One of the chief blessings of the new (temporary) home is access to a lush, tree-lined compound (it feels like an acre for 3 houses). 9 of us volunteers live in two houses at opposite ends of the compound. The week we moved in, someone suggested volleyball. As always, I am amazed by the speed and execution of sporting facilities construction* here. T and the other guards grabbed a machete and went to work. In an hour the volleyball net was up.
These lockdown days. As the blazing afternoon sun fades, we abandon our laptops and head to the garden. I marvel at the dexterity with which my neighbours and housemates set and spike and dig, with arms, with fists, with foreheads, with the lateral edge of a foot. I have long felt that ball games are not my forte (a suspicion first engendered by playing tennis with my 5-years-older, kinesthetically-gifted brother, and fossilized by a childhood entrenched in books and craft and musical dabbling). Experiences of activities requiring hand-eye coordination of projectiles-- badminton, football, basketball, netball, axe throwing, catching objects in midair-- have borne out my suspicion so far...
I am just grateful for G, who is much better than me but still serves occasionally into the net.
Very occasionally, I get what the fuss is about-- watch agape as the ball soars its parabolas, ricochets impossible angles, and is dramatically spiked to cheers (grudging cheers from the losing team). Sometimes I feel the slight thwuck of the volleyball on my advancing wrist before it flies off in a decent serve. The impact is reassuringly familiar, it is the same thud of a tennis ball connecting with the racket's sweet spot.
But most of the time, it's bruised wrists, aching thumbs and a red face as I miss balls or send them into the trees.
I do it because I need the exercise, but I also need to remember how it feels to be thoroughly incompetent. Competence soon becomes obvious in a game of volleyball, and it is now my unspoken rule that if others are happy for me to keep playing, I will (generally) continue to inflict my serves on them.
What have I learned from being consciously incompetent at volleyball?
Humility helps people help you.
When one is very bad, one can only get better.
Deliberate practice often requires other people who are further along the learning curve.
It's not good enough to tolerate a bad player. Better to offer coaching in a complex multi-step procedure than to leave them to "figure it out"; everyone benefits then.
Not being educated/fluent in Tetun/English/[insert any workplace-related ability here], has no relation to one's talent on the playing field (insert any other ability here).
*A soccer pitch, complete with two sets of goalposts and ground markings, was thereafter set up in very similar fashion.
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