I am watching basketball on the TV screen, and trying
only to watch basketball, not the latest reports
on what might have happened to the Boeing 777
that vanished into thin air. The man next to me asks,
So you're starting to like basketball. Then he adds,
It's almost like ballet. You think?
Nope, I say. But I'd love to watch a real ballet
while I'm working out. Wouldn't you? He grunts.
That would be like watching the grass grow.
You mean like watching basketball? I ask.
I think how often I've heard men compare football or baseball
or boxing to ballet, as if that's a reason to appreciate it.
So why can't we just watch ballet?
The real teachers and coaches may offer a charismatic model—they probably
have to—but then they insist that all the magic they have to offer is a
commitment to repetition and perseverance. The great oracles may enthrall,
but the really great teachers demystify. They make particle physics into a
series of diagrams that anyone can follow, football into a series of steps
that anyone can master, and art into a series of slides that anyone can
see. A guru gives us himself and then his system; a teacher gives us his
subject, and then ourselves.
-
David Remnick, The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from The New Yorker
53 minutes ago
1 comment:
I like to compare football and baseball and boxing to poetry.
That doesn't convince anybody very often either...
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