Tag Archives: Sports

July 24, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Sport I Want to Try

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Aerial shot of a black woman paddle boarding on a pink and white paddle board in a green-blue sea. This means that she is standing up on a surfboard-like item and holding a paddle as she looks straight ahead. The water is rippling slightly in the wind and looks gorgeous. The woman has a confident pose and seems to be having a great time. Paddle boarding sounds like a fantastic sport to me.

I will share two pictures of people who are using paddle boards in today’s post in case anyone reading this has never seen one or needs a visual representation of what they look like.

Why am I interested in paddle boarding?

I love spending time on or near the water on nice days. It’s relaxing to hear waves lapping against the shore or the cry of sea birds in the distance. Since everything is powered by your own muscles, there won’t be any motors drowning out peaceful nature noises.

This sport doesn’t involve any running or trying to catch or throw balls. Those things also make it appealing to me as I tend to prefer forms of exercise that let you work at your own pace and don’t involve getting hit by anything.

A white man paddle boarding in a green, algae-filled lake. He is wearing a t-shirt, a pair of jean shorts that has large holes in them, and a white baseball cap. His paddle board has a patch of reddish-orange colour on its otherwise white colour. The man looks like he’s having a good time but that he’s also carefully looking at something just out of view. His posture is slightly slouched to the left as he stands on his board. I do not know if that is significant or not, but thought I’d better include it in case it is.

No uniform seems to be required. You can wear a bathing suit or shorts and a t-shirt depending on your preferences and what the weather is like. I appreciate having the option of choosing my own wardrobe for such things as the air could be hot and still on land but much cooler and active further out on Lake Ontario. The wind blowing over all of that water can make such a huge difference in temperature, especially if a storm is coming.

The big paddle is cool, too. I have enjoyed canoeing the past, so that makes me think I might like using something similar to a large oar while standing up.

There is also the fact that paddle boarding can allow you to explore shallow waters that boats cannot enter.  This means that you can see places that are usually much less accessible to human visitors, and you can do it without damaging any sensitive things like rare plants or the nests of various creatures so long as you stay on the paddle board.

These are some of many reasons why this sport appeals to me. If any of you have tried it, I’d love to hear what you thought of it!

 

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April 5, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Sports I’ve Tried and What I Thought of Them

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A few of my comments on Blogspot blogs went through last week. This week, none of them are going through even if I switch browsers. I will keep trying, but that is why I’m not commenting on some sites.

A photograph of a basketball net against a dark night sky. The photo is positioned so that it looks like the full moon in the sky is about to swish through the basketball net.

Physical education class was where I was first seriously introduced to playing sports as is probably also true for many other folks. Every year we played football, basketball, volleyball, and baseball as the seasons turned. Sometimes the teacher would mix things up a little by having us play hockey or kickball indoors or play tennis or run around the track outside when the weather was nice.

While there are people out there who learned to love those sports and exercise in general through their experiences in gym class, I was not one of them. I wasn’t a naturally athletic kid or teen, and competition squelches my interest in exercise instead of encouraging it.

I’m sorry to say that I loathed every single one of these sports. Other than tossing a baseball around with my oldest nephew a few times, I have steadfastly and purposefully avoided even the slightest whiff of all of them as an adult.

The sports I like generally have a few things in common:

1) It’s easy to participate in them non-competitively,

2) They can be done alone or with a small group of people,

3) They do not involve pain, balls, or running. (I sustained numerous injuries in gym class over the years. Even though they were minor things like sprains or bruises, having so many of them happen year after year gave me what seems to be a lifelong aversion to sports that involve these things).

4) You can do them at your own pace and with modifications if certain moves hurt or if I can’t yet do them.

So, for example, I love swimming, nature walks, yoga, bicycling, light hiking*, dancing, and weightlifting. I used to love canoeing, too, although I haven’t done it since I was a kid.  Rollerskating is also fun if I’m on a smooth surface, am wearing appropriate safety gear, and can move at my own pace.

*e.g. I’ll explore a trail for an hour or two (or much longer than that if the weather is mild and the terrain is fairly flat), but then I want to go home, rest my feet, drink lots of water, and maybe eat a banana.

Basically, I don’t mind pushing myself in reasonable ways to see how my body reacts, but I never want to wake up the next day too sore or bruised to function.

If any gym teachers end up reading this, I hope contemporary gym classes are much more useful, practical, and encouraging than the ones I had. The idea of teaching kids to get into the habit of exercising early in life is a great one, but that class was useless for me at best.

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