Day 16 - How to trap a ball

Today I stayed off doing vinyasa yoga. My wrists were a bit swollen, and I wanted them to heal. I needed them to heal.

My boyfriend is a bona fide soccer player, and I persuaded him to give me some free lessons (in exchange for back rubs).

I started playing soccer last summer and totally love it. It's exhilarating to run after a ball, get it, pass it, and try to put it in the goal. I'm not a good player, in the sense that I don't have all the soccer skills down yet. My kicks still go every which way, and I still don't *quite* get how offside works.

So today we practiced trapping the ball.

I fear it.

I do! When a soccer ball is flying straight at me from the sky, I really don't know what to do. I want to trap it, but flashes of Worst Case Scenarios run through my mind like a Jack Ass episode. I've gotten a few balls in my face, balls in my chest (*not* fun), and bloody noses. Like a once-bitten, twice-shy Pavlov dog, I get intimidated by Flying Soccer Balls.

"You know what, just look at it," the BF told me, "You're not getting it because you're not looking at it."

I hadn't noticed that. I don't know why, I never looked at the ball before, possibly because I feared it would come at my face fast and furious, but once I started following the ball's path, I could get better control of it.

In yoga class I love getting those morsels of wisdom from the instructor. Today, though I didn't go to class, I felt like I got my fix of "Zen thought of the day" anyway.