Name: How Critical Thinking Can Change the Game
Uploaded: 2021-02-10T23:45:12.000Z
Duration: 2 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

the year is 1968 where at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, Dick Fosbury has just made a record breaking high jump, winning the gold medal and completely changing how future athletes approach the high jump.

But let's rewind and see how critical thinking played a part in getting Fosbury here.

For years, high jumpers used a variety of techniques, all of which allowed for the jumper tow land on their feet.

After clearing the bar, athletes assumed that these were the most optimal methods.

But in high school, Fosbury tried them and found himself getting below average results.

So he asked himself, Mm, how else could I jump over this bar?

Instead of accepting the norm, he began experimenting and came up with a new and different jumping method.

He would jump and rotate in the air so that he went over the bar headfirst on his back.

At the time, he was laughed at and criticized for this new method.

It looked pretty silly and was so different from the typical methods.

But it worked due to some unexpected benefits.

It lowered Fosbury center of gravity, actually placing it below the bar, even though he himself was jumping over it.

This allowed him to use less energy while increasing his height, and by leaping backwards, he was reducing his chances of knocking the bar off with his arms and legs.

Using this technique, Fosbury was jumping higher than anyone else on his high school track team.

He continued to hone this method in college and moved on to qualify for the Olympics.

Back in 1968 with Fosbury winning the Olympic gold medal, he took a problem not being able to jump particularly high and used critical thinking to come up with a solution, a new way of jumping that greatly improved his results to this day.

Almost every high jumper uses this method, now known as the Fosbury flop.

 And so it just goes to show how critical thinking can both raise the bar and change the game. 