JETHRO HOROWITZ

As far as I can remember, I’ve never been very good at team sports. There was a brief period during my younger years where I used to try to make a grade higher than the lowest team. My efforts typically resulted in a painful display of incoordination and embarrassment. It was then that the coach would point me towards the corner of the room where obesity and physical deformity is welcomed with spastic arms. With my head down, I would make the shameful walk over, only to be greeted with high fives from my team mates, happy to see someone not in a wheel chair.

Before long, I learned to embrace my inability to play team sports and would bypass the dog and pony show that is team try-outs and just walk over to the ‘E’ team. I soon realised that, while they could give me a detention for not coming to the game, they couldn’t do anything if I showed no effort. I recall many competition mornings on the basketball court cheering the opposition as I watched them run past me for yet another easy basket. Some games were entirely dedicated to assisting the other team score as many points as possible in order to break an inter-school record. I think we achieved it one weekend, because during assembly the following week, the basket ball captain announced our score to the school and everyone tore themselves with laughter. It was worthy of a trophy.

Since coming to college and having all this free time due to my retirement from the table, I have endeavored to find a new sport. I’ve been playing a bit of pool and table tennis in the games room, but I’ve been doing that my whole life and it is no longer very interesting. I browsed through the different sports associations offered by the university and found a few gems. Karate, Tae Kwan Do, Kendo, Jujitsu and Judo. What’s more exciting than a full contact sport? Answer: Nothing. I began to cross out the more violent sports involving kicking and punching and was left with Judo. I signed up immediately.

The first 3 weeks was the beginner’s course which involved plenty of padded mats, apologies and ice-cold lemonade for when we finished. As the weeks progressed, I was getting bigger, better, stronger faster. I was throwing back egg whites in the morning and admiring my biceps at night. I was unstoppable.

The Judo team is structured so that as soon as you finish basic training, you get shoved in with the black-belts. No more apologies, mats or lemonade, just a bloodbath. My first injuries were extensive bruising on my arms from being thrown. I also had cuts on my feet from the mat but these injuries were part of the fun. What wasn’t fun was when I threw a big guy over my leg. Rather than rolling over the leg, he fell into it causing me to yell out in pain and drop to the floor. The instructor said I’d be fine and I continued on. Three doctor’s visits, an x-ray, and 2 visits to the physiotherapist say I’m not going to be fine. They think I’ve torn my meniscus. The dream is all over for now. So, if you see me in the street practicing my harmonica, please throw me some change.

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