I wrote this at the end of last year in
honor of fencing and frisbee and how much they've done for me, but I
never ended up finishing it. Here it is now, finished and edited...
although I'm sure I will add more things to this list as I continue
learning things about sports.
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Things I've learned from sports from freshman year:
1) It doesn't matter what it is, but do
it.
Have you ever loved something so much
it hurts? Something you just wanted to throw yourself into completely
out of love for the thing and the people and the everything about it?
I think a lot of people had at least one of those in high school. For
me it was musical theater, and at least for a little while, marching
band. Thinking about putting on a show in theater or performing a
“golden show” in competition for band made my belly ache just
thinking about it, I wanted it so much. All my friends were in band,
and my few friends who weren't soon dropped out of my life because I
didn't have time to spend with them and all I wanted to talk about
was music, anyway. I considered majoring in music my sophomore year.
I didn't tell anyone, because I was embarrassed to be considering the
prospect when I wasn't really good enough to make it work. But it was
an obsession and an addiction and my whole life, and I couldn't
imagine not centering my life on music.
I fully intended to join a band in
college, but it didn't happen. Somewhere between my two sports and
classes and meeting new people and having exciting new experiences, I
didn't make time for it. But the full force of my slightly obsessive
personality is now fixated on sports. To a certain extent, it doesn't
matter what you do – if you
have a passion for music, sports, theater, art, fantasy, gay rights,
video games, etc etc – all that matters is that you do something
and throw yourself into it and love it. I couldn't imagine living
without music, but I also love sports and it was easier than I would
have thought to give up music by replacing it with frisbee and
fencing.
So if I ramble
constantly about fencing and tell you fencing jokes and “this one
time at a tournament” stories and won't shut up about how boss my
frisbee team is, please forgive me. I fell in love.
2) You are capable of so much more than
you think. Confidence is everything.
I've run track and cross-country, did
marching band, and played frisbee for years. I'm no stranger to
exercise. But being on Bella Donna (my frisbee team) has been the
most demanding sport I've been a part of. 2 workouts a week, 1
practice a week, 2 weight-lifting sessions a week when we managed it,
tournaments every weekend in March and April, and all those nights
practicing until midnight in the Shell made for a difficult year. It
was difficult with respect to time-management, balancing practice
with fencing and classes and homework and studying and sleep and
eating and a social life often seemed impossible, and sometimes I
slipped up and and fell behind (usually with sleep and studying).
It was difficult physically – I don't
think there's a single girl on our team who went uninjured all
season. Working out and playing that much take their toll on your
body, but it felt like disappointing the team to be injured, so most
of us would suck it up and play through minor injuries like pulled
muscles and rolled ankles, only taking time out if absolutely
necessary. Most days I had 2 hours of fencing practice, an hour break
during which I would sometimes but not always get the chance to eat
dinner, and then either an hour-and-a-half workout or a 3-hour
practice for frisbee. Sometimes I would watch the clock creep closer
and closer to midnight, just wishing I could go home and catch up on
sleep and rest my aching muscles.
There was a period of time in early
spring semester when I didn't put much enthusiasm into either sport,
and I'm a little bit ashamed of that now. Because what I've learned
is that even when you think you're exhausted, that's just your brain.
Your body is a remarkable thing and is way more resilient than you
think it is. During your 4th game on a Sunday of a hard
tournament, you can simply convince yourself that you have more in
you, and voilà! Somehow it's there. If my girl is running deep, I
used to believe that she was faster and let her beat me, but rather
recently I've discovered that I'm faster than I thought, and if I go
in with a head full of confident arrogance and a heart full of belief
in myself, I can almost always beat her. During my 6th
workout in 3 days when I'm feeling worn down and dispirited, I can
just tell myself that I'm excited about it and still have plenty of
energy, and somehow I always do. Why waste time believing you have
limits when your body hasn't given up yet?
This belief in oneself, this
confidence, is also a huge factor in fencing. One of my foil mentors
(hey Stephen!) likes to tell me I fence too timidly, which cracks me
up because I'm an incredibly aggressive fencer as long as I stay in
control of the bout. (He is right, though – as soon as the other
person takes control of the bout and puts me on defense, I lose
confidence and my limited ability to plan ahead.) But I will
unashamedly brag about how well I did at club nationals in Tennessee,
because I decided I was going to be a boss and scare the crap out of
every girl I faced on the strip, and surprisingly it worked! My
strategy is to be fast and aggressive and scare them until I hit them
with my incredibly large lunge that they really should have parried
if they weren't so intimidated. Against better fencers, this wouldn't
work at all, but apparently this is good enough for club level
fencing.
On a more philosophical note, it is my
experience and my belief that people become what you expect them to
be. If you treat someone like a criminal and a delinquent, there's a
darn good chance they'll act like one. In high school I would get in
trouble for breaking rules that I only broke in spirit, like getting
disciplined for “ditching class” when I really only ditched
school rallies because I hated that we were required to go to them.
They had strict rules precisely because they expected us to push the
limits and break all of them, and so I did. While on the other
extreme, my parents treated me like I was a responsible, independent
adult capable of making rational decisions from about age 12 or so. I
can't even imagine how horrible it would be to let them down, since
they believe that I'm a better person than I really am. So I try to
live up to their expectations, and when I fail, it hurts and
sometimes I try to hide it. So whatever you want people to be like?
Treat them like they already are as kind, responsible, etc as you
expect them to be, and hopefully it will push them in the right
direction. Expectation is powerful, and I don't know which is more
powerful: the effect other people's expectations have on you, or your
own. But your own are far easier to hack. So go believe yourself into
being good at math, sports, music, languages, and especially people
skills. I believe it works for all of these.
3) Your teammates might just be the
most influential people you'll meet.
It's hard to just generate confidence
on your own though. A lot of us don't believe in ourselves and can't
just start with a snap of the fingers. That's where the sidelines
come in. On Bella, we really emphasize the importance of the “8th
man on the field”: the players on the sideline. This is useful for
practical and strategic reasons (telling the defensive players where
the disc is and where they can be to play most effectively, for
example) but also to give you the much-needed confidence boost when
your fuel tanks are flagging and you don't believe you're fast
anymore. You need people to believe in you for you sometimes, and for
me that takes the form of my weight-lifting buddy Romy screaming her
head off at me on the sidelines telling me “You're so fast, Ikwe!
Deeeep! DEEEEEP!”. Or it's our coach Robyn sobbing after a point
with too many turnovers to count in the most important game of our
season, because she believes in us so much and was so overwhelmed
with pride that we stuck it out and won the point. It's standing in a
huddle, looking around at the determined faces of your teammates,
knowing there is no one you'd rather play with, because we believe in
ourselves and each other and we've worked so hard together to learn
that trust. Being a part of a team is a powerful feeling. It makes
you better AND it's the single most rewarding thing about playing a
sport.
I've met so many amazing people through
sports. They've inspired me and changed me and I feel incredibly
lucky to know them. I was consistently humbled by the dedication and
fire of the senior players on Bella (Forty, I'm looking at you) who
never seem to lose intensity and are always working to become the
best players they can be. My fellow new players learned the same
lessons I did this year about time-management and pushing through
pain and fatigue, and we've lived the same struggles and figured them
out together. As for fencing, well, I owe everything to the senior
foilists on the team. We have a coach, but he can't teach us all
individually, so it's no exaggeration to say everything I've learned
about fencing is thanks to David, Stephen, and Ruby. They gave up so
much of their practice time to teach me, and were somehow patient
through the frustrations of learning how to treat a thin piece of
metal as an extension of your arm which is in turn an extension of
the wire springs that are a fencer's legs. And we got to know each
other, somehow we all became best friends. I guess fencing attracts a
certain kind of personality, quirky and interesting and intelligent
and kind. All I know is I could spend all day talking about how cool
my fencing friends are, Stephen who's like a brother to me, Victoria
who's a 500% nicer version of me, Foil-Mama David, Tommy who crushes
lizard skulls in his free time, Sean the adorably neurotic punk, I
could go on and on. What a cast of characters. There should be a
reality TV show about us. Anyway, I didn't mean to go on and on about
my friends because that's not very interesting to read about, but the
point of all of this was that when you play sports, you become close
with your teammates which is the best way of making friends I've
found so far. And I am a very different person thanks to the people I
met last year and my relationships with them.
4) You belong on the field.
In organized sports, everyone has a
role. In frisbee, you're a handler or a cutter. No matter where you
are on the field, you know what your job is. If you're a chaser, you
look to open a window deep and then come under either as a continue
or as a cut if the shots did not get open. (Yes, I realize this means
nothing to you if you don't play frisbee.) On defense you're even
more necessary. If it's man-on-man defense, you have to follow your
girl, and if you don't do that, in all likelihood she'll score and
that point is all your fault. In zone defense you're responsible for
an area of the field, and not doing that makes the rest of the
defense fall apart. My point is, you are necessary when you're on the
field. You can't hang back because you think the other people on your
team will do a better job. You know what you need to do and your team
is relying on you to do it.
My coach Robyn mentioned an article
that I can't seem to find right now talking about how women's sports
(and specifically Ultimate) are so important because they teach women
to be unafraid of their bodies, unafraid to take up space and be
physical and use what they've got. All too often I see girls who try
to take up the least amount of space possible. If they're tall, they
stoop a little in embarrassment. They weave through crowds where
large men usually just walk straight and people move aside for them.
I experimented recently with not moving out of my way for people on
sidewalks, just to see what would happen. I got ran into a lot and
got some surprised looks, and eventually figured out a technique of
walking with squared shoulders, head up, and looking people in the
eyes that somehow made people step aside for me. This is why girls
should play frisbee. Take up space! Box your girl out, and run as
aggressively as you can in her space without making it a foul. I saw
this at camp this summer too – when girls don't have mirrors for 4
weeks and are forbidden from using makeup or wearing pretty clothes
by the circumstances they're in, somehow they become more comfortable
with their bodies. They get muscle from canoeing, they get pride from
portaging canoes on their head, and they get respect for how hard
they work. They're worth what they can carry, what they can do to
help, and how they contribute to the group, not what they look like.
(Incidentally, one of my favorite parts of being a counselor was
getting to break the mirrors off the port-a-potties so they wouldn't
see themselves for 4 weeks. 21 years of bad luck here I come!!)
I want everyone to feel like they
belong in whatever space they're occupying. Sometimes I'm on the
field not knowing where to cut or how to help, but my goal now is to
just cut more until I figure
out how to do it better. By not participating, you're hurting your
team, so get out there and be a presence on the field. You belong in
your space. Own it.
So go
out and play a sport. You might learn something. I learn something
every single practice, and it's an amazing feeling.
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