Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee

A Habit of Hope - Issue 8

Jan 25, 2025

Welcome to A Habit of Hope — a weekly practice of optimism and joy. We get inspired, there’s music, and — at the bottom of the essay — use a set of tools for community and accountability.

The Greatest, the GOAT, the Louisville Lip: everybody knows something about Muhammad Ali.

You may know his incredible career — his 1960 Olympic Gold Medal, his 1964 triumph over over Sonny Liston to claim the Heavyweight title, his rollercoaster of setbacks and comebacks.

You may know his rhymes and famous trash talk:

You may know about his activism: his change from the slave name “Cassius Clay” and his conversion to Islam. You might be familiar with his refusal, at great personal and professional cost, to “go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam,” and all the ways he inspired and defended Black America.

You might know him for his charisma and his humor.

You may know about his long battle with Parkinson’s Disease, and the stunning moment when he stood, shaking, on the platform at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and lit the torch.

There are so many reasons to choose Muhammad Ali as a Person of the Week, but I want to focus on a vitally important strategy that Ali brings to this particular moment we’re in.

It’s worth reading about the cultural and political setting for the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” between Ali and George Foreman — an epic battle between two American Black men, promoted by a then-unknown African-American promoter named Don King, set in an African country — Democratic Republic of Congo, aka Zaire — that had suffered the very worst of colonialism and was struggling for self-determination in the post-colonial era.

But I want to focus on Ali’s strategy in the fight. I don’t know anything about boxing, but the incredible Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings (on Netflix) lays it out in a way that I get what Ali pulled off that legendary night.

Ali was known for his speed, footwork and deadly jab, his ability to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Foreman was known for his “slugger style,” decimating opponents with sheer strength and a long reach. The expectation was that Ali’s best bet against Foreman was to dance away from as many of Foreman’s haymakers as he could — stay back and try to outlast the bigger man.

And that’s what Ali planned. In press conferences and training sessions, Ali emphasized his quickness and footwork.

On the night of the fight, though, Ali did something unexpected. He came out and hit Foreman with a series of close-up right hand jabs, disorienting him. After the first round, Foreman got his bearings and fought back hard, backing up Ali to the ropes where he spent the next seven rounds covering his face and taking hundreds of kidney punches. By the fifth round, Foreman began to tire, but it wasn’t until the eighth round that Ali exploded back with a deadly combination that brought the now exhausted Foreman to his knees.

A few revelations came out later. First, Ali’s public training sessions, where he was seen dancing his famous “Ali shuffle,” were a ruse. The whole time, he was secretly preparing to endure the punishment that he knew Foreman would give him, taking a beating from his sparring partners week after week. And the other thing was that throughout the fight, Ali was quietly taunting Foreman. “They told me you could punch, George!” and “That all you got?” That’s why the Rumble in the Jungle has been called “arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century."^[2]

Okay. Ready? Ready to channel your inner Muhammad Ali?

It was a given that the first 100 days of the second Trump presidency would be savage, and that a flurry of executive actions — kidney punches that attack our systems, our people, our rule of law — would be relentless.

How do you fight an administration that towers over you, with its hold on the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches?

Rope-a-dope. First, come out swinging, which is exactly what the lower courts are doing right now. Then, and this is going to be very hard, back up to the ropes and ride it out. Don’t waste energy on being surprised at each new blow. They’re gonna keep coming, and they’re going to be brutal. Instead, stay cocky, land jabs when we can, and most importantly, stay standing as the administration’s efforts become weakened, which they will, in ineptitude and chaos. And only then, strike back hard.

There was no guarantee that Muhammad Ali would prevail. But his strategy paid off. The midterm elections are twenty one months away. Stay standing.

Music

I stumbled on the most wonderful song this week. Muhammad Ali was friends with quite a few country artists (was at the christening of Waylon Jennings’ grandchild!) and he once gave Johnny Cash a poem written by a Sufi teacher named Hazrat Inayat Khan. In 1979, Cash set it to music, though it wasn’t released until 2012.

Your Personal Habit of Hope

The “getting together in person or by zoom” part of this Habit of Hope concept seems to be more of a challenge than expected! The stars have not yet aligned. But! Don’t forget I have this draft of a little planner I’m developing that explains my concept of A Habit of Hope. You can use it as the basis for a daily or weekly journal practice, if that’s helpful to you.

Thank you so much for subscribing, and please feel free to pass this on. And if you’re interested in my work as a performer and songwriter, come visit my website!

xo Rain