Looking back... & loving it...

Below is an article that I found on the website of this monthly contributor, John Bingham, to Runner’s World, the magazine. I love the articles of this guy who only started running at the age of 43, who managed to overcome his obesity, drinking and smoking habits. It goes to show that with will and tenacity, u can achieve anything u want to.

Remembered reading this book back in my secondary school days. It was Jo, my Judo senior who recommended this book to me which I managed to borrow from the CCK library. I remember many of us girls would have placed ‘basketball’ as our 1st choice of ECA back then on our forms. I did. Judo was my 2nd. Of course, only those selected few were chosen to join the team. And yet, digging deeper into my memories, I had wanted to become a swimmer all along. In the early to mid-90s, Joscelin Yeo was rising as the swimming star of Singapore and she was more or less my idol, furthermore with the influence from my Dad who kept emphasizing about us having the same surname. And I did love swimming. Learnt it in the upper primary years. However, NY did not have swimming as an ECA.

I started swimming regularly every week only at the age of 15. It was more or less to ease off the muscle aches accumulated in the hectic week of Judo training and to relax my back and neck muscles so that they would not lapse into spasm as easily during training. And Dad just gotten membership to CDANS Club then as well. It did not come easy, just like every other sport. I remember starting out with only 4 laps of the pool and I was panting like a dog already. That distance was slowly built upon and it got me to where I am today. The ability to swim 120 laps at one go, which I did last year.

After the Judo days, swimming became a part of my life as a core exercise. Water is simply therapeutic and I can focus my mind on whatever I want to think about in the waters. There were times in 2002(during my 6-month break after ‘A’ levels) when I would see the young swimmers training hard in order to fight for a place in the national team. I know Bukit Batok pool has a group of them training every Thursday afternoons. I always looked upon them in awe and wondered what my life would be like if I were really in the swim team. Would I learn to appreciate swimming as much as I would now? Would I have to drag myself to training like I used to drag myself to Judo training before? Or perhaps I might have turn out to be a good swimmer and get a chance to represent Singapore? Who knows? But those are all in the past…

I’ve learnt to move on and when I look at the young swimmers now training hard to make their mark one day, I no longer look at them in awe. I’ve come to accept my past and moved on to carve my future.

I realized I’m really more comfortable being in a solo sport than in a team sport. Swimming is a solo sport. Running is too. Cycling is as well. Enjoys the peace and solitude I have to myself during these activities. What Bingham have written in the last few paragraphs are what I can identify with. I’ve overcome the fact that I MIGHT have been able to be a swimmer, and become one now myself. I’ve slowly turned to running and am loving it. Cycling is more of a really leisure activity now, as my bike is really lousy. However, I will never deny the fact that I was once a Judoka, and a very proud one, for I was in the best team in the world. My skills were not up to my coach’s standard, and I know I have failed him more than once. However, like what Bingham have said, “I wonder if I might have found out all those years ago what I've only recently discovered, that what really matters most is being in the game.�

I loved the Judo team, and I still do. Those memories are for life. I’ve never regretted joining Judo.


HOOP DREAMS
A had my shot. There was one brief moment where my destiny was in my hands. Watching the ball sail off the tip of my fingers I had no idea what that one shot would mean.

Like most 12 year old boys, I wanted to be an athlete, so I tried out for the Rhodes Elementary School basketball team. Being a 7th grader, being nearly the youngest in my class, and being short didn't deter me. I'd seen the uniforms, I'd been to the games, and I'd heard the cheerleaders calling out the player's names. I wanted to be on the team.

Practices in those days were mostly about running up and down the court, doing lay-up drills, and shooting free-throws. It may help put this in perspective for you to know that I shot free-throws using the two-handed, between-the-legs technique since I wasn't strong enough to actually shoot the ball overhand. After each practice, I'd stay until I had made 20 baskets from the free-throw line. The coach was impressed with my tenacity, if not my talent.

Then came the moment. We were behind by one point, to our cross-city rivals, there we just a few seconds left when the coach called a time out. "Bingham", he yelled. "Get ready to go in." This was a major shock since I had never actually played IN a game at that point. I took off my warm-up jacket, and made my way to the coach's side. The next words out of his mouth stunned everyone.

"Let Bingham take the shot. No one will expect it. No one will be guarding him. Toss him the inbound pass, get out of his way, and get under the basket." Then he turned to me and said: "Just get close enough to shoot a free-throw."

My heart was pounding. My palms were sweating. As I moved out onto the floor it felt as if every eye was on me. The coach was right. Not one opposing player came within 50 feet of me. The inbound pass came to me, I had the ball in my hands, the coach was yelling, the team was yelling, the cheerleaders were yelling. And then it happened.

I moved towards the basket. I even managed to dribble the ball once or twice. But instead of taking the under-hand shot that I had practice, I drew the ball up and shot it overhand. As I pushed to ball off I could feel the room go into a state of suspended animation. The world stopped.

So did the ball. Well, it didn't actually stop. It just sort of fell harmlessly to the ground and into the hands of an all too eager opponent who raced past me and scored an easy basket. We lost the game by three points.

Adolescent boys are not the most forgiving people on earth. Neither was the coach. In fact, even the cheerleaders took turns berating me. I'm not sure what was the most humiliating, the taunts by the opponents or by my teammates, but the result was that I never put on the uniform again. I never put on ANY uniform again. And never played on another school sports team.

It was 32 years later that I tried to become an athlete again. 32 years before I worked up the courage to put on a pair of running shoes and pin a race number to my chest. 32 years before I had the nerve to admit that more than anything in my life I had always wanted to be an athlete.

So often we are defined by moments in our lives over which we have little or no control. Too often, that one instant becomes the turning point. Those moments are, after all, just that. Moments. And yet there are so many of us, who, as adult-onset athletes, must first overcome our pasts before we can dream of a future.

I don't know what happened to anyone that was on that team with me. I don't know what happened to the coach. I don't know if any of them have run 24 marathons, or hundreds of 5 and 10K's. But I have. Every starting line is my chance to erase that memory. Every finish line is a chance to redeem myself. And I savor every victory I have over myself.

There are times when I wonder how my life would have changed if I had made the shot. I wonder what it would have been like to have been a hero, if only that once. I wonder if there are others, like me, who turned to running because then their failures wouldn't affect the entire team.

And I wonder if I might have found out all those years ago what I've only recently discovered, that what really matters most is being in the game.

Waddle on, friends.


Mind is everything; muscles, mere pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind.
-Paavo Nurmi