I am not a sporty person. During most of my time in secondary school, I was the type of person to dread a PE lesson. Running around on a Thursday afternoon in the rain just wasn’t my thing. I’d much rather have been sat in a music practice room playing the piano.
Time to try something new
However, while I might have loathed PE, I didn’t mind giving new things a go and as you’ve probably heard hundreds of times before (because it’s true!). University is the best time for that. I kept that phrase in mind as I walked through my college sports and societies fair. I end up finding myself at the ultimate frisbee stall, who were excited to see me and wasted no time getting into the details of what the sport was about given that I, like most people, had never heard of it before. How does it work? What are the rules? Will everyone despise me from the bottom of my heart if I make a mistake? Those were the questions on my mind as I joined the Facebook group.
Rain!
Fast forward a week and it’s Wednesday. Training time. I look outside the window. Rain. Lots of rain. That time, the non-sporty part of my brain won. And it won again the following week when it rained again. The week afterwards, I had a commitment, so I couldn’t go. But my friends did. And they loved it. Now feeling the slightest bit (okay, maybe quite a lot) of FOMO, I was fired up for the following Wednesday.
First training session
This time, I decided to take a big step outside of my comfort zone (and my room) and head down to the training ground. Did I get lost on my way there? Yes. Was I ten seconds away from turning around to go back home? Also, yes. But I stuck it out and eventually I made it to the training ground. I scan my eyes to see if I could see somebody I knew. Nobody. However, what I did see was someone in a Trev’s top (obviously the best college!). I counted down from 5 and decided to join in.
Excited for the next
And I’m so happy that I did. For the next hour and a half, I had the time of my life running around a field catching frisbees and trying to score points at the end of the session. As an absolute beginner, I made quite a few mistakes, but nobody cared! We were all having a good time and nothing else matters. I’m already getting excited for the next session, even if it rains! If you’d told me I’d be looking forward to an ultimate frisbee training session 2 months ago, I would have bet my life savings that you were lying.
So, I hope you take that advice and find try a brand-new sport. You’d be surprised how much you might like it.
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