Only seven people in that stadium knew who Bruce Lee was. The Viking on stage didn’t. The promoters didn’t. The judges didn’t. 50,000 Norwegians packed into Bislett Stadium on the coldest day of February didn’t recognize the small Chinese man sitting in section 4, row 12, wearing a thin green sweater in minus 9° weather.
That was about to change. In the next 6 minutes, the strongest man in Scandinavian history would learn the most humbling lesson of his life. And everyone in that frozen stadium would witness something they’d talk about until the day they died. This is what really happened on February 14th, 1972. Oslo, Norway.
This is the story they never forgot. Bislett Stadium. February 14th, 1972. Thursday afternoon, 2:30 p.m. The temperature reads minus 9° C. Snow falls in thick curtains across the open air arena. 50,000 spectators sit bundled in wool coats, fur hats, thick gloves. Their breath rises in white clouds. The wooden bleachers creak under the collective weight.
This is the Nordic Strength Festival, the biggest strongman exhibition in northern Europe. Once a year, the strongest men from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland gather here. They lift stones. They carry logs. They bend iron. They throw axes. They prove who is the most powerful man in the frozen north.
The smell of pine resin and wood smoke fills the air. Vendors sell hot coffee and roasted nuts from carts along the stadium perimeter. Children sit on their fathers’ shoulders. Old men lean forward, squinting through the snowfall. Everyone is here for one man, Erik Halsen, not his birth name, born Erik Gunneson in Trondheim.
Changed his name at 19 because Halsen sounded stronger, more Viking, more marketable for competition posters. Eric is 31 years old, 6 ft 4 in, 265 lb of raw Scandinavian muscle, built by 23 years of lifting, carrying, and fighting in the harshest conditions on Earth. He started training at age eight. His father, a fisherman, made him carry buckets of fish up cliff paths every morning before school.
By 14, Eric was out-lifting grown men at local festivals. By 18, he won his first regional strongman title. By 21, he was Norway’s strongest man. That title hasn’t left him in 10 years. His record is staggering. 31 competitions, 31 first place finishes, never defeated, not once. He has carried a 440-lb granite stone for 47 seconds without dropping it.
He has deadlifted 805 lb in competition. He has bent a 2-in iron bar with his bare hands in front of the King of Norway. His grip strength has been measured at 287 lb per square inch. Scientists at the University of Oslo studied his bone density. It measured 40% above the human average. The newspapers call him the last Viking.
The posters call him the Nordic bear. His competitors call him something else. They call him impossible. But Eric’s strength isn’t what fills this stadium today. His personality is. Eric Halverson is the most arrogant athlete in Scandinavian sports. He doesn’t just win, he humiliates. He doesn’t just defeat opponents, he mocks them.
Publicly, loudly, in front of cameras and crowds. Last year, after defeating a Swedish strongman, Eric lifted the man off the ground with one hand and told the crowd, “Send me a real challenger. This one breaks too easily.” The Swedish man had three cracked ribs. Eric laughed about it in his post-competition interview.
The crowd loved it. Norway loved it. Today is different, though. Today isn’t just a strongman competition. Today, Eric has made an announcement. 3 weeks ago, in an interview with Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, Eric declared something that sent shockwaves through the European sports world.
He said he was tired of lifting stones, tired of carrying logs, tired of competing against men who could only push and pull. He wanted a real challenge, a fighting challenge, any style, any country, any man brave enough to face him in the ring. The interviewer asked him what kind of fighting he meant. Boxing? Wrestling? Eric laughed. I don’t care what they call it.
Karate, judo, whatever fancy name they want. Bring them all. I’ll show Norway that pure Viking strength defeats any technique, any system, any martial art from any country. The interviewer pressed further. Even the Asian martial arts? Kung fu? Eric’s response made headlines across Scandinavia. Especially kung fu. These little men doing their little dances, jumping around like circus performers. It’s entertainment.
It’s not fighting. One grip from my hands and their bones snap like dry wood. Kung fu is a joke, and I’ll prove it today. The Nordic Strength Festival organizers saw an opportunity. They added a special segment to today’s program. After the traditional events, Eric would issue an open challenge.
Any martial artist in attendance could step forward. No weight classes, no protective gear, minimal rules. The festival sold out within 72 hours. 50,000 tickets gone. The fastest sellout in Bislett Stadium history. People weren’t coming to watch stones get lifted. They were coming to watch Eric destroy someone. It’s 3:15 p.m. now.
The traditional events are finished. Eric has already won everything. Stone carry, log press, iron bend, axe throw for distance. Four events. Four first places. His 31st consecutive victory. The crowd is warmed up, excited, drunk on hot mead and national pride. The stadium announcer’s voice crackles through the frozen speakers.
Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve been waiting for, the open challenge. Eric walks to center stage. The platform is elevated 4 ft above the stadium floor. Wooden planks dusted with snow. No ropes, no boundaries, just a flat surface 20 ft by 20 ft. Eric wears no shirt despite the minus 9°. His massive chest is bare.
Steam rises from his skin. The cold doesn’t touch him. Or if it does, he refuses to show it. In his right hand, he carries a traditional Viking battle axe. Not sharpened for combat, ceremonial, but real steel. Real weight. He lifts it above his head with one arm. The crowd erupts. 50,000 voices screaming his name.
Eric! Eric! Eric! The sound bounces off the stadium walls. The snow seems to vibrate. He takes the microphone. His voice is deep, raw, like gravel dragged across iron. Norway! The crowd screams back. I have carried your stones. I have bent your iron. I have proven that Viking blood is the strongest blood on this earth. The crowd thunders approval.
But today, I want more. Today, I want to prove something else. That all these so-called martial arts, these fighting systems from the east, from Asia, from China, from Japan, he pauses, lets the words hang in the frozen air. They are nothing. Performance, dance, tricks for tourists. The audience roars.
National pride is a powerful drug. I stand here today with an open challenge. Any martial artist, any style, any country, step onto this platform and prove me wrong. Show me that technique can defeat strength. Show me that your kung fu or karate can stop these hands. He raises both fists. Each one the size of a dinner plate.
The knuckles are scarred, white, enormous. And I promise you this. Eric’s voice drops lower. The microphone barely catches it. The stadium goes quiet. 50,000 people leaning forward. Whoever steps up here today, I will make sure they never walk the same again. I will show them what real power feels like.
Not points, not trophies, pain, real pain. The crowd loves it. This is what they came for. The threat, the spectacle, the promise of dominance. Eric plants the axe blade down into the wooden platform. It sticks, quivers. He crosses his arms over his massive chest and scans the audience. Waiting, smiling, daring someone to move. 10 seconds pass, 20, 30. Nobody stands.
The stadium is silent except for the wind cutting through the open roof. Snow lands on Eric’s bare shoulders. He doesn’t flinch. His smile grows wider. That’s what I thought. All talk, all tradition, no courage. He reaches for the microphone again. Perhaps next year someone will I’ll accept. The voice is calm.
Not loud, but it carries across the frozen silence like a blade through silk. It comes from section four, row 12, seat seven. A small man stands. Green sweater, black pants, no coat, no gloves. He looks cold. He looks ordinary. He looks like someone’s math teacher who wandered into the wrong event. Eric squints through the falling snow, can barely see him.
“What did you say?” “I said, I’ll accept your challenge.” The man’s voice is steady. No tremor from the cold, no hesitation, just calm certainty that doesn’t match his size. Eric laughs. Actually laughs. The sound booms through the speakers. “You? You want to fight me?” The crowd starts murmuring. Confused, amused.
Who is this small Asian man in a sweater? “What do you do? What martial art?” Eric asks, still amused, his arms still crossed, still relaxed, still unthreatened. “I practice Chinese martial arts, Wing Chun, and my own system, Jeet Kune Do.” Eric has never heard either name. Wing Chun sounds like a restaurant.
Jeet Kune Do sounds like a menu item. He looks at the promoter standing at the edge of the platform. The promoter shrugs, never heard of it either. “And your name?” “Bruce Lee.” Nothing. No recognition. Eric doesn’t watch television, doesn’t follow American shows, doesn’t know about The Green Hornet, doesn’t read martial arts magazines, doesn’t know that this name already carries weight in dojos and training halls across two continents.
To Eric, this is just a small, cold Chinese man with a strange name who is about to make the worst decision of his life. But in section four, seven people sit up straight. Dan Inosanto, Taky Kimura, James Coburn, Stirling Silliphant, Bob Wall, three others who trained with Bruce privately. They know.
They know exactly what is about to happen on that platform. Dan Inosanto grabs Bruce’s arm as he moves toward the aisle. Bruce, you don’t have to do this. He’s got a 100 lb on you, more, and it’s freezing. Bruce looks at his student, his friend. His expression doesn’t change. He insulted Chinese martial arts. He called Kung Fu a dance, a joke.
Dan tightens his grip. Let it go. He’s an idiot. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Bruce gently removes Dan’s hand from his arm. That’s exactly why someone needs to show him. Bruce begins walking down the concrete steps of section four. His footsteps are quiet, measured, unhurried, like a man taking a morning walk in a park, not like a man walking toward a 265 lb Viking who just promised to him.
The crowd notices him now. Heads turn. Row by row, section by section, a small man walking down the steps, no coat in -9°, just a green sweater that looks too thin for this weather. Whispers ripple through the stadium. Who is that? Is he serious? He’s going to get killed. Some laugh. Some shake their heads. A few, the ones who know, lean forward with wide eyes.
One man in section six, a Norwegian karate instructor named Lars Pedersen, recognizes him. He grabs his friend’s shoulder. That’s Bruce Lee, the Kung Fu man from the Green Hornet. His friend looks confused. The television show? Yes. But that’s not why I know him. I saw him demonstrate in Los Angeles 2 years ago. What he does isn’t acting.
Lars swallows hard. Eric has no idea what’s coming. Bruce reaches the platform. The steps are covered in a thin layer of ice. He climbs them without slipping, without hesitation, without looking down. His eyes are fixed on Eric, not with anger, not with fear, with something else. Assessment, calculation, the way a surgeon looks at an operating table before the first incision.
Now, everyone can see the contrast. Eric, 6’4, 265 lb, muscular, steam rising from his skin like a furnace, scarred knuckles, legs like cathedral pillars, a battle axe planted next to him. Bruce, 5’7, 135 lb in this cold weather, green sweater, black pants, canvas shoes already wet from the snow, no gloves, no wraps, no visible muscle mass through the sweater.
He looks like someone who got lost on the way to a library. The visual mismatch is almost comical. Eric looks down at Bruce, literally down. 7 in of height difference, 130 lb of weight difference. He tries not to laugh again. Fails. “This is your champion.” he says to the crowd. “This is who answers my challenge.” The audience laughs with him.
Most of them. Not the seven people in section four. They aren’t laughing. They’re holding their breath. The promoter approaches with a clipboard. “Sir, what is your name for the record?” “Bruce Lee.” “Your weight?” “135 lb.” The promoter looks at Eric, looks at Bruce, writes something, probably a liability waiver. “Sir, you understand there are minimal rules here.
No eye gouging, no groin strikes. Everything else is permitted. Mr. Halverson outweighs you by 130 lb. Are you certain you wish to continue?” Bruce nods once. “I’m certain.” Eric pulls the axe from the platform, holds it casually in one hand like a toy, walks closer to Bruce, stands directly in front of him.
The height difference forces Bruce to look up. Eric looks down. Snow falls between them, landing on Bruce’s black hair, melting on Eric’s bare shoulders. Little man, Eric’s voice is low now, no microphone, just between them. But, the front rows can hear. I’m going to pick you up and break you. When I’m finished, they’ll carry you out on a stretcher.
Your little kung fu won’t help you here. This isn’t a movie set. This isn’t Hollywood. This is Norway, and here the strong survive. Bruce doesn’t step back, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t change his breathing. He looks up at Eric with an expression that witnesses would later describe as complete and absolute calm, like a lake with no wind, like still water.
“Are you finished talking?” Bruce says. His voice carries no emotion, no anger, no bravado, just a question, simple, direct. Eric blinks. Nobody has ever responded to his intimidation with such casual indifference. Every other challenger has shown something, nervousness, bravado to mask fear, tightened shoulders, clenched jaw.
This man shows nothing, nothing at all. The promoter steps back, raises his hand. The stadium announcer speaks. Ladies and gentlemen, this is an open challenge exhibition. Mr. Eric Halvorsen, 265 lb, Norway’s strongest man, 10-time champion, versus Mr. Bruce Lee, 135 lb, martial arts instructor from Los Angeles, United States. The crowd buzzes.
America, kung fu, Los Angeles, Hollywood, everything Eric just mocked. This feels scripted, planned, like the small man is walking into a trap willingly. The announcer continues. Minimal rules apply. The exhibition ends when one participant submits, is unable to continue, or when the judges determine a clear winner. Begin on the signal.
He pauses, looks at both men. Ready? Eric nods, grins, drops into a wide wrestler’s stance. Low center of gravity, arms wide, ready to grab, ready to crush. This is how he fights. Get close, get a grip, use strength. Squeeze until bones crack. Simple, effective, unstoppable for 10 years. Bruce settles into no visible stance.
His feet are shoulder-width apart. His weight is centered. His hands rise slightly, fingers open, relaxed, alive, mobile. To the karate practitioners in the audience, this looks like nothing. No chamber, no guard, no fighting position they recognize. To them, Bruce looks unprepared, defenseless, already beaten. The signal sounds, a horn blast that cuts through the frozen air.
The fight begins. Eric moves first. He always moves first. He lunges forward, both arms reaching, going for the clinch, the bear hug. Once his arms close around an opponent, it’s over. He has crushed ribs this way, dislocated shoulders, squeezed the air out of men twice Bruce’s weight. His arms shoot forward like two tree trunks falling.
Bruce isn’t there. He’s moved, not backward, sideways. A small angular step that takes him completely off Eric’s line of attack. Eric’s massive arms close around empty air. Snow swirls where Bruce stood half a second ago. The crowd murmurs. Eric resets, turns, finds Bruce standing 3 ft to his left, still calm, still in that non-stance, hands still relaxed, hasn’t thrown a single technique.
Eric charges again, faster this time, angry. Bull rush, head down, arms wide, 265 lb moving like a freight train. The platform shakes under his weight. Bruce moves again, minimum distance, just enough. 2 in outside the arc of Eric’s grab. Eric’s momentum carries him forward. He stumbles slightly, catches himself, turns around.
Bruce is behind him now. Same position, same calm expression, same relaxed hands. Hasn’t broken a sweat, hasn’t changed his breathing. The audience is quiet now. Something is wrong. Eric is the fastest strongman in Norway. His lunges have caught opponents who were trained fighters, wrestlers, boxers, judoka.
All of them got caught. All of them got crushed. This small man isn’t getting caught. He’s not even trying to avoid Eric. He’s just not there when Eric arrives. Like he knows where Eric is going before Eric knows. Eric stops, breathes. Steam pours from his mouth in thick clouds. His chest heaves, not from exhaustion, from confusion, from the unfamiliar feeling of reaching for something and finding nothing.
He looks at Bruce, studies him for the first time, really looks. And for the first time notices something. Bruce’s feet. They’re barely touching the snow. While Eric’s boots leave deep imprints in the frozen platform, Bruce’s canvas shoes leave almost nothing. Like he weighs nothing.
Like gravity applies to him differently. “Stop running.” Eric growls. “Stand and fight like a man.” Bruce tilts his head slightly. “I haven’t moved more than 3 ft from where I started. You’re the one running.” Eric’s face darkens. The crowd heard that. Some of them laugh, not with Eric this time. At him. Something shifts in Eric’s eyes.
The amusement is gone. The showmanship is gone. What remains is something primal. Rage. Pure Viking rage. The kind that burned villages. The kind that crossed oceans in wooden ships. The kind that fears nothing because it has stopped thinking entirely. Eric doesn’t lunge this time. He swings. His right fist comes around in a massive haymaker.
A punch that has knocked out horses at farm exhibitions. A punch that carries 265 lb of Scandinavian fury behind it. The air whistles as his fist cuts through the snowfall. Bruce ducks. Not dramatically. Not a full drop to the ground. Just 4 in. Just enough. Eric’s fist passes over Bruce’s head. Close enough to disturb his black hair. Close enough to feel the wind, but not close enough to connect.
Bruce rises immediately. In the same motion, his right hand shoots forward. Straight, direct. No windup. No telegraph. No chambering. A Wing Chun straight punch. Aimed at Eric’s exposed rib cage, but pulled. Stopped 1 in from contact. The fist hovers there for a full second. 1 in from Eric’s floating ribs. 1 in from cracking three of them.
Eric doesn’t even see it happen. He’s still recovering from his missed haymaker. Still rotating. Still off balance. By the time he turns back, Bruce’s hand is already down. But the people in the front row saw it. They gasp. 700 people in the first 10 rows just witnessed something impossible. A punch that traveled and stopped with perfect control.
A punch that could have ended this exhibition in the first exchange. Eric throws another punch. Left hook this time. Faster. Shorter arc. More controlled. Bruce sways backward. Just his upper body. His feet don’t move. The hook passes in front of his face. 1 in, maybe 2. Eric follows with a right cross. Heavy. Committed. Bruce’s left hand rises. Palm open.
He doesn’t block the punch. He redirects it. His palm makes contact with the inside of Eric’s forearm. Light pressure. Just enough to change the trajectory by 3°. Eric’s fist sails past Bruce’s ear. Harmless. Wasted power directed at nothing. The technique is called pak sao. Slapping block.
A fundamental Wing Chun concept. Minimum force to redirect maximum power. Use the opponent’s energy against him. Don’t fight strength with strength. Flow around it like water around a stone. Eric throws a combination now. Right, left, right. Overhead smash. Each punch carries enough force to kill. Each punch is delivered with genuine intent. No holding back.
No exhibition anymore. This is real. Eric wants to hurt this man. Needs to hurt this man. His pride demands it. Bruce handles each one differently. The first, he slips. The second, he parries with a tan sao. Dispersing hand. Palm up. Forearm rotating outward. Sending the punch off line. The third, he intercepts with a biu sao.
Thrusting fingers aimed at Eric’s eyes. Not making contact. Stopping short. But, the message is clear. I could blind you right now. The overhead smash, the most powerful of all, Bruce side steps and simultaneously delivers a low kick to the inside of Eric’s lead knee. Light contact. Controlled. But, enough to buckle the leg for a moment.
Enough to make Eric stumble. 50,000 people go silent. Completely silent. The only sound is wind and snow and Eric’s heavy breathing. The small man just made the strongest man in Norway stumble. Not with power. Not with strength. With something else entirely. Something none of them have seen before. Something that doesn’t follow any rules they understand. Eric steadies himself.
His knee throbs where Bruce’s foot touched it. Not injured. Not damaged. But, a reminder. A message written in flesh. I was there. I could have stayed. Eric’s breathing is heavier now, not from exhaustion, from something he hasn’t felt in 10 years, uncertainty. He doesn’t know what to do next. Every tool he has, every technique, every instinct developed over 23 years of competition, none of it is working.
He can’t grab what isn’t there. He can’t crush what he can’t touch. He can’t overpower what flows around him like smoke and wind. Eric makes a decision, his last option. The one that has ended every fight he’s ever been in. He drops low, spreads his arms impossibly wide, and charges, full speed, full commitment, 265 lb launched like a battering ram.
The platform trembles. If he connects, Bruce will be driven off the platform entirely. 4-ft drop to frozen concrete below. At this speed, with this weight behind it, broken bones are certain. Spinal injury is possible. Eric doesn’t care anymore. His pride is worth more than this stranger’s spine.
Bruce doesn’t retreat, doesn’t sidestep. For the first time in this exhibition, he moves forward, directly into Eric’s charge. The audience gasps. Collective intake of breath from 50,000 frozen lungs. This is suicide. The small man is running into a avalanche, but Bruce’s timing is surgical. He moves forward at the exact moment Eric is between steps, between balance points, committed to forward motion, but not yet grounded.
In that fraction of a second, Bruce drops his weight. His right leg sweeps forward, not a kick, a placement. His foot positions itself behind Eric’s lead ankle. Simultaneously, Bruce’s left palm strikes Eric’s chest. Not hard, not with knockout power, with redirection, with physics. Forward momentum meets a fixed point at the ankle and a redirecting force at the chest, Eric’s own weight betrays him.
265 lb of forward momentum with nowhere to go but down. His feet leave the platform. For one impossible moment, the strongest man in Norway is airborne, weightless, helpless. He crashes onto the wooden planks. The sound is enormous, like a tree falling. The platform shakes. Snow jumps upward from the impact.
The boards crack but hold. Eric lands on his back. The air explodes from his lungs. His eyes go wide. Shock, genuine shock, not pain, disbelief. Before Eric can process what happened, Bruce is there, standing over him, right hand extended downward, index and middle finger pointed at Eric’s throat, 1 in away from the windpipe, not touching, not hurting, just there, present, undeniable.
The message absolute. I could end this right now. Second. Your throat is mine. Your breath is mine. Your life, in this moment, belongs to me. Bruce holds the position. 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds. Long enough for Eric to see. Long enough for the front rows to see. Long enough for the cameras to capture.
Long enough for Eric to understand that every word he spoke today was wrong. Every insult, every mockery, every dismissal of Chinese martial arts, wrong, completely, absolutely, fundamentally wrong. The stadium is frozen, not from the temperature, from disbelief. 50,000 people just watched 135 lb put 265 lb on the ground.
Just watch technique defeat strength. Just watch the impossible happen on a snowy platform in Oslo, Norway, on Valentine’s Day, 1972. Everything they believed about size, about power, about fighting, about the superiority of strength over skill, has been shattered in 6 minutes. Bruce withdraws his hand, steps back, gives Eric space. The Viking lies on the platform for 5 seconds, 6, 7, then slowly, heavily, he pushes himself upward, sits first, then stands.
His legs are unsteady, not from injury, from the weight of what just happened, from the collapse of everything he believed about himself, about strength, about fighting, about the small men he mocked. The snow falls on both of them equally now, on the giant and the small man, on the defeated and the victor, on the student and the teacher, because that’s what this has become, a lesson.
The promoter looks at the judges. The judges look at each other. Nobody needs to say anything. The result is obvious. But before anyone can speak, Eric does something nobody expects. He bows. The strongest man in Norway, the last Viking, the man who has never shown respect to a single opponent in 10 years of competition, bows to Bruce Lee.
Deep, from the waist, the way a student bows to a master in a dojo. The gesture is so unexpected that the crowd doesn’t know how to react. Silence stretches. Then Eric speaks. His voice is different now, quieter, stripped of arrogance, raw, human. I was wrong. Three words. The hardest three words Eric Halvorson has ever spoken.
I was wrong about everything. Bruce nods, accepts the acknowledgement without celebration, without triumph, without any of the showmanship Eric himself would have displayed had the roles been reversed. “Your strength is real,” Bruce says. His voice carries in the frozen air. “Your power is genuine, but strength without direction is just force.
Power without understanding is just weight. You must learn to use what you have, not rely on what you are.” Eric stares at him, processing. The words land like stones in still water, rippling outward, changing the surface. “How?” Eric asks. “One word, but it contains everything. How do I learn this? How do I become what you are? How do I move like water when I’ve spent my whole life being stone?” Bruce looks at him for a long moment, snow collecting on both their shoulders.
“Come find me,” Bruce says, “when you’re ready to be a student again. When your pride allows it, come to Los Angeles. I’ll show you what lies beyond strength.” The stadium erupts, not immediately. It takes 3 seconds for the shock to break. Then the sound comes. 50,000 voices, not cheering for a winner, not booing a loser, something else.
Acknowledgement, respect, awe. They came to watch a destruction. They witnessed a revelation. They came for blood. They received wisdom. They will tell this story for 50 years. Their children will hear it. Their grandchildren will ask if it’s true. It’s true. All of it. Bruce walks off the platform, down the icy steps, back through the snow.
Dan Inosanto meets him at the bottom, wraps a coat around his shoulders. “You’re freezing,” Dan says. Bruce’s hands are shaking now, the adrenaline fading, the cold finally arriving. “I’m fine. That was incredible.” Bruce shakes his head. “That was necessary.” He looks back at the platform. Eric still stands there, alone in the snowfall, a different man than he was 7 minutes ago, lighter somehow despite weighing 265 lb, lighter because the heaviest thing he carried wasn’t stones or iron, it was arrogance. And Bruce Lee just
helped him set it down. 50,000 witnesses, seven who knew, one who learned, one who taught. February 14th, 1972. Bislett Stadium, Oslo. The day Viking strength met Chinese wisdom. The day the strongest man in Norway discovered that the smallest man in the stadium was the most dangerous. And the day Bruce Lee proved on frozen ground in minus 9° with bare hands and canvas shoes that water always finds its way around stone.
