My Volleyball Weekend

To prevent this from becoming a pure Java games blog, let me tell you about my Saturday. A beautiful, insane friend with a scream bubbling up inside her at all times works at a place where one can play volleyball. There is a bar there, which I don't totally understand, but a group of us went over there to yes, play volleyball and drink two yummy cocktails. I was ambivalent about the volleyball, but I did join in and cement my position as the worst player of the bunch. I was, for the most part, afraid of the ball.

I finally knew what it must feel like to be Hinata.

This is the first hurdle of any hard-balled game. Getting used to letting that thing hit your body. I didn't totally manage it by the time we were done, but I did inch closer and closer to being able to take the hit. For some reason, I let out an uncontrollable cartoon scream the first several times the ball and I made contact. But eventually, the ball could hit my forearm. What it couldn't do was make it over the net, but that's a step for another time.

Volleyballs look just like this.

It isn't easy getting used to the physical reality of a sport like that. The confidence and force you need just does not come naturally. Nevertheless, it was fun. I was committed for the entire time, but a vodka cocktail does impact the experience.

It did make me think about the lack of exercise I've been getting lately. I stopped lifting weights at the end of last year because a repetitive strain injury made it really weird, and I've been too lazy to walk or run or cycle instead. But maybe I should make a committment to doing regular cardio again, because it feels nice to have improved stamina and breath control. It feels satisfying.

I've never been a big sports person, but looking back on my school experience of sport, there are things I remember really fondly. Like the football tournament I competed in at first school, the only inter-school sports thing I ever did. I was eight or so, and something about football at that age was natural and easy. I wasn't bad at it. But I never really played after that. Mixed games stopped making sense as we got older and the boys got more staunchly competitive. For a brief period, football was really fun, but then something about it felt too serious. It was, and is, after all, the primo avenue for English pride, a thing I found sort of ghoulish and repulsive as a kid, largely because I resented the expectation that I was supposed to support England and be really into England winning. I just didn't really get the attachment to a national team. I understand it more now, but I think it just came across as way too dead serious for me growing up.

Me kicking my football.

The other sport I have a passion for is badminton. The lightness of it all was magic to me. Suddenly I didn't need to be strong or tall or part of a team that didn't give me an opportunity to do anything. Suddenly I could be fast and little and smack a shuttlecock across the room with a beautiful swiftness. Balls might soar, but they don't dance. The shuttlecock is a little dancer. And I love her. Tennis is a wild hog by comparison.

I'm just like this guy from the badminton anime Love All Play.

But I'm not playing any sport right now, of course. I'm in bed, smiling at the thought, legs rigid, sleepy. Hell yes.