Howzat!?

I did not grow up in a very sporting family, in fact as far as I am concerned instead of being encouraged to participate in sport, we were actively discouraged. My parents were disparaging about sport and people who watched and participated in sports. It was seen as a silly waste of time and money. Also, as it would have envolved more complex time tables for us kids and lots of fetching and carrying, I think it was seen as too much trouble, particularly on week-ends - since my parents had 4 kids and I can see how that can become a pain...

Anyway primary school went by with very little sport involvement from me and by the time I got to high school I wasn't much interested and didn't volunteer to spend any more time on the school grounds than I absolutely had to.

As a result, I have never been very fit and never developed much hand-eye co-ordination or aptitude for sports either. I have always favoured solitary or one-on-one games (like fencing), as I have always felt uncomfortable in a team and like I will be the one to let the team down...

When it came to beach volleyball or frisbee I would normally try half-heartedly, expecting to be bad at it, and would hand off to someone else as soon as I could.

Quinn batting at cricket practice on Friday.

Fast forward 10+ years.

I started doing yoga weekly 8 years ago (which I still do), 4 years ago I joined our local gym and did aqua-aerobics, bums & tums workouts and walking etc, and I now do kata-boxing (martial arts style cardio kicking and punching etc) once a week, and have done for 2.5 years. In September I started running, and I have run over 500km since...

I feel stronger and fitter than I ever have, and I actually can't believe I didn't participate in sport at school, because judging by my current abilites I think I could have been pretty good!

Quinn has started Cricket and tennis at school. I went to his Cricket practice on Friday, and he was not doing particularly well. The result was he tried less and less, and didn't really bother to get back in line and so was not even getting much practice at all. Also, with some of the boys already looking very professional, I think it was intimidating for him... (I have included some pictures from the begining of the practice when he was doing ok - very cute!).

So on Saturday morning I bought him 4 tennis balls and a tennis set (complete with racquet, sweat bands & head bands etc ). We then took his cricket bat and the tennis gear and balls to our local park and got busy.

Quinn catching ball at cricket practice on Friday.

We had SUCH fun.

It turns out Richard is a star bowler (a talent he'd kept well hidden from me).

Quinn batted, bowled, caught and chased the ball and got more confident, and even Griffin was running after stray balls and getting in on the action.

After a while I got a long turn to bat, and I surprised myself by being far better than I thought I would be - but put it down to Richard being an accurate and consistent bowler, but still I was imagining joining a cricket team I was having so much fun!

We ended up going back again on Sunday afternoon, and I even convinced the boys to run right around the cricket field, to earn an ice-cream. Which they both eagerly did.

Quinn's battling and bowling has improved dramatically since Friday, and he even managed to hit all 4 balls in a row at times. Now that he has had some success he is also far more keen and excited about it, so I am sure he will enjoy the school practice much more this week and will start to try harder.

I had a turn batting again, and this time Richard got adventurouse with spin bowling and high-speed bowling too, with a combination of cricket bat and then tennis racquet I was able to return most of what he threw at me - even when he fired all 4 balls off in quick succession. I reckon I was hitting at least 90% of the balls.

Howzat!

Quinn bowling at cricket practice on Friday.

I can feel that it was a work out too, even thought at the time is seemed quite effortless and natural - my bum knows it's been working!

I am really going to try to instill a love of sports and physical activity in the kids because it it so nice to be active and to feel in touch with your body, and because I think it harder having to learn that later in life.