Some of you may know that I've been training and playing lots of softball the last couple of months. For selfish reasons. The Ad League is putting together an All Stars team which is sent to the USA to play in an international advertising softball championship and I have my eyes set on making it to the team. There will be beer. There will be boys. There will be parties. You get my drift! But despite these superficial reasons, I have used this goal to see how far I can go with improving my game.
My game was pretty lame to start with. I grew up in Romania and not only that there is no tradition in American-style sports (well, we do have a Romanian game called 'oina' which sits nicely in between baseball and cricket, but no one really plays or knows the rules for) but there is hardly any encouragement for team sports. So I have never thought of myself as an athletic creature until fairly recently when I got into all sorts of physical activities and realised that I am quite strong and resilient overall. But to get good at a sport, now, that's something else I never thought I'd do.
I started playing softball three years ago with my work team and in between cans of beers and giggles I slowly but surely started to understand the rules and being less and less afraid of the ball, occasionally making it to the first base when accidentally hitting the ball with the bat. This year however, I started training, taking up a spot with the training team from the British Softball Federation. I also joined other teams to get more game time. Last Saturday I played in an all day softball tournament and played 6 games. On Monday I went to my first trials session for the team selection. Which is when one of the trainers shouted at me 'Go, charge the ball!' and I ran like crazy towards that ball not even knowing what 'charging the ball' meant.
'Charging the ball' means running forward to grab it when hit on the ground. Not waiting for the ball to bounce its way to where you are, but running towards it and relaying it to the relevant team mate. See, I've never been one to charge the ball in the past. And this is something that's been valid for everything else in my life. I would wait for the 'balls' (situations) to come to me. But training for softball as well as applying all the other self-improvement techniques I've been learning in the past six months or so have showed me that I am now the kind of person who is charging the ball. And yes, I do have lots of bruises on my legs and hands. But there's no better feeling than charging that wild ball, I tell you! I'm proud of my bruises, you see. Life's not about sitting comfy on the side and waiting for balls to land in your glove, it's about charging the ball!
Are you 'charging the ball'?
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