August | 2013 | Tash Friday

Hello Tash Appreciators,

I came across a Nike advert called “just do it – possibilities”. It’s pretty good:

It looks at various every-day people who are starting out in sport and asks what’s stopping them from taking their participation to the next level. Like many Nike adverts, it challenges the amateur to ask more of themselves: to run further, jump higher and fight harder than they have in the past or ever thought they could.

The choice of music used in the advert is interesting too. The song is called “The Future Starts Slow” by The Kills, and I think it hits the nail on the head – if you want a future filled with success, you’re going to have to expend a lot of time and energy in getting there. In sport, and life generally, it’s often the initial stages that are the most difficult as, although it never gets easy, once you’ve started to get better you can least look back and see the progress.

This week was also the 50th anniversary of Dr King’s “I have a dream” speech. TF has covered this in the past but it was a long time ago and I’m sure you’ll forgive me for coming back to it.

The most famous part of the speech (the “I have a dream” part) is towards the end but, at the beginning, Dr King talks about President Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. He says that, one hundred years after the Proclamation that slavery was to end, the “black man” (I’ve changed the words used) “is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land”. He says that the Proclamation was a cheque which has not been cashed and he talks about now being the time for the bank of justice to pay out.

I guess that the speed at which ambitions are reached is directly proportionate to the scale of what you’re trying to achieve. You can go from being able to run a mile to running a marathon in a few months, but even Abraham Lincoln’s efforts couldn’t speed up a civil rights movement that took 100 years to give minorities even a semblance of equality.

All of that being said, fifty years after Dr King’s speech, we can look back and see real progress not just in the US but around the world. Sure, there is a vast amount of work to be done in the fight for equality but the future now doesn’t seem quite so far away and it’s coming more quickly all the time. I guess all we can do is think “we’ve come this far, why can’t we go further?”

I’ll leave you with Dr King and his superlative Tash. Can it be any surprise that such a man chose to wear one:

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

P.s. If you haven’t read the speech, it’s well worth it: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

Good morning Tash Appreciators,

After an extended break, TF has reopened for business refreshed, reinvigorated and ready to raise the curtain on the next season of Tash Friday.

As this is the season opener, it seems only appropriate to go back to the roots of TF. Although the level of Tash related paraphernalia appears to be cresting a wave of popularity at the moment, that wave has been building for years. Even as far back as the turn of the last century, a Tash was seen as an essential element of what the “ideal man” should look like:

That’s Eugen Sandow, the man who some people say was the father of modern body building. He measured Greek sculptures to find the proportions of “The Grecian Ideal” and then lifted weights until he had sculpted himself into the desired shape. At the time this photo was taken (in around the mid 1890s), he was seen as having the ideal male physique. We can only assume, as he was a man that honed his appearance, that he saw his Tash as an essential element of what the ideal man looked like.

These days, we still attempt to sculpt ourselves. Some of us do it literally and work to achieve a desired body shape; while others take a more figurative approach and work until other ambitions are achieved. TF is here to encourage you to keep going and to press on towards those goals.

Back to today, one man who appears to have harnessed the power of the Tash to propel himself to greatness is this guy:

Looks like chicks really do dig him…

That’s Lachlan Morton, a 21 year old cyclist who, after starting to rock a Tash last month, has been putting a hurt on his competitors in literally every race he’s ridden . TF has been bike-heavy of late (and many of you have made your views on that clear) but, on this occasion, I make no apologies for including Mr Morton. The reason for that is the recent addition to his race-bike:

When he appeared at the start line with this first licence plate (he’s been using a couple in recent weeks), he raised a few eyebrows and I’m sure some saw it as a pretty arrogant move. However, not only does he not take himself too seriously, he knew something that his competitors didn’t: that he’d worked harder than them in the run-up to the race and that he was able to beat them; which he promptly did, all on his own.

That, fellow Appreciators, is how it’s done. Hard work, and the confidence which comes with it, can be big factors in whether we are able to achieve our goals. One can imagine the reaction Eugen Sandow received when the people of Victorian England saw that he was lifting weights in order to look like Greek sculptures! I suspect his response was the same as Lachlan’s – “I’ll show ’em…”

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

Tash Friday

Monthly Archives: August 2013

The Future Starts Slow

Curtain Raiser