Tits and Ass

That's right. I said "Tits and Ass". "Why?", you ask, slightly incredulous. Because life is too short to be serious all the time. Let me explain a little further.

Last night we had a guest coach for team practice. There is a big festival coming up and we have put ourselves under a lot of pressure to perform. The coach put us through our paces for an hour and a half and at the end of it we were tired but feeling strong and confident. Before we all went our separate ways for the evening we were given the opportunity to pick the coach's brain about our sport. All the questions and answers were incredibly well thought out and you could tell we had just had an extremely focused practice with our minds on winning some medals. After the question and answer period was over, the guest coach asked us who was going out for a beer after practice. A few hands went up and a few others, myself included, looked around first to see if anyone else was going before they would commit.

Noticing the hesitation in the group the coach said something I believe to be quite profound. I am going to paraphrase because I can't remember the exact wording but you will get the idea. "This part of team sports is very important. You have to leave all this intensity behind and hang out together outside of practice. Go for a beer and don't talk about your sport. Talk about tits and ass."

This got quite a mixed reaction from the group. Suffice it to say, there were some jaws open. It was outstanding! I didn't expect it, though I suspect our coach has heard it before and might have been prepared for it. The shock turned into humour and we were all joking about it immediately. One female on the team piped up right away with "We were just talking about that!" At the end, we did our team cheer, bid each other good night and agreed we would go for a quick beer and some wings to finish off the evening. When I arrived at the pub, there were already more people there than usually go for beers and that was only half of the group expected to arrive. We ended up with about 16 out of 23 people coming out for a beer. Usually we get about 8. I guess the coach got our attention. A few of us spent the first 15 minutes throwing Monty Python quotes at each other and laughing at our silliness and the joy of irreverent humour. We had fun! We enjoyed each others company and we didn't talk about our sport.

I learned a lot of great stuff at practice last night that will make me a better athlete and competitor. I also learned a tremendous life lesson. There is a time and a place to be serious. There is a time and a place for intensity. There is a time and a place to laugh at yourself and shed the burdens of your day. From now on, I am going to use the phrase "Tits and Ass" to check myself when things are getting unnecessarily serious and heavy or at the end of a period of intensity in my day. It's like Green Tea ice cream after Sushi. It refreshes, cleanses the palette and makes you smile.

Yep, I actually went there: "Tits and Ass" is the Green Tea ice cream of life.