Sporty? Nah.
I was watching a short video clip the other day about two dogs getting treats. They sat patiently watching their off-screen owner, waiting for a signal. Suddenly a treat came flying through the air at one dog, which gracefully jumped up and caught it mid-air. Good boy. The second dog sat, waiting for his turn. Good boy. Then the second treat came flying through the air at the second dog. The second dog did not jump up and catch the treat mid-air. He flinched and drew back, his very being baffled as to why someone would throw something at him.
That second dog is my spirit animal.
I’ve shared before that I am not sporty. I have no athletic skill to speak of, in any area. My eye-hand coordination is challenged, my sense of where my body is in space is, spacey. I am more of a cerebral, indoorsy sort of individual.
I’ve been hurt in every sport I’ve ever tried, and some I haven’t. That time I played badminton in high school PE and got knocked out by my enthusiastic left-handed partner? Yeah. That time – again in PE, this time in junior high – I tried to catch a softball as it rolled gently toward me and it hit some rock or something and flew up and got me square in the nose, causing a nose bleed so massive they sent someone to the office for a wheelchair? Yeah. The time I got hit in the side of the head by a basketball as I walked back from the drinking fountain at a high school basketball game I was attending, not playing? Yeah. The time I pulled a muscle trying to use the elliptical machine at the gym? The machine that mimics walking? Yeah.
Some of my problem is that whole coordination thing, yes, but I also acknowledge a certain lack of caring about sports. I am not competitive in sports. (Possibly as a coping mechanism for protection against assured defeat. It won’t sting as much if I don’t care, right?)
When I see a quarterback haul back to throw the ball and his receivers are running patterns and trying to dodge defenders I immediately think, why would anyone want to be the one to catch the ball, knowing they are going to be slammed into and hurled to the ground? Also, the pressure of having to be the one trying to catch the ball? No, thank you. I actually had an epiphany one day while stressing as a Giants player came up to bat in a clutch position – bases loaded, game tied, bottom of the ninth, championship game, whatever, it was a tense moment. As I thought how absolutely horrified I would be in that situation, it occurred to me that the player probably lived for a moment like that. I was so blown away I missed the at-bat.
To stay healthy I have been walking, but even that has its potential for danger to a person like me. If there’s a slippery patch of mud on the sidewalk, I’m the one to slip. If there’s a little glitch in the sidewalk, I’m the one to catch my toe on it and stumble. If there’s an acorn or pebble or grain of sand in my path, I’m the one to step on it and roll an ankle. That’s just walking outdoors. Indoors I have a sort of path through my house, and I walk back and forth to build up my step count. It turns out that when you do sharp little turns you can tweak little leg muscles. Don’t ask me how I know.
Thomas has inherited my “skills.” He has a goal in OT (Occupational Therapy) to catch a ball when thrown at him, and the progress report said he was at a success rate of 4 out of 10 attempts. The therapist noted that he still flinches and puts his hands up protectively rather than tracking the ball to receive it, and I nodded to myself and sighed, ‘yeah, that’s my boy, alright.’
We are that second dog, baffled about that treat flying through the air at us. Look out, augh.
