Why We Fall In Love With Sports (And I Didn't)

I have always thought of myself as an anti-sport person.

I found myself more in love with books and computers than the great outdoors ... a geek lah, in simpler terms.

I did not (and probably still don't) understand the joys of running after a feathery nub with a ridiculous looking netted stick, or of bouncing an orange ball through a forest of tall people, with the eventual aim of shooting it into a hoop. But hundreds all over the world do love these weird concepts, don't they? And to hear Sam and Jasper talking of badminton would be to think it was a religion, rather than a sport.

I did give badminton a try. I was in primary 3 and I played at the youth and sports hall near Jalan Kereta Api. It didn't go well. I missed the shuttlecock 90 percent of the time, and soon I got sick of running after stray shots. There just wasn't any fire to get better at it - I was told to practice serving against a wall ... and pretty soon all my shuttles ended up on the roof.

I stayed away from badminton for a long, long time.

Running to me is a sport more understandable than most. Who hasn't played cops and robbers in primary school? I loved the thrill of ducking left and right, spinning to dodge oncoming hands, and the shortness of breath you get after outdistancing and outwitting a potential captor. Yalah, athletics might not be like that, but I know the pleasure involved at beating time - be it personal or recorded. And having a friend like Paul helped a lot in understanding some of the nuances: the pain, the mental state, the windbreaking strategy.

Running wasn't a sport for me, though. After discovering my speed the bullies in primary 1 took me to their pet chase victim. I quickly learned to read at recess.

So I grew up sans sport for many years. I took up swimming, but only to prevent myself from a wet and unhappy death, and then I tried basketball in PJ, where Kenny remarked that the ball played me better than I played it. Which is, of course, a sad and sorry truth.

I think the main problem with me and sports is that there is this period of unbearable rote before you become any good at it, and I just couldn't bring myself to get past that stage. What? Hit a shuttlecock against a wall for 4 months?! You crazy ar?! Don wanna go liaw! Add to that the hundreds of kids who are so much better than you are, and despite being younger are all the more ready to laugh at you. You ask them for help and they look at you as if you have five legs.

Looking back at all of this I wonder, sometimes, at what made me love Judo. It isn't very different from other sports: you still get players that are egotistical, and there is this period of unbearable rote before your technique works. But instead of turning me off these elements in this sport pushed me on further. Like fire. Or weed. Or rum, whichever vice you prefer.

But I suppose Judo's appeal to me lay in its practical applications. You got to defend yourself, while learning throws and locks. And there is this important tactical side of it, which is lovely to me as a geek: combos, counters, styles (Mongolian vs Japanese), specialties. It requires you to think, and to think a lot. It was very much like a Tekken video game. Or Soul Caliber. Or Mortal Kombat. And that everything was open to your imagination: you could create whole new ways of doing techniques, if you wished.

Yes, I know much of this does not make sense, but I have gotten past that period of unbearable rote and am now finding myself at a stage of competence, where it is easier to love a sport you are good in (funny that applies for the reverse scenario: that it is easier to be good in a sport you love ...) Very often I feel like a sheep in wolves' clothing. Me? Okay at a sport? Impossible!

And then I remind myself of all those things I have yet to master, and the minor details of me going up against real wolves fall to the wayside.

We sheep have our moments, once in a while. I intend to enjoy them.