Professional athletes. The gold standard of human physical accomplishment. They dedicate their lives to athletic excellence, pushing their bodies beyond the limits to achieve things previously thought impossible. And then occasionally one of them fucks up a basic-ass hand gesture and it’s wildly interesting.
Essendon Football Club captain Dyson Heppell is an exceptionally good football player, and by all accounts a very nice bloke. And if photographic evidence is to be believed, there’s a fair chance he somehow doesn’t know how to chuck a proper shaka.
This is not a report we take lightly; exposing someone as an incomplete yiewer is a heavy accusation to wield. But it’s a situation that was brought to our attention yesterday via Twitter.
https://twitter.com/mattgoss_/status/937257132096811008
Surely not, we thought. Anomalies. Mistimed photos. Those have gotta be full-blown shakas that are in the process of forming completely. The Y and I is out, and moments later the E and W followed. A man who looks like that, after all, should by all rights be able to throw one out so hard it kicks up a 7 foot swell at Byron Bay. Never has there been a haircut that screams “LOCALS ONLY” quite as loud as Dyson’s.
Then we looked into it.
And the evidence began piling up.
Heppell’s Instagram feed is a cache of warped shakas of El Dorado-proportions; each slightly more munted than the last.
The composition of Heppell’s attempts at a shaka is truly something to behold. Despite following the standard pattern, every finger remains hovering in mid-air, locked in limbo, rather than locked in *for* limbo as the standard shaka implies.
The extension on the pinky is especially troubling. It stands bolt straight, yet it hides in the fist. Is it afraid? Does Heppell fear appearing bougie by sticking his pinky too far into the air? Does it have an unexpected curve that the camera angle isn’t capturing?
But there’s more.
Here, the pinky issues intensifies. What is going on there, mate? It’s the opposite hand this time, but in this case the finger juts out in a direction you wouldn’t expect. And those middle fingers hang in the air like this was taken mere moments after somebody smacked a drink out of his hand. Did Dyson only learn how to shaka while holding a drink? He is from Leongatha, after all. That might explain it.
But there’s more.
And more.
And more.
And more.
In fact, there’s only one instance of Dyson throwing what could be considered a textbook shaka: This press photo taken back in 2015.
You can almost see the anguish in the grimace there; the fingers gnarled into a shape that the brain screams as being unnatural.
What’s the answer here? His hands somehow are the most bashed hands in AFL history?
He gained his footy ability from a goblin on the South Gippsland Highway who in turn cursed him to feel like he’s holding two invisible orbs anytime he’s not carrying a footy?
All the strength required to close his fists is instead being used in his neck to hold his head up under the weight of all those half-dreads?
He’s trained himself to keep his hands open at all times in order to fend off any surprise Toby Greene fly kicks which, as we all know, can come at any moment?
Whatever the answer, we know it’s a mystery to all of us, and perhaps even to Dyson Heppell himself.
Will he ever get to know the rush of closing the fists and emptying the lungs for a full-on, coastal-style yiewing?
Will sweet, majestic, beautiful Dyson ever truly yiew?
Our thumb and pinky might be fully extended, but our other fingers are crossed.
