Philistine

Dear Friends of Philistine,

I am, indeed, quite mortal.

Here’s the score, in case you’re playing along at home:

3 rugby practices so far.

8.5 total hours.

1 controlled scrimmage game with some other newbs.

2.5 of the practices have been full contact.

And my personal statistics?

1 giant greenish bruise on my chest that doesn’t hurt at all but looks like I took a fastball from Sidd Finch.

1 other mysterious, painless hickey-like gash down the middle of my torso. Jersey burn? Falling on a ball?

3 bloody and not-so-painless, but relatively superficial abrasions (both knees, one elbow).

1 busted lip, from the first day. Healed nicely.

1 briefly dislocated shoulder. I have this thing where my shoulder slides out of joint and then right back in, and my arm goes limp for a few minutes. My dad has it, too. I’m working on my rotator cuffs to see if I can keep it from happening as much.

1 running headbutt to the ear. I repeat: running headbutt to the ear. This happened tonight and hurt very, very much. Now my jaw joint is really being a douche about the whole thing.

1 mildly rolled ankle. Very mildly.

1 mysterious pain in the pinky metatarsal of my other foot, that is annoying but doesn’t want to go away.

I need to become much, much tougher. Not just more fit–which is definitely the case–but physically and mentally tougher. I haven’t played a sport in a serious, sustained way in 10 years. The good news is that the knees are hanging in there, and the “prehab” stuff I had to do a few months ago (when I couldn’t even walk up stairs without being a big baby) does seem to have fixed my floppy kneecap problem.

The game is really, really fun, though. As far as I can tell, you move around on the field in a soccerish way, and instead of kicking a ball, you get in a big fucking fight about a million times.

Even with the getting banged around, it’s been great for my energy/motivation levels off the pitch, and probably done wonders in terms of stress-relief.

The social aspect of the game was something I always heard about, but that always confused me. I’m starting to get it now. Sure, it goes along with rugby, but I think it also goes along–in this case–with the fact that our particular club, like most, is made up of rag-tag volunteers from everywhere, and all walks of life, who are doing this for the same reasons: to challenge themselves, to play a game they enjoy, and because they like each others’ company. There are remarkably few egos out there, at least as far as I can tell. They’re not instant best friends for me, or anything, but they are a neighborly bunch of guys, and they like pub culture a lot, so I’m looking forward to getting to know them a little.

As far as the sport itself, here’s where I seem to fall on the team, so far: although rugby players really dislike translating everything from American football (saying things like: “so, it’s basically option football, right?” makes them want to hit you, as far as I can tell), the sport lends itself the specific type of football I played–north and south with the ball, a lot of smashmouth, and what is basically linebacker defensive play. Because of this, I am among the more technically fluent newbies in drills, because this stuff is basically like riding a bike, and all comes back to you. In size, I’m right at about the mean. There are a couple huge players (in the 300 lb range, and tall) a good number of sort of 250-ish guys, and then a lot of smaller, taller guys, too. In terms of cardio/fitness, I’m below the mean, but I’m not completely alone down there, as most of the guys are out of shape, too.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how all that goes.

I’m waiting to see how it informs the rest of my life–the scheduling alone requires me to get my act together more than I’m used to, which is good for me. There are a good number of away games in places like New Orleans, Cincinnati, Mobile, and St. Louis, and I’m going to try to travel (with Mrs. Philistine, who I think wants to see more of the good ol’ USA) to all of them. I hope to learn the game and  become a pretty good B-side player this fall, and maybe even get some A-side minutes in the spring. I’m looking forward to seeing some of those places, and I don’t mind driving. It gets me away from campus and doing something interesting/productive on weekends that I’m not working, which is a perennial struggle for me, since it’s so tempting to just get in the couch time.

I’m going to try to pace myself as I pay the piper for a good number of years of laziness, but I am enjoying the idea of carpe-ing the diem a little bit more, in general.

And I’ll try to remember to keep you updated.