While some of my club mates kept training and playing all summer, taking a moving feast of korfball to the parks of Ely, I devoted my summer to watching coaching and occasionally playing cricket. The resumption of training, then, was a bit of a shock to the system.
As something of a late convert to the joys of korfball, this was the first time I had returned to it after an absence of any length and as I drove to the Hive I wondered if I would be able to remember anything that our excellent coaches had spent last winter trying to drum into me. How do I do a running-in shot? Will I spend every 4-0 session hopelessly confused and running into people? How many muscles will I pull (although, to paraphrase John Emburey, you can’t pull muscles if you haven’t got any to start with)?
As it turned out I needn’t have worried. Muscles remained intact, although I was walking less than elegantly the next day, and the basics came flooding back as soon as a ball was hurled in my direction. Sterner tests doubtless lie ahead* but it was great to be playing again, especially now that I feel such a part of the club. Our new permanent training venue is excellent, although I’m torn between seeing the glass wall on one side of the hall as an opportunity for people to see what we’re doing and want to join in and feeling somewhat exposed as an overweight middle-aged man lumbering around a court. I’m going to accentuate the positive for the time being.
So, it’s good to be back, raring to go for the new season. If nothing else, by the end of this season I will have mastered 4-0 and hopefully contributed to a few wins for Vikings 3. Bring it on.
*The following week I had to claim old man’s dispensation on the lying down, getting up and sprinting exercise. I’d barely got to my feet by the time everyone else was halfway through.