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I'd love to know where the etymology of "focus" came from for stomping the board on purpose.
Mike Daher's brother, George, invented it.Mike talks about it in his Chromeball interview:QuoteExpand QuoteBut the million-dollar question here is: did George invent “the focus”? A lot of people point to him as the true originator. And is it true that it’s a Karate Kid reference?Yes, George did invent the focus but no, it’s not a Karate Kid reference. It’s actually from Bruce Lee. “Focus power. Use your mental focus power.”I still remember the night so perfectly. I was sitting on my bed when George comes home from skating and his board is broken. With it being broken in the middle like that, I asked him if it had gotten run over by a car.“No, I just stomped it.”It was funny because he wasn’t even mad or frustrated. Nothing like that. “I just stomped it. I don’t like this board.”I honestly didn’t believe him. There’s no way he just did it like that. I happened to have my board in my room at the time so I told him to do mine. He lays it down and snaps it first try.It became a joke after that. All of my friends would come by and they wouldn’t believe it either so he’d focus their boards, too. Then they’d get all bummed and he’d give them another board.Good man.But Mike V thought it was so insane. He ended up telling Gonz and everybody about it when he went out to the West Coast. Word spread pretty quickly but evidently, nobody out there could do it. They’d all try and end up bouncing their foot off their boards, almost breaking their ankles.So when George and I finally go back out to Cali, we’re hanging out with Mark at this contest in Santa Monica and Mark wants to see it. George snaps his board first-try barefoot and Mark just starts tripping.Two months later, George flies back out to the World warehouse with Mike V when Jeremy Klein and Ron Chatman come up like, “Is this the dude? The focus? We heard about it! Let us see it!”George shows them the focus and they love it. They start setting up all of these complete boards just so George can focus them. Lining them up in a row and George stomps them all without even taking a step in-between. Just one after the other, walking through them. They were amazed.A couple months later, Rubbish Heap comes out and the focus was sold like it was their thing. George never got any credit for it. Mike V once brought it up in an interview for Thrasher years later but that was it.[close]https://chromeballincident.blogspot.com/2013/11/post-script-mike-daher.html
But the million-dollar question here is: did George invent “the focus”? A lot of people point to him as the true originator. And is it true that it’s a Karate Kid reference?Yes, George did invent the focus but no, it’s not a Karate Kid reference. It’s actually from Bruce Lee. “Focus power. Use your mental focus power.”I still remember the night so perfectly. I was sitting on my bed when George comes home from skating and his board is broken. With it being broken in the middle like that, I asked him if it had gotten run over by a car.“No, I just stomped it.”It was funny because he wasn’t even mad or frustrated. Nothing like that. “I just stomped it. I don’t like this board.”I honestly didn’t believe him. There’s no way he just did it like that. I happened to have my board in my room at the time so I told him to do mine. He lays it down and snaps it first try.It became a joke after that. All of my friends would come by and they wouldn’t believe it either so he’d focus their boards, too. Then they’d get all bummed and he’d give them another board.Good man.But Mike V thought it was so insane. He ended up telling Gonz and everybody about it when he went out to the West Coast. Word spread pretty quickly but evidently, nobody out there could do it. They’d all try and end up bouncing their foot off their boards, almost breaking their ankles.So when George and I finally go back out to Cali, we’re hanging out with Mark at this contest in Santa Monica and Mark wants to see it. George snaps his board first-try barefoot and Mark just starts tripping.Two months later, George flies back out to the World warehouse with Mike V when Jeremy Klein and Ron Chatman come up like, “Is this the dude? The focus? We heard about it! Let us see it!”George shows them the focus and they love it. They start setting up all of these complete boards just so George can focus them. Lining them up in a row and George stomps them all without even taking a step in-between. Just one after the other, walking through them. They were amazed.A couple months later, Rubbish Heap comes out and the focus was sold like it was their thing. George never got any credit for it. Mike V once brought it up in an interview for Thrasher years later but that was it.[close]
Topic: What does focus mean? (Read 748 times)