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Both King and Hill were utilizing forms of copywork, a technique popularized by Benjamin Franklin and practiced by literary greats F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London, and Hunter Thompson. It involves studying an exceptional piece of writing, setting it aside, and then re-creating it word for word from memory, later comparing your version to the original. Many of the painters we now celebrate as creative geniuses devoted a significant portion of their careers to copywork. Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Mary Cassatt, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne all developed their skills by copying the works of the French painter Eugène Delacroix. Delacroix himself spent years copying the Renaissance artists he grew up admiring. And even those Renaissance greats—Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo—honed their craft by reproducing the work of their fellow artists, including one another.
Decoding Greatness
Ron Friedman
I mentioned this earlier but here is the full story. Some years ago, I heard John Fontanella, author of The Physics of Basketball, interviewed on NPR and he said something which blew my mind. So I picked up the phone and called him. “Professor, I heard you say you shoot with your middle and ring finger leaving the ball last,” I said. “Did I hear you correctly?” “Yes,” he answered. “That is correct.” “But I was taught to shoot with my index finger being the last finger to leave the ball. I wasn’t even aware you could shoot that way.” “Well, I started shooting that way back in college,” he answered. “During my freshman year, I hurt my index finger and I experimented a bit and found I could shoot better releasing off my middle and ring fingers. So that is how I shot from then on.” I paused a moment, digesting his words. Fontanella’s book was groundbreaking and I had a great deal of respect for him. The fact that one year he had led the country with a free-throw average of 92.2% (in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) added credibility as well. Might this be the missing link to the secret of shooting? “Well,” I said. “It is disheartening to think for 49 years; I have been shooting the ball the wrong way.” I will never forget Fontanella’s reply. “It is not the way you were shooting was wrong. It is just shooting that way is not very biomechanically friendly.”
Straight Shooter
Bob Fisher
Lieutenant Jason “Jay” Redman, a Navy SEAL who had been shot seven times and had undergone nearly two dozen surgeries. He had placed a hand-drawn sign on the door to his room at Bethesda Naval Hospital. It read: ATTENTION. To all who enter here. If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere. From: The Management.
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