From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Thu Jun 24 2004 - 12:42:00 BST
Hi Mark H,
I enjoyed reading this, thank you very much.
It has been estimated that over a 5 hour golf day the club and ball are in
contact for 14 seconds. That contact was the beginning of an enquiry, which lead
to the realisation that the contact time is part of a far larger process -
the process to which you refer in your post.
Unless i am mistaken, the skater's example in the Edge of Chaos describes a
sweet spot that traverses an entire performance. In golfing terms, the sweet
spot is held as the player walks between respective shots, and this is not
easily perceived by spectators unless one is attentive to facial expression or the
manner of a player's walk, etc. The golfers life is a lonely one! But then, if
he/she walks beside DQ, i suppose it's far from lonely?
Thanks again Mark. I feel you understand.
All the best,
Mark M
Hi Mark,
Thanks for still more examples of the sweet spot. But, so far, all
the sports examples you've given touch the sweetness for a fraction
of a second, the perfect tee shot, the unbeatable volley.
A long time ago, in Shakespeare's dark backward and abysm of time, I
was an OK handball player, indoor, six planar surfaces, a tiny, hard
black rubber ball slightly bigger than a golf ball, thin gloves more
for keeping sweat off the ball than for protection. There were times
when the sweet spot became the sweet several seconds, maybe longer.
It started by moving your opponent, shot after shot, a little more
out of position, till his returns were only defensive and therefore
just barely creative, till finally your fist shot to the ceiling,
front wall, floor, resulted in a fast retreat, a clumsy left hand
direct to to the front then straight to the back, pretty and fat as a
cantaloupe, and you were there, waiting. You dropped to one knee as
the back wall bounce fell to an inch from the floor to be met by a
blindingly fast and powerful sweep of your arm and palm, and barely
perceptible twitch of the hips, sending the ball at 90+ mph, one
perfect inch above the floor, the full distance to the front wall.
Then came the sweet smack, the flat rollout, the no chance of return.
So, the sweetness started several seconds before the final perfect
finish, and lasted a few seconds after. It may be that our sweet
spot is fatter than we think! Anyway, I like to think so.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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