Stations of the Court, part 2: Turn, Turn, Turn
Mock not the ritual!
- Amaunator, Baldur’s Gate 2
I didn’t set out to create a ritual, it just sort of came about. A few year ago, I started shooting hoops as a way to get outside and get some exercise for a body that was getting out of warranty. Some kids taught me a basic shooting drill. It goes like this:
Hold the ball in the low post, facing the basket and shoot it in. If you miss try again.
Move up to the mid-post and do the same.
Then up to the elbow, and do the same…
…and so on, around the horn, until you have made face-up jumpers from all six post positions. I started adding in two free throws to complete the routine.
So, no pressure, no competition, just go out there and make eight baskets. Turns out it was fun. I couldn’t consistently hit any of these shots, so I got a nice aerobic workout chasing my rebounds into the bushes, onto the tennis courts (“sorry!”), under the motor-home. Eventually - after an interval I would be ashamed to ever admit to - I would complete the task, eight made baskets. Then, maybe some layups, or challenge those kids to a pickup game.
As my shooting improved, things started to settle down. The rebounds got more predictable, so I didn’t have to chase them to so many crazy places. I got fitter. I started adding another cycle on to the drill, except this time I’d start with my back to the basket, turn around, and shoot a jump shot.
Every ritual needs a mantra. This became my mine:
There are other legendary turnaround jumpers of course: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Hakeem Olajuwon all made it a big part of their game (Kobe and Hakeem compare notes here). But for Shaun Livingston it was more than a weapon in the arsenal, it was his primary means of survival. Playing on a surgically reconstructed knee, he couldn’t mix it up in the paint every time down the court. He re-built his game on finding empty mid-range space, elevating, and burying the shot. He might not have been the best turnaround jump shooter of all time, but he was undoubtedly its purest exponent in the modern era. Rodger Sherman of The Ringer writes:
Livingston was the master of the midrange. He took 44.5 percent of his shots with Golden State from between 10 and 16 feet. On average, just 9.6 percent of total shots in the 2018-19 season were from that distance. He loved putting his back to a smaller guard and taking a turnaround jumper as if it were uncontested. I don’t feel like checking what Livingston shot on those midrange shots, because I don’t want to ruin my belief that he hit 100 percent of them.
I can make that shot, now. So the ritual grew to three cycles of eight shots: the original drill, going back around spinning to my left, then back around again spinning to my right. As my accuracy got better I added two more eight-shot cycles. On the first I would fake right and then spin left and shoot; on the return trip I’d fake left and spin right. After a year or two of this nonsense I could do the whole five cycles - 40 made jumpers - in about the time it originally took me to make just eight.
I started to think about numerology. I’ve been around Chinese culture so long, I instinctively think in eights. Eight is the best number in Chinese numerology (sounds like “rich”). The more eights on your license plate or in your cell number the better. The Beijing Olympics began at 8:08 pm on 8/8/08. So eight shots per cycle seemed ok. But how many cycles? I was doing five, but that felt sort of wrong. For one thing, five is the Emperor’s number, e.g., the main gate to the Forbidden City has five arches. Not right for me, I’m trying to avoid Imperial entanglements. And besides, I wanted to add something more to the workout.
I decided a man with a jump shot needed some low post moves based off of it, so I added a sixth cycle. Six is a good number for this, it sounds like “slick” or “smooth” in Mandarin, “good fortune” or “happiness” in Cantonese. That’s the kind of low post game I wanted to cultivate.
The sixth cycle starts on the left wing. You bringing the ball up with your right hand, cross over to your left and drive hard to the hoop - two dribbles - then make a layup. Next time, two dribbles again but stop short and up-fake, then spin into a turnaround jumper. On the third one, drive hard to the hoop, up-fake, spin and fake the jumper, wait for the man guarding you to go flying by, then step through for a layup. Try to do this smoothly and quickly, like this:
So to complete the ritual, er, workout, now I must make 48 shots. It used to take me an hour to do it, but as I’ve gotten fitter and more accurate I can complete it in 30 minutes or so. I used to be exhausted at the end of it, but now I feel invigorated. My little heart rate monitor says my heart is healthy for a man my age, I’ll take its word for it.
But is 48 a good number? Should I do more? For a while I tried doubling the number of jumpers on each cycle, but this felt wrong somehow. That would take the cycles from eight to 14 shots, and 14 is supposedly the worst number in Chinese numerology. And, there are 14 Stations of the Cross, a worthy journey but perhaps over-powered for a jump shot ritual. So I went back to eights. And 48, it turns out, isn’t bad. According to Wikipedia:
The prophecies of 48 Jewish prophets and 7 prophetesses were recorded in the Tanakh for posterity.
According to the Mishnah, Torah wisdom is acquired via 48 ways (Pirkei Avoth 6:6).
In Buddhism, Amitabha Buddha had made 48 great vows and promises to provide ultimate salvation to countless beings through countless eons, with benefits said to be available merely by thinking about his name with Nianfo practice.
So 48 seems good. But I still wondered if there might be some correlate in the Christian tradition. I started thinking about the turns. Counting them up, there are no turns in the first cycle, and six in each of the next four, making 24. There are two turnaround jumpers in the Dream Shake set, so two more turns there. And then, two pivots for the fake jumpers before the layups, which makes a total 28. And that is…the same number of turns as the labyrinth at Chartres.
Son of a gun.