Returning to 100 Days of Love and Peace and the Biomechanics of the Jump Shot
- zenaedwardsis
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
I was incapacitated by the loss of my Father and withdrew instead of reaching deep into love. I am returning now to a challenge I began in 2023.
The challenge was a daily invitation to write about love, and it was. not. easy!
I am reviving this poem to speak about the work it takes to love in the outside world. Our inner world might be full to the brim with love, looking for somewhere to land, express and be.
I have found this grounding most recently, the last 4 or so years, in loving the earth.
But...
I have love for basketball! I used to play for my school and it was a one day adventure, but it was great. I was the only girl on the team at Highgate Wood, now Performing Arts School in 1985. I was not taken seriously by the other schools team in match game, however my coach believed in me. I practiced my jumpshots from the baseline over and over - I'll let the poem 'Labour of Love do the talking - but I could shoot, and I had "good hands", he'd say, because they were quick to capture a lost or dropped ball.
Labour Of Love
Aching muscles, total body fatigue
Mentally frustrated that the ball does not -
No that the wrist does not –
No that the legs do not –
No that the feet are not aligned correctly so this ball will not.
It was mathematical. Vitruvian man scoping the sacred geometrics
Of kinaesthetic momentum, tension, and release
Calculations of the arc from bounce to eccentric contraction,
to jump shot, conversion of energy from shoulder to wrist – swish…?
My hand eye coordination is not what it used to be
Not the young woman anymore who loved to go to the court
two steel sentinels standing in faceoff in court with thick white ley lines
where a potential power move, could mean win or lose
when there was no one else around
with nothing but the music of the perfect swish in my ears.
This used-to-be-body still has the muscle memory but not the physical energy,
The vitality is mental. The body is heavy not with age… but with responsibility.
The commitments you make to yourself when are young didn’t have the same weight
that they do now. Why does age make you -
they call it gravitas. The weight of knowledge. We each pull a library cart of knowledge behind us.
And we have to be sure to love every piece of that knowledge.
If, however, it is not useful, beautiful or inspires warmth and love. Let. It. Go
Back then, I did not know I was aiming for the sky
Every time I ran up to a basketball ring
Striving for perfect symmetry, for the lay-up that would instigate
A scientific mathematical equation in time and space
To send that ball through the mouth of possibility without touching the sides…Swish.
It took work and lots of repetition.
There’d be days when my aim was just off.
Things were on my mind. Problems that obscured
clarity, not of my physical sight, but my internal vision
for a successful shot.
On court was not the time for those things to have air time. I tried to ring fence serenity.
Was the least I could give myself - a moment
to put down those things that weighed around my neck.
And every time I practised putting them down
I was focused on what I really wanted – which was the whole damn sky!
But on top of that
I was a day closer to not picking them back up again.
I was practising
And practising
And practising letting them go.
The Physics Or The Biomechanics of the Jumpshot
The physics of a jumpshot relies so much more on the biomechanics of the body that holds the ball. I have the longest arms and legs, so my balance and forearm gesture is going to be way different to someone who has a longer body and shorter limbs. However, the physics is the same, isn't it.?
You tell me.
Comment below what you know.
~Z~
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