Breathe

Sometimes I have to stop for a moment and breathe. I mean really breathe. Allow the tension in my body to melt away. Recently I have had a lot of these times.

Fortunately, every Thursday I write with my friend Jenny. We hold one another accountable to our writing goals and use the time to put words on paper. Instead of talking about our week, we write a letter to one another as our writing warm up. Yesterday, in my letter I thanked her for our friendship and then dove into my frenzied week. Scribbling at a pace that was as fast as my life, up until that very moment. Field trips, games, photo shoots, business meetings, open gyms and of course the never ending, and dreaded, cleaning. Sentence by sentence, I detailed the chaos and at the end of each paragraph I wrote BREATHE. An explanation to Jenny, and a reminder to myself, of what I should be doing. I wrote. Took a breath. Wrote. Took a breath. And with each breath felt more calm and thought to myself, “…this should be a blog.”

We read our letters out loud to one another. Jenny went first. I smiled as she shared her letter that was written to me. She paused and I watched her shoulders rise and fall. “Breathe,” she read aloud. Our minds were in tune. (this was not the first time.) Jenny had started a blog series BREATH.

There is much to be said about the benefit of a good deep breath. Take a moment now, fill your lungs, hold the air inside your body for a brief moment and then, let it go…breathe…

*For more on BREATH go to www.heartwriter.com

Relishing the Moment

I give my daughter a bad time about being too rough on the basketball court, but in reality I love her feistiness. Last week when I asked if she wanted to come to open gym with me, she looked up from her book and yawned. She was snuggled into bed, our dog sassy draped across her.

“Not tonight mom.”

“Alright.” I said.

I grabbed my high-tops and was opening the door when I heard, “Hey mom, wait!”

My assistant coach and her daughter came to open gym as well, and while my assistant and I lowered the hoops and chatted, the girls shot around. Then by two’s, seniors who would no longer be playing for our high school, arrived to play. I was glad to see them, glad that something about the game and the friendships that they’ve built bring them back to this court even though they are finished with their high school careers.

Once enough players arrived, we played full-court basketball and little miss “I want to read my book” was flying up and down the court, hustling for loose balls and crashing the boards. I couldn’t help but smile. It was heaven for me. Twenty years ago, when I nearly lost my life in a car accident, I never would have dreamed I would be in this place. Playing basketball with my daughter. Whatever her future in the game matters not, it’s this moment we share together.

What are some of the moments in your life that make life worth living?

Balancing Chaos

Last night I received the first round of edits from my editor in LA. My book BACK ON THE COURT, is to be published this fall by Tigress Pubishing and the process is underway. Am I scared? Hell yes! Excited and scared. This book writing thing has been a long process, with life mixed in. But isn't that what life is all about? Figuring out how to blend it all. How to sit down and read 250 pages of edit work when you've got in-laws in town, a birthday to prepare for, tax information to search for (had to file for and extension this year), a team fundraiser to organize, kids baseball & softball games to attend and well, basically just...a life to live.

You all know of the chaos of which I'm speaking. Does finding balance mean that life is slow and void of chaos? Maybe not, though it would be nice at times. Maybe it's understanding that to live a balanced life you can have a lot going on, it's just figuring out how to do it in a way in which you are happy. For some that means scaling back for others it's having a new mind set.

Perhaps tonight I will have to skip my basketball game and hunker down with a cup of tea and my edits. Or maybe go to my game and skip watching The Mentalist with my husband, our Thursday night "date night". Or try to do it all. Which ever I decide, what is important is that I feel good about the descision. Sorry Honey, I'll catch you next Thursday. :)

Check out www.heartwriter.wordpress.com for more thoughts on balance

http://heartwriter.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/creating-balance-effort-part-i/

Variety is the Spice of Life

I love basketball and feel very fortunate that I was able to get my college education paid for playing the game, but because I love it doesn’t mean it’s all I do. Too often I talk to young athletes (or their parents) that have decided that they are going to focus on one sport. “For what?” is my first thought. To go pro? .03 percent of high school basketball players make it to the professional level. To get a scholarship to college? Less than 1 percent of kids receive scholarships to play basketball in college. Often the money spent trying to improve a child’s skills in hopes that the child will earn a scholarship, could pay for college itself. And often the result is a child that has injuries from repeated use and no longer loves the game. Being a part of a team is a lot of fun, most of the time, but even when it’s not, a young athlete is staying out of trouble and learning lessons that will help them throughout their lifetime.

Why not play several sports? I expect my kids (the ones I’m raising), and I suggest to the kids that I coach, to play different sports. And why not play instruments, draw, design and create, on top of studying, because as a coach I’ve seen the burn out. A 3^rd grader goes full-time select soccer and is done with soccer by middle school. A Senior in high school is recruited to play Division 1 basketball but doesn’t except the scholarship because she’s tired of playing. These are just a couple of many stories I have heard over the years.

I’m 44 years old and I play basketball 2-3 times a week because I love to play. I started playing basketball in 7th grade and added AAU ball when I was in 9^th grade, but it wasn’t all consuming. I also played volleyball (they didn’t have school soccer in those days), played softball, ran track, sang in the choir, and hung out with my friends. When I was on the court, I was focused, but the rest of the time I was involved with life, just as I believe it should be for young athletes today.

Is it worth it?

Have I told you that I’m a basketball coach? I’ve spent twenty years coaching. Ten years as an assistant with high school and middle school kids, and as many years with recreational teams. This however, was my first year as a Head Coach at the high school level, and let me tell you, it was a challenge.

I felt as if I had been dropped into a war zone. There was little time to prepare especially with my big learning curve on the paperwork side of things (In the past my role as an assistant had been to concentrate on the kids). I worked at a harried pace, searching for missing uniforms, organizing equipment and getting the word out about tryouts. After flyers and speeches and meetings and e-mails…I had 15 girls tryout. I was crushed. How could a school of 1000+, half of which are female, have so few girls that wanted to be a part of their school’s basketball program?

My assistant and I focused on the positive. We had enough for a team. Barely. We worked the girls hard mentally and physically, knowing that if they put the effort in, they would see results. If not on the scoreboard, in their heart and soul.

We started with a couple of big wins, but then came loss after loss. We still pushed. Sometimes they pushed back. Did they question our intentions? Why should they trust us? Would we give up on them? A few players gave up on us and we wondered if we would keep enough girls to have a squad? But we did, and the girls that stayed continued to work hard. It wasn’t easy, but they didn’t give up.

Along with study hall and intense practices, we had team building events, goal setting and writing times, basketball movies, circle time, silent time (a crazy concept for high school girls), art projects and an inspiring speech by the 2010 WNBA Coach of the Year, Seattle Storm’s Brian Agler. Still, we struggled. And our team dwindled. When it came to our final game we had 8 players (7 of which could play) but the positive energy shown by the remaining players, even after a 36-61 final loss, reassured me that we had grown as a team.

The season is over now but my coaching continues. Organizing fundraisers, scheduling summer camps and tournaments, getting the word out about our program and just last week my 6’1” senior signed a Letter of Intent to continue her education and play basketball in college. Yes, the coaching continues, and every minute is worth it.

Forgotten?

It's not that I've forgotten to write my blog, it's just I'm afraid of it sometimes. Yes, you heard it, AFRAID. And honestly there's not much I'm afraid of, but for some reason I'm afraid that I won't get it right. The punctuation and grammar for one, which is not my forte', but will I reach you, the audience. Will I get across the feelings and thoughts I have inside? Will you care?

I guess to blog, I'll have to let that part of me that's a perfectionist go, or is that the perfectionist side of me? That's what I'm talking about! What is correct grammatically, which is grammatically correct, or does it matter? I guess what does matter, is to try, to put the effort in. For all of us, whether at school, on the basketball court, at work, in life, it's putting in the effort, taking a chance.

So blog, I will, about life, love and basketball. And you, my readers, may love or...(dare I say the opposing opinion) my ramblings but if they make you ponder, laugh or cry, then letting go of the fear and sharing is worth it, imperfections and all.

FINDING YOUR GAME FACE: The Importance of Goal Setting in Basketball and in Life by Sonya G. Elliott

Finding my game face, that determined mindset that helps me accomplish a goal, wasn't easy after my fiancé was killed and I was critically injured in an accident nineteen years ago. I had to rely on the "never give up" attitude and work ethic that I had learned from my days on the basketball court to help me move forward with my life and begin to heal. Though the future was something I didn't want to think about at the time, I set some goals, put on my game face, complete with narrowed eyes and clenched jaw, and battled one day at a time to find the life I have today as a coach, a wife, a mother and a lover of the game.

Putting my dreams on paper has always helped me. The summer before I started high school I set the goal to take 5000 shots so I could improve my game and get ready for high school basketball. I achieved my goal, my summer camp's version of the Peace.Love.Basektball Summer Shooting Challenge and made the varsity basketball team my first year of high school. The next year I became a starter. My senior year, I achieved my ultimate goal, a full-ride athletic scholarship to play basketball. My goals were being realized, but there were many goals along the way that I didn't achieve. I didn't make my goal of First Team All-Greater Spokane League. It was painful to watch that one die, along with others, but they were great lessons. I learned that even when I worked hard, I didn't always get what I wanted. However, I learned to regroup, establish new goals, put on my game face, and work toward my future.

After my accident, it was that "never give up" attitude, instilled in me from my years on the court, that kept me moving forward. I set the goal to walk and went from wheelchair to quad cane, quad cane to cane, and cane to walking. Then I set the goal to play basketball again and that is when my healing truly began. I worked through my grief, strengthened my battered body and found that life was still worth living.

It takes hard work and determination to achieve a goal, but first you must establish a goal that you believe in and then put it in writing. According to a study by Dr. Gail Matthews of Dominican University, people who write down their goals, share their goals with a friend, and send weekly updates to that friend are on average 33% more successful in accomplishing their stated goals than those who merely formulated their goals.

Take the time to make note of your dreams. You can write your goals in a soft leather journal with a fancy tie, in a word document titled "My Awesome Future", or on the back of an old envelope, it matters not, just make it official and write it down. It's helpful to write down when you want to achieve the goal, why you want to achieve it, action steps to reach it, possible obstacles that may arrive when working toward it and how you will overcome these obstacles, but don't let all that scare you. If you need to, make it simple. Grab a pen, write one goal and get to work.

Put on your game face and start setting goals and you will create the future of your dreams.

The following is an excerpt from Sonya Elliott's memoir Back on the Court: A Young Woman's Triumphant Return to Life, Love and Basketball

"I need a new goal in my life. If I can't have Mark, I want back the one other important part of my life. I want to play basketball again...I step on to the basketball court to begin my comeback. Holding the ball near my face, I drink in the familiar smell of leather and then drop the ball to the floor and begin to dribble. I need to dribble the basketball. I need to know that at least one small thing in my life hasn't changed. Dribbling back and forth, back and forth, the rhythm of the ball works its magic on my body and soul. My mind focuses and I forget all that has gone wrong, if only for a moment."