 |
| kill bill 1 is on. score. |
I'm hungry and can't even get myself to get up to microwave something, I will shortly. You won't know the difference because this will all post at once...but trust me, I'll eat dinner.
Anyway, I'm playing on a local adult league that my good friend help to round people up for, and we just played our third game...
Some of the people on my team I played with in high school, and I have to say it's been one of the highlights of my week for these last few weeks.
I don't think it's a very fun game to watch, so much stop and go, lots of rules, the whistle blows constantly...aside from the sexy kilts we had to wear (roll up really short) in high school I'm not sure what anyone was doing watching us.
BUT despite all of that it's such a fun sport to play.
We have a small team, there are 7 of us, and we need 7 people on the field. Your team has to forfeit if we don't have at least 5 at a given game...because of our schedules and the winter colds that I'm sure will come up, we've been playing man down or at least NO subs for each game.
We're talking running/sprinting (then a little walking) back and forth, for two-25 minute halves with a 30 second time out here and there. I swear it's hard. I may or may not have wanted to vom the first half of the first game...but I managed to keep it together.
Some really nice players from other teams have been offering to play here and there on our team so that for the most part we aren't playing 5 vs. 7 (though its technically a forfeit if we use other players).
I'm not used to doing something that I'm not very good at.
Mind you I'm not being super hard on myself since I haven't played in about 10 years, and I'll improve I'm sure with each game, but it's not an automatic "Oh I kick ass at this".
(mmm Trader Joe's frozen Chicken Tikka Masala)
My default is to seek out things I'm good at, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
I think that despite the fact that I don't totally suck, I'm not the best. This is tough for me on some levels in general, not even just in field hockey. It's been teaching me instead to focus on having fun with it and improving myself (mainly my stick handling - insert inappropriate joke here)...versus worrying that I'm letting the team down when I miss the ball, or how I'm not a lead scorer.
I think this is an important exercise (physically and mentally) to push myself to do something that I'm not super wonderful at, and stick to it. Pun intended.
There is also less pressure when you know you're doing something for the experience versus to impress someone else or to say I'm really good at this.
Our varsity coach literally drained me of any enjoyment of playing my senior year.
I quit the team with 2 games left (then they went to tournament, damnit) mostly out of principle - aka anger. I wrote her a letter explaining how she was a super bitch (not those words) and was unfair about not letting me play for many more than the required games, when I missed one for a legit reason, among other things she did that pissed me off.
I was decent, not awesome, but I had a lot of heart, I loved playing and she managed to strip me of this by her coaching "technique".
I say "technique" because it was more like she was militant and was good at making us feel badly about how we played versus encouraging us/inspiring us to dig deeper. I'm not sure if I'd do it again, or if I'd stick it out to play the last few games now that I realize I was being a moody teenager, but at the time I felt like it was better to tell her she ruined it for me in hopes she wouldn't do that for future kids on her teams.
I'm not saying coaches shouldn't push their team hard and drive them into the ground to a certain extent, but there was an edge to her that just over the course of those seasons scraped away my love and passion for it.
If I had the choice I'd obviously be good at something vs. not, but being so-so is an opportunity to just enjoy it instead of feeling upset by it (like I did 10 years ago).
I'm glad that I have been reintroduced and still love it all these years later...
It is so fun despite our small team, no substitutes, it having been years since most of us played and our 0-3 record as of today, but who's counting, anyway.
We play with a lot of sweating, a lot of laughing and most importantly a lot of heart and it feels like a win to me.
I'm now much more apt to try something I might not be the best at, and I would encourage you to do the same.
(Maybe not the best time to recruit you our team when we play the next league...but I swear we are improving and with more players/subs we would definitely kick ass...if you're interested let me know. Seriously. Do it.)
Until next time,
a tirEd fiEld hockEy playEr
No comments:
Post a Comment