Creativity and Sports

Editor's Notes

• #3 Image Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/189643834279608022/ Key Talking Points: Fell down months before training for Beijing Olympics, broke his wrist. Was disgruntled for a while but picked himself up and trained with the board and just splashing his legs vigorously. That built his leg, calf muscles. Fast forward, Aug 2008. Having won 6 golds already and chasing 8, he was given a tough fight in 100m butterfly by Milorad Cavic of Serbia. Phelps eventually won by 1/100th of a second. Experts analyzed last 5 mt and found out while Milorad looked dragging himself of exhaustion, Phelps could give last thrurst though his legs. Those extra splashes during his injury days seem to have given him the edge.
• #4 Key Talking Points: Thinking Devil’s advocate Creativity is often associated with less physical forms such as art or drawing or software development. Right ? Sports- heavily physical. Does it exhibit enough room for individuals to be creative ? Secondly, All Sports are based on certain rules to be followed. Without rules, no sports would exist. Traditionally, it is said that Following Rules and Exhibiting Creativity are almost polls apart. How, then the sports people exhibit creativity ? Is it easy for Sports people to follow ideas ? As we noticed in the last example I shared, Phelps positive attitude eventually led him to be creative in continuing to train where lesser-mortals would have chosen to just rest and whine. There is a certain intersection of Sports and Creativity. Exhibiting Creativity in Sports is difficult if not impossible because letting your body follow the creative thoughts are a tad tougher than letting your mind follow creative input. As we will see today, Sportsperson are certainly not non-creatives. Every definition of creativity that I came across…
• #6 Source: Valeri Brumel (1964) http://masterstrack.com/bud-smith-who-o/ Key Talking Points: Three different styles that have primarily defined the sport of Long jump- Scissors style Western roll (also straddle style) The Flop This is Valeri Brumel, Gold Medalist of 1964 Olympics. He leveraged Straddle style, also known as Western roll.
• #7 Source: https://www.britannica.com/sports/Fosbury-flop Key Talking points: Dick Fosbury came in 1968 Olympic and took the High jump world by storm with his new technique at display. This came to be know as “Flop” technique and eventually on his name- “Fosbury Flop” In this, he came running- jumped on his left leg with momentum and attempted to cross the bar with his back facing ground. He literally turned the traditional straddle technique upside down and won a Gold. In his early days upon being challenged by coach to improve jump height, he seem to have come up with this technique- it helped him gain six inches of height. - Like what happens with all revolutionary ideas, his coach initially dismissed it as- “Shortcut to mediocrity” - Like all good ideas, it eventually became a case of wondering- “why no one ever thought about it before”
• #8 Source: http://makeagif.com/z5X8WA
• #9 Source: https://www.thestar.com/sports/olympics/2016/08/11/canada-primed-for-success-as-track-and-field-events-begin-in-rio-dimanno.html Key talking points: - Such was the impact of Fosbury Flop on the sport of high jump that- with the exception of 1972 Olympics- from 1968 to 2016 each of the medalists have used this technique.
• #10 Source: http://dazzleships.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/14/high_jump_records_4.jpg
• #11 Source: https://twitter.com/pele/status/376023749591441408 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_kick Key Talking Points: Pele wasn’t the inventor of bicycle kick as it existed before him but he was able to execute it to such perfection that it came to be known on his name. In a match between, Brazil and Belgium- it took the goalkeeper by complete surprise and this picture became immortalized.
• #12 Source: http://www.sportskeeda.com/slideshow/5-innovative-cricket-shots-and-their-history http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/986375.html Key Talking Points: Maheja Jayewardene says- Dilshan was practicing the normal scoop but couldn’t get it right. Because he was a bottom handed player and didn’t have much flexibility in moving to execute the shot. So he decided to stay still and try. After a lot of practice and even getting hit on the head, he got it. Now, also executes variations of that shot.
• #13 http://makeagif.com/02p2Ih
• #15 Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/83201597/Rio-Olympics-Gymnast-attempts-vault-of-death-and-it-doesn-t-go-well Key Talking Points: - Produnova Vault, also called as “Vault of Death,” which consists of hurling oneself into the air, flipping into two-and-a-half somersaults, and landing on your feet. - The namesake of the Produnova was Yelena Produnova, a Russian who debuted the technique in 1999. It never got her the gold, but it sure got her a ton of attention. 
• #16 Source: https://www.inverse.com/article/19706-2016-rio-olympics-vault-of-death-produnova-dipa-karmakar-oksana-chusovitina RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - AUGUST 14: Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan falls while competing in the Women's Vault Final on Day 9 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Rio Olympic Arena on August 14, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) Key Talking Points: - The move is so difficult that attempting it can increase the judge’s base scores, but failure could literally mean death. - one wrong move and the gymnast’s neck can crack, her head can split open, and she can become paralyzed. - In other words, it takes guts to do the Produnova. - When the New Yorker asked gold-medal Olympian Simone Biles why she doesn’t try the Produnova, she replied, “I’m not trying to die.” - Perhaps the greatest challenge of the Produnova is getting enough height. As Lauren Hopkins of SB Nation notes, a gymnast only has about two seconds to rotate her body two times after her hands leave the vault. Without the right height and rotational speed, the gymnast won’t get enough time to rotate fully — which could lead to a disastrous landing. 
• #17 Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-vault-that-is-too-wild-for-simone-biles-1470539776 Key Talking Points: - Dipa Karmakar from India was able to use her imagination and put her body behind the thought of executing Produnova and was able to execute with perfection.
• #19 Source: https://socialfeed.info/we-are-only-limited-by-our-imagination-3586288
• #21 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZaSKLsUCZE Key Talking Points: In Tennis, every player is given 2 chances at service i.e. tossing the ball up in the air and dispatching it to opponent. Knowing that they have 2 chances, usually the tennis players take high risk in their first serve and serve it as fast as possible. If first serve turns out to be fault, which it often does- the tennis player has no chance but to ensure that the second serve is accurate and in doing so, it is usually slower than the first serve. Federer realized this second serve vulnerability and invented a new way of attacking the second serve, which came to be know as SABR- Sneak attack by Roger. SABR basically involves Federer advancing to his opponent’s second serve to hit a half-volley right on the edge of the service box before rushing the net. An extraordinarily difficult shot, involving a high degree of risk, like all good ideas, wasn’t universally well received. Key learnings: Age is no bar to exhibit creativity. Federer, in a fag end of his career, invented a new way of playing. Don’t stop when your idea got mocked at first. Every good idea ever was. Tennis’s equivalent of Kevin Pietersen’s switch hit- Risky and Spectacular.
• #22 Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/3kncqd/amazing_gif_of_the_sabr/
• #23 Your best chance to innovate! Where different fields meet. Break down barriers between fields. The key difference between fields and an intersection of fields lies in how concepts within them are combined. If you operate within a field, you primarily are able to combine concepts within that particular field, generating ideas that evolve along a particular direction- what I call directional ideas. When you step into the Intersection, you can combine concepts between multiple fields, generating ideas that leap in new directions- what I call intersectional ideas. Stepping into the Intersection does not simply mean combining two different concepts into a new idea...Intersection represents a place that drastically increases the chances for unusual combinations to occur. http://www.leemunroe.com/steve-jobs-calligraphy/ “I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to [learn calligraphy]. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful. Historical. Artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture. And I found it fascinating. None of this had any hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would never have multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.” Steve Jobs had low associative barriers. He had an ability to easily connect different concepts across fields.
• #24 Source: https://www.quora.com/Who-is-more-innovative-batsman-Sachin-or-ABDevilliers https://www.pinterest.com/pin/448952656584240781/ Key Talking Points: He brings his own style to the crease. His shots are not taught by coaches, and cannot be taught, for that matter. A B de Villiers has learnt the rules of cricket batting, and knows when to break them. This is what gives us an unconventional, innovative and unorthodox batsman.
• #25 Source: http://chennaionline.com/City360/People/20151721041706/Facts-about-AB-DeVilliers-Thatll-Make-Your-Hair-Stand-on-End.col
• #26 Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/ajinkya-rahne-the-monk-with-blackbelt-shows-his-steel-2952545/ Source: https://twitter.com/ajinkya_world/status/558901522033934338 Key Talking Points: “I was the youngest in the judo class” he says and that meant he had to make a statement with his actions, “not with my words”! For his exam, he had to break fifty bricks and had fifty men jump on his stomach (one at a time obviously!). “It made me tough” he says and he learnt to show his aggression with his deeds. It is an approach that will appeal to his new coach! 
• #27  Individuals perform better with well-understood problems- - Well-understood problems=> individuals do better - Not well-understood problems= team are better Groups bring together knowledge and skills not possessed by any individual member of the group. Groups are more effective than individuals in eliminating errors and avoiding mistakes.
• #28 Source: https://en.chessbase.com/post/support-teams-in-che-all-the-king-s-men/17 Source: https://en.chessbase.com/post/a-dose-of-anand-what-vishy-can-teach-you Key Talking Points: 1. Vishwanathan Anand is said to have redefined the way the coaching and preparations are done for the Chess. Some interesting observations from this article. 2. Anand was definitely one of the first players to understand the importance of IT in chess, and employed computers in his preparations to become a World Champion. Currently, majority of young players have a whole team working behind the curtains when they're preparing for a big match. Not having a team is now considered an irregularity, but when Anand did it, it was a novelty. 3. This case could be related to Coaching innovations that led to great results. Something most employees in a traditional IT (or otherwise) organizations miss to consider. Most people do not actively “seek” help and expect the help to be served on their work desks without making an effort to ask but Anand’s case and his willingness to reach out (and yet be successful) proves this theory wrong. 4. His "A-Team" came together in 2007-08 and the lineup has been unchanged since. 5. It is also an eclectic mix of nationalities ranging from Uzbeks to Poles. The support staff, the computer specialists, the logistic organisers are also handpicked, headed by Anand's manager in Europe, Hans-Walter Schmitt.
• #32 Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/idea-mentorship-become-obsolete-time-anuj-magazine?trk=prof-post Image Source: http://www.tubefilter.com/2015/08/26/julius-yego-youtube-javelin-throw/ Key Talking Points: YouTube man First Kenyan man to win Athletics Gold in World Championship, 2015. Rio Olympics Silver
• #33  Key Talking Points: 1. Bekoji: long-distance runners who’ve won 16 Olympic medals in 20 years. 17000 population 2. Texas: Rio - Gold Medals: US 46, GB 27, China/Texas 26 Even if you factor in the lesser medals, Texas would finish tied for fifth (with Germany, at 42 total medals each) in the country medal count by itself. 3. Sansarpur: 14 Olympic Hockey players from a total population of 4000 odd. 7 Hockey player in 1968 Olympics. 4. Gopichand: 12% of India’s medals (other than Hockey from this academy) These places managed to Institutionalize innovation and sports. Made use of local advantages (Bekoji- Oxygen Transporting ability, Iron rich food, terrains) , had an legendary coach association (Subedar Thakur Singh-Sansarpur, Sentayehu Eshetu- Bekoji, Gopichand) in fueling the passion of the people in the areas to produce extraordinary results. These places/coaches also used extraordinary training methods- non-negotiable on discipline (football cross training, strict schedules, no mobiles) Early Ambition: Sansarpur: For a village that houses not more than 5,000 inhabitants, having so many hockey players rising through the ranks together from their childhood and going on to representing their state Punjab and then India at the highest platform in the world, is no mean feat. Burning Passion: Sansarpur: Lacking the basic facilities required for practising the game, the youngsters had to make do with sticks prepared out of mulberry tree branches while the balls used were woven from cotton threads. Why Runners from Bekoji ? OXYGEN TRANSPORTING CAPABILITY - The center of Bekoji sits at an altitude of 10,500 feet above sea level and has an average temperature of 66 degrees. "Athletes from this region and other high-altitude parts of Ethiopia are equipped with hemoglobin that has extraordinary levels of oxygen-transporting capability," RICH IN IRON DIET - "Hemoglobin is largely iron-dependent for its normal functioning, and grain staples like teff are excellent sources of iron," confirms Dr. Kostre. Apart from teff, locals regularly eat wheat, barley and sorghum, which provide strength in addition to being excellent sources of iron. MENTAL TOUGHNESS - "The majority of Ethiopian runners will continue to come from the rural parts of the country," adds Dr. Kostre. "They have the toughness that many runners from the city do not have." - That said, lifestyles of children in this rural region are much different than that of westerners or city dwellers. The majority of Bekojians are farmers, and one of the lessons in life they pass to their children is the art of plowing the land. There are no machines, tractors, graders, or loaders here and all the farm work has to be done manually. Spending your day on the farm is really no fun for a child, but it does make you tough. RUGGED TRAINING - Eshetu’s definition of hard work includes training at least three times a week on one of the most punishing hills you will ever see: "The Wenz." It consists of a double hill, each about 50 feet high, divided by a narrow strip of water. For their cross country workouts, the runners run up and down the hill and jump from one elevation to the next. Typically, they do these repeats 40 or 50 times a day—clearly not for the faint-hearted. - This constitutes only the first half of their weekly training routine, however. The remainder of the week is spent in the Bekoji soccer and track stadium. Here, coaches teach them how to run laps and basic racing tactics. "At the Wenz, they develop the strength in their bodies," Eshetu says. "But at the stadium, we teach them to think like a runner." http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/27/sport/bekoji-ethiopia-running/ COACH's WORDS - Sentayehu Eshetu, the legendary coach who has so far trained four of Bekoji's Olympic gold winners, says that a winning mix of thin air, lean diet and different terrains has helped the town's rich crop of runners stand out in recent years. TERRAIN: - "Our training fields are very conducive for athletics," says Eshetu, 56, who is known in Bekoji simply as "Coach." "We have downhill, flat land, all of these here in Bekoji. The food they eat also has an impact, the weather has an impact, the combination of these makes the kids successful." COACH: - And if there's anyone who should know about success, that's Eshetu. For some 25 years he has been discovering and nurturing the talents of some the finest runners in Ethiopia -- a global powerhouse in long-distance running, with 35 Olympic medals in the last 20 years. MEDAL WINNERS: - Apart from Dibaba and Bekele, Eshetu has also trained Derartu Tulu, a two-time Olympic champion, Tiki Gelana, the marathon winner at the 2012 London Olympics, Tirfi Tsegaye, winner of the recent 2013 Dubai Marathon, and many others. STRINGENT SELECTION: - "When I recruit athletes, I look at those who have a desire to put in the work," says Eshetu. "I look at their shape. Kids who are too short won't have good results. Those who are tall walk upright and those who complete their training with passion, I recruit them. STRONG DESIRE FOR DUTY: Driven by a strong sense of duty and a strong desire to produce successful athletes, Eshetu shows no signs of stopping. Instead, he's always keeping an eye out for the next rising star to come out of Bekoji's rich crop. Gopichand Academy http://www.firstpost.com/sports/the-rhythm-of-champions-a-day-at-the-pullela-gopichand-academy-1199827.html UNCONVENTIONAL TRAINING: - So why does a badminton academy need a football pitch you wonder? Training for badminton but using football, Sunil Gavaskar would have a few sleepless nights. "When I need them to go out and run, football it is," says Gopichand. "We move quickly in badminton but sometimes it's good to go out and just run." - Sai Praneeth (world No 40) is talking about the amount of protein he consumes and how Gopichand ensures the level of fitness – mental and physical by mixing up routines. One routine involves ‘if you don’t want to run, go play football’ and it also involves taking the whole academy out to dinner after a good performance. http://www.newslaundry.com/2016/08/18/how-pullela-gopichand-has-made-a-champion-out-of-pv-sindhu/ - “Producing champions is not a part-time business. There are some constants that you need to follow to excel at the international level,” said Gopi. PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT: - The last three months Gopichand was totally off carbohydrates. India’s badminton coach since 2006 has been a fitness freak but this time, he wasn’t doing it for himself. He wanted to stay super fit so that he could be an effective sparring partner to PV Sindhu and Kidambi Srikanth, his two wards who were representing India at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. SUPPORT STAFF: - Meticulous to a fault, ‘Gopi’ — as Gopichand is known — started planning for Rio a good year in advance. A weight trainer and physical fitness expert were given the specific task of working on Sindhu. The aim was to build her stamina and strength so that she could last more than an hour on court and engage in long rallies to tire out opponents in tight games. The matches against Tai Tzu Ying, one of the fittest players on the badminton circuit today, and Wang Yihan showed why that support staff was so critical. PERSONALIZED TRAINING: - So elite or not – Gopichand checks everything here personally. He knows what you’re eating, where you’re going and has a checklist in his head as a training schedule. So is the schedule written down? "It's all in my head, why do I need to write it down," Gopichand taps his head while saying the last few words. (No phone for Saina
• #34 Source: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-tennis-court-is-a-laboratory-for-innovation/