5 QUESTIONS

Mon. 21 June, 2010

1 Learn. I explained in an earlier post that I needed to find an online planner or calendar so I could schedule my life and plan my days and weeks ahead. I failed miserably. That was until I looked right under my nose and found Google calendars. How could I miss that? I already use so many other Google services, this blog for one. There's also Reader, Gmail, YouTube, AdSense, Picasa and Docs which I use on a regular basis. The calendar that Google have is very close to what I was looking for originally so I'm going to take a bit of time to learn how to use it effectively. You can soon call me Mr Organised.

2 Improve. This afternoon at basketball training I was feeling rather explosive. It felt as though I could leap to the roof of the gymnasium with no effort at all. As we were warming up I used that feeling to throw down dunks at a ferocious intensity. I managed to get a clean flush on a one leg takeoff, two handed tomahawk, running at full pace towards the basket, which I haven't ever done before. It was an awesome feeling knowing that my jumping ability is still rising.

3 Contribute. I shared with the boys in the basketball team some more items from the vast pool of basketball knowledge that is stored within my brain. I seem to talk a lot, but when the pressures on they seem to forget what they only just learnt. It goes in one ear and out the other. Can you really expect more from teenagers? Maybe one day it will click for them, until then I'll keep doing what I do.

4 Enjoy. We run a drill at training called one minute of defense. There are two lines either side of the court, 2 balls in each line. As soon as you get the ball you dribble towards the basket looking to score in any way possible. Problem is there's one person standing in the way. Sometimes you can get away with a cheeky basket while the defender is still preoccupied with the person who went before you. It's the defenders job not to let that happen and contest every shot. I was in a situation during the exercise where I got the ball early, so I decided to try get one of those cheeky buckets and maybe put a bit of flair in it by hammering a slam down. I thought I was in for the money because the person who went in before me was taking their time putting their shot up. As I leapt into the air,  the defender all of a sudden turned to me. He gave up on the previous defensive assignment because it wasn't worth his time. He had two options at this stage with only a split second to react. There was nowhere he could move to so he could either stand there and sample the salty seasoning of my sweaty shorts or he could push me away to try prevent the embarassment of having a face full of nut sack. He chose the latter, but instead of pushing me away from the basket, he pushed me up and towards it. What happened next was one of the greatest experiences of my playing days. I was so high in the air I was looking down ito the basket. My shoulders were level with the rim which is 10 feet from the ground.What happened next? I panicked. Instead of reaching out and grabbing the rim, creating a dunk which was worthy of a placing on SportsCenter's top 10, I got over excited and didn't really know what to do. I managed to finish off the play, a sexy wee finger roll with my forearm parrallel to the ground. I wish I got a courtside photo of the play, then it would probably be one of my most prized possesions.