So...it was the lunch break and I figured I would go interact with students at my junior high (where I "work" two times a week) in the gym. Then I got invited to play volleyball with one of the teams. Me: "This is it! My big moment! I'm pretty good at volleyball. They're all going to be surprised to see me lead them into victory." Well, I missed the first three balls almost completely, as in they just nicked the skin of my forearm. How embarrassing! "Oh yes! It's my turn to serve so I can show them what I've got." Boom! Flash by, over the net, rally, rally, rally, our point!! "That's what I'm talking about. Just a few more times like this." I serve. The ball crashes into the net. I find myself apologizing profusely to my grade 7 students who apparently are all better at volleyball than me. At least today they were, anyway.
This experience was not confidence-building at all. I might say it was humbling, but I didn't feel like I needed humbling to begin with. In fact, I was already feeling very vulnerable. So are there any lessons to learn from this or conclusions to be reached? I believe there are.
The simplest take-home message would definitely be that if you don't really play sports for years and years, you shouldn't expect to still be good at them. Or to put it another way, USE IT OR LOSE IT. If you don't practice, you WILL LOSE at least some ability. A lot of people say "I'm a natural. I've always been and always will be." Maybe you are. Maybe you aren't. But there's only improvement to be made from doing it more and doing it more often.
Second lesson: children are active. Their brains, their bodies, their imaginations. We could learn a lesson or two from them. So open up the paper and try that crossword. Go to the park and challenge some kids to a basketball game (and watch them whoop you the first few times). While you're at it, take a look at your nephews homework and see if you can solve the math problems. Or just go buy your own Math textbook, or Science or whatever it is that you want to work at. Our brains and bodies need stimulation. Just working at our job doing the same thing continually may not do the trick for those of us who want to be forever young. So learn the secrets. Follow the children and find the joy we used to have from just being in the moment, playing that game. And so on and so forth. You get the idea.
Finally, don't beat yourself up about a failure. Today I sucked at volleyball! But now that I know that, I can prepare for the future. I can improve from here. Today was nothing more than fuel/ motivation to train and get ready to rock the next show. And if that doesn't work out, you can find me in the corner of the room focusing on something else. Why? Because maybe there's something else I could be WINNING AT. I mean, come on, we don't have to be awesome at everything. Maybe you have some mad skills with a protactor, but not a ball of sorts.
It's all about how we respond. I LOST MISERABLY today. However, I refuse to lose myself over it. I can find something precious, something meaningful from this, if I look in the right places. So let's go searching for gold. Grab your pan. It may not be easy, but it'll be worth it. To the river!
This experience was not confidence-building at all. I might say it was humbling, but I didn't feel like I needed humbling to begin with. In fact, I was already feeling very vulnerable. So are there any lessons to learn from this or conclusions to be reached? I believe there are.
The simplest take-home message would definitely be that if you don't really play sports for years and years, you shouldn't expect to still be good at them. Or to put it another way, USE IT OR LOSE IT. If you don't practice, you WILL LOSE at least some ability. A lot of people say "I'm a natural. I've always been and always will be." Maybe you are. Maybe you aren't. But there's only improvement to be made from doing it more and doing it more often.
Second lesson: children are active. Their brains, their bodies, their imaginations. We could learn a lesson or two from them. So open up the paper and try that crossword. Go to the park and challenge some kids to a basketball game (and watch them whoop you the first few times). While you're at it, take a look at your nephews homework and see if you can solve the math problems. Or just go buy your own Math textbook, or Science or whatever it is that you want to work at. Our brains and bodies need stimulation. Just working at our job doing the same thing continually may not do the trick for those of us who want to be forever young. So learn the secrets. Follow the children and find the joy we used to have from just being in the moment, playing that game. And so on and so forth. You get the idea.
Finally, don't beat yourself up about a failure. Today I sucked at volleyball! But now that I know that, I can prepare for the future. I can improve from here. Today was nothing more than fuel/ motivation to train and get ready to rock the next show. And if that doesn't work out, you can find me in the corner of the room focusing on something else. Why? Because maybe there's something else I could be WINNING AT. I mean, come on, we don't have to be awesome at everything. Maybe you have some mad skills with a protactor, but not a ball of sorts.
It's all about how we respond. I LOST MISERABLY today. However, I refuse to lose myself over it. I can find something precious, something meaningful from this, if I look in the right places. So let's go searching for gold. Grab your pan. It may not be easy, but it'll be worth it. To the river!
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