Transcription
What's up basketball brain fans and members? Today I want to talk about gracefulness. And we're going to be watching, in my opinion, and I think it should be a universally accepted opinion, or maybe a universally accepted fact, that Michael Jordan is the most graceful athlete ever to play basketball, maybe to play any sport. And I would challenge anyone on this. I'm very confident that this is the case.
So the question becomes, what made Michael Jordan so graceful? So as we're watching these highlights, I want to point out some things that I've noticed. When I study graceful athletes, I also watch a lot of ballet. In fact, I went to the ballet and I didn't think I was going to like it, and I did. I loved it. And it's because it reminded me of the way Michael Jordan moved, the way he shot, the way he floated in the air.
So the first thing you notice about graceful athletes is there's a sort of lightness to their being. They're fluid. They're sort of like cats when they land. They land in a smooth way. It's not a hard landing. It's not like Westbrook. It's a gentle deceleration, and it's smooth. It's pleasing to the eye. They also, when they're shooting, it's a mix of quick movements followed by slow movements. You can think of a dance. There's a strong, powerful movement, then there's a slow, gliding movement. It sort of reminds me of some classical music where there's a hard, do you know what I'm talking about? There's a hard movement, and then there's, it's followed by something soft. You see this in a lot of great music where there's an energetic move, and then it slows down right at the end, and then it speeds back up. So that makes gracefulness a mixing of fast, powerful movements with slow, graceful movements.
There's also an element where it seems as if he has plenty of time. There's a nonchalance to it. There are a lot of guys who aren't graceful when they get in the air. It's almost like they start to panic. The clock starts ticking in their head. You don't have to necessarily jump that high to have hang time like that. And gracefulness, you have to be calm in the air. You have to be in control in the air. That adds a feeling of gracefulness. The reason I love the ballet is because when the guys jump, they'll do, you know, four turns. They're doing it smoothly. They're in control. They know where they're at in space. Again, there's a lightness to them. There's a feather. It's almost like he could check the time. There's something. Gracefulness usually requires some floating to it. And also, we can point out that there's even little pauses in the air at times. Maybe not on that shot in particular, but sometimes you jump, you pause. You have complete and perfect balance, even though the body, so to speak, isn't seemingly in perfect balance. But you always know where you are. You're like a cat again. You're feline. You're going to land on your feet. You're going to land softly. That creates a really, really graceful motion. If you know you're going to land well, it's almost like the muscles tense up and then relax. Sometimes when they jump, the feet almost go limp for a second, and that little dangle in the air also creates a, a beautiful thing to look at. It's like you're only using the muscles you need to use, and everything else, while ready to be activated again, are at sort of a rest. You'll see this a lot in Jordan. His feet will kind of dangle a little bit because it's almost as if he's in perfect control of his body, and he'll turn the feet back on when he needs them. You'll see this several times.
Also, notice how the toes point. There's, um, something very beautiful about the toes being involved and pointing down, and then when he lands, they engage softly. You can see there, he kind of points the toes. Ungraceful guys, guys who lack grace, tend to not do that. Their feet tend to stay at right angles when they're in the air, and it looks not pleasing to the eye. Pointing the feet down can add grace to it. There are swooping motions. It's almost like cursive writing in the air. Guys who aren't graceful look more like print, if that makes sense, like hand-printed. Jordan looks more like cursive in the air, if that helps you understand what makes something graceful. It's fluid instead of jerky. There's just this great nonchalance to graceful players because, again, it's like they have a ton of time, and they know they're on balance, and they're going to land, uh, very softly. They're going to decelerate. Sometimes they land like a superhero if they make like a powerful move. You see this a lot on Jordan dunks, which we'll get to in a second. But think about beautiful music. Think about how that feels, and that's how Jordan moves. Everything is more loopy, more swoopy than it is angular.
Now, Kobe was graceful, but Kobe didn't have grace like Jordan because, in my opinion, it was too angular. Kobe was close to Jordan sometimes, but if you slow down Kobe's reverse layups, for instance, and watch him compared to Jordan, it's not the same. It just isn't as smooth. It just doesn't have that fluidity that Jordan has. LeBron, again, is very, he's like a Transformer. He's like a big Transformer that learned to play basketball. Jordan is like a cat, and his nickname was the Black Cat, one of his many nicknames. You can see the floating aspect. There's a hangtime aspect because you're good with the ball. You're not, um, you don't have to be a great ball handler to give the appearance of hangtime, but you have to be able to double pump and move the ball quickly but smoothly. And I think that would be another thing: quickly but smoothly. You move the elbows aren't, aren't at weird angles. They're usually fairly close to the body, which gives a very pleasing line to the eye. Okay, it's not out. You don't go in with your elbows out. Sometimes LeBron goes in for layups and he's kind of got his elbows sticking out. MJ comes in, his elbows stay relatively close. They're still in line with the rest of his body, with his knee, so and so forth. So he has these beautiful lines that you see when he's shooting. He also doesn't look, a lot of the times when he shoots, when he's doing a layup, again, there's a nonchalance. Grace, gracefulness, you're in total control when you're graceful, and you shoot on the way down. You shoot on the way down. A lot of guys can't do that. So it's beautiful to watch someone be able to elevate, come down, and still get their shot off.
Now, another thing is, if you watch the legs and the knees, they're never completely bent. They're still, they're not like at 90-degree angles. They're slightly flexed, and then they may go straight for a second at the climax. The climax, they may go straight. You'll see that very often in Jordan. He's running through the air, and then the legs tend to go straight. It's almost like an exclamation point at the end of the movement. Not always, not always, but you do see this in graceful athletes. Right there, the legs come out, not completely flexed. When he comes down, the legs are together and straight. So it gives you a feeling of action and completion. The legs together is almost like the end of a sentence. The legs apart are the action, and then you, the legs come together as you land, and it feels complete. There's a completion. It gives you an emotional closure. It, it like gives you a closure to the play. See how they kind of straighten out there right at the end? Not every time, again, not every time, but you sort of notice this with Jordan, straightened out, even though they were spread. You can see the legs straight.
So to recap: if you act like you have time in the air, start to point your toes, keep your elbows in, when you land, land very smoothly, decelerate, learn to move the ball in the air, and you'll start to look more graceful. And all you have to do is go film yourself. Try to emulate Jordan's moves. Notice how if you're on a small hoop and dunking, or if you can dunk on a 10-foot hoop, notice how he comes off the, off the hoop and lets himself drop, lands like a cat. If you do those things, film yourself, and then with a very critical eye, compare yourself to Jordan and see if you can start to look like him. See if you can start to move like it. Notice how he comes in low, raises up smoothly but powerfully, comes down with a lot of grace, isn't stopping off like Westbrook or LeBron, for that matter. When he does a reverse layup, he hangs in the air. He's not in a rush. You'll start to look graceful. Guys can start to look, even guys you don't think can look graceful, can start to look graceful. Landing with your feet together sometimes helps. Having a little bounce after you finish is smooth. It's all about smoothness, anyways. Jordan's the most graceful athlete I've ever seen, and it's because he does those things. Now, he did them naturally. It was just part of his personality. He was smooth. Well, adopt in your personality, sort of a smooth mindset when you're in the air. Be smooth. Don't be clunky. Don't be jerky. Don't be in a panic. Look at how softly he lands. Start landing soft. Be cool. It's okay to be cool when you're in the air. You still want to be effective, but Jordan is cool. Gracefulness is like a smooth dancer.
All right, hope you guys liked it. Just me rambling about gracefulness. Didn't have any really written down, but I've noticed these things over the years, and it's finally good to talk it out, think it out. Bye.