So I was going through old piles of poetry for a project, and check out what I found!
smell the pitch.
green.
dirt, rain, pain.
paths traced one hundred fold,
trail broken skin.
heart bounding, beating
racing
over shredded field
torn grass.
blood; mud
grunt through barriers
break bones, tear muscle
grind pores into ground
shove; heave
line by line
win blade by bloody blade.
burn lines with sweat.
salt earth with victory
scream
taste pitch
queen of the green
.
Showing posts with label On Bruising Bitches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label On Bruising Bitches. Show all posts
Friday, 19 November 2010
Friday, 16 April 2010
The Capable Essay
I was a fat child. No, seriously. Though I may look good in a pair of spandex shorts now, were you to have gone looking for me in junior high PE class, you’d have easily found me at the back of the pack, panting and huffing as I jiggled around the soccer field. I spent years with a stash of chocolate bars covertly placed between my diary and Barbie collection and hours arguing with my parents over whether or not it was appropriate for me to have seven cookies for snack. And despite my best and loudest efforts, those bastards dragged me out to soccer practice twice a week, with my round little body over their shoulders screaming, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
Fortunately, my parents were not only more stubborn than I was, but well aware of just how good of an incentive an ass-whopping, wooden spoon can be. So I went to soccer practices scowling. And swim meets pouting. Then basketball tryouts, where I knew I wasn’t going home anytime soon so, fine, I’d shuffle towards the net and I’d try jogging to defence. Hell, the other girls were doing it and they looked like they were having fun. Then I scored a couple of baskets, dribbled around a few girls and wrestled a ball or two away from the other team and I began lumbering out of the gymnasium like I owned it.
“Dad, did you see that? That girl swung around when I grabbed the ball! Did you see my break-away? There was, like, no one there.”
At practice the next week, I bounced out of Dad’s car, through the gym doors, and tied my laces super tight for extra speed during scrimmages that night. I was running faster and dropping weight, but not everyone is as lucky as I was to have a father willing to confiscate anything that kept me in the house and a mother able to prod my butt out the door with her wooden spoon.
In 2004, right around the time I was getting into basketball and off the couch, almost ten percent of kids between the ages of two and 17 were obese, according to Statistics Canada. If I’d had a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher – BMIs comparing height to weight ratio – I would have been considered obese, and might have been part of that statistic. These results, on the other hand, do assume that the excess mass is fatty and not muscular, but considering how long I’d spent lolling in front of the TV, I doubt I had much muscle mass to go on.
That same year, CBC reports that 23.1 percent of all Canadian adults had BMIs over 30 and later, in 2008, a staggering 26.7 percent of adults in the United States were considered obese. Not just overweight; obese. If I remember anything from grade five, that’s approximately a quarter of all adults in North America. A quarter! That means every fourth adult getting on the bus in the morning is statistically likely to be about one thirds straight body fat, and I could have easily been one of them.
I was fifteen and playing for my high school basketball team when the math teacher across the hall started dropping hints that I aught to come out for rugby practice. I would shake my head and tell her that I was a baller not some “rugby” player and, besides, I was just getting good at sprinting my way down the court. But then she told me that I was of a build that would be advantageous on the field, that she knew I wasn’t unfit, and besides, didn’t I regularly get kicked out of games for being too hands-on? Was she recruiting me? Shit, did she just say she thought I was fit?
I decided a tryout or two would be worth my time, tackled a few girls, made the team and fell in love with the game. Even at that age, I would get off the field and vibrate happily for hours. This is not surprising, though, considering that the endorphins produced from a match’s hard running or heavy hitting are about the same as what get released during orgasm and actually act on the same neural receptors as narcotics like heroin or cocaine. Any rugby player will tell you that the adrenaline thrill that comes from a tackle which lays out the opponent is the sort worth banging your head for. That season, three of the most devoted players ended up with concussions.
These days I could probably get away with saying that I work my ass off at the gym; realistically though, strength training hasn’t done a thing to diminish its veritable size since I started seriously hitting the weight room three years ago. I had let a couple of months of cafeteria food and then a determined coach get to me and – Poof! – there I was, doing weighted squats and dumbbell curls for an hour-and-a-half three days a week. With every push up I counted and every weight I added to the barbell, I could feel my body strengthen, my muscles grow and my overall health improve.
After spending rugby practice running horseshoe-sprints (don’t ask), I came home to lie on my couch, revel in the glory of sore muscles and gloat in front of my roommates – just a little bit. I put a granola bar between my teeth, picked up my Women’s Health magazine and flipped straight to one of those articles that tells me how awesome I am.
“Dude!” I yell to my roomies in the kitchen around the oats in my mouth. “I burn an extra 120 calories a day for every three pounds of muscle. Did you know that? God, that’s awesome.”
A blonde head sticks out around the corner with the sort of “duh” expression the girls I live with have come to reserve for me. “I’ve seen your pipes, T. All you fucking do is eat.”
It’s true. Between the gym, rugby practices and kickboxing classes, I get hungry. And when I get hungry, I get weak, tired, indecisive and – worst of all – I became a straight-up raging bitch. Getting enough of the right type of nutrition all the time is not only necessary, but unfortunately complicated for any athlete. Do I get enough protein? What about my complex carbs? Does that triple-decker sandwich have enough vitamins, acids and fats to keep me going? Or was half a block of cheese not the right choice? High-intensity athletes can need up to twice the amount of nutrients as a non-athlete – like the football player who needs 150g of protein daily as opposed to the average 75g – and are put at risk of micronutrient deficiency (which results from restricting diets) and the female athlete triad (disordered eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis). And let’s not even get into just how much of my paycheque goes directly to food.
I pop a piece of bread in the toaster, grab myself a banana to munch on while I wait and flip back to my magazine. On the next page, I’m told that weight training not only has me eating more, but I get the added benefit of more stable joints. Sweet. Curious, I asked the physiotherapists who work with the varsity teams at UVic what they thought when I went to the Athletic Training Room later that week before practice.
“Oh I am a massive advocate of weight training,” says the girl wrapping tape around my finger. Nodding at the stretch cords and balance boards that litter half of the room, she tells me that the more you prepare your muscles for unexpected movement, the less likely you’ll be to injure yourself.
“Why do you think we get so many first years in here?” one of the trainers pipes up as he massages a calf. “They haven’t had enough time in the weight room yet.”
Thinking back to high school, I did spend a lot more time on the bench – and it had nothing to do with how slowly I made my way down the court. I remember rolled ankles, cramped muscles and pulled groins. When I was off-season too, I can recall a few times that my back spasmed on me in the pool or that I nearly popped a knee skiing. Granted, as a kid I was hardly strong enough to pick myself up off the ground if I fell on the slope and often had to get my frowning father to pull me up.
These sorts of injuries translate into the home for everyone, not just athletes and Colorado State University recently ran a one-year study comparing injury rates and BMI. They concluded that the higher the mass-to-height ratio, the more injuries were reported by the 2,575 adults who participated; the most (26 percent of men injured and 21 percent of women) being reported by the extremely obese. An entire half of these injuries, such as falls or acute overexertion, happened inside the home.
Take my mom, for example. Though she has never been obese, she let a few years at home with the kids get to her until she herniated a disc in her back. The doctors only shook their heads and told her, “Lady, there is essentially nothing wrong with you, but your back muscles are so weak they can’t hold themselves together. Get your fat ass to the gym!” (Or something along those lines.) Twelve years later she’s still working out religiously and now is so fit she not only looks 15 years her junior but could beat up most women that young anyway.
Of course, I would be lying if I said that exercise is the trump-all prevention for injury. Quite the opposite, in fact. The very point of athletics is to push the body to its limits and do it better than the competition. Runners end up with athlete’s foot for spending too much time in their shoes, tennis players dislocate shoulders swinging rackets for hours a day and basketball players develop shin splints just sprinting up and down on solid wood floors.
These injuries are not just normal consequences either. Every single woman I have ever played beside, regardless of the sport, has continued to play through an injury to “tough it out” and win and has often caused more damage for doing so. I have to admit, I’ve done it myself. I once dislocated a finger during a rugby game, popped it back in, and continued playing. I had to spend a month and a half punching without my left hand at kickboxing classes, but that didn’t stop me from trying. When I complained to my trainer about how bloody long it was taking to recover she looked at me, raised an eyebrow and said, “Honey, you play rugby.” Oh yeah.
At home for Christmas holidays shortly after I’d made a lightning bolt out of my finger, I spent the better part of the first hour in my parent’s kitchen with my mother clucking over my tape-covered hand.
“Nishy, you really should be careful. What if it doesn’t get better? We’ll have to chop it off.”
“Yeah, but look what I can do!” I dropped to the linoleum floor and proceeded to do more full push-ups than most women my age and definitely more than my parents dreamed me ever capable of when I was fourteen. And to be honest, my first basketball practices mostly involved me holding my body off the floor from my knees, trembling slightly at the thought of actually lowering myself to the ground with my own strength. Dad, watching from the kitchen table, asked what sort of work out schedule I was running on these days and nodded along as I rattled off my weekly routine.
“So long as you still have time for school,” he said. “And take a break if your body needs it. Don’t over-exert yourself, sweetie; it can be just as bad for you as no exercise at all.”
He’s right, of course, though I still have a hard time believing it. The problem with exercise is that the hormone release and the resulting “runner’s high” experienced makes it surprisingly easy for a serious athlete to over-train. One of my best friends, for example, has spent the last eight months doing nothing but training to improve his fight statistics and – though he doesn’t see it – is experiencing some considerable symptoms as a result: insomnia, moodiness and a compulsiveness to exercise. And after every two months of hard time at the gym, his body has developed a tendency to crash completely and leave him so sick he can hardly crawl out of bed.
Getting back from the gym over the break, I flopped down on the carpet in my living room and channel-surfed my way to a rerun of The Biggest Loser. I adore the way pitting a bunch of people against each other in a weight-loss competition is ridiculous and extreme, but still manages to showcase the hard work I admire. Plus, you know, I get to feel like a rockstar just watching it. Thirty burpies? Whateeeever. Two hundred crunches? Puh-leeze. Not to mention that the episode that I’d found was one from the beginning of the season, when all of the contestants range from extremely to morbidly obese and simply getting to the show counted as exercise for them.
I watched as they set up a challenge, huddling the players as close to each other as their girths would allow and explaining that they would be walking up a set of slowly rotating escalators to find out who could stay on the longest. Great, I thought, popping baby carrots into my mouth. This is going to be the most exciting show ever. They all waddled up the stairs, took their positions and, once the buzzer sounded, began huffing their way upwards. Two minutes and thirty six seconds later, it was over. Seriously. I just about choked on my carrot. That was it? That was all that an entire quarter of the North American population was capable of?
Fuck the bruises, sore muscles and scars that I am covered in; at least I can move. Thanks to the dogged-asshole insistence of my parents, I never forgot how to run after a ball, or how good sweating feels, or how to bike to school or make my muscles scream. I get to walk down the street knowing I look good doing it and knowing that I can run to catch my bus. I could have been another one of the 5.5 million obese Canadian adults. I could have run the greater risk of premature death, diabetes, heart, stroke, breathing problems, and arthritis. But instead, I feel strong. I feel healthy. And I’m capable of rocking short shorts while kicking some serious ass.
Fortunately, my parents were not only more stubborn than I was, but well aware of just how good of an incentive an ass-whopping, wooden spoon can be. So I went to soccer practices scowling. And swim meets pouting. Then basketball tryouts, where I knew I wasn’t going home anytime soon so, fine, I’d shuffle towards the net and I’d try jogging to defence. Hell, the other girls were doing it and they looked like they were having fun. Then I scored a couple of baskets, dribbled around a few girls and wrestled a ball or two away from the other team and I began lumbering out of the gymnasium like I owned it.
“Dad, did you see that? That girl swung around when I grabbed the ball! Did you see my break-away? There was, like, no one there.”
At practice the next week, I bounced out of Dad’s car, through the gym doors, and tied my laces super tight for extra speed during scrimmages that night. I was running faster and dropping weight, but not everyone is as lucky as I was to have a father willing to confiscate anything that kept me in the house and a mother able to prod my butt out the door with her wooden spoon.
In 2004, right around the time I was getting into basketball and off the couch, almost ten percent of kids between the ages of two and 17 were obese, according to Statistics Canada. If I’d had a Body Mass Index of 30 or higher – BMIs comparing height to weight ratio – I would have been considered obese, and might have been part of that statistic. These results, on the other hand, do assume that the excess mass is fatty and not muscular, but considering how long I’d spent lolling in front of the TV, I doubt I had much muscle mass to go on.
That same year, CBC reports that 23.1 percent of all Canadian adults had BMIs over 30 and later, in 2008, a staggering 26.7 percent of adults in the United States were considered obese. Not just overweight; obese. If I remember anything from grade five, that’s approximately a quarter of all adults in North America. A quarter! That means every fourth adult getting on the bus in the morning is statistically likely to be about one thirds straight body fat, and I could have easily been one of them.
I was fifteen and playing for my high school basketball team when the math teacher across the hall started dropping hints that I aught to come out for rugby practice. I would shake my head and tell her that I was a baller not some “rugby” player and, besides, I was just getting good at sprinting my way down the court. But then she told me that I was of a build that would be advantageous on the field, that she knew I wasn’t unfit, and besides, didn’t I regularly get kicked out of games for being too hands-on? Was she recruiting me? Shit, did she just say she thought I was fit?
I decided a tryout or two would be worth my time, tackled a few girls, made the team and fell in love with the game. Even at that age, I would get off the field and vibrate happily for hours. This is not surprising, though, considering that the endorphins produced from a match’s hard running or heavy hitting are about the same as what get released during orgasm and actually act on the same neural receptors as narcotics like heroin or cocaine. Any rugby player will tell you that the adrenaline thrill that comes from a tackle which lays out the opponent is the sort worth banging your head for. That season, three of the most devoted players ended up with concussions.
These days I could probably get away with saying that I work my ass off at the gym; realistically though, strength training hasn’t done a thing to diminish its veritable size since I started seriously hitting the weight room three years ago. I had let a couple of months of cafeteria food and then a determined coach get to me and – Poof! – there I was, doing weighted squats and dumbbell curls for an hour-and-a-half three days a week. With every push up I counted and every weight I added to the barbell, I could feel my body strengthen, my muscles grow and my overall health improve.
After spending rugby practice running horseshoe-sprints (don’t ask), I came home to lie on my couch, revel in the glory of sore muscles and gloat in front of my roommates – just a little bit. I put a granola bar between my teeth, picked up my Women’s Health magazine and flipped straight to one of those articles that tells me how awesome I am.
“Dude!” I yell to my roomies in the kitchen around the oats in my mouth. “I burn an extra 120 calories a day for every three pounds of muscle. Did you know that? God, that’s awesome.”
A blonde head sticks out around the corner with the sort of “duh” expression the girls I live with have come to reserve for me. “I’ve seen your pipes, T. All you fucking do is eat.”
It’s true. Between the gym, rugby practices and kickboxing classes, I get hungry. And when I get hungry, I get weak, tired, indecisive and – worst of all – I became a straight-up raging bitch. Getting enough of the right type of nutrition all the time is not only necessary, but unfortunately complicated for any athlete. Do I get enough protein? What about my complex carbs? Does that triple-decker sandwich have enough vitamins, acids and fats to keep me going? Or was half a block of cheese not the right choice? High-intensity athletes can need up to twice the amount of nutrients as a non-athlete – like the football player who needs 150g of protein daily as opposed to the average 75g – and are put at risk of micronutrient deficiency (which results from restricting diets) and the female athlete triad (disordered eating, amenorrhea, and osteoporosis). And let’s not even get into just how much of my paycheque goes directly to food.
I pop a piece of bread in the toaster, grab myself a banana to munch on while I wait and flip back to my magazine. On the next page, I’m told that weight training not only has me eating more, but I get the added benefit of more stable joints. Sweet. Curious, I asked the physiotherapists who work with the varsity teams at UVic what they thought when I went to the Athletic Training Room later that week before practice.
“Oh I am a massive advocate of weight training,” says the girl wrapping tape around my finger. Nodding at the stretch cords and balance boards that litter half of the room, she tells me that the more you prepare your muscles for unexpected movement, the less likely you’ll be to injure yourself.
“Why do you think we get so many first years in here?” one of the trainers pipes up as he massages a calf. “They haven’t had enough time in the weight room yet.”
Thinking back to high school, I did spend a lot more time on the bench – and it had nothing to do with how slowly I made my way down the court. I remember rolled ankles, cramped muscles and pulled groins. When I was off-season too, I can recall a few times that my back spasmed on me in the pool or that I nearly popped a knee skiing. Granted, as a kid I was hardly strong enough to pick myself up off the ground if I fell on the slope and often had to get my frowning father to pull me up.
These sorts of injuries translate into the home for everyone, not just athletes and Colorado State University recently ran a one-year study comparing injury rates and BMI. They concluded that the higher the mass-to-height ratio, the more injuries were reported by the 2,575 adults who participated; the most (26 percent of men injured and 21 percent of women) being reported by the extremely obese. An entire half of these injuries, such as falls or acute overexertion, happened inside the home.
Take my mom, for example. Though she has never been obese, she let a few years at home with the kids get to her until she herniated a disc in her back. The doctors only shook their heads and told her, “Lady, there is essentially nothing wrong with you, but your back muscles are so weak they can’t hold themselves together. Get your fat ass to the gym!” (Or something along those lines.) Twelve years later she’s still working out religiously and now is so fit she not only looks 15 years her junior but could beat up most women that young anyway.
Of course, I would be lying if I said that exercise is the trump-all prevention for injury. Quite the opposite, in fact. The very point of athletics is to push the body to its limits and do it better than the competition. Runners end up with athlete’s foot for spending too much time in their shoes, tennis players dislocate shoulders swinging rackets for hours a day and basketball players develop shin splints just sprinting up and down on solid wood floors.
These injuries are not just normal consequences either. Every single woman I have ever played beside, regardless of the sport, has continued to play through an injury to “tough it out” and win and has often caused more damage for doing so. I have to admit, I’ve done it myself. I once dislocated a finger during a rugby game, popped it back in, and continued playing. I had to spend a month and a half punching without my left hand at kickboxing classes, but that didn’t stop me from trying. When I complained to my trainer about how bloody long it was taking to recover she looked at me, raised an eyebrow and said, “Honey, you play rugby.” Oh yeah.
At home for Christmas holidays shortly after I’d made a lightning bolt out of my finger, I spent the better part of the first hour in my parent’s kitchen with my mother clucking over my tape-covered hand.
“Nishy, you really should be careful. What if it doesn’t get better? We’ll have to chop it off.”
“Yeah, but look what I can do!” I dropped to the linoleum floor and proceeded to do more full push-ups than most women my age and definitely more than my parents dreamed me ever capable of when I was fourteen. And to be honest, my first basketball practices mostly involved me holding my body off the floor from my knees, trembling slightly at the thought of actually lowering myself to the ground with my own strength. Dad, watching from the kitchen table, asked what sort of work out schedule I was running on these days and nodded along as I rattled off my weekly routine.
“So long as you still have time for school,” he said. “And take a break if your body needs it. Don’t over-exert yourself, sweetie; it can be just as bad for you as no exercise at all.”
He’s right, of course, though I still have a hard time believing it. The problem with exercise is that the hormone release and the resulting “runner’s high” experienced makes it surprisingly easy for a serious athlete to over-train. One of my best friends, for example, has spent the last eight months doing nothing but training to improve his fight statistics and – though he doesn’t see it – is experiencing some considerable symptoms as a result: insomnia, moodiness and a compulsiveness to exercise. And after every two months of hard time at the gym, his body has developed a tendency to crash completely and leave him so sick he can hardly crawl out of bed.
Getting back from the gym over the break, I flopped down on the carpet in my living room and channel-surfed my way to a rerun of The Biggest Loser. I adore the way pitting a bunch of people against each other in a weight-loss competition is ridiculous and extreme, but still manages to showcase the hard work I admire. Plus, you know, I get to feel like a rockstar just watching it. Thirty burpies? Whateeeever. Two hundred crunches? Puh-leeze. Not to mention that the episode that I’d found was one from the beginning of the season, when all of the contestants range from extremely to morbidly obese and simply getting to the show counted as exercise for them.
I watched as they set up a challenge, huddling the players as close to each other as their girths would allow and explaining that they would be walking up a set of slowly rotating escalators to find out who could stay on the longest. Great, I thought, popping baby carrots into my mouth. This is going to be the most exciting show ever. They all waddled up the stairs, took their positions and, once the buzzer sounded, began huffing their way upwards. Two minutes and thirty six seconds later, it was over. Seriously. I just about choked on my carrot. That was it? That was all that an entire quarter of the North American population was capable of?
Fuck the bruises, sore muscles and scars that I am covered in; at least I can move. Thanks to the dogged-asshole insistence of my parents, I never forgot how to run after a ball, or how good sweating feels, or how to bike to school or make my muscles scream. I get to walk down the street knowing I look good doing it and knowing that I can run to catch my bus. I could have been another one of the 5.5 million obese Canadian adults. I could have run the greater risk of premature death, diabetes, heart, stroke, breathing problems, and arthritis. But instead, I feel strong. I feel healthy. And I’m capable of rocking short shorts while kicking some serious ass.
Monday, 23 February 2009
Competing Cardiovascularly
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; I have an announcement to make. I, yes I, have been going on runs – runs for Christ’s sake. Oh but Tanysia, you might say, that’s nothing new, you play rugby after all. Of course I do; what the hell does that have to do with it? I play a contact sport, willingly subject myself to hours in the weight room and the whims of a coach who is more competitive than I am with a few beers and a pong table, but I do not like running. In fact, I more or less detest it. Yet, here I am, voluntarily folding up my laptop every second or third day and putting down the rice crackers to tie up my running shoes.
I have never been much of a runner, failing out of beep tests in grade school before I even broke a sweat and secretly praying my strep throat tests would come back positive during the cross country unit, although I can admit to a history of jock-like tendencies. If there was a boy to wrestle, a girl to body check or point guard to stuff, I was there. Ask me to be there faster than at walking pace though, and you were to be sadly disappointed. I would get there when I got there, never mind that cardiovascular bullshit.
Falling in love with sports, though, did eventually force me to face the fact that running to the ball was not just something my coach was yelling at me to do, but actually benefited my desire to win. So fine, I gave in and began to run a little; I would grudgingly do sprints at practice, tag along at the back during team runs and maybe book it down the field once or twice a game when the adrenaline peaked.
But never have I ever taken the initiative to hit the trail outside my house to run for a couple of kilometres of my own volition.
Rugby season this year, however, placed a solid boot to my behind and has gotten my ass to move like it never has before. This being the result of many months worth of my very own sweat, I was naturally loathe to let my newly minted behind soften over the Christmas break and concluded that I would actually follow my coach’s ridiculous advice and go run. So, gathering my resolve, I laced up my runners and stepped out onto the porch; this was it. Surveying the paved battleground before me I tentatively took a couple of long strides and then a couple more. Okay, not so bad. Didn’t I do this at game pace with the team three times a week? Next thing I knew, I’d done the five kilometre loop around my neighbourhood and had actually made it back without collapsing in convulsions, fainting, or shrivelling due to the excess energy burn (this would be quite the feat considering my stature, but you never know, right?). For whatever reason, running had become not only easier but semi-enjoyable. That’s right, running.
It wasn’t until one sunny afternoon when spring fever had me jittering in lecture like a six year old in need of a pee break and I ditched out on class to go running that it actually dawned on me. I was enjoying the activity for the first time in my life and it felt good. Fuck, I might as well have discovered I was superwoman. Getting a call from my mother shortly after this revelation, I jumped on the chance to gloat and quickly regretted it when I heard my mother experience what I’m sure was a quasi-aneurism.
“You- you did what? You went running?” she gasped, before telling me that she’d call me back once she’d had a bit of port.
Sadly enough, anyone I’ve known for a good proportion of my life responded to the discovery of my newfound like – I still can’t bring myself to “love” such an uncompetitive past time – with much the same shock. I suppose I wasn’t the only one who noticed I’d rather walk and miss the bus than risk running. Well hell, this new voluntary exercise thing has me past that and my youthful aversion to anything cardiovascular, and man do I ever plan on running down the competition.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Smack That!
What better way to say “I miss you” than to leave an impression that results in a week of soft cursing whenever you sit your sore behind down? Ask this of the average, female, humanities student and all you will get are several raised eyebrows and a few outraged gasps. According to a group of women in one of my English classes (whose collective refusal to admit make up may be a good idea and razors a fantastic one negates any desire to associate with them outside class discussions), a firm smack to the ass is not the way to win a girl’s heart.
“That’s supposed to be endearing?” she says, tugging at her calf length, burlap skirt.
Well, obviously. How else would a long-lost friend reaffirm his love for me than to assert how fantastically bootilicious my behind is? Truth be told, I like knowing that what my mama gave me is thoroughly appreciated, be it by friends or otherwise. It is those moments of feminist outrage that I (as unlikely as it may sound) feel the pangs of pity for the “oppressed sex,” although, coincidentally, considering how oppressed I’ve been feeling of late, I’ve begun to believe that there is quite possibly a third gender previously unknown to science- the otherwise labelled women’s studies major.
Between the extensive collection of bruises gathered during gameplay that may have one day been limited to me and the assortment of free drinks gleaned by lounging over the bar, I would be betraying myself were I to even nod in the direction of those who cry for female justice. Even with tits I could make a fortune (were my career ever to become one), I could buy and drink as much alcohol as the next guy, and I could uphold laws should I ever desire to; granted, the fight for feminine equality could still make some advancements were the access to male changing rooms remains limited. For that, I might consider not crumpling the petition sheet.
“But how do you justify the objectifying?” they might cry. Perhaps, biology may have something to do with it; our very own ogling of male muscles during sports games, the enthusiasm over the hard angle of a jaw, or for the less aggressive madames, the way the male lips curve over the words “make love to me!” I was once told that humans have been biologically designed for reproductive purposes, but that would be as ridiculous as believing in the existence of evolution. Astoundingly enough, science also states that an entire one hundred percent of the population is devised of males and females (although, should my earlier hypothesis be proven true, I will have to admit the aforementioned fact should no longer be considered as such) and therefore an equivalent percentage of human interaction is based on the genders of the involved persons. Thus, the demand for the cessation of both ogling and objectifying is not only a doomed battle, but one that would leave me without the wolf whistles, ass grabs and free drinks that not only add spice to my evenings, but flavour to my subsequent stories.
The feminist crusade to see a world of complete and utter equality is one that is about as completely and utterly useless as the laundry basket in my room. What kind of fun are we expected to have if we are forced to pretend that there are no subtle imbalances in the game play between dudes and broads? That I couldn’t swing my hips to get a door opened or cook dinner for the spell of solid biceps simply because we are all supposedly equal is just fucking ridiculous. I am about as equal as I ever want to be, being the “good looking broad” that I am and about as uninsulted by that statement as the next girl, and I could not possibly bring myself to sympathize with a chick who believes her breasts to be in the way of her future or who finds insult in a cat call. So they want all up on that hemp-covered ass; where’s the offence in that?
“That’s supposed to be endearing?” she says, tugging at her calf length, burlap skirt.
Well, obviously. How else would a long-lost friend reaffirm his love for me than to assert how fantastically bootilicious my behind is? Truth be told, I like knowing that what my mama gave me is thoroughly appreciated, be it by friends or otherwise. It is those moments of feminist outrage that I (as unlikely as it may sound) feel the pangs of pity for the “oppressed sex,” although, coincidentally, considering how oppressed I’ve been feeling of late, I’ve begun to believe that there is quite possibly a third gender previously unknown to science- the otherwise labelled women’s studies major.
Between the extensive collection of bruises gathered during gameplay that may have one day been limited to me and the assortment of free drinks gleaned by lounging over the bar, I would be betraying myself were I to even nod in the direction of those who cry for female justice. Even with tits I could make a fortune (were my career ever to become one), I could buy and drink as much alcohol as the next guy, and I could uphold laws should I ever desire to; granted, the fight for feminine equality could still make some advancements were the access to male changing rooms remains limited. For that, I might consider not crumpling the petition sheet.
“But how do you justify the objectifying?” they might cry. Perhaps, biology may have something to do with it; our very own ogling of male muscles during sports games, the enthusiasm over the hard angle of a jaw, or for the less aggressive madames, the way the male lips curve over the words “make love to me!” I was once told that humans have been biologically designed for reproductive purposes, but that would be as ridiculous as believing in the existence of evolution. Astoundingly enough, science also states that an entire one hundred percent of the population is devised of males and females (although, should my earlier hypothesis be proven true, I will have to admit the aforementioned fact should no longer be considered as such) and therefore an equivalent percentage of human interaction is based on the genders of the involved persons. Thus, the demand for the cessation of both ogling and objectifying is not only a doomed battle, but one that would leave me without the wolf whistles, ass grabs and free drinks that not only add spice to my evenings, but flavour to my subsequent stories.
The feminist crusade to see a world of complete and utter equality is one that is about as completely and utterly useless as the laundry basket in my room. What kind of fun are we expected to have if we are forced to pretend that there are no subtle imbalances in the game play between dudes and broads? That I couldn’t swing my hips to get a door opened or cook dinner for the spell of solid biceps simply because we are all supposedly equal is just fucking ridiculous. I am about as equal as I ever want to be, being the “good looking broad” that I am and about as uninsulted by that statement as the next girl, and I could not possibly bring myself to sympathize with a chick who believes her breasts to be in the way of her future or who finds insult in a cat call. So they want all up on that hemp-covered ass; where’s the offence in that?
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
A Guide to Playing and Laying
Edited October 2008; pre-Martlet.
Being the class act that I am, I chose the very delicate topic of rugby and sex for my main feature. Writing class is definately fun as fuck.
Mud, blood and glory has only taken me so far, really. It can usually get me that tackle, the team’s respect and about as much as a high five from the guy that I would have hoped to secure by the night’s end. While the glory may be all well and good for potential conquests, it’s the mud, blood and rugby that tend to off my evening game. Try as I might, it seems to be quite impossible to score off the field when that sexy skirt only serves to highlight the bruises and rake marks left by my female competition on the pitch.
Don’t get me wrong; being seen as more than an average woman with a waist and a pair of melons can be more gratifying than the game-saving hit, but it leaves an impression that doesn’t lend itself towards the femininity needed in certain male-female interactions. Sure being introduced as a rugby player may instantly win me eye-to-eye respect, but when shaking hands with a man of exemplary muscle, I can’t be confident I wouldn’t rather be faced eye-to-chest instead. Unfortunately, it appears that being seen as one of the guys often puts me in a category that pretty firmly supersedes sex; if anything, shouldn’t my ability to keep up with the guys generally apply to my libido too? One gentleman I had been chatting up at a party heard that I played the game and punched me in the arm, saying “Shit son, that’s cool.” Not necessarily the reaction I had been hoping for.
Convinced I couldn’t be the only one whose sex life was compromised thanks to the game I play, I seized the opportunity to reassure my ego at one of my UVic team’s pre-practice stretch circles. Flopping down on an edge of the grassy ring, I mentioned my ongoing lack of action to Sarah, one of the many girls who contended regularly with bruise patterns and had long since forgone the preposterous idea of wearing skirts. After first trying to tell me that she had not, in fact, had any sort of trouble, she finally conceded to having primarily dated other rugby players. Her small town home Port Alberni has all of one rugby club with mixed genders; a cocktail of players who love the game and don’t mind having to watch out for the accumulation of bruises and scrapes while in the midst of action.
Hearing our conversation, a couple of the other girls piped up and, much to the relief of my sensitive pride, informed me that playing rugby and getting laid are polar opposites for estrogen endowed players. “Leave the lights off!” shouted Thalia, one of our forwards, shaking her head at my apparent ignorance. “Can’t show off your bruises ‘till later, T.” Apparently there were rules to the late night game and my beloved war wounds were a trademark no-no; after all, why wouldn’t I have shown off the trophies I collect on the pitch?
“Bruises aren’t sexy,” confessed my friend Neil, cringing like he had just been forced to tell me that Santa isn’t real. And according to the guys I had gathered for the sake of explaining away my recent failures, neither are biceps or ripped legs, which is something they just know would be overdeveloped in a female rugby player. Damn it. In the name of thorough research, though, I decided to even out the playing field by getting my eager volunteers to choose between two equally sexy women- one of which played my sport. Ultimately, the five or six guys who wandered in and out of the room unanimously snuck in their votes for the one who didn’t play; a choice most of them couldn’t explain. The exception, mind you, was left to my classiest gentleman friend who, upon throwing in his two cents, shrugged and explained that the rugby player was probably gay, leaving the choice obvious. It seems our reputation as players precedes us.
Despite the decided unattractiveness of trained muscles, however, it was determined that a rugby girl could still make for a good evening; a good “Vegas story.” There is apparently a little something in that swagger we get as we walk off the field that announces not only our arrival, but our inherent dominance. It has to be the right sort of evening, though, for one of the guys to be interested in submitting themselves; being out-muscled by their female partner is generally not something that makes them feel appropriately effective where it counts. Consequently, Jeff, an ex-player himself, declared that “rugby girls scare the shit out of me.”
None of this was very surprising according to my loving father and sexual selection expert, the good doctor Petr. After having survived the usual string of questions about laundry and grades when I called home, my mom ventured into “when are you bringing home a boyfriend?” territory and I mentioned my recent attempt to unravel the mysteries of my sex life. Hastily avoiding the correlation to my ability to score, I began by relating some of the reactions I had gotten from my male friends around campus and was answered by the scholarly, but unfortunate, response of “That actually sounds about right.” Leave it to dad to shut down my plans on winning the female game.
According to my father and the bearer of bad news, sexual selection dictates that the most attractive attributes of either sex are signs of vitality and vigour; clear skin, a straight walk, shiny hair- cleat rakes and fingerprint bruises excluded. Mammalian males, he says, are on average larger than their female counterparts and biologically designed for combat and protection, leaving a man with a beefy woman feeling about as useful as a deflated rugby ball. While we, the women of rugby, may pride ourselves in our ability to outflex the competition and come off covered in the glory of a fair fight, it’s, them, the men of our affections, that aren’t falling for the looming threat of being beaten by their fair maidens. And although it may sting the ego to discover, it does explain why I’ve never managed to score on evenings when I’ve had to explain why only one eye is shadowed purple.
Being introduced as a rugby player also serves to mark me as an aggressive woman which, for a man who (despite what he thinks) is innately seeking a partner to raise his young, is a key sign that I would not focus all my attention on the survival of our young; even if I would gladly focus on the production of them. “Why do you think some cultures keep their women at home?” dad says, explaining that the male is instinctively seeking out a female who will not be distracted by competition or be able to undermine their status in male social circles. I suppose it might be time I stopped showing off my biceps and my capacity to drink rum like water. On second thought, it might also help if I didn’t spend most of my night out dancing on speakers with all limbs flailing.
As enlightening as my dad’s biological insight was, it only served to further confirm that the best way to win the game is to pretend you don’t play it. The trick, it appears, is to maintain an un-muddied, un-bloodied female image until after the guy has been assured that he is not hooking up with a “ham beast.” It might be time I reconnected with my femininity. Then again, what determines that a passion for playing the game, any game, isn’t sexy in itself?
Don’t get me wrong; being seen as more than an average woman with a waist and a pair of melons can be more gratifying than the game-saving hit, but it leaves an impression that doesn’t lend itself towards the femininity needed in certain male-female interactions. Sure being introduced as a rugby player may instantly win me eye-to-eye respect, but when shaking hands with a man of exemplary muscle, I can’t be confident I wouldn’t rather be faced eye-to-chest instead. Unfortunately, it appears that being seen as one of the guys often puts me in a category that pretty firmly supersedes sex; if anything, shouldn’t my ability to keep up with the guys generally apply to my libido too? One gentleman I had been chatting up at a party heard that I played the game and punched me in the arm, saying “Shit son, that’s cool.” Not necessarily the reaction I had been hoping for.
Convinced I couldn’t be the only one whose sex life was compromised thanks to the game I play, I seized the opportunity to reassure my ego at one of my UVic team’s pre-practice stretch circles. Flopping down on an edge of the grassy ring, I mentioned my ongoing lack of action to Sarah, one of the many girls who contended regularly with bruise patterns and had long since forgone the preposterous idea of wearing skirts. After first trying to tell me that she had not, in fact, had any sort of trouble, she finally conceded to having primarily dated other rugby players. Her small town home Port Alberni has all of one rugby club with mixed genders; a cocktail of players who love the game and don’t mind having to watch out for the accumulation of bruises and scrapes while in the midst of action.
Hearing our conversation, a couple of the other girls piped up and, much to the relief of my sensitive pride, informed me that playing rugby and getting laid are polar opposites for estrogen endowed players. “Leave the lights off!” shouted Thalia, one of our forwards, shaking her head at my apparent ignorance. “Can’t show off your bruises ‘till later, T.” Apparently there were rules to the late night game and my beloved war wounds were a trademark no-no; after all, why wouldn’t I have shown off the trophies I collect on the pitch?
“Bruises aren’t sexy,” confessed my friend Neil, cringing like he had just been forced to tell me that Santa isn’t real. And according to the guys I had gathered for the sake of explaining away my recent failures, neither are biceps or ripped legs, which is something they just know would be overdeveloped in a female rugby player. Damn it. In the name of thorough research, though, I decided to even out the playing field by getting my eager volunteers to choose between two equally sexy women- one of which played my sport. Ultimately, the five or six guys who wandered in and out of the room unanimously snuck in their votes for the one who didn’t play; a choice most of them couldn’t explain. The exception, mind you, was left to my classiest gentleman friend who, upon throwing in his two cents, shrugged and explained that the rugby player was probably gay, leaving the choice obvious. It seems our reputation as players precedes us.
Despite the decided unattractiveness of trained muscles, however, it was determined that a rugby girl could still make for a good evening; a good “Vegas story.” There is apparently a little something in that swagger we get as we walk off the field that announces not only our arrival, but our inherent dominance. It has to be the right sort of evening, though, for one of the guys to be interested in submitting themselves; being out-muscled by their female partner is generally not something that makes them feel appropriately effective where it counts. Consequently, Jeff, an ex-player himself, declared that “rugby girls scare the shit out of me.”
None of this was very surprising according to my loving father and sexual selection expert, the good doctor Petr. After having survived the usual string of questions about laundry and grades when I called home, my mom ventured into “when are you bringing home a boyfriend?” territory and I mentioned my recent attempt to unravel the mysteries of my sex life. Hastily avoiding the correlation to my ability to score, I began by relating some of the reactions I had gotten from my male friends around campus and was answered by the scholarly, but unfortunate, response of “That actually sounds about right.” Leave it to dad to shut down my plans on winning the female game.
According to my father and the bearer of bad news, sexual selection dictates that the most attractive attributes of either sex are signs of vitality and vigour; clear skin, a straight walk, shiny hair- cleat rakes and fingerprint bruises excluded. Mammalian males, he says, are on average larger than their female counterparts and biologically designed for combat and protection, leaving a man with a beefy woman feeling about as useful as a deflated rugby ball. While we, the women of rugby, may pride ourselves in our ability to outflex the competition and come off covered in the glory of a fair fight, it’s, them, the men of our affections, that aren’t falling for the looming threat of being beaten by their fair maidens. And although it may sting the ego to discover, it does explain why I’ve never managed to score on evenings when I’ve had to explain why only one eye is shadowed purple.
Being introduced as a rugby player also serves to mark me as an aggressive woman which, for a man who (despite what he thinks) is innately seeking a partner to raise his young, is a key sign that I would not focus all my attention on the survival of our young; even if I would gladly focus on the production of them. “Why do you think some cultures keep their women at home?” dad says, explaining that the male is instinctively seeking out a female who will not be distracted by competition or be able to undermine their status in male social circles. I suppose it might be time I stopped showing off my biceps and my capacity to drink rum like water. On second thought, it might also help if I didn’t spend most of my night out dancing on speakers with all limbs flailing.
As enlightening as my dad’s biological insight was, it only served to further confirm that the best way to win the game is to pretend you don’t play it. The trick, it appears, is to maintain an un-muddied, un-bloodied female image until after the guy has been assured that he is not hooking up with a “ham beast.” It might be time I reconnected with my femininity. Then again, what determines that a passion for playing the game, any game, isn’t sexy in itself?
Thursday, 10 January 2008
The Pool-Boy I Call Rugby
There are some days that come around when I sit at my desk, massaging sore legs and wonder how normal people do it. Not “it”, the very subtle allusion to secretive human (and surprisingly enough, the natural biological form of reproduction) S.E.X., but actually the “it” of not having any. Granted, it would be a slight exaggeration of the truth were I to claim that I got some on a regular basis from a wide variety of victims, I mean, attractive volunteers, but if I’m somehow lacking at least I get worked over frequently by the Pool-Boy I like to call Rugby.
The moments when I come home covered in mud, bruises, or scratches and babbling happily to my roommates are, oddly enough, the times when I find myself favoured with more blank looks and raised eyebrows than usual. Is there something wrong with enjoying a little blood and dirty work? Undoubtedly, despite what your mother or pastor would tell you, it’s the sweat and the resulting ache that land and keep survival of the species on everyone’s mind. So why wouldn’t I spend eighty minutes rolling through the mud with a ball? The women I play with may not be exactly my idea of a good tumble, but the balls and adrenaline that my Pool-Boy brings to the field are more than worth forfeiting my ability to walk the next day (which is something that gets left at the door before decent playing time in the bedroom anyways).
While I’m sure that knitting the sex drive away may be some people’s visionary answer, I personally feel it lacks a certain sense of rush, of excitement, of… While I may not be expressing myself clearly, generally, other options could only result in boredom. Subject yourself to some mud and bruises first, and then tell me that your preferred Pool-Boy is stamp collecting.
The moments when I come home covered in mud, bruises, or scratches and babbling happily to my roommates are, oddly enough, the times when I find myself favoured with more blank looks and raised eyebrows than usual. Is there something wrong with enjoying a little blood and dirty work? Undoubtedly, despite what your mother or pastor would tell you, it’s the sweat and the resulting ache that land and keep survival of the species on everyone’s mind. So why wouldn’t I spend eighty minutes rolling through the mud with a ball? The women I play with may not be exactly my idea of a good tumble, but the balls and adrenaline that my Pool-Boy brings to the field are more than worth forfeiting my ability to walk the next day (which is something that gets left at the door before decent playing time in the bedroom anyways).
While I’m sure that knitting the sex drive away may be some people’s visionary answer, I personally feel it lacks a certain sense of rush, of excitement, of… While I may not be expressing myself clearly, generally, other options could only result in boredom. Subject yourself to some mud and bruises first, and then tell me that your preferred Pool-Boy is stamp collecting.
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