From Flop to Fantastic
Being one of a kind.
High Jump Medal Ceremony, Mexico City Olympic Games 1968 AP File photo
The Best You
Ikigai is about experiencing your essence and purpose in harmony with whatever you do.
Living out your ikigai uniquely expresses your talents, passions, skills, and place to impact the world.
Once you understand your Ikigai, expressing it becomes core to your essence, your being, and doing. It's a guide, like a North Star, and incredible things start to fall into place.
You naturally reframe your focus and energy; doors begin to open that you didn't even know existed. Then you can become the best in the world…at being you.
Flopping like a Fish
Richard ‘Dick’’ Fosbury died last week. His passing is noteworthy as he is responsible for one of the biggest flops in sports history.
Fosbury was a track and field athlete in high school who competed in the high jump.
He wasn’t particularly good at it, either. In part because he struggled with the standard techniques used at the time, like the straddle method. (photo on the left below)
Fosbury experimented with several new ways of jumping until he landed (pun intended) on a modified scissors version, where he launched himself backward to clear the bar. That’s him in the photo below on the right.
The technique was not widely embraced at first. The method received mockery and derision in some circles. It was even considered dangerous.
The local paper, The Medford Mail-Tribune is credited with coining the phrase "Fosbury Flop" after publishing the headline "Fosbury Flops Over the Bar" following one of his high school competitions.
The reporter likened him to a fish flopping around on the deck of a boat.
Left example of the straddle method. Photo By Bundesarchiv, Bild. Right photo Dick Fosbury doing the Fosbury Flop Mexico City Olympics Annonoumous AP photo
Prototype Test and Learn
My students are encouraged to try things out to uncover their Ikigai. I often teach an approach of prototyping, testing, and incorporating the learning.
Which is exactly what Fosbury did.
"I knew I had to change my body position, and that's what started first the revolution and over the next two years, the evolution."1
Fodbury did some important things along the way.
Recognized the need for change.
Ignored the naysayers and wouldn’t let them sway him from trying new things.
He kept trying things and was ready when doors began to open that he didn't even know existed.
An example of the third point was a change in the sport of the high jump that was fortunate for Fosbury. Up until that time the pit where jumpers landed was sawdust or wood chips.
High schools started using pads making a head-first jumps like Fosbury’s less dangerous.
Even in the first few years of competing in college, Fosbury continued to face resistance from coaches and officials. It wasn’t until he set a school record at Oregon that his coach allowed him to use the ‘flop’ technique for good.
He would go on to win the US Olympic Trials and then face another obstacle. U.S. Olympic Officials were worried he wouldn’t be able to replicate the jump at altitude in Mexico City. They didn’t guarantee him a spot on the team until he qualified in yet another meet.
Fosbury would go on to qualify and ultimately win the Gold Medal in the 1968 Games.
He became the ‘best in the world’ by being himself.
Now Fabulous
Though ridiculed and rejected, the flop technique would be used by 28 of the 40 competitors in the next Olympics four years later.
Today virtually every athlete competing in the high jump at any level uses the Fosbury Flop.
Flipping and going head first when conventional wisdom says it's foolish can be terrifying. We need to have a detached understanding of why it's right for us. And an acknowledgment that it may not work for everybody. A fine line between evangelist and idealist.