ARISE!

 

And SOOOO it begins again. I couldn't be happier. It was also amazing/fate that I went back to rugby on the rainiest and messiest day I could've picked. It's pretty awesome to start the whole routine again of getting to know a new team and coach; while it's cool to already have a team that is on par with my family in importance and always easy to play with, I love learning a whole new way of playing from new teams. At the same time though, it can be a bit intimidating to play on a new team, especially with one that is already so comfortable with one another. But I like the challenge of somehow meshing into their already stellar line up of a rugby team.

The coach on this team is simply AMAZING. He he has been a part of the Kenya Rugby Union....and BOY DOES HE KNOW HIS STUFF. When I showed up to this practice, we did a little bit of running and stretching as a team, and then he just said "count off." After that....it was OFF TO THE RACES. We just played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played and played some more. He stopped the playing a couple of times to assess a few things he was seeing, which was always insightful, but he never kept us waiting long.

Something that I liked which he addressed was the relationship between passing and high stress in a game situation; when you run into a highly stressful/fast paced moment in a game, people's passes usually become worse. That makes sense since when you're starting to get anxious you're more likely to throw away the ball in a heartbeat without thinking as much about where it's going. But it's good to know that when you are faced in those types of situations (which is obviously A LOT...like every 5 seconds, ha ha) your skill level goes up. I think the more you experience and handle those scenarios the more you become comfortable with them and can maneuver through it the right way...which is ALSO another reason why it is so critical to practice how you play. Rugby seems to be a lot about gaining a level of comfort when your surrounded by chaos.

Although as of right now I'm only playing rugby once or twice a week, hopefully in the near future that number will go up. And I'll take ANY kind of rugby on a regular basis. At least when my weeks get crazy, I can know that I am guaranteed at least one day out of my week to let it all out and be in complete bliss.