a good day to kick some ass!

oh yes, it was a beautiful day of rugby on saturday. i am able to sit here and tell you that most likely due to
1. my hot yoga teacher liz who has helped me to become more flexible and able to take a hit or a crushing
2. the prayers of my mom for "tough skin and strong bones"

considering our last big game left me with 8 stitches above my left eye, which i am so proud of!

well yesterday another Hong Kong club team came to visit to give us some nice competition. the day was a big day in Korean rugby regardless. the morning started with

9:30am Hong Kong versus Korean Women's National Team
Colts (International School in Seoul) versus Hong Kong U18s
12:10 Hong Kong versus Seoul Sisters (my team)
Hong Kong Men versus Seoul Survivors (the foriegner mens rugby team)


Due to some poor planning and having people coming and going I ended up missing a very crucial practice and due to work, missed another practice....not good things when i really don't know how to play 10s...last game against a different Hong Kong team we played 15s and previously i played 7s in a tournament. So i really had no idea what differences there are. and skipping practice is not always a good idea when you have no idea what you are doing. but there was enthusiasm to watch the game from dee and liz, my coworker, so i just had to hope that i could dress out and sit on the sidelines.

well, this actually worked to my advantage, not coming to practice, and being a forward aka fatty aka a hitter, thats how i like to think of it. seeing that most of the time im not a flake when it comes to rugby and im fairly good at it, fairly being the important word. they asked if i would mind playing for Hong Kong or Korea for the first match for one of the 10 minute halves. sure, why not?

so genieve and i joined the hong kong team to warm up and play with them. how cool is that? i mean they spoke some english but not a whole lot. hahaha, it was so great he's giving the pregame speech and we've got a dude off to the side translating for us. at one point we are all in the huddle he said a bunch of stuff and me and genny are just smiling, and he's like, "do you know what i said?" "yeah!" genny pipes up."um, yeah ive got a positive vibe. um, get the ball, hit hard and don't f*&$ up." at this point they all crack up. everyone knows the f-word. plus genny is just funny. good ol' midwest girl.

so we play our hearts out that first half and we did well. the team did well. we were all they needed. just a few extra 50 pounds to take out some people - especially the seoul sisters that were playing for the korean team. but we ended up playing the second half, which we didnt expect. and considering how well the first half was, they asked me and genny to get the ball and just start plowing through people. first half we focused on taking people down. but now he wanted us carrying the ball. the second half? we were already tired and then this......

we still did well, but we lost by one try. most likely because genny and i were running the ball and getting smashed and still trying to smash peopel. and we might not be in the best shape. hahaha but it was fun. i love language and communication. the girls were sweet and fun and just great to play with.

so after getting a one game break i was asked to play on hong kong's team for another quarter. ok. i was tired but we don't get games that often. but this meant that i wasn't going to get hit by korean girls, i was gonna get hit by the first string of our seoul sisters team. lets just say i like being on my team, not playing against them.

we, hong kong, got pumbled that first quarter. they scored like 10 tries on us. they were fast and big. and our defense was no existant. but we tried hard. granted most of the seoul sisters had yet to play a game that day and this was the second for hong kong. i kept playing hard by telling myself, this is not my team, work your tail off.

then after a break i switched over to the seoul sisters team for one quarter. it was fun. i was so tired but at this point my friends had made it to the game so i had to work hard so they could see me play. hehehe....too bad they weren't there earlier.

it was a great day for rugby. and personally i was really happy with it. im still working on learning offense. run straight. and i learned yesterday, stick your arm out and get them off you. i love watching the girls who know how to play take the ball down the field. fiona and mary are like demons, arms out, yelling, shoving girls to the ground as they head to the try line. mary kept telling me - amber you can do that. really? so i have my next goal.

but defensively i dont know where the energy came from but i was almost always where i needed to be and i made some tackles. with hong kong it probably helped that they were faster so they would already be on the girl but they needed the extra 50 pounds so i would come it and take em down. haha...but there were definitely some good plays where i was like, amber! you did it! this past year of playing is starting to register! hahaha

so right now nothing is broken. ive got a nice bruise on my chin. im sore but not immobile. another hot yoga class will cure that. as i said when i played with hong kong they would get there first and i would just swoop in to help with the take down, and then i more often than not ended up on the bottom of the pile. usually im on top because im too slow and hesitant. but this time i was on the bottom one person would roll on my head smashing it to the right and then another person would land on my body rolling it to the left and i was just like oh my gosh....so my back is a bit sore now. :)

funny story at half time of one of the games someone said, "man, this gravel on the field is ridiculous." i thought to myself, gravel? there is only grass. well next half as i ended up on the bottom of the pile with more girls fall on top of my. someone landed on my head smashing it into the gravel. at that point i thought to myself, "oh, there's the gravel." hahaha i guess in the spots where no grass was growing they just decided to put gravel. smart, eh?......

i had, am thinking about giving up rugby. not because of the sport but more because of the commitment and the social atmosphere. those girls love to party and drink, and im not so good at that. so i usually skip social events thus making it just a wee bit tougher to be socially cool with the girls on saturday morning. plus im kind of an all or nothing person. i dont like halfway crap. and i feel bad if i skip. so i thought maybe i should commit my time to something else for awhile. but the seasons almost over and like yesterday showed me that i am getting it. sure it would be easier to jsut play like pick up soccer on the weekends or something, but the beauty of rugby is that it takes so much of my intellect as wel as physicalness. so if i mess up physically i blame it on the mental part of the game. and vice versa. if i go to a sport i know, then its just that im lazy and out of shape. haha. but i dont know. i like it. its good stuff. plus, how often do you get to hit people? not so often.

thats all for now, from your bruised but never broken amber :P