The Pivot
I was doing the silliest thing when I had the most profound realization.
I was playing basketball. Well, “playing” is a bit of a stretch. Two weeks ago I was at SPIRE Institute and Academy in Geneva, Ohio for the week. I’m one of their international track and field ambassadors and I needed to film a lot of content and programming before the year came to an end.
The schedule was packed with videos. I filmed a How To series called “Track Class,” and a video about Starting Blocks that features me using a swimmer’s block and learning to dive. I was coached by Olympian Elizabeth Beisel. One of the last videos I shot that week was about the penultimate step and takeoffs.
We shot that video on the basketball court.
Back when I was at the University of Tennessee my jumps coach Charlie Simpkins and I would often take a detour en route to the track and meet on the intramural basketball courts. There we shot layups and attempted dunks taking off from the free throw line. From what I remember of that time it was an effective and fun way to have jumps practice.
Fast forward to last week and, uh…well. First I got BOTH of my ankles taped. It would be on brand for both my luck and the year 2020 to have something happen to my ankles. Again.
Anyway one of the SPIRE ballers taught me how to shoot layups. We learned that I’m actually wired all wrong. The entire gym would yell at me when I’d go up for the layup taking off my left leg while shooting with my left.
“Oh, you’re left handed!?” They’d ask in turn.
“And you jump off your left leg?” They asked, confused.
“I never said I wasn’t weird.” Was the response I gave them each time, smiling while awkwardly handling the ball flashing back to my middle and high school days when I’d live for the fast breaks but turnover the ball because I outran the dribble.
I shoot a few layups for the video, and we discuss the similarities between taking off for layups and dunks, and for the long jump.
Naturally, in a gym on the same court the Cavs won their championship on we all think we can play. Now, with filming wrapped we’ve all got a ball and each of us take turns shooting jump shots from the elbow, three pointers, half court shots, trick shots. Balls go wide, bounce wildly off the back board. We duck out of the way of basketballs ricocheting like dodgeballs, we dribble on, and suddenly I find myself in a one-on-one game with Chuck.
Chuck, who had the nerve to actually attempt to coach me to better layups during the shoot.
“What is this? Love and Basketball or some shit?” I say to him as he assumed a defensive stance.
I attempt a weak crossover, I get by him because he lets me. I take a shot, the ball bouncing off the rim and right into Chuck’s hands. He dribbles the ball back to the 3 point line, checks it and begins to drive toward the basket.
The one thing I am good at is defense. And so here I am all 5’5 inches of me “guarding” 6’3 bestie as if he can’t just turn and shoot over me whenever he feels like it.
He turns and shoots. He makes it. I take the ball, check it and dribble three times before I realize I can’t get past him. I make the worst decision ever…
I pick up my dribble.
Now all that’s left for me to do is to pivot like my life depends on it and hope I get enough of an opening to fire off a shot. Since I’m so close to the 3 point line my only hope is that I don’t airball the shot. I need to hit the rim or the backboard or something to give myself a shot at beating him to the rebound.
I’m pivoting. My right foot is planted firmly on the court as my left works backward and forward trying to create space.
Oh my god. I said. Dropping the ball and turning it over, while staring down at my right foot.
YOU CAN ONLY PIVOT IF ONE FOOT IS FIRMLY PLANTED. I say in Chuck’s direction who looks at me like, “yea, duh those are the rules.”
A missing puzzle piece slid into place as I’ve spent most of this year- like most of us- trying to make sense of what was lost, what we’re doing now, and what we can do next.
I’ve been hearing all year about pivoting, hell even I’ve been talking about pivoting.
BUT IT’S NOT A PIVOT IF ONE FOOT ISN’T FIRMLY PLANTED.
Listen, a lot has (and hasn’t) gone down this year. My entire five year plan was completely upended by THIS one year.
A lot of my faith, hope, and optimism seeped slowly from my soul as my spirits- once high, grew burdened by uncertainty.
I had to find a way though. Right? Isn’t that what I’m “known” for? Finding a way? After all I’m still here after winning world championship titles at 19 and 20 years old. Then “disappearing” for six years, then reemerging as a sprinter. Then returning to the long jump, and all the off-the-track stuff.
I’m still here.
And yet even I can recognize when a situation isn’t sustainable. And so I knew it was time to pivot.
And a lot of us were in this situation…a lot of us were trying to figure out what new thing we could do to carry us through.
I realized that day on the basketball court that any direction I could pivot to comes from the place where I’m rooted. Like my right foot, there is no direction I could move in that involved uprooting that foot. None.
They talk about something like this in yoga all the time, that part of you that lies deep down. So deep in the heart that it is like a candle in a cavern with no breeze. The flame burns unmoved, uninfluenced, unchanging. It’s YOU. The you that just is. No matter what type of hell is breaking loose around you.
That candle, is like the pivot foot.
If you’re trying to find a new way, a new path, to achieve your goals I ask you to look at your feet and make sure that one of them is grounded.
Obviously I don’t mean this literally…but don’t try to change directions without grounding yourself first. Without knowing who you are, what you are trying to accomplish. And once you do, root down into that.
And then pivot.
Successful pivots are the ones that still honor who YOU are at your core. So as much as 2020 has demanded us to adapt, sacrifice, and adjust there’s one thing you should never move
Your pivot foot.