but I still love technology

Matt Shirvington hosts 'Beyond Tomorrow' with some other lady, a show modelled on the old 'Beyond 2000' which was highly successful back when I was 6 or 7. A more apt name perhaps for the new version as I suspect some of the new technologies we got a sneak peak at in the late 80's early 90's I suspect were obsolete by the time 2000 came.
Now recall if you were watching the Patriotic coverage of the 2000 olympics in Sydney by channel 7 were when Shirvo dropped out of the 100m sprint heats he talked at length about what a disgrace and dissapointment he was. So strong was his conviction it was quite confronting as he seemed to hold his own expectations so far beyond what was possibly the general publics.
That is to say whilst people may have said 'you never know Matt Shirvington if he can luck out and get through to the finals he may just get lucky and win a medal' whereas Matt seemed to say 'Everyone expects me to win gold'.
Everyone pretty much expects the US to win gold, through Maurice Green or Ato Baldin (Canada I think).
Anyway that was in 2000. Compare Shirvington's spirit to Jordan who threw a ball I'm told at some match from one end of the court to the his basket and it missed. Apparantly some journo asked him 'did you really expect that one to go in?' and MJ responded 'I expect all of them to go in.' I expect some of my shots to go in.
But lately I've been practicing my shooting because for most of the past year I've been using my relative size advantage and position as power forward to collect 'garbage goals' that is other people's genuine attempts on the basket which I've collected on the rebound and put through from a safe distance. Otherwise I used my 'bad habit' which was an underarm two handed shot 'from the hip' which I think is how they refer to it in trick shooting.
I have also been able to pull off the odd skyhook which is a good habit I developed through my inability (or lack of confidence) to cross the court and create scoring opportunities I tend to clumsily back into my defender and then in fair immitation of the skyhook lob it one handed perpendicular to my defender at the basket and unlike Kareem abdul jabar only occasionally get it in.
So currently I've been practicing the conventional 'jump shot' or perhaps just 'shot' would be better as I haven't started jumping yet.
Anyway of all places I learnt the proper method from a manga called 'slam dunk' and the process of shooting is incredibly awkward to me but I figure if I can add conventional shooting to my reputior of awkwardness I may actually become a useful player on the team.
Needless to say what looks good and graceful (the classic jump shot) actually feels incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. The whole process of learning is infact about getting the awkward feel trained into my muscles in what is known as 'muscle memory'.
Had someone explained this to me when I was young I would have stuck at a lot more things I found really uncomfortable and not have ended up with such things as my bizarre pengrip.
But Slam magazine has all sorts of adds in it one of which is an add selling a brace that stops your shooting arm at the perfect angle for release in a diagram labelled -'too little,too much,money!' to demonstrate the product and importance of arm position.
Now I don't own this thing but at any rate I believe questionable 'technological advancements' like this first came in with devices for golf and then later bowling and shit like that.
Matt Shirvington in a press conference post dropping out talked about the hardcore training he was going to undertake including computer mapping of every muscle fiber or something, it tries my memory too much to recall the exact nature but I'm more or less certain it would have involved using computers to design a super precise and targeted training routine to perfect his form.
That is time off the starting blocks, maximise the energy spent in forward momentum and train out the up and down stuff.
Theoretically possible I suppose. But why on earth would we ever go to such effort to train someone's muscles into a running machine instead of just building a running machine?
And everyone knows from rocky 4 that technology driven training doesn't compare to simply running around in a forest.
I mean if you want perfect start using the perfect materials, maybe wheels instead of legs.
I guess Matt had the right idea, it could work (if you then had the time to spend) but time may not have been on his side, possibly hence his emotionally confronting locker wall punching reaction to dropping out of the heats.