When the press tried to describe Dick Fosbury’s high jump technique they couldn’t find the right words. No one before him has ever tried to clear the high jump bar facing backward. So in an article, titled Being Backward Gets Results, Sports Illustrated wrote: “Fosbury charges up from slightly to the left of center with a gait that may call to mind a two-legged camel”
What we consider today to be the “right way” to clear the high jump bar was considered extremely weird back in 1968.
While everyone else was using the straddle to clear the high jump bar facing down, Dick Fosbury, who failed to clear the minimum height required to qualify to his high school track meets (5 feet/1.5m!) has spent a few years listening to his body and developing his unique technique. Instead of jumping face down, he ended facing upward in a technique that became known as the “Fosbury Flop”.
Like a Flopping Fish
The press and competitors ridiculed Fosbury. They called him “The laziest high-jumper”, “A fish flopping into a boat”. The German Olympics team coaches told him he would never succeed using his style but Fosbury didn’t let all this shake his confidence, on the contrary…
In an interview (I really recommend watching as it really shows Fosbury’s character), Fosbury describes the attitude he adopted toward this ridicule…“It encouraged me… They were not ridiculing me; they were enjoying something that was radically different.”
We Need More 2-Legged Camels
The reason Dick Fosbury is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track & field isn’t the fact he won the gold medal (many others won way more medals), it’s because he did so doing the exact opposite of what everyone else was doing at the time. It’s because he had the confidence to listen and trust his inner-self to find his unique style and then the courage to face the doubts and ridicule of everyone around him while staying focused on his goal.
People like Dick Fosbury inspire us but given the choice most of us (included yours truly) very rarely find the courage to simply be ourselves when it means doing something totally different than anything else done before. We rather deprive the world of our unique contribution than face the chance of being wrong, of being looked at as different and weird.
Is there something amazing you’re depriving the world of because of what others would think or say about you?
Don’t be afraid to be a two-legged camel… The world needs more of them!
