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The Woman on the Dance Floor
The unequivocal highlight of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris was break dancing. Specifically, the performance by the competitor from Australia, Rachel Gunn—aka “Raygun.” I don’t care about the controversy over how and why she made it to the Olympics in the first place. What I do care about is that Raygun gave everything she had during her routine. The dance floor was her “arena.”
If you haven’t watched her performance yet and are in dire need of simultaneous laughter and inspiration, watch Raygun. Watch Raygun point vigorously to the team Australian logo on her dorky polo before she carries out the infamous “kangaroo hop” followed by each weirder and weirder yet electric move.
The next time you have the opportunity to put yourself out there, think of Raygun. There could be anywhere. Initiating a conversation at a networking event. Giving a research talk. Teaching a class. Give your all and recklessly throw the outcome—win or fail—to the wind.
I leave you with an adapted excerpt of Teddy Roosevelt’s 1910 speech—"Citizen in a Republic”—more popularly known as “The Man in the Arena.” Because when I saw Raygun on the dance floor, I couldn’t help but reimagining Roosevelt’s speech as—“The Woman on the Dance Floor.”
“It is not the critic who counts; not the woman who points out how the strong woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the woman who is actually on the dance floor, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if she fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
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