Greater heights

By Shannon M

Every shot hit the rim. Every dribble made me trip over my own feet. And every game had me sitting on the bench, growing colder the longer I sat.

It took a while for me to realize that this was okay.

To anyone else, sports or any other physical activity might come off as easy or normal, but I was always the nerdy, chubby dork who hated everything in that category. The first part might still be true. But starting high school, I began to push myself to get better, and I learned that it’s really more of a mental battle, because your body can and will take you anywhere your mind lets you.

That mindset was put to the test a lot, especially because of my own high expectations.

The first sport I became serious about was badminton, but I couldn’t try out for my school’s team during freshman year because of an incompatible schedule. 15 miles away at YB, my closest friend, Ivy, did try out. And she got into the team, as a varsity player, no less.

As much as I wanted to be happy for her, a strange toxicity bubbled up in me that I could never have expected. On one hand, I was extremely jealous, because she was doing so well and the simple truth was that she’s way more athletic than me. On the other hand, I was tearing myself apart with the intense worry that I could never be as good as her, that there was no point if I tried. So for the entire season, hatred—both outward and inward—stirred deep in my gut. Bitter comments were spit out like venom, and frustrated tears would roll down my face for immature reasons I couldn’t justify. 

The school year eventually ended. As a newly enrolled YB student, I began to practice at open gym during the summer. And needless to say, I was completely destroyed by everyone there—most of all, Ivy. It was frustrating to the point where I would hide in the bathroom to wallow in disappointment, dreading the moment I’d have to walk out and try again and again and again only to fail. 

Life ran its course and sophomore year started. About six months until tryouts of the 2022-23 badminton season. I couldn’t bring myself to think about it.

And here’s where basketball came in. During the winter sports season, Ivy wanted to try out for the sport and ended up dragging me with her, even though I was more than reluctant.

Ivy: “I just wanted to invite you to try something new because I know that you need motivation or some pushing, especially towards basketball, which is pretty heavy in terms of contact—it’s pretty rough, it’s a rough sport. And so I just wanted to push you and let you try something new, and I know that it’ll be okay because you had me.”

She was right, I wouldn’t have done it if not for her insisting. Unlike her, who started playing basketball in 6th grade and stopped in 7th, I had absolutely no experience or even any interest. But I couldn’t bring myself to say no, and so we ended up attending conditioning, and then tryouts. I’ll forever swear that I was about to be cut if not for the fact that they had just enough girls for the team by the third day.

So somehow, I officially became a JV girls’ basketball player with no experience and no insight of the sport whatsoever. It was humiliating. And it was so hard to watch as Ivy once again performed better than me. But giving up was even harder, because that would mean I wasn’t trying hard enough, that I was passing up a chance to prove myself capable. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I expressed it with dirty looks and snarky remarks, always targeted toward the one person I compared myself to. 

Ivy: “In the beginning, sure, it was very rough. Your frustrations, it not only brought yourself down, it brought me down too, and it wasn’t good at all. I know you had your own goals, but at the same time, I also had my own goals, and we just didn’t acknowledge that at first.”

Selfishly, I’d invalidate her struggles, because while she felt down about missing shots, I couldn’t shoot at all. Yet like she said, everyone has different levels of experience and therefore different goals and obstacles. And in a way, we could relate to holding high expectations of ourselves.

Ivy: “I think for me, it was just more personally my mental goals and high expectations, and it got to me. I started to lose confidence with every mistake or shot and it just brought me down. And I think that’s one of the greatest challenges I had being on the team. I just believed myself to be more than what my performance is at the moment. Like if I miss a shot, I was like, ‘I can do it, I can do that shot! I’ve done that shot so many times, why did I miss that now?’ Knowing that I have prior experience and what I’m capable of, the fact that I can’t do it at the moment is just very frustrating, and it breaks me down a lot.”

What we couldn’t relate to though, was the “prior experience” and ability part; my lack of skill placed me as one of the last people off the bench during every game, whereas she became one of the most reliable and active players. Regardless, I wasn’t the only one in my position. When I was frustrated by the little gameplay I got, there were a few players who would check in on me and motivate me to keep going, one of whom was my friend Thao, whose basketball experience was awfully similar to mine.

Thao: “My mentality was really bad for a while because when I was frustrated, I felt like I couldn't play in my best state or play how I wanted to play with the team and all, so I started to do really bad. But then I started to get to know my team and it became better later on.”

For a lot of us, if not all of us, basketball became more than a sport—it was about the team. And whenever my internal negativity seeped in again, I’d look to the people I knew I could rely on, the people I admired for their optimism and support.

Thao: “Whenever I see you frustrated, I feel like I should try harder and then the whole team should try harder together. Or like, I think of ways to cheer up my teammates so that they won’t be frustrated anymore or less frustrated so that it doesn’t affect the team as much. So when you feel sad, I felt kinda sad too, but we can’t be sad together because I have to be the one that bring the team spirit up in those situations.”

Throughout the season, I think I learned more about keeping a healthy mindset than I did the sport itself. It made a notable change to my attitude—instead of moping about not getting to play, I’d spend my time on the bench observing and screaming my lungs out for my teammates to keep up the morale. Keeping my head up wasn’t just for me but also for the people around me too.

Ivy: “Towards the end, you did change your mentality a lot. I don’t know if you still have that thoughts inside of you, like you still have the feelings inside of you, but you didn’t show it and I really appreciate it. That’s pretty good, both for your mentality and my mentality. Of course it’s not good to bottle things up inside but to keep the energy going, that’s really good. And I do believe that in the future, if you have the same mentality, you can keep going and you can improve yourself. You can see it.”

Amending my mentality was a good start, but it won’t take me all the way to success in an instant. It’s something that needs to be maintained, and like Thao said about her own mindset, it comes with accepting that improvement not only takes effort but also patience. 

Thao: “I’ve been thinking really negatively about myself and I wish that I had a more positive mindset toward life. I shouldn’t be frustrated over not doing so well in school because—or sports—because I know that it takes time to get better or improve. So I feel like I should be more gentle with myself and take things slow and know that even though I don’t get to do everything at once, I’m taking one step at a time towards my success.”

It’s hard to remind myself of that, especially now that I’m in the badminton team and it feels like my performance isn’t up to par despite all the practice I put into it. In that sense, I can understand where Ivy’s high expectations come from; falling hurts a lot more when it’s from a greater height. But you have to keep climbing, not necessarily at a sprint but just step by step. And to find that pace, it’s important to identify the difference between high expectations and unrealistic expectations, which Ivy defined with her own experience.

Ivy: “I mean, I had unrealistic expectations—I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to make every shot and every move and every play; with both basketball and badminton, of course. And I thought I was just pushing myself to be better but turns out, it was just really killing me. It was just bringing me down every single time. So I think that it’s important to know the line between high expectations and unrealistic expectations, and to know that, I think it’s better to have a second opinion. Just in general, tone it down a bit. Just be gentle on yourself.”

Although I consider this a story of change, it’s ongoing and not as conclusively inspirational as I wish it could be. Basketball taught me the power of positivity, but I’m growing tired of keeping my head up when it feels like I’m back at square one, stuck in the stage of failure and frustration. My motivation’s trickling away like sand in an hourglass. My mind yearns to simply exist in peace, without the rage and envy and desperation and exhaustion. And my muscles can hardly drag this uncooperative body of mine—too heavy, too slow.

Regardless, I think that a part of me still holds confidence that I’ll overcome these mental battles; not just in sports, of course, because that’s just a sliver of the many challenges I have and will face. It’s a long grueling process, but I know I can learn to manage my emotions and expectations, especially with the support of my family, friends and teammates. I just have to be patient and willing to keep going. And in this journey of constant improvements and setbacks, I’ll be able to look back and be proud of how far I’ve come.

For the Warrior Times, this is Shannon Ma.

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Music Credits:

Title: Lost

Artist: MX Audio Library

Link: https://youtu.be/lwJJXfYHoRk

Title: Dream Away

Artist: Day 7

Link: https://youtu.be/MvTAqyJcu9c

Title: Keep Going

Artist: Myuu

Link: https://soundcloud.com/myuu/keep-going