The Fosbury Flop

In high school, Dick Fosbury began to experiment with different types of high jump techniques over the bar.

The conventional style at the time was to use a straddle method, where you get one leg over the bar followed by the other.

Eventually, with the introduction of foam pads (instead of sand, sawdust or wood chips), Fosbury started using the unorthodox method of jumping over the bar backwards, headfirst and finishing by kicking his legs in the air.

The Fosbury Flop got its name when reporters grabbed a picture of him jumping over the bar and captioned it as “Fosbury Flops Over the Bar.” His flop later gave him the label “the world’s laziest high jumper.”

With some promising results though he kept at it. Perfecting the jump in college until he reached the big stage, the 1968 Olympics.

The Fosbury Flop didn’t gain the acceptance from the community until after he took gold. But since that 1968 Olympic run, every gold medalist has used the Fosbury Flop.

Weird? Or just different?

Bending the status quo, the way things are done, is always met with resistance. Our brains are literally trained to find inconsistencies. Which makes it easy to fear what we don’t understand.

Different doesn’t make us weird. Next time someone makes fun of your style, remember different is what changes the world.