6 p.m.: "Heels down, sit tall, stop rolling your shoulders!". 9:30 p.m.: Get low, lean on your toes and then push off, stop standing up straight!" These are the typical commands I hear in a day. Growing up, I played tennis, softball, ice hockey and horseback riding. Even though I enjoyed all of these sports, ice hockey and riding captured my attention the most.
Ice hockey, a contact sport in which players push themselves to their physical and sometimes mental limit for success. A sport that requires aggression, strength, speed and quick reactions, and I love it. Not only does this sport give me a chance to release my stress and anger but it's a sport that demands discipline on the ice and it teaches life lessons that I don't think I would have learned anywhere else. It has shaped my personality by teaching me to keep collected, disciplined, and assertive. It has helped me break out of my shell and shown me parts of my character that I didn't know about myself. An aggressive and brutal sport that captured my attention since I laced up my first pair of hockey skates.
Horseback riding (specifically jumping). I don't remember exactly what got me into riding except for the fact that we moved from a city on the outskirts of St. Louis, to a small rural town in Ohio where I was surrounded by farms, I'm not exactly sure, or maybe I just watched a really good episode of Saddle Club and decided it was the sport for me. Either way I love it; the calmness of riding, the fact that you have to communicate with a large animal and convince them to go over a jump and the elegance the sport has. In the show arena, that's when it seems as if you have your own little bubble and everyone on the outside just has to watch, no orders barked, no corrections made, just simply you, the horse and the jumps. To me that's a great feeling to be able to go through a course perfectly and fluidly. It's as if you're walking on air.
Playing two polar opposite sports my whole life has helped me in so many ways. One has taught me to release my anger and the other has taught me to collect myself; one taught me about breaking out of my shell, and the other taught me to let your success speak for you. I don't think there is any other pair of sports which properly describe my personality other than these two. They have shaped me to be the person I am today, and the two sports have coexisted in my life for 13 years now. I have learned to be outspoken yet humble, disciplined yet think outside the box and I've learned about what the different kind of people are like from opposite ends of the spectrum. I am proud that I am still sticking with it and I'Il encourage those to play two opposite sports, because it teaches you different aspects of your personality that you wouldn't be able to see another way.
