Dan and I finally took our first ever reward for exercising dinner last Friday night. It was more of a retroactive "How about we call it good as long as we do something tomorrow?" kind of reward dinner, but I think we both needed something positive that day, so who cares if it was deserved or not? At any rate, I think we both still felt guilty about the dinner (?!?!?), and we rollerbladed a bit yesterday and both took the long route to school today. We also did a pilates on Saturday. Yes, we actually own one pilates DVD, along with a "Yoga for inflexible people" and a "power yoga" DVD that we bought who knows when last year. We were doing pretty well for a while there, but then life caught up with us, and we are back to being plain old inflexible people again (albeit Dan more than I. Ha.) :)
The rollerblading went surprisingly well, aka, neither of us got killed, maimed or bruised by any type of pavement, car, or mass of human flesh. I must admit there were a few places where I wished I hadn't taken the brake off my skates, but holding onto Dan (poor guy) hoping that he would eventually slow down worked for me. We did run into a few kids from our youth group, but not literally, and not as I feared we would. I was absolutely sure that I would turn to wave to someone, lose my balance, fall on my face, and they would have a great story to tell at FISH come Wednesday night. Anyway, that didn't happen. Whew.
As we skated around, I noticed that Dan was oh-so-casually doing a few twists and turns, the way hockey players do--I'm guessing he was trying to make it SOMEWHAT challenging or worthy of calling it exercise for him personally, because we were in a nice residential area where you don't need to do the twists and turns and backward skating that he was doing. Don't get me wrong--if I could do that, I'd show off too! So anyway, despite the fact that he was the one who dragged me off the couch and somehow convinced me that rollerblading around with him would be so much more relaxing and fun than taking a much-needed nap on the couch, I did feel bad for slowing him down substantially. I know he's used to this by now, and probably knew that when he asked me to join him, but I still feel bad for the guy. This is the reason we don't bike together either, by the way. :) As I was skating, however, feeling pity for the twisting, turning, backwards-skating guy in front of me (and skating around me at times) I thought of all the other guys in my life who have done the exact same thing for me, most of the time not complaining that I'm too slow or whatever. My Dad was the first--he didn't want his girls to be the type that couldn't hit a baseball, so every summer night as far back as I can remember, we'd go outside and he'd pitch to us. We started off with a plastic red bat about the size of my waist (back then), and he'd chase the balls, cheer for us, etc., like a good father should. Then there were the guys in 4th grade with whom I sumo wrestled during recess. Maybe they didn't like me playing with them, and maybe they told me so (especially after I started winning every single match), but the great part about that was I didn't understand a word they were saying! Hurray for those first 6 months of complete oblivion in Japanese school! Junior high and high school were spent at a girls' school, and thus I had few male friends, but at times we would play basketball with the guys from the youth group. And my point about being slower, or not as good at others, stands when it comes to basketball. Just because you're tall, it doesn't mean you are a natural at this sport. I am a living example of this.
The college years were when I really started gaining the confidence in my physical abilities, mostly due to all the guys in my dorm not quite treating me like a female. If it is in the context of sports, I will gladly take that treatment as a compliment. Several examples of this: Jared English hipchecking me in roller hockey after I scored 3 goals in a row (talk about luck! I could still barely skate); Bode crashing into me midair while playing frisbee--it took awhile to get my breath back (I just have four words for him, though--buttprint in the glass); Joel actually inviting me to play roller hockey with him, his brother, Deano, and others; Jared demanding that I show up at a soccer game because he wanted 'a serious game'. I don't know if it is because I am as tall as (if not taller than) some guys that they just assume that I can play as well as they can. For the most part, they can usually outrun, outjump, and outthrow me in most sports. But I still like playing, and over the years that kind of encouragement and being invited to these sorts of things has made me more comfortable on the playing field, rather than the nervous (what if I strike out???) kind of person that I was, believe it or not. I am really quite fortunate to have had a bunch of friends who let me join them. ...Man, writing about this has triggered some ultimate frisbee memories. Especially the kind where certain individuals who will go unnamed had to take themselves out of the game so that they would behave themselves. :) Nice.
So thank you to all you guys who let me play. I now have the confidence and sometimes the skill needed to get out there either with Dan or even with the high school kids and not worry about being an athletic failure. It's amazing how far a little bit of encouragement goes, and I have certainly been the recipient of lots of that over the years.