Years of riding in one day...

Watching Sean White in the Olympics, I was struck by the layered graphics where they super-imposed his jumps with that of the second-best contender.  He wasn't just getting a bit higher - he was getting almost twice as high as the next best person in the world.  His jumps were more defined.  His last "trick" was one he'd invented and to date is the only person who can accomplish it. 

It would be easy to chalk that up to raw talent - but I got to thinking about the quotes I'd heard by greats like Michael Jordan and others who would point to the hours upon hours of mundane, torturous repetition and practice required to be able to get to the final product we would see on TV.  Sure, some ability doesn't hurt, but many argue that talent is over-rated - discipline and persistence matter as much, if not more.  I think Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers that it was about 10,000 hours of experience or practice that creates the "expert" or the "pro." 

So I did a little searching on the internet to see if I could find anything about the early Sean White that might show he actually had to work to get where he is... And I found this...

Vision, experimental discovery, personal knowledge - there is so much in this video...  Watch and perhaps you will see it too.  Please feel welcome to use the comment section to point out what you got out of it...

Comments

[Rob Wurth]

Ben - the link doesn't appear to be working for the video. Any chance you could fix that - would love to check this out.

RW

[Ben]

Rob - it appears to be working for me from both computer and iPhone - from direct Internet connection (I haven't tried from within an intranet inside a company). You can go to YouTube and search on "Sean White Front Double Cork Practice" and that should bring it up. Let me know if that works.

Are others having trouble viewing?

[Chad Thevenot]

For something very similar, watch the fantastic documentary film "Dogtown & Z-Boys," in which a bunch of kids in California literally reinvent skateboarding in the 1970s by skating like surfers, including skating in empty pools to simulate waves. Their vision? To completely change the skateboarding aesthetic and to have fun.

See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275309/

[Arthur Eby]

The link works for me, I think it's amazing how someone could be so good that they could be 2x better than the next best player and that they could just invent their own trick. Shaun White could basically redefine and revolutionize snowboarding with his new inventions.

[John T. Cooke]

How about one more mental model - creative destruction. Shaun is figuratively and literally destroying what the record books defined as 'the best' and what used to be 'the best' is now required just to make the cut.

[staffaction]

Ben - thanks for the post video! The WSJ today has a piece, "Mavericks with Medals", where they state: "most of the biggest names of the Winter Games have been members of Team USA in name only, mavericks notable for training on their own, often in unconventional ways."

And later: "The USOC must recognize that its goal isn't to churn out merely competent athletes by the dozens, but to identify and nurture a few full-blown geniuses. And geniuses often march to the beat of their own drums...For all their talent and charisma, the heroes of Vancouver are also rugged individualists who reinvented their sports, sometimes clashing with coaches who didn't see things their way. It's not hard to envision an alternate reality in which many of them got fed up with bucking the system and ended up in front of the television, watching less talented but more compliant former teammates finish a respectable 12th."

Three cheers for the Challenge Process and P.E.!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704240004575085513033681950.html?KEYWORDS=mavericks+with+medals

[Rob Wurth]

Working for me now Ben, thanks.