Mind Over Matter

I was reminded tonight about how strong my mind can be when I really concentrate hard, no matter what my body is trying to tell me. Let me try to explain. I am one of the lucky (note the sarcasm) people who doesn't have a vehicle currently. This means that my transportation options are my bike, my two feet hitting the pavement, or taking the city bus. After my late supper tonight I decided to head to the YMCA to try to regain my basketball skills. I have concentrated on soccer for the past 5 months or so, but now that I'm done coaching and playing the beautiful game until late October I decided to get some shots up at the gym. Now the YMCA is a half hour walk away, and the bus would a) cost me money and b) take longer so the two wheeler, despite my inner complaining, was my best option tonight. The ride to the gym is a fairly easy one- mostly downhill, and it takes about 10 minutes if I really push myself hard. After pushing my body fairly hard for an hour and a half working on various parts of my game, I decided to head home. Now this is where the whole mind over matter comes into play. I'm sweaty, tired, and having the hardest time putting an effort into my ride home. This is of course when you see cars whizz by, heading to their destination with little effort... and this of course makes me feel even slower. But after a minute or two of cruising, I finally mentally kick myself in the butt and start hyping myself up. I keep on telling myself "Gotta keep going hard, gotta keep going hard...", and before I know it, I'm flying through the streets of my neighbourhood until I'm at the door of my house.

Anyway, the whole point of that long explanation was to try to show how I can keep my body going, even when my muscles are screaming to stop. I've been lucky enough to have more athletic ability than a large chunk of the population, and so I've played high level sports throughout my life. In every sport that I've played, I've had to will my body to keep going, even when it doesn't seem humanly possible. I can remember basketball tryouts in high school being so very painful, and volleyball practices in college being just plain crazy. Even though I could have slowed down and taken it easy, I just would kick it into gear and go even harder. It's funny because after I've pushed myself extremely hard, I just sit back and am in awe of how much farther I pushed myself than I expected. I think it's my competitive nature driving me... no matter what the circumstance (in sports, at least), I can't stand to lose. Loses eat away at me for days- girlfriends, friends, and my family can attest to that. I just wish I could transfer this competitive drive to other parts of my life. It's just that sports are such a natural thing for me. No matter how I'm feeling or what is happening in the rest of my life, I can always find comfort in playing one of my favourite sports. It's almost therapeutic. Crazy, eh?