We all do karate in our house. Watching Bruce Lee’s jaw-dropping balance is so pleasurable, but so instructive. His aggression from a back stance is incredible. I’ve changed my fighting accordingly, aspiring to Lee, but only as one aspires to play like a footballer they admire.
A message for our club? When you’re having a tough time, keep going - you’re stronger than you think. It may be my imagination, but I'm sure the kids cheering this little boy on are chanting "Deeney, Deeney, Deeney"...
He fights in back stance a lot, and is very aggressive with it. But it’s his balance. It reminds me of George Best’s answer as to what makes a footballer ‘great’ - his single word answer was “Balance”. That struck me at the time, and when you look at the great footballers, ballet dancers (any type I suppose, Astaire is a great example), boxers, any sportsperson, it’s their proprioception, their ability to read that and then control the different types of balance, the extent of their ability to use their body to stabilise their centre of gravity, that marks them apart. If you watch a great footballer dribbling in ultra-slow motion, the ‘lines’ of their body and how they use them to alter their balance, is like looking at a work of art. Lee’s control of his balance makes some of his moves look almost inhuman. Like how a ballet dancer seems to literally defy gravity when they jump. Or Heidar Helguson, for that matter.
I was talking to a coach the other day about how an old football annual of mine from the 70s has one of those boxes of standard questions (Favourite Ground, Toughest Opponent, Favourite Food etc) to accompany the pictures of crouching with a ball, thick-maned, then-youngsters now-pensioners, and one of the standard questions is “Do you smoke?” More than one answers ‘yes’. The coach, an ex-player who is in his late fifties, said it was common to smoke when injured to keep the weight off!