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liralenCarl lent me the first several volumes of Shonen Jump's Whistle! and I took them home with me, and I'm devouring them. While I was in the midst of volume 4, in the big match against the super school, Jet grabs the book and says, "READ this to me!!"
So, for his story time, last night, we read that volume of Whistle! and he loved it and now says he wants to play when he gets in to Kindergarten, or, literally, "When I get into Tanner's school." Tanner is the son of the owner of a professional team and the owner of an indoor soccer rink, he's part of a five-year-old soccer team that, I think, could run circles around nearly any elementary school team in existence. His whole family's life revolves around soccer in many ways. Not a terrible influence, at all, in my sight. Tanner's sister, Macy and Mikayla often go to a Saturday morning open floor for tykes at 9 am, and they play for fun. Jet's gone a few times, but he's always hung back, but when John and Tanner and Macy and Jet and Peter get together in the backyard Jet will go and kick away, happily.
Anyway, the books definitely gave Jet more incentive to try harder.
I, on the other hand, had several mountains of memories dug up by the books, bone deep, muscle deep memories.
Memories of nearly a decade of playing soccer and loving it fiercely.
... of starting because John had been playing for years on co-ed teams and one of his teams at one game had exactly one woman of the four needed. So just having me on the field was enough to allow his team to at least play. I was supposed to just be a warm body, but having watched years' worth of soccer, I knew the rules and the goal of the game. So when a guy came towards me with the ball, I stepped in and tried to take it away. My fencing reflexes took over, and the next thing I knew, I heard a whistle, and the referee was holding up a yellow card.
I think that the manga captures, exquisitely, that feeling I've had for most of my life of not being a very good soccer player, but loving it and loving playing with people that I got to know deeply because we played together. Weakness and strengths, and the fact that even someone who is brilliant at play cannot win on their own. Heck, even half a team of brilliant players can't win if they ignore other half.
I remember playing this one team where the men just refused to use their women. Half their team was just left out, and I remember stopping the men over and over and over again simply because they refused to pass to the woman that was just standing, wide-open, on the field. By the second half even I was tired of that, and started making jibs each time I marked and stopped their guys. Whenever I cleared the ball I'd just tap the guy on the shoulder and point out the wide open woman and mutter, "Idiot. You should be using her." But it was so engrained, even after half a dozen points of evidence, they'd still try to pass only to the other men. It got so I could even anticipate those passes easily and took the ball away from them even more easily. We won that game 6 to 1 and afterwards I apologized to the ignored woman. She shrugged and confessed that she was looking to join a different team.
So I knew, in many ways, that I made a real difference.
The fierceness of the play in that first full game in the manga reminded me, deeply, of a time when one of my teams was cut down by various illnesses to just eight of us on the field and we played anyway, in pouring rain.
What the manga captures is nearly all of that. That feeling of being merely mortal before the feet of a soccer god like Yura or Sean (the soccer elf, slender, short, FAST and so light on his feet he nearly floated and he had this huge blond mane of hair), on another team, a young Frenchman with speed and power and humility to spare. That feeling of being needed nonetheless and that ones efforts make a difference. That meshing with the other players on the team, knowing them in more detail than I've ever known people outside of work or my family in my life. Plus all the technical realities of the game. Like defenders going for the strong player and leaving the "weak" wide open and the need to use that reality. It even got how I felt after my knee was broken, and the fact that I still haven't faced that the way I want to.
The books have definitely opened up the chasm of my longing to get back into the sport. To feel as strong and assured and real as I did when I was playing. I'm uncertain that I can do it without the rain, in this hard climate where you can really only play in the spring, but maybe the key is to try.
So, for his story time, last night, we read that volume of Whistle! and he loved it and now says he wants to play when he gets in to Kindergarten, or, literally, "When I get into Tanner's school." Tanner is the son of the owner of a professional team and the owner of an indoor soccer rink, he's part of a five-year-old soccer team that, I think, could run circles around nearly any elementary school team in existence. His whole family's life revolves around soccer in many ways. Not a terrible influence, at all, in my sight. Tanner's sister, Macy and Mikayla often go to a Saturday morning open floor for tykes at 9 am, and they play for fun. Jet's gone a few times, but he's always hung back, but when John and Tanner and Macy and Jet and Peter get together in the backyard Jet will go and kick away, happily.
Anyway, the books definitely gave Jet more incentive to try harder.
I, on the other hand, had several mountains of memories dug up by the books, bone deep, muscle deep memories.
Memories of nearly a decade of playing soccer and loving it fiercely.
... of starting because John had been playing for years on co-ed teams and one of his teams at one game had exactly one woman of the four needed. So just having me on the field was enough to allow his team to at least play. I was supposed to just be a warm body, but having watched years' worth of soccer, I knew the rules and the goal of the game. So when a guy came towards me with the ball, I stepped in and tried to take it away. My fencing reflexes took over, and the next thing I knew, I heard a whistle, and the referee was holding up a yellow card.
I think that the manga captures, exquisitely, that feeling I've had for most of my life of not being a very good soccer player, but loving it and loving playing with people that I got to know deeply because we played together. Weakness and strengths, and the fact that even someone who is brilliant at play cannot win on their own. Heck, even half a team of brilliant players can't win if they ignore other half.
I remember playing this one team where the men just refused to use their women. Half their team was just left out, and I remember stopping the men over and over and over again simply because they refused to pass to the woman that was just standing, wide-open, on the field. By the second half even I was tired of that, and started making jibs each time I marked and stopped their guys. Whenever I cleared the ball I'd just tap the guy on the shoulder and point out the wide open woman and mutter, "Idiot. You should be using her." But it was so engrained, even after half a dozen points of evidence, they'd still try to pass only to the other men. It got so I could even anticipate those passes easily and took the ball away from them even more easily. We won that game 6 to 1 and afterwards I apologized to the ignored woman. She shrugged and confessed that she was looking to join a different team.
So I knew, in many ways, that I made a real difference.
The fierceness of the play in that first full game in the manga reminded me, deeply, of a time when one of my teams was cut down by various illnesses to just eight of us on the field and we played anyway, in pouring rain.
What the manga captures is nearly all of that. That feeling of being merely mortal before the feet of a soccer god like Yura or Sean (the soccer elf, slender, short, FAST and so light on his feet he nearly floated and he had this huge blond mane of hair), on another team, a young Frenchman with speed and power and humility to spare. That feeling of being needed nonetheless and that ones efforts make a difference. That meshing with the other players on the team, knowing them in more detail than I've ever known people outside of work or my family in my life. Plus all the technical realities of the game. Like defenders going for the strong player and leaving the "weak" wide open and the need to use that reality. It even got how I felt after my knee was broken, and the fact that I still haven't faced that the way I want to.
The books have definitely opened up the chasm of my longing to get back into the sport. To feel as strong and assured and real as I did when I was playing. I'm uncertain that I can do it without the rain, in this hard climate where you can really only play in the spring, but maybe the key is to try.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 09:39 pm (UTC)I remember when you posted the entry about that game to your journal. Was it really that long ago? Doesn't seem like it.
We may not be all we were, physically, as we age, but neither are we as physically crushed by back-breaking jobs as our ancestors mostly were by the time they got into their 30s-40s-50s. Our experience will be different from what we're seeing in our parents and grandparents as they've gotten older - how much I don't know, but definitely different, and I expect better.
It sounds like the psychological benefits of playing again might be worth the physical demands. I'm sure there's a team within reasonable distance of where you are which you can mesh with, even if it takes a couple tries to find them.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 10:02 pm (UTC)I expect it to be better, too. Given that John's dad, who is 80+ can still jog for long distances and ride his bike dozens of miles is pretty inspirational.
Thank you for your hopes... yeah. I am mildly worried that I'll just be too slow, too old, and too frail, but it may not matter, either, if I find a league that's old enough for me. It'll take a few tries, but I think you're right to hope for me. I appreciate it.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 09:47 pm (UTC)Jet liking Whistle! made me smile. Maybe he'll be Jet Soccer Angel!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 10:07 pm (UTC)Jet really empathizes with Sho, who is also small, darkhaired, and Won't Let Go.
I think I can play after what happened to my knee, in fact, the main reason I went back under the knife to get the broken tendon replaced was so that I *could* play again and not feel my knee sliding out from under me. I have a jogger friend who decided not to have the surgery and it doesn't bother him while he's running, but it really bothered me.
But there is a character in the book that literally can't play anymore, but he shows his love of the game by coaching, and getting better at THAT, which was really cool for me to see. He had to deal with a much more absolute situation than I do, thank God, but it's at least a model and a way of seeing that I did just turn away because I didn't really want to know if I HAD to give it up. Giving it up by choice, by having other priorities was kind of a cop out, in a way...
We'll see.
Coach?
Date: 2005-09-29 11:21 pm (UTC)Have you considered coaching? I think kids would respond well to your love and enthusiasm for the game. And because... uhhh... you need more demands on your time. Ahem.
It's fun to imagine Sean hanging out with Danny, the drummer from Gomi Gumi.
Two elfs turn into a bar...
Re: Coach?
Date: 2005-10-03 04:03 pm (UTC)John and I have coached in the past, two different boys teams for nearly five years. The boys are now in college, a strangely terrifying fact, from what I remember of them. We might do that again, indeed. My patience has grown since Jet, and I think it would be a lot of fun to do that again. And after the summer movie about the soccer coach, we'd now make parents run laps, too. :-)
Re: Coach?
Date: 2005-10-03 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 11:42 pm (UTC)Just as I am sure that I'd never want to face the likes of you on the field. Eeeeeeegad! :)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-03 04:43 pm (UTC)I was actually a very polite player, very good with opponents who were respectful of me and the game. If they weren't respectful, though... well, that's a different problem.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-30 12:53 am (UTC)What's a yellow card? I was always lousy at soccer.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-03 06:07 pm (UTC)http://www.flick.com/~liralen/journal/rainyday is one.
http://www.flick.com/~liralen/journal/rareday.txt is another... :-)