I know, I know. Stop laughing. It's hard to imagine a short, slow girl doing such a thing, but it happened.
I was never great. I'm not sure I was even ever good. Perhaps adequate in my elementary school and junior high days ... mostly because I understood the game and worked fairly hard. I wasn't a great outside shooter and by the time I got to varsity, I had lost any advantage I had ... along with my starting position.
I would, however, get called in when we needed a defensive push. I always loved defense best.
To be good at defense, you had to learn to read your opponents intentions before they committed to them. You had to remember the way they came down the floor the previous time and weigh the likelihood of what they'd do this time. Then you had to move your feet to stay one step ahead of them.
The drill we used to train for that was called foot fire. It meant squatting down, and rapidly moving your feet up and down. Then shuffling forward and back, left and right, diagonal in ever direction. Over and over again. The faster you moved your feet, the more kudos you got.
When you do it right, it kills your quads and your hamstrings.
One of the new sections of RIPPED has us doing a left-right shuffle just like those drills. And I have to be honest, the impact sort of kills my knees.
So please don't tell my PT Al that I just can't help myself. I'm all in.
When I hear the squeak of my shoes on the wood floor, I'm transported back to the gym of my youth and I feel 15 again. My muscles remember the motion and I can't help but assume a full defensive position ... ass down, weight on my toes and hands out, ready to slap that ball away.
And then I smile. In that moment, 15 years old doesn't seem so long ago.
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| That's me in the middle of the back row. Along with some other familiar faces if you're from Fort. Sixth grade. Go Purdy Panthers! (I couldn't find the high school photo, so this one will just have to do.) |
2 comments:
This totally made me giggle! We seem so small...in many ways! Take care of those knees! Although I didn't do the HS drills...I remember the feeling of working up a sweat and loving it while cheering from the sidelines! Thanks for the TBT picture! Made me smile!
I need to post the whole photo. We are so darn cute! The one thing that I remember most about Purdy basketball is that every time we'd stop at Bleeckers to pick up Lor, we'd have to wait ... because she was doing her hair. And Rocky would give her the business. "Why are you doing your hair BEFORE the game? You're going to sweat and wreck it anyway!" And I remember you cheering on the sidelines, too, marthamac! All the foot fire drills in the world would not have given me the sense of rhythm and coordination you had to have for THAT!
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