Navel Gazing About Diving

No book this week, summer has slowed me down. As I was in deep mediation last week the following came to me and I thought I should share. In my meditative state, I was pondering the results of me diving. Not springboard or SCUBA diving, rather diving to get the ball. This thought came to me as I sat exhausted sitting on the bench gasping for air. As some of you know, I play a lot of racquetball. Most of my fellow players are peers in age and life experience; means old guys. Few young guys come out to play and rarer still are female players. I think the learning curve and dedicated time required to master the skills scares off the generation X, Y and whatevers. (NO HAND CONTROLLERS!!! and it’s "real" and its real hard to get good at it). Lord knows I have been trying for more than 10 years to get good at it. Gregg shows up last week. He is maybe 25, quiet, 150 lbs, 5-9. Nice guy working here for the summer. We play. If you watch “us old guys” play, you would see several things. One thing you would notice. If we are standing in back court and there is a soft front wall lob, you would see us take a few steps and stop realizing we are NOT getting there and it is not worth it. Play the next point. Gregg dives for it. Full extension, arm out, face flat on the floor dive. Sometimes he gets it, sometimes not. The profound thought that came to me was as follows: I could dive, probably not get hurt, but how would I get back up? Can’t ask for help in the game! You only have 1-2 seconds at most to get setup for the return. No, better give up the point than ask for help up off the floor.