I play league table tennis - not well, but it's mostly very enjoyable. Like many competitive sports it's often intense. I found myself wondering whether others on WOL, or poets generally, are much into competitive sport. The intensity may be an attraction, as we tend to be intense people. But there's plenty about it that might be off-putting (pointless sweaty waste of time, risk of injury etc etc). I get the feeling that few if any will be active competitors. Is that right?

I know it's not sport, and I hope it's not competitive, but I've just come back from my first (and LAST) salsa evening class. It was HORRIBLE (cos I couldn't do it!) I LOVE dancing in an Isadora Duncan kind of waving my arms about sort of a way, but give me steps to do and I am CRAP!! Plus, it reminds me of the long ago humiliation of school, and dancing lessons with the boys! Never getting picked, except by the nerdy ones I didn't fancy, if I was lucky. So I will continue to dance around my kitchen on my own, thank you very much.
I feel that maybe poets might like to go their own way too much to be remotely interested in competitive sports - but that could just be me. But I was born feet first, and have felt like an oddity ever since. It's only recently that I've started to enjoy it! (Being an oddity that is!)

I always hated sports at school, I have hardly any coordination, but did do ballet till my teens, did horseriding for a little while but I'm such a huge physical coward, it was just stressful. As for team sports...no way, I let the side down every time. I did do the race for life last year though (even though I'm a smoker and didn't train and felt like I was weeing with every footfall) Eddie Izzard is my sporting hero!
Anyone else the last one to be picked for teams? :)

Yes... I was also the last to be picked i that humiliating sports lesson ritual. An asthmatic weed that hated sports. Always loved the bicycle and now (although injured at the mo) go on ridiculous endurance rides.
P.S. Got bored of been injured last week so went out for a walk (9 hours later I had finished - 27 miles) :-) Win

I, also, was amongst the last to be picked. I found though that, when faced with a stroppy teenager hellbent on having a quiet hour with a book, most teachers would not bother arguing their point too long.

'You want me to walk along a narrow strip of wood and jump off the other end/climb that rope/jump over that large wooden box? What on earth for? Let me see you do it first. Yeah - thought not'

I don't know why, but that gym teacher hated me. Later, I solved the problem for both of us by just not turning up at school.

I hate sports and exercise generally, though I like (and used to do a lot of)dance. Trying to make myself do it regularly at the moment. I did think of paying someone to crack the whip, but I seem to have found someone who will do it for free - he seems to enjoy it.

Walking 27 miles sounds pretty fit and sporty to me Win, or have you just got a really bad sense of direction? ;-)
Cx

I can run a bath - with just a slight hint of breathlessness - does that count?

I usually draw a bath...

Paul - I think you've just identified yourself as being secretly posh.
Darren - anything that makes you breathless isn't good for you at all, have a shower instead.
Cx

Or secretly ancient. I guess you used to draw the hot water off an insufficient supply - back in the days of the back boiler...

Chris - finding 'a he' to crack the whip for free sounds like a lot of fun... you'll have to fill me in on how you did it.

I never liked team sports either - the fear of letting the side down and all that. Was always made to be a back in hockey. Can just remember grunting away as I tried to tackle for the ball - hating every minute of it.

I did like badminton a lot. I have fast reactions and you don't have to chase the shuttle cock too far when it's out of play - unlike tennis. Some sports should only be played with a personal ball boy in toe.

We don't sound like a very sporty bunch - perhaps poetry and sport don't go hand in hand - unless you are poet bating on WOL that is...

Actually, I'm both rich and ancient.

In the old days, before in-door plumbing (how unhealthy), one used to get one's servants to draw water from the outside well to put in a bath for one.

For one what?

Paul - What does the F stand for? I'm sure you didn't have it this morning when I looked. xx

Going back to sport and sporty people, now that I am quite ancient too, I think I am very fit, strong and healthy. I wonder how those sporty types are doing now? Tortoise and hare maybe? (Smug Foxgloves - prob about to be struck down by some terrible disease etc etc )

Just like in that scene in 'Kes', it was always me and 'Tub' last to be picked. I was a weed, or was perceived as such. But I regularly went walking and hostelling. I also had two morning paper rounds, so had to cover the ground pretty quickly.
I relish the moment when 'that weed, Jordon', running his first house cross-country competition, was one of the first past the half-way marker - our sadist games teacher - and he stood open-mouthed as the boy he took the piss out of so much flew past him. Having proved my case, I then did a 'Colin Smith' and slowed to a near stop. I had forgotten about that incident until reminded by this posting.

So that's the reason i only started to attempt writing poetry after the ripened old age of forty something is it? I was too busy with active sports?
Well yes actually i was back then. It's been a while though since i went skinny dipping. :-)

I'm proud to say that i was a great swimmer and competed too. I was picked for the Nationals, many moons ago now. A bunch of us used to swim every morning after a jog round the block before school. Then swim club in the evenings. I still enjoy swimming when i get the opportunity.
Won loads of school sports day prizes for winning the obstacle races too. I'm writing my life story in chunks and at irregular intervals. There are lots of anecdotes and funny incidents in there. Is it wrong to be able to laugh at my own misfortunes?
That's about the only exercise i get at present.
That and carrying shopping bags for little old dears and lazy young tusks. :-)

So, Ann , you had no idea there was an "F' in Paul? Well, "F' in Paul has been known to the rest of us for some time; in fact, usually as 'F in Paul.'

Still laughing over Julians comment..heh!

Sport god no! I was one of those who bunked off and went for dinner at a nifty little cafe that did great apple pie and custard..Oh those days of forging me old mums signature on notes as to why I couldn't compete in hockey, I just couldn't understand why anyone would want to get their ankles wrapped with some stick hefted by a growling teenager full to brimming with pre-menstrual murder on her mind!
Ping-pong sounds alright though Dave :o)

Still laughing over Julians comment..heh!

Sport god no! I was one of those who bunked off and went for dinner at a nifty little cafe that did great apple pie and custard..Oh those days of forging me old mums signature on notes as to why I couldn't compete in hockey, I just couldn't understand why anyone would want to get their ankles wrapped with some stick hefted by a growling teenager full to brimming with pre-menstrual murder on her mind!
Ping-pong sounds alright though Dave :o)

sounded so good I said it twice..

I'm not competitive so when I took up running I placed a full length mirror on a dolly (the kind film makers use not a questionable homunculus some child might hug) positioned three metres ahead of me. I ran towards it and the clever, mocking bastard outpaced me despite running backwards.

Blimey Hatta, you must be the most competitive person on the planet!! xx

Me, competitive Ms Foxglove? No! I merely had my right arm surgically extended to the length of an Olympic table tennis table so I could play myself at ping pong, and that bastard at the other end of table does gestures at me, "V"s her fingers on the bat handle, then flips me the bird -- she psyches me out and that's why SHE ALWAYS FLIPPING WINS!

I'm not at all competitive Hatta, so you could play me at table tennis, or ice hockey, or tiddlywinks or almost anything really, I'll let you win, I won't mind, you'll be pleased. Good plan!!

I loved sports. Not that good at anything, but I enjoyed the team 'spirit' and I tried hard to be a 'decent' player. I was actually chosen to attend a Sports Camp, three grueling weeks of diverse activities, including refereeing. I did well at underwater swimming and square dance calling - lots of 'hot air' and 'bossy tendencies'.

I think the Olympics should have three 'first' winners of equal status - this 1/100th sec. difference in talent is a crock!

Never could stand sports.

Football? 22 (pampered, overpaid, stupid) bags of wind kicking a bag of wind around. Complete bollocks.

I was no good at sports,although I wasn't a bad runner,(short distance,and before the onset of adulthood!)

One thing I did like was my skateboard,but I was always ridiculed for having no enthusiasm for rugby or football!(I still think skateboarding's far cooler though!Haha)