Float like a butterfly sting like a bee là gì năm 2024

Before his 1964 fight with Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay, the man who later became Muhammad Ali, was asked how he would approach the bout with the “unbeatable” world heavyweight champion. Clay famously responded: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see.” No one, except perhaps Ali himself, could have predicted that this remark would help propel him to near mythic status.

Clay was not the only sports figure who had a way with words. We all remember legends such as American football’s Vince “we didn’t lose the game, we just ran out of time” Lombardi, or soccer’s Diego “the goal was scored… by the hand of God” Maradona. More recently, we have had others, such as sprinter Usain “I blew the world’s mind” Bolt.

Instinctively, these masters of the soundbite all understood that they had a brand to manage and develop, and that through effective communications with the media they could do so while also contributing to their sport’s marketability.

This new millennium has seen the ability of sporting individuals to manage the media develop even further. Soccer player David Beckham, for example, has built a global brand on good looks, a talented right foot, an excellent work ethic and impressive control of the media. Tiger Woods has done so through the sheer force of his talent.

Many soccer players have had to confront damaging reports about their private lives in recent times. Their approach has almost always been denial and refusal to comment.

However, when Woods faced a similar situation, he chose to face the allegations with an admission of guilt and carefully controlled displays of contrition. Only time will tell which is the more successful strategy.

Although sports stars were quick to grasp the benefits of managing the media, the men with MBAs who are responsible for running and governing sport have been slower to see the correlation between strong control of the media and a more marketable product. It seems incredible that they took so long to wise up, especially given the symbiotic relationship between sport and the media.

But times are changing. Sport’s governing bodies now recognize the importance of effective communications to engage fans, attract more corporate involvement and sponsorship, and protect the reputation of the sport itself.

The recent FIFA World Cup in South Africa was hailed as a resounding success (unless you were French, Italian or English). This was, in large measure, because the organizers realized that they not only had to get it right, but had to communicate that they were getting it right. What team South Africa and FIFA did so successfully during the World Cup was engage a whole nation in a sport.

Whether sporting bodies have become more attractive to corporations because they now understand how the media works, or the governing bodies have become more media friendly because corporations are more involved, is open to debate (we suspect it is the latter). What is irrefutable is the omnipresent nature of corporate branding at every big sporting event.

Of course, sponsorship would exist even if sporting bodies did not engage with the media. But organizers now understand that effective, professional communication makes you even more attractive to potential sponsors.

At last, governing bodies have realized that a sport’s reputation is fragile and needs to be protected. Sport is not new to crisis but governing bodies are increasingly handling such occurrences professionally. To illustrate the point, we turn to an unusual choice: snooker. Snooker, for the uninitiated, is a game like pool, and second only to darts in terms of its level of inactivity. Until recently, this could also be said of its communication efforts.

Nevertheless, snooker’s governing body reacted very professionally to recent allegations of match-fixing. They moved quickly and decisively, took control, set up an “integrity unit” to investigate the problem, and announced a date for completion of the investigation. Most importantly, they were open and honest with the media. This gave them an element of control over news coverage, and their handling of the crisis provides a case study in professional communications.

Governing bodies are making progress with the media, but they could do worse than turn to the “Louisville Lip” for further inspiration. As Ali said: “I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.”

The two British writers share an unhealthy addiction to sport. Tom Williams is an Associate in Brunswick’s Washington, DC office. Rob Pinker is Managing Partner in Brunswick’s Johannesburg office.

So what of language, of negotiation, of discussion ~ where do bees fit? Karl von Frisch who decoded much of bee communication (awarded the Nobel prize in 1973) and held a strong empathetic relationship with bees characterised it as symbolic, as a language but never speech, it is a precise and highly differentiated sign language.

Short installation audio clip.

Karl von Frisch and his assistant Martin Lindauer conducted the bulk of their research on bee communication and behaviour during world war two in a relatively peaceful rural setting. As partly Jewish Von Frisch would have lost his professors post, it was only a plague of Nosema Apis that threatened the Nazi war effort that gave him a temporary reprieve. It is hard to miss the irony that whilst the human world descended into chaos von Frisch decoded the complex, highly organised and cooperative organisational and behavioural structure of the hive and the individual bee. Von Frisch and the bees outlived the Third Reich!

W.G. Sebald wonders in his novel Austerlitz;

There is no reason to suppose that lesser being are devoid of sentient life…Do Moths dream? Do they know they are lost when, mislead by a flame, they enter a house to die?

By what criteria can we judge the behaviour and the language of beings so ancient and so utterly alien to ourselves? Such judgement is a paradox of our own language and the Procrustes Bed of our intellect and sensoria.

Strange subject perhaps! However for millennia colonial insects, ants, bees and termites have been employed as models of social hierarchy and especially noted for their prowess in conflict.

Bees have been at the forefront of entomological warfare from the outset ~ indeed the word Bombard is derived from Latin meaning buzzing or booming and is the Genus name for the Bumble Bee Bombus ~ so some examples.

Bees have been actively employed in warfare since antiquity, and there is a well documented dramatic decline in honey bee population during the late Roman era, principally caused by the use of hives as missiles, launched via catapults during sieges and in open field warfare. The practice of weaponised bees was widespread, English castles had Bee Boles constructed along the battlements, with hives ready to fall upon foolhardy invaders.

Even Richard the Lionheart employed Nest Bombs during the third crusade against his moslem enemies.

Mad Honey ~ In the Fifth Century BCE the army of Xenophon was bought to its knees (literally) due to his men bingeing on mad honey, the product of bees foraging exclusively in Rhododendron groves. The Romans later employed this toxic substance to good strategic effect and during the C18th up to 25 tonnes of Turkish deli bal was shipped annually to Europe where, in mild doses it was used as an intoxicant.

Swarming is a powerful metaphor currently applied to contemporary military strategy. The Rand Corporation’s report Swarming and the Future of Conflict commissioned by the US Department of Defence promotes the swarm metaphor, of semi-autonomous, networked units mobile units that continuously synchronise and adapt. Swarms are complex adaptive systems, but have no central planning, simple individual rules and non-deterministic behaviours that evolve with the specific situation. Somehow the Rand Corporation have characterised bee swarms as malevolent and aggressive!

The gradual symbiotic transformation of the honey bee and its inclusion within the human orbit precedes the domestication of other species by millennia. Selective breeding and husbandry techniques have modified size, behaviour and productivity, but contemporary research interests seize upon other key bee features such as sensory abilities, communication and navigation to recast the bee in the mould of informatics and robotics.

The war on Terror requires new technologies of warfare but even more importantly new technologies of surveillance

Donald Rumsfeld.

At the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project (Los Alamos Labs) bees are now deployed as BioSensors, undertaking work for eco-toxicologists, gathering data and mapping the distribution of chemical pollutants, landmines and radionuclides.

Bees and the products they collect (and metabolically filter) are increasingly used for Biomonitoring toxic and trace elements. However unlike mans best friend (the Bassett Hound) bees are not obedient to human demands or affections and have a tendency follow their own (non mammalian) agendas.

From their home they fly now here, now there, feeding on honey-comb and bringing all things to pass. And when they are inspired through eating yellow honey, they are willing to speak truth; but if they be deprived of the gods’ sweet food, then they speak falsely, as they swarm in and out together.

Sting Like A Bee nghĩa là gì?

Đấy là chiến thuật đánh quyền của Ali: "Lơ lửng như bướm, đốt đau như ong. Tay người chẳng thể đánh những gì mắt không thể trông" (tạm dịch từ câu nói có vần bất hủ của Ali: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can't hit what his eyes can't see).