Re: The Well LXXIX: Ken - Life After Barbie
What is your greatest athletic strength?
I'm a fairly well-rounded athlete. Athlete, not necessarily ball sport player. I played soccer up through my freshman year of high school, quit because the teammates and coaches sucked the fun out of it. In middle school I threw shotput and high jumped. I was the #2 shot putter, weighing a whopping 150 or so and out-throwing guys with 30-50 pounds of muscle on me. My coach was great about emphasizing form and I took it to heart...if you do it right you won't hurt yourself doing it hard.
I was just as technical on the wrestling mat in 8th grade. I wrestled in a club in elementary and played club basketball for several years, in middle school I wrestled in 6th and 8th grade. Sixth grade I just kind of did it...8th grade I had an appreciation for the sport (as much as a 14 year old can). To this day I love technical fighting/grappling. When wrestling, I never really beat up my opponents...I'd go hard, but I wasn't out for a smashmouth style like most of my teammates. I'd certainly put the hurt on an opponent, but I wasn't out to win by injuring them. I wanted to wrestle, and I wanted to pin. My knack of going for the pin exasperated my coach to some extent, because the conventional wisdom in coaching wrestlers is to put the emphasis on scoring, and I would almost never cut my opponent to go for another takedown and run the score. My takedowns were okay, but I worked a lot better from the mat. I was great with escapes and reversals, to the point that I figured out my own reversal to go from referee's position directly to stacking my opponent a three-quarter nelson for the pin. That was a fun one, because that move isn't in the modern lexicon so no one knew how to defend against it and definitely couldn't see it coming when I'd go for it from a defensive position. So I was a pain to my coach in that respect, but I'd rather get the team six points instead of 5 and not go to the trouble of 3 full periods.
In high school I pole vaulted on the varsity squad all four years. I absolutely LOVED vaulting...It was such hard work, 100ft or so (and mine was a long approach) to build up a full sprint, having to have a consistent stride every time or your distance from the box and the entire vault would be wasted, the jolt in your shoulder of planting the pole and the fear of the pole snapping everytime as it bends and you swing for vertical, thrusting hips hard and pulling up the pole for every inch of clearance your strength and momentum can muster, keeping your hips up/away from the bar and turning soon enough to not drag the pole into the bar. The greatest feeling in the world was pushing off from the pole, seeing the bar untouched below you, and then just free falling a dozen or so feet smiling and laughing.
Lately, I'm taking up golf. It's a challenge, especially because bat/club/racquet sports are not a strength. So far I'm enjoying it, just getting comfortable with the form.
So, I would say my greatest athletic ability is that I'm a very versatile athlete, very aware of my body and put an emphasis on proper form over strength. My build mostly resembles a wrestler/gymnast (I did a summer of gymnastics to train for pole vault, btw). I'm a bit softer after four years of not doing a whole lot at college, and am itching to get back into shape.
What is your greatest athletic strength?
I'm a fairly well-rounded athlete. Athlete, not necessarily ball sport player. I played soccer up through my freshman year of high school, quit because the teammates and coaches sucked the fun out of it. In middle school I threw shotput and high jumped. I was the #2 shot putter, weighing a whopping 150 or so and out-throwing guys with 30-50 pounds of muscle on me. My coach was great about emphasizing form and I took it to heart...if you do it right you won't hurt yourself doing it hard.
I was just as technical on the wrestling mat in 8th grade. I wrestled in a club in elementary and played club basketball for several years, in middle school I wrestled in 6th and 8th grade. Sixth grade I just kind of did it...8th grade I had an appreciation for the sport (as much as a 14 year old can). To this day I love technical fighting/grappling. When wrestling, I never really beat up my opponents...I'd go hard, but I wasn't out for a smashmouth style like most of my teammates. I'd certainly put the hurt on an opponent, but I wasn't out to win by injuring them. I wanted to wrestle, and I wanted to pin. My knack of going for the pin exasperated my coach to some extent, because the conventional wisdom in coaching wrestlers is to put the emphasis on scoring, and I would almost never cut my opponent to go for another takedown and run the score. My takedowns were okay, but I worked a lot better from the mat. I was great with escapes and reversals, to the point that I figured out my own reversal to go from referee's position directly to stacking my opponent a three-quarter nelson for the pin. That was a fun one, because that move isn't in the modern lexicon so no one knew how to defend against it and definitely couldn't see it coming when I'd go for it from a defensive position. So I was a pain to my coach in that respect, but I'd rather get the team six points instead of 5 and not go to the trouble of 3 full periods.
In high school I pole vaulted on the varsity squad all four years. I absolutely LOVED vaulting...It was such hard work, 100ft or so (and mine was a long approach) to build up a full sprint, having to have a consistent stride every time or your distance from the box and the entire vault would be wasted, the jolt in your shoulder of planting the pole and the fear of the pole snapping everytime as it bends and you swing for vertical, thrusting hips hard and pulling up the pole for every inch of clearance your strength and momentum can muster, keeping your hips up/away from the bar and turning soon enough to not drag the pole into the bar. The greatest feeling in the world was pushing off from the pole, seeing the bar untouched below you, and then just free falling a dozen or so feet smiling and laughing.
Lately, I'm taking up golf. It's a challenge, especially because bat/club/racquet sports are not a strength. So far I'm enjoying it, just getting comfortable with the form.
So, I would say my greatest athletic ability is that I'm a very versatile athlete, very aware of my body and put an emphasis on proper form over strength. My build mostly resembles a wrestler/gymnast (I did a summer of gymnastics to train for pole vault, btw). I'm a bit softer after four years of not doing a whole lot at college, and am itching to get back into shape.
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