24 | be water

I am about 75 pages into the newest @Sarah Kendzior read (i.e., THE LAST AMERICAN ROAD TRIP), which has me thinking about water.

Quick Aside: If you want to know how we got here (i.e., Trumpmerica), check out Kendzior’s previous 3 books and/or subscribe to her Substack. Kendzior’s writing is wonderful and terrifying, which makes it the literary equivalent of parenting in my book! She is an expert on autocracy, and has had her finger on the domestic pulse for over a decade. She is also a great author to highlight in this particular publication because, in my opinion, her ability to turn phrases is on par with the best lyricists. In fact, one legendary songwriter wants you to read her work, so you don’t just have to take my word on this!

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, so when Kendzior, a St. Louis-based author, references the Mississippi River, I relate. Additionally, my father, who was a high school physical education teacher, spent his summers as a tour guide in the city. I grew up hearing the history of St. Louis and visiting a lot of the places that Kendzior references in her writing. Like Kendzior, I have had Mark Twain-inspired daydreams about traveling by raft down the Mississippi. And when she references the power of the river, I can remember times when that was made clear. I was 13 when it flooded with such force that it convinced an entire town to relocate to higher ground. Water - whether flowing down the Mississippi or rocketing from a broken line to my refrigerator - makes its power known on its terms.

But what would it mean to switch places with water? Bruce Lee famously explored that possibility with his be water philosophy, which I must say is my favorite way to conceptualize the mental side of sport.

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend

Water finds a way. It adapts to its conditions. Couple that with its role in renewal or regeneration, and it is hard to think of a more powerful mental game metaphor. And it doesn’t even have to exist solely as metaphor. For example, the auditory experience of listening to water or visual experience of watching it can be calming. I also love using water to stick the landing on a common sensory-based grounding technique that can help athletes get present when their minds are traveling to places that are not beneficial.

Grounding Through the Senses

• Name 5 things you see

• Name 4 things you hear

• Name 3 things you can feel

• Name 2 things you can smell

• Now take 1 drink of water and try to feel it travel all the way into your stomach

It seems that water proves to be adaptable in both its nature and as a teaching tool, and I recognize that this post is only hinting at all the directions you could take the exercise. So rather than continue, I will end with a question: Where does your mind go on the topic of water and performance if you let it ‘be water’ to do so?

Shawn Myszka, Tyler Yearby, and Keith Davids. 2024. Being water: how key ideas from the practice of Bruce Lee align with contemporary theorizing in movement skill acquisition. Sport, Education and Society, 29(4), 451-467.

I am switching it up for this issue and highlighting (more than summarizing) a peer-reviewed piece that is conceptual rather than experimental. In this 2024 effort, the authors argue that Bruce Lee’s philosophies connect nicely to modern ideas about skill acquisition. If you are into creativity, Bruce Lee, or motor learning, it is definitely worth a read. In short, the authors identify six ways that Lee’s principles of Jeet June Do relate to modern ideas about how movement skills are learned. Check it out if the table below gets you excited! And if you can’t get your hands on the full text, shoot me a message.

potential translations to sport: The key takeaway from this article is its emphasis on adaptation over technique. Technique means nothing outside of the context in which it exists. In other words, technique emerges to meet the demands of a specific movement problem at a specific moment in time. Will it look perfectly repeatable to the naked eye? It may. But the truth is that skilled performance is much more variable than we often admit. To be most effective, training needs to prepare performers for the variability that will occur in whatever context they hope to use the skill. Bruce Lee’s approach accomplished that, and had the added bonus of speaking to individuality and self-expression. Given that athletes are human first and foremost, this doesn’t feel like a small benefit of Lee’s methods!

With the 37th pick in the 2025 Major League Baseball Draft, the Baltimore Orioles selected Lil Slayyy, a music producer and musical artist who goes by the name of Slater de Brun in real life. In an interview prior to the draft, de Brun talked about how making music has carried over to his baseball career:

The first time they ever played my music over the school speakers, I was nervous, I didn't like hearing my voice like that. But it just took experience. And that's the same thing with failure in baseball. The more you fail, the easier it gets. And then, you suddenly start not to care in a good way. You kind of get over the failure faster.

de Brun started by producing beats, but soon realized that he also loved singing. He gravitates toward country, so check out his catalog if you are curious what type of country music an artist named Lil Slayyy would create!

I will stick to the Mississippi River for the lyrical spotlight and grab something from the broadway musical Big River, which is based on the 1884 Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I grew up in a household that appreciated musical theater (and our fellow Missourian Samuel Clemens), so the Roger Miller-penned original Broadway cast recording for this one frequently found its way out of the living room speakers of my childhood home.

Maybe lay and let your feelings
Grow accustomed to the dark
And by morning's light
You just might solve the problems of the heart

LEAVIN’S NOT THE ONLY WAY TO GO

Miller comes through with a more lyrical way of telling us to ‘sleep on it.’ I had never heard Miller’s recording of the track prior to putting this together, so I will drop that below for those who may be interested. The Broadway version is linked above.

If you are looking to expand your music-related subscriptions, check out The Music Directory from Shanté. Shanté has taken on a colossal effort to produce “a living document that gives us all more awareness of Substack music writers, musicians, curators, historians, and everyone in between.” Check it out if you want to discover more but perhaps need some guidance. I met Shanté through Nielly, who I featured in this spot back in issue 20. Do yourself a favor and check out both of their efforts!

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I went with water-related songs for this one, and took the theme as a license to explore any song with a connection to rain, rivers, oceans, water, or tears. Check out the playlist below.