Moving to the ball

So I keep meaning to post something about the elections, UNC's scandals, etc., but the spirit isn't moving me.  Then I make the mistake of scrolling through Facebook, or through one of my email inboxes, which sucks the spirit right out of me, so that I want to go eat.

Natalie is at an ultimate frisbee tournament today up in Norfolk.  They are away for two nights, staying in a hotel, with 5 girls to a room.  Awesome.  This is a first for her, being away from us, sharing a room with friends.  She will remember this for a long time.  Hopefully the experience will be enough to spur her to want to keep with the team sports.  She continues to be much more into the team part of it than the sports part of it.  Which is fine.

Actually, I was at an all-day tournament with her in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago.  She announced Friday at 9pm -- having come home from a football game at the high school -- that she did in fact want to go to Raleigh and play.  It was news to me that there was even a tournament to go to, but she wanted to go, and she needed to be there by 8 am, so there you had it.  Up early, off to the Biscuit Kitchen for some fortification, and off  we went.

I knew that I had to get back there by the end of the day to pick her up, and there were other parents there, so I decided to stay for the whole day and watch and cheer.  As I watched her, I saw her familiar pattern of kind of going through the motions on office, executing the plays the coaches had taught them, but not really doing a good job to insert herself into the run of play because, in fact, she didn't want the frisbee, because she didn't and doesn't believe in herself as a player.

Much of that is because of lack of practice.  She goes to practice a couple of days a week -- when it doesn't conflict with Mock Trial, or Model UN, or Debate -- but she doesn't really try too hard to improve her technical skills with the disc:  throwing, catching, important things like that.  Since she's doing something athletic and having fun and deepening friendships, I resist the temptation to jump in there and push too hard.  Eventually the peer pressure from teammates should push her to focus more, or she'll quit the sport.

But back to the main behavior, this being near the ball, pretending to be part of the play but not forcing herself into it for lack of confidence:  I recognize that from my own development.  Even now it is an issue.  In the past when I have had activity metrics goals put in front of me (number of times cited in major publications, number of reports published, etc.) I have often been able to make them, but have not figured out how to translate them into revenue.  The difference is that then I was salaried, but now I am paid for production.  So I have to actually be certain that I go and get the ball and put it in the back of the net.

Which, to some extent, explains why I've been blogging less.  I'm going and getting the ball.