At SillY last Saturday I was with the Advanced group again, which I think is going to be how it is officially from now on. The Intermediate group is gone, and we talked to the coach about it and apparently it never really existed. Now, most of the people in the Advanced group are in high school or college. I'd say there are probably 6 or 7 middle schoolers in the group of at least 20 on a regular day when a bunch of people are absent! The high school and college players are VERY advanced and amazing players, and it is really hard for me to keep up with them! All I can do it try to get the ball up if I should and stay out of the way, which is hard. I am going to try my best to contribute more and learn all I can from playing with these amazing people and improve a lot, but for now it is extremely difficult, tiring, and sometimes distressing for me to be in this group. On last Saturday I dove for the ball a lot trying to keep it up and do what I could, but getting it when it was harder to get, so I had to dive. I would guess I dove about 6 times at least, and I actually got theball up 3 or 4 out of those times! That was good. I went down hard, though, for some of those dives. I probably wasn't using correct technique to keep myself uninjured, because I was justgoing for it. That's probably another something I can work on, diving correctly in such a way that I don't hurt myself.
This time I got an ugly bruise on my right hip, that looked like I broke a bunch of blood vessels! (ew!) I also got a burn mark from the floor on my left elbow, from sliding, a scablike sort of thing on my left knee from diving and sliding and it got below my kneepads, and my left hip also was hurting. Today I went to the chiropractor to get everything straightened out, and he straightened me out and gave me some stretches I can do after practice and games and such to help with everything.
Overall, I think being in the Advanced group will be good for me. Playing with and observing those amazing players can help me improve my own technique. Combine that with the extra practice time, higher level of drills and coaching, and the game-like situations that I get to apply myself in a much higher level than I probably need at this point, and I will be in really good shape if I just work hard, observe, and let myself make mistakes and not be as good as the other players. I don't have to be the best, especially not in this group. If I just do the best that I can do, practice, learn, and observe, I will get better and gain a lot from this experience.
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