Excited About Some Rugby

It’s been close to a month since I’ve posted. Lots of stuff happening in the rugby world—7s Nationals, 7s NASCs coming up, some more 7s here and there. For me—I didn’t play 7s this year, because I was planning a move and moving right smack in the middle of the season.

Now that we’re all moved in, I’m itching for some rugby. I’ve been in contact with a couple of folks here in the Tampa area and hopefully, very soon, I’ll be playing some 15s and maybe helping out with youth rugby in the area.

I’m also anxious about the National team’s upcoming tour in November. It’s a ways off, and we don’t know the travel roster just yet, but the Elite Pool is looking pretty damned good (athletically and in terms of potential performance, but we’re also pretty hot). I can’t wait for our camp in September, and then hopefully I’ll be in Europe in November. That’s really all I have for the blog right now—excited about some rugby this fall!

Blog From Monday

I started, on Monday, writing a sort-of camp wrap-up entry, and didn't finish, but I'm going to post what I did write and then perhaps post again soon.

7/9/12

Yesterday, camp officially closed. We came together, all three teams as one team of Eagles, one last time for a stretching session and one last meeting with the coaching staff. We won’t know selections until sometime this week, but we got an idea of how everything will work. We’ll have a tour in the Fall, after the WPL season is over, then some time off, and then, hold on to your socks, it gets pretty dang busy—ETCs, camps, tournaments, tours. It’s exciting, but intimidating as well. But it’s a ways off, so there is plenty of time to work out the details.

After camp closed, we all got a chance to say some hectic goodbyes. I, along with eight others, didn’t fly out yesterday, so after we were all herded onto busses and shuttled to the airport, us Monday fliers went to a nearby hotel for the night. A few of the late Sunday fliers tagged along, San Juanita, like a true Mexican (her words, not mine), stowing away in the back so we could fit 12 in the 11-capacity van, and we all grabbed dinner (which we had around 3:30, because our meal-clocks are still screwy from the early dinners at camp). I’d like to tell you that none of us uttered the words “ten percent,” but that wasn’t the case.

We returned to the hotel for a post-dinner dip in the pool and a little down time. Though camp had officially closed, we still hadn’t had any significant down time (travel doesn’t count as down time), so we used the rest of the night to relax, grab milkshakes, catch up on our social media sites, etc. I watched the newer Indiana Jones movie with the gals in my room, Erica and Ashley, though I didn’t make it to the end. Do they return the skull? I assume they do, since Indiana Jones always succeeds in the end and generally, only the bad guys get carried away and eaten by thousands of giant ants. 

Undefeated Match and 10% Card

All of the build-up to the White vs. Red match proved to be well founded. Going into the match, both teams were undefeated. We (White…the Great White Sharks) were ahead in the points standings, which were based on the WPL scoring, I’m told, but Red was right behind us, so this match dictated who won our little league (not little league, but a small in number of teams league) here.

Red came out uber aggressive—too aggressive at times. Their aggression gave them good field position at times, gave our offense trouble at times, and disrupted our rucks so that we lost possession a few times. However, it also landed them some penalties. We played a good deal of the first half in their end of the field, and though we threatened to score a couple of times, we couldn’t quite put points on the board. But then, we only allowed Red to put a penalty kick through.

The second half saw more scoring. We broke through first and scored a try. Unfortunately, the wind was apparently on Red’s side and nudged the ball off the tee as our flyhalf, Hannah, was in her kicking motion. Nonetheless, we took the lead 5-3. Then Red scored twice more and pulled away 17-5. With only about 10 minutes left, we turned the momentum again, scored a try, made the kick and pulled within five. Adrenaline still surging, we pounded the ball back at Red once more and put another one in, tying the match. And then the whistle blew. Ending the match. At a tie.

In the end, there were two undefeated teams here at camp, but we were the eventual champs, based on the scoring method.  Feels good to be champs. Would have felt even better had we won, and with the way the match was going, I think that momentum would have stayed right there behind us and propelled us across that try line again, but then it’s easy to speculate, and I’m sure Red is probably speculating that they could’ve regrouped and won it in overtime.

So now, camp is pretty much over. We have a recovery session in the morning, a meeting, some feed back, and a feeding (not in that order) and then we head for the Denver airport and the big blue zombie horse.

Tonight, after the matches, we all got a chance to recognize the efforts of the UNCo staff and liaisons, who helped set-up this camp and keep it running as smoothly as it did, and our own staff. They all made this camp the best I’ve been to and they help foster what turned out to be some very good rugby.

Some of us also got a chance to use our 10% card. If you don’t know what that is, I’ll tell ya. On our nutrition plan, we have the option of “cheating” 10% of the time. Quite a few players went the pizza route, and a few, including myself, got subs…some with, gasp, mayo. I got a buffalo chicken sub with Ranch, which is just as bad as mayo, but tastier. But the highlight of my 10% cheat was the very large, bucket-like Diet Coke. Ahhh, the sweet, sweet burn of carbonation. Yes, soda is a weakness of mine, as is sugar candy. It’s too bad the sub place didn’t have some Bottle Caps or Skittles. I would’ve been in 10% heaven…which I’m sure is populated by ex-rugby players, fat-camp kids, and professional eating champions. 

Ok, I’m done. Night!

Friday at Camp: The Volleyball Plague

I want the Masonic Band back. I know I’ve been joking about how they’re Masons and they have secret lives and rituals and probably have weird initiation ceremonies that involve nudity and chickens, but in reality they were very considerate and polite, and they were great cafeteria buddies. Today, we got new cafeteria buddies. At breakfast, there was a murmur, a slight stir of a sort-of check-in outside the dinning hall. By lunch, that murmur was a full-blown bombination of teenage and pre-teen girls flooding the buffet lines, zipping in and out of small groups of other teenage and pre-teens, yipping about boys and ponies and glitter, totally unaware of their spatial distance and where lines originate. It was havoc. It was the locust plague. It was volleyball camp.

Dinner wasn’t as bad, but only because we arrived before the infestation. Ok, ok, so I know I’m giving these girls a bad rap, when in fact they’re not actually the ones who deserve it. Their counselors don’t deserve it either. They’re running a camp with close to a couple hundred girls. My guess would be that it’s probably a little harder to manage a couple hundred teenage and pre-teen girls than it is to manage about a hundred women. However, it’s a little difficult to manage both a couple hundred young girls and a hundred women together, having a small, hour and a half, window in which to eat, and having other things going on in their respective camps which only shrink that window. I blame the dinning services for the chaos. They should extend the lunchtime and stagger the two groups.

Anyway, enough about the little nettlesome volleyball players and on to rugby. We had one practice session today and went over a lot of video. From what we’ve seen, it looks like our match with the red team should be a good one. They have some weaknesses that we’ll look to exploit (just like any other match), and we have a game plan that we think will win. We’ll see tomorrow. Should be a good one.

After our field session, lifting form session (forgot to mention that one), and all that video, we did some improv with John, our Skills Coach. John is pretty awesome. He’s exceptionally intelligent, a great conversationalist, recommends awesome books, and he does cool things like work with Navy Seals (or the Marines or one of those bad-ass military groups) and Improvisation (the live kind). Tonight he put us through some improv/team-building exercises. We created rhythm together, passed around a couple of imaginary balls, created a very large and very noisy imaginary machine, and either hated or loved sporks. It was a lot of fun. I think that we’re all in a really good place, mentally, to play tomorrow. And as far as the physical goes—we’re all recovered, feeling good, and raring to hit people. Tomorrow will be a good day.

Oh, and one other thing, I found out that I run funny, today, which I knew (I run straight up), though I’d never described it as funny. I think my shin angle is off. But all that means is that I have the potential to be faster. Look out now.

Exercising the Neck Demon

Today was a recovery day for us, which meant pool recovery, and surprise…yoga! Our coach, Danielle Miller, led the yoga. I’m not a yoga guru (literally or metaphorically), but I enjoy it. And, I don’t necessarily swear by it, but I will testify that if done properly, it has some great benefits. One of those benefits is that it puts my lack of flexibility into perspective, and another is that it helps improve that lack of flexibility. It also promotes relaxation, which is so key when recovering.

And speaking of recovering, our coaches have been amazing at being sure we get the time to do that. Instead of field sessions on days after a match, we’ve been doing pool recovery and yoga. This camp is, after all, about performance, not development, and our coaches have been great at promoting our recovery so that we can perform. Actually, they’ve been great at promoting our performance as well. When we do get on the field, it’s focused and productive.

Back to recovery, one more time. Yesterday, in the half that I played wing, I, somehow, tweaked/pulled/summoned a demon in my neck, and it was stiiiiiiiff this morning. Ok, I know all of the forwards are saying to themselves, “Is dis skinny lil wing ho talkin’ ‘bout how she be sore?” in their best ghetto fabulous voices. Forwards, I promise you that I don’t claim to have done the grunt work that you do or to have been as sore as you all. I just had a stiffy…in my neck. Anyway, I thought I’d take advantage of our excellent medical staff, and so our trainer, Ashley, kindly exercised the demon. By that, I mean she beat the stiffness out of my neck via massage. It hurt, but ohhh such a good pain. And being such a masochist, I went back for more tonight, and again what a good way to hurt.

One more bit of exciting news: our missing teammate finally arrived. “Missing teammate?” you ask, “Where was she?” Well, Tonya has been fighting fires a few hours from here, and they have made a good deal of progress in containing the fires, and her crew was finally released. I think that’s not only pretty bad-ass, but admirable, so I just wanted to mention it here.

Also, the Masonic Band Camp left today. I don’t know whether or not there’s some sort of coincidence there—the fires die down, the Masons leave—and I’m sure if there was one, I wouldn’t want to touch it. All I can think is Mel Gibson in “Conspiracy Theory,” and really, I’d rather not think of old Crazy-Face or the Masons anyway, so I’ll just retire now. Happy rugby dreaming.

A Win for White on America's Birthday

Happy Birthday America!!! I celebrated my 236-year-old freedom from the tyrannical throne by tackling college students. We played the College All-Americans today, and we came out pumped from the kick-off. Actually, I think we were pumped from the time we woke up this morning. We followed our game plan exceptionally well—we had a ton of positive tackles and shut them down up the middle, while hitting holes ourselves and running around them.

The All-Americans had a few brilliant moments and scored 12 points on us. However, we overwhelmed them with 66 (I think) points of our own. I got some run at wing in the second half and scored twice. Now, I’m not your typical wing, so I didn’t run around those quick little young’uns—they got the stiff arm—but it was a lot of fun seeing the field from a different position.

All in all, we played great. My MARFU roomie, Eli, had a great game at scrumhalf. My current roomies, Bui, showed off her stiff arm of death at fullback. Ashley, another of my MARFU teammates, played a beastly game at lock. Our forwards, in general, dominated the pitch. When they weren’t winning the CAA’s ball in rucks, they were running through the defense and scoring tries. We really clicked today—ironed out some wrinkles and progressed in our attack and defense. By Saturday, I expect that we’ll be firing on all cylinders.

Following the matches, we all gathered in the lawn and had ice cream and cupcakes to celebrate the fourth. And by that I mean we had fruit options, but I went for the Fat Boy ice cream sandwich. I also had a Philly cheesesteak and a couple (ok it was four) fries at dinner (woo hoo for 10% nutritional cheating). I have to say that the food here at UNCo had been pretty darn-tootin’ good. They’ve had a variety of options, even fried food for the band campers (I’ve heard that grease and batter are really good for blowing into instruments and finger mobility). However, the Philly cheesesteak left something to be desired—as in, I desired more steak and more better steak—but then how can one expect Greely, Colorado to perfect a cheesesteak from Philly. Colorado, I hear, is better with green chili.

There were also fireworks tonight. We had been told that there would be none, due to the fires and general dryness of the state, but Greely put on a dag-gum good show. Happy Fourth, everyone!

The Tao of Rugby

Just wanted to blog about a couple of things before I head off to bed tonight. First, I finished my book tonight. I was reading “A Scanner Darkly” before I joined a book club and was never able to finish it, but I did tonight. For those of you who are familiar with the book…I think rugby—these camps, the little worlds we enter—can be like Substance D (without the permanent psychosis). What I mean is that, we loose touch with our lives a little. Our jobs, our families seem as though a dream, a hallucination. Our reality is split into the freakish rugby world—a world of (p)recovery, competition, recovery, meetings, video, nutrition, treatment, etc—and a reverie of home. It is so important, in this environment, to stay in touch with our other life, and when we’ve returned to said life, to embrace the rugby lifestyle. A balance is what I speak of, my dears.

My roomie, Bui, and I both brought copies of the Tao Te Ching to camp, and I was telling her about one of my favorite chapters today (chapter 23, if you want to look it up). I’d like to share with you chapter 9:

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

On a lighter note, our (a bunch of the Great White gals) lunch today included what was probably the best rugby-mealtime-topical discussion ever. I can’t really say what it was (the Masons are rubbing off on us) we discussed, but it was hilarious. Also, at dinner, the band campers were sporting some very festive and patriotic gear—big Ole Glory polo shirts. Shaina’s conversation with one such camper:

Shaina—Hey, I’ll swap you shirts.

Camper—Well, I don’t really know if I can. You see, we’re supposed to wear these tomorrow for…

Shaina—Look, if it’s a “no,” just tell me, because there are a lot more of you I need to ask if that’s the case.