Growing up, I wasn’t really into sports. The only sport I seemed to be any good at in gym class was dodgeball, since you could excel by virtually not participating. I would hide behind other people near the beginning of the game, and then, when the team thinned out, I’d dodge the ball, as the name stated. I wouldn’t touch a ball until I was the last person left on the team and the teacher told me that I had to throw one. (The game would end about five seconds later.)
As an adult, I try playing a sport every once in a while.
In my mid-twenties, I took a tennis class through the park district. The instruction wasn’t bad, but the best way to describe my experience is this: There were six classes, and in three of the classes, I got hit in the face with the ball. That didn’t make me want to move on to level two.
I went to a water volleyball class once at my local rec center. I’m not huge into water sports, and I don’t really know how to play volleyball; I think I just wanted to punch something. It was me and all these seventy-five-year-old ladies. Instead of a traditional volleyball, we used a beach ball. The court was about the size of a pizza box, so you had to tap the ball, as if it were a porcelain teapot, in order to keep it in bounds. That took a lot of getting used to, and once, I overzealously whacked the ball, slamming it right into another player’s face. I don’t know what’s worse- getting hit or hitting someone else.
Some of the activities I planned for this January involved trying out sports I’d never played before. Unfortunately, the mountain biking class (the only class I mentioned I’d be taking) got cancelled.
I stopped an outdoor adventure park and went through their ropes course (twice). When I was a teenager, my summer camp had a ropes course, but I was too chicken to try it. I heard from others that there was a person on the ground holding their safety rope, like with rappelling. Technology has changed the ropes course! Now, you put on a harness, hook onto a metal safety cable, and traverse from one obstacle to the next by yourself, all while attached to the cable system. I don’t know how that old summer camp course was set up, but this one had a rope at chest height next to each obstacle that you could grab onto for support. I had always pictured people walking across a tightrope, for example, from one tree to another, with nothing to hold onto for balance. It seemed so scary- one balance check, one hasty step and down you’d go. You’d have to pray that the person spotting you was paying attention. So navigating this course ended up being a lot easier than I had anticipated. Plus, some of the “obstacles” were ziplines!
Next on the list was boxing. This was a competitive boxing gym, not a get-in-shape-while-incorporating-some-moves-that-we-stole-from-boxing-and-other-sports gym. Although I learned the correct way to make a fist and other essentials, my strongest memories of the class come from the dialect spoken by the instructors. I come from a predominantly white area, and I’m not used to a teacher demonstrating an action and then asking, “You feel me?” Or, after I’d try to imitate his movements, “Thazzit, baby!” I spent a lot of time at the speed bag (the little hanging punching bag shaped like a teardrop), trying to catch on to the motion of the punch and the rhythm.
It may have been a mistake to go to an indoor rock-climbing gym the day after the boxing class, where we had done so many conditioning exercises that my legs felt like jello. One of the climbing teachers showed me a few tips, but I didn’t get the hang of putting his advice into practice. I knew that rock climbing was partly mental and involved creative thinking, but it was even more mental than I expected (figuring out what path to take, where to place your feet and your hands, how to hold onto or stand on a certain shape of rock). After an hour or an hour and a half, I think my muscles just gave out. The lesson I learned that can be applied to life is that sometimes, you need to go down in order to go up. Sometimes, if you’re traveling to the left, you need to take a step to the right in order to find a path where you can continue. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck.
I had never touched a gun in my life, and for the most part, I had no desire to get involved with weapons or firearms. But once in a while, I thought it would probably be a good idea to know how to use a gun, if nothing else, to be able to take the bullets out so no one else could shoot it. I attended a class that covered gun safety and basics, with time at the end to practice shooting.
My takeaway from the gun class is to periodically challenge the beliefs you hold about yourself. I can’t count the number of times I’ve mentioned, “I have no aim.” Looking at the photo of my target [here], that obviously isn’t true. The worst part is, I already knew that. Not trying to gross anyone out, but I used to throw dirty kleenexes into the trash can from across the room, and I’d “make a basket” most of the time. So where did this idea of having no aim come from, and why did I continue to perpetuate it, even with evidence of the contrary? Regardless of the reasons, it stops here. I’m not going to say that anymore.
After that, I went to an intro to archery class. Archery seemed like the classic summer camp hobby, but I had never been exposed to it. The instructor went through a few details with us- how to snap the arrow onto the bowstring, where to place your feet, and then he called out “Free to practice!”, our cue to start shooting. I go, “Well, wait a minute- what hand do we hold the bow with?” Then, “Is there a certain way we’re supposed to grip the handle?” (because it felt like it was ergonomically designed, except the grooves felt wrong every way I tried to position my hand). At some point, I heard the teacher tell another student to look through the sight on the bow and line up the red X with the target. But he didn’t mention that in his spiel to the whole class. I felt like that this information should automatically be covered in an intro class. In fact, in many of the classes I took, the teachers gave us tips on how to correct mistakes they saw us making, but the initial instruction was very spare. Maybe people forget what it’s like to be a beginner. It makes me appreciate a very thorough teacher.
The next day, I went back to the same facility to practice archery (the owner let me practice for free!) before taking an axe-throwing class. The thought of axe-throwing was so strange and so out of character that I had to give it a try. I learned the basic technique, but I also learned that, for better or for worse, the tiniest adjustments can cause a huge change in your performance. Stepping back a half an inch can be the difference between your axe slicing into a log or smacking against the log and landing on the floor. I didn’t get a feeling for when I was making mistakes or what I was doing wrong to know how to correct it. [When a bowstring snaps against your elbow in archery and you get a big black bruise, you learn to move your elbow out of the way.]
Of all the sports I tested out, archery was probably the one I felt most comfortable doing. It didn’t feel as dangerous as holding a gun, but it was still about aiming and shooting at a target.
I didn’t have an epiphany during any of this or get a feeling of “This is going to be my sport,” or “This is my new passion.” But as with any new activity, it was good to learn the basic techniques, be exposed to new information, new facets of life, and new people.