice.
Tight. Lower your shoulders. Good. Keep it tight.
Good, good.
I want to show you something, Coach. Don't waste energy. Keep that mouth shut.
Good.
Millman. Millman!
Sorry, Coach.
Sorry doesn't mean anything.
I can do this.
I've been working on it.
Get over here!
Nobody on this planet can do what you are trying to do.
You are great up there, Danny. You're one of the best I've seen.
You're gonna rank even higher than you did last year,
and you might make it through all the qualifiers if
you don't kill yourself first.
Tommy, you're up.
What's he trying to do?
Three consecutive flips before he dismounts.
Anybody ever done that? Nope.
That's why he's trying to do it.
Thinks it's gonna make him lord of the rings.
Only, with Middleman, it's where he tries to tear both arms out of their sockets.
All right, the next qualifying heat is six weeks from today,
and you know what I say.
Don't think this is gonna happen
just 'cause you're pretty and can do a handstand.
You think I'm kidding?
And I've got footage of your competition you need to see again.
Help you with something?
You can tell me how you did it.
You like things explained.
Don't you?
How we doing tonight?
Look.
That roof's gotta be at least 10, maybe 12 feet high.
No human can make a vertical leap over four or five feet, tops.
I know. I'm a gymnast.
Toughest men's sport in the world. Most people don't know that.
The Spartans of ancient Greece were gymnasts, too.
They vaulted over bulls.
Trained their elite warriors that way.
Did you know that?
I know more than you think. And you think more than you know.
But knowledge is not the same as wisdom.
Yeah? What's the difference?
You know how to clean a windshield, right? Yeah.
Wisdom is doing it.
I train seven days a week, 50 weeks out of the year.
Why so much? Are you serious?
I am a heartbeat away from qualifying.
Qualifying for what?
You watch the Olympics? No.
Thanks for stopping by.
Look, even as good as I am,
I gotta do everything I can to make sure that I qualify.
There's a lot you'd have to know before you could understand what you saw.
Go. Ask me. Ask me something.
Ask me anything.
Are you happy?
You said I could ask you anything.
What does happy have to do with anything?
Everything.
My dad's got plenty of cash,
school's kind of a breeze, I get straight A's.
I got great friends, I'm in great shape,
and I only sleep alone when I absolutely want to.
So why can't you sleep at night?
Yesterday, you came here at 3:00 a. m. Now, tonight.
That's two nights in a row.
What are you? Some kind of a Quickie Mart philosopher or something like that?
You need some philosophy?
No, thanks, Socrates. I get enough at school.
Last question.
If you don't make the Olympic team, what will you do?
If I don't what?
You must have thought about it.
What the hell are you talking about?
What's the problem?
I don't even know what I'm doing here.
You're a freak. And I don't need you freaking me out.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Your exit sign's lit, Middleman.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Hey, there, beautiful thing. So, this is what you do for fun.
Seventeen.
Eighteen.
Did I pick up that maybe you and Dory hooked up the other night?
Come on, Dan-o. It's all you.
Nineteen.
She told you that? Is it true?
We're supposed to be friends, man.
What does that mean, exactly?
It means you're a jerk who treats his friends like dirt.
Somebody grab my beers.
Somebody grab mine!
Hey! Hey! Hey!
Come on, guys.
Hey, Dan, what's the matter with you, man?
With friends like you, who needs assholes, right, Dan-o?
Calm down. What? You want to fight Tommy?
Who does he think he is? He's pissed at you, all right? Is it true?
I thought Dory was old news. All right?
So, excuse me if she comes banging on my door.
Why? Why, Dan?
Listen to yourself. Dory was Tommy's girl.
I said I thought it was over!
Just go back to your party, man.
Okay. Yeah, I will.
Hey.
You want these?
You're really cute.
Jesus!
Susie, you okay?
Yeah.
Sorry.
What's the matter?
Couldn't sleep again?
What would you say if I told you
that I keep seeing those shoes in a dream I keep having?
I'd say maybe you're still asleep.
You can live a whole lifetime without ever being awake.
Hey, Socrates.
If you know so much,
how come you're working at a gas station?
This is a service station. We offer service.
There's no higher purpose.
Than pumping gas? Service to others.
How we doing tonight?
Japanese style, huh?
So you know Socrates?
Is that what you call him?
I bet he loves that.
You eat here with him every night?
Actually, I think one's for you.
I see you've met Joy.
Hey, big Buddha. Hi, little Buddha.
Joy, this is Dan.
We met.
Socrates. Socrates.
Bon appétit.
You look hungry.
Joy do all that?
She live around here?
She related to you or something?
You need to start asking better questions.
What?
Slow down. You might taste something.
You sure got a lot of rules about stuff, don't you?
Not rules. Things I've learned from my own life experience.
That's why I'd say your eating is sloppy.
Who cares? You do.
That's the difference between us, Dan.
You practice gymnastics. I practice everything.
If I was your trainer, no meat.
Seriously? None.
I could probably handle that.
No TV, no alcohol, no drugs and no sex.
And that's why I'm glad you're not my trainer.
So, this diet and your training are making you all you can be?
Absolutely.
So, how long can you stand like this?
Name it.
Five minutes. On the table. Done.
You move so much as a muscle,
and I get to call you Jack for the rest of the night.
Jack? Short for jackass.
What time is it?
What time
is
it?
What
time
is...
My son, Jack.
Thanks for stopping by.
Everyone tells you what to do and what's good for you.
They don't want you to find your own answers.
They want you to believe theirs.
And let me guess. You want me to believe yours.
No.
I want you to stop gathering information from outside yourself
and start gathering it from the inside.
What are you, part of some cult or something?
People are afraid of what's inside,
and that's the only place they're ever gonna find what they need.
Why can't you sleep?
Is it because, maybe, late at night,
when all the noise dies down and you're lying there in the bed,
and there's nobody around but you, then, maybe, you get a little scared?
Scared because suddenly everything feels so
empty.
You tell me you want to be more than just someone who gets up on those rings
and performs a well-practiced stunt or two.
You tell me you want to be someone
who uses his mind and his body
in ways that most people would never have the courage to,
and I will train you, Dan,
to be a real warrior.
Is he all right?
What's going on?
Kyle. He took a bad fall.
It's fine. I'm fine.
It might be broken. No.
We'll need an x-ray. No.
It's all right, Kyle. It's all right. It's all right.
I mean it, Coach. I know.
It doesn't feel like a break.
They're just gonna have a look at it, that's all.
I don't need it looked at.
And I said you did.
Let's go.
Put it in a sling. I don't need a sling.
Rider down, man. Bad break.
You don't know that. It could be a sprain.
I mean, he's a casualty, Tommy-boy. He's our best horse man.
Where do you think that leaves us, huh?
Trevor, get off that thing.
Or what? Like you don't want it?
Except you suck at the pommel horse, Middleman.
I just never focused on it.
That's 'cause you got one big show and only one.
Lord of the rings.
Yeah? Want to see what I can do?
Don't embarrass yourself. Go play, little boy.
Jesus Christ, did you both just see them take Kyle away?
I mean, Jesus, what if he's done?
Don't get in my face about it, all right? Jesus, go hold his hand if you want to.
Sometimes, I don't like myself very much.
My first thought was about how maybe Kyle's fall could work out for me.
People are not their thoughts.
They think they are and it brings them all kinds of sadness.
Toss me that wrench.
I'm not what I think?
Of course not.
The five-eighths.
The mind is just a reflex organ.
It reacts to everything.
Fills your head with millions of random thoughts a day.
None of those thoughts reveal any more about you
than a freckle does at the end of your nose.
Take a swing at me. What?
What are you doing?
Come on. 10 bucks if you can slap me on the cheek.
Come on. Take a shot.
Knock it off, man. I don't want to hit you.
You don't want to hit me?
I don't want to hurt you.
I guess I'll just have to keep slapping you then.
Did you notice how the right leverage can be very effective?
What if I were to tell you
that's what your training, even your life, is about?
Developing the wisdom to apply the right leverage
in the right place, at the right time.
Take out the trash. You take out the trash.
The trash is up here.
That's the first part of your training,
learning to throw out everything you don't need in here.
How?
Meet me tomorrow on campus.
Strawberry Creek bridge.
Where the hell are you going? Poli-sci. Where are you going?
I'm going to pommel horse try-outs.
I forgot.
Less than an hour. Hey, hey! Wait up.
Tell them to hold up for me, all right? What?
Soc!
Listen. I totally forgot about this.
Now, I got this thing at the gym.
It's pretty important. Can we make this quick?
Sure.
Hey!
Hey! I'm talking to you.
What the hell is wrong with you? You said you were in a hurry.
So you pushed me off the bridge? I emptied your mind.
You what? I emptied...
No, you didn't. You threw me into the river.
And while you were falling, tell me, Dan, what were you thinking of?
I don't know!
Were you thinking about school? No!
Grocery shopping? No!
This thing you had to hurry off to? No! I was...
The present.
Devoted 100% to the experience you were having.
You even had a word for it.
You're out of your mind. You know that?
It's taken a lifetime of practice.
We want you out of your mind, too, Dan.
What is that you do?
Some kind of martial arts move?
I didn't see it coming. You weren't paying attention.
Even now you're not. Your mind's filling up again.
You're missing out on everything that's going on.
There's nothing going on.
There's never nothing going on.
Take out the trash, Dan.
The trash is anything that is keeping you from the only thing that matters,
this moment.
Here.
Now.
And when you truly are in the here and now,
you'll be amazed at what you can do and how well you can do it.
Until we know more about Kyle, we need the horse covered, so...
Anybody who wants a shot at it, gets a shot.
Where's Millman?
All right, next man up. Trev?
You know I'm superstitious, Coach. I gotta go last.
I'll go.
All right.
Millman, where the hell did that come from?
Soc!
Hot damn! I wish you could've been there. You would've loved it!
I used your trick.
I used your mind trick and it worked. It totally worked. I was awesome.
It's not a trick. Yeah, well, whatever it is, I used it.
I took out the trash, and I mean Trev?
Trev's the one guy I'm always going up against.
You should have seen me. I demolished the guy.
You know, I wasn't worried about what did happen,
or what might happen, what could happen.
I just got up there and I cleared my mind.
And I was flawless.
Listen, I'm jumping in with both feet. All right?
Whatever you tell me to do, I'm gonna do. No beer, no meat, no girls, no problem.
How long did you stay that way, clear and flawless?
"I demolished that guy. You should have seen me. "
You're in the past.
Gloating.
You're not in the now, living.
You haven't learned anything.
Go home. Training's over for tonight.
Wait a minute.
Go home, I said.
Hey, Dan.
Why do we have to be all the way up here, where we could kill ourselves?
I was hoping you could tell me.
God!
What do I keep trying for?
I'll never make this cut.
Dad was right.
I'm gonna make him right if I don't find a way to do this.
Will I ever forgive myself if I don't make this cut?
Where the hell is Millman?
Too good to show up for practice, now, I guess.
I don't know how to handle these kids. What do I say to them?
They're talking, but their lips aren't moving.
I'm not their mother. I'm their coach.
Coach thinks I'm worthless.
I am worthless.
I'm a worthless piece of shit
and Millman's always gonna be better than me.
Am I reading their minds?
Maybe you just never really listened to them before.
I've only got four qualifiers left. I've got to get new mats.
I can't stick this double double. My line's not straight on the bar.
I'm such a worthless piece of shit.
You gotta be doing this. Otherwise I'm losing my mind.
Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses.
Millman!
It's about time you showed up.
Thanks for joining us.
Go home, I said.
What did you just do to me?
You have to be strong if you're gonna do this, Dan.
What did you do?
Where I'm gonna take you, some of the things I'm gonna show you,
you're gonna need strength.
And you're gonna need to trust me.
So it's hot as hell, and this penguin,
he's pushing his broken-down car past the 31 flavors.
So, suddenly he's practically burying his face in a large vanilla
when he sees a service station.
So he goes over, the mechanic opens up the hood and says,
"Looks to me like you've blown a seal. "
The penguin wipes his mouth and says, "Hey, screw you! It's ice cream. "
What's up, Tommy? Hey, Trev.
Hey, what's up with the rabbit chow, Middleman?
All right, I got another one.
A man, a duck and a big-breasted nun walk into a bar, right?
So, this old guy did this high jump.
Did this really high jump.
And?
I'm kind of doing what he tells me
so I can find out how he did it.
Wait a minute.
You're letting somebody else coach you? No.
Well, what's he doing to you? 'Cause you look like crap.
I don't know.
I don't know what he's doing to me.
You better get away from it, Middleman.
We got qualifiers in four weeks and you're looking like a worthless piece of shit.
Hey!
Joy, right? Mmm-hmm.
I need to talk to you about our mutual friend.
Socrates?
If he didn't tell you his name, you won't get it from me.
Yeah, why didn't he tell me?
I mean, I don't know anything about the guy.
I'm serious.
All right? He's supposed to be making me stronger, making my life better.
It's just the opposite.
What's he doing?
What are you worried about?
I want to know who I'm dealing with here.
Come on, come on. Tight. Keep it tight, Danny!
No! No, you're shaking! You're shaking!
What the hell are you doing up there?
Yeah, I'm off today.
Oh. You're off, huh?
Well, you've been off for one hell of a streak, Millman.
First you're a dream on the horse and now you can barely stand up straight.
Huh?
Next time you're tired, go take a nap instead of coming to practice.
Ike, your key? Yep, all right.
Voyeur.
How we doing tonight?
How am I doing?
I'm tired, I'm hungry and I'm horny.
How are you doing?
I need some answers tonight.
I need to know that this...
That this is all going somewhere, and I need to know it right now.
I mean, what kind of a warrior trains by sitting around scrubbing toilets?
When you become a warrior, you learn to meditate in every action.
Scrubbing toilets? Letting go of attachments.
Like your pride.
Giving up your addictions. Yeah, name one thing I'm addicted to.
Talking. Especially interrupting.
Knowing everything, when in fact you know nothing.
You really think that this is going to expand my awareness of anything?
My game is off! My coach probably thinks that I'm on drugs,
and I'm thinking...
I just don't have any more time for you right now.
All you have is right now, Jack.
Did you just call me a jackass again?
'Cause, you know, I'm really starting to wonder how someone with the life
that you've managed to put together can teach me anything.
I mean, are you really happy?
Maybe you're just a case of someone who, not having made much of themselves,
says that the world is lost and all these things don't matter.
Be happy with less, right? Less than what? Less than nothing?
I call you a jackass when you act like a jackass.
Like now, Dan, when you're letting your emotions control you.
This isn't emotion! This is common sense!
You know what? Let me tell you something,
whatever your name really is.
When I get what I want, I'll be happy.
For real and forever and anything else I say it'll be.
'Cause I will make it happen.
Three, two, one!
Drink! Drink! Drink!
Danny, good.
That's it, Danny.
Steady.
Good. All right, come on! Bring it home!
That's what I remember about you, Millman! You were good.
I needed this.
Needed to escape.
Lucky me. Yeah, and lucky me.
You guys are in such great shape.
So if I wasn't in such great shape,
wasn't on the gymnastics team, just had a regular body,
you wouldn't be into me?
If I didn't have this body, would you be into me?
Hey, Middleman.
I don't know what to say.
Hey.
Got the whole team here.
You ran a red light, man. Can you believe that?
You gotta get better, man, 'cause...
You ran a red light.
...whose ass am I gonna kick at practice?
Don't waste your energy. Keep that mouth shut.
Dan?