The Daily G.I.F.T. from The GratiDude

I got better at Basketball AFTER I got cut from the Team. I used it as the steam to power my dream.

www.grateful4.org

Gratitude

Intention

First

Things

The G.I.F.T. Today

Grateful: for trusting my intuition to change plans, all works out for the best.

Intention-continue to feel my heart open and use that as my intention in yoga too

First-Famiglio part deux

Things-shangrila decor out back

Morning Meditation from The GratiDude

I love basketball so much that I get happy just hearing a basketball being dribbled down the street by the local kids.  That sound instantly brings back great memories. It’s amazing.

I have so many great memories of playing basketball with my friends in the park growing up and even in Michigan we would play year-round.

There were many times that we brought shovels to the park and that we would play in the wintertime, snow be damned! The key was that you would put your gloves/mittens on for defense and then take your shooting hand glove off when you were on offense.

I can remember biting off my glove running and putting it in my pocket catching the ball and shooting with my warm mitten-free hand and hoping for the best and at the same time already reaching into my pocket to put the mitten back on because it was so cold out.

One of the greatest things that happened to me in my young life was getting cut from the seventh-grade basketball team at Slauson junior high.

I’ll never forget when the team list went up on the window in the locker room and I must’ve read it four or five times thinking that I had missed my name but now my name was not there. 

That feeling in my throat and the need to get out of the building as fast as possible so my friends all going through puberty with me would not see me crying like a little baby.

Getting better at basketball so that I would not ever feel that feeling of NOT seeing my name, not on the list of the kids who made the team, had to happen.

I spent a great deal of time playing basketball at the University of Michigan recreational facilities at the central campus and the north campus buildings.  Every time I played, I was the youngest dude on the court and the only way I could get into a game was as if I had my own team and waited about an hour to get my turn.  

If I didn’t win, I sat again and had to wait at least another hour to get into another game.  

I would recruit some of the better Players and Scorers from the teams that lost and built my own little All-Star team in the hope that we could win a game or two, and I would get some real practice in.

It was another avenue for me to see personal growth and a pursuit of my own greatness in the isolated measurement of the game of basketball.

One of the things I learned from the experience of playing basketball with grown men in college students as an adolescent was the mental side.

You see, I was so excited to play, and I wanted to play for a lot of reasons but physically just hit move and get all this energy out that I had basketball was an incredible outlet for that.  Furthermore, because I was a kid and little I had to wait a long time with my own team to get on the court to challenge the winners and I had a lot of time to think about what I was going to do when I got on the court.  

Different scenarios of different shots.

I might take moves rebounding all sorts of things in my head that might happen when the team I had assembled had our opportunity to challenge the champions.

What I learned was that the games that I completely let go of the thinking portion and really got into the moment and trusted my instincts once the game started were the games that I played much better because I felt looser and more in the flow of what was going on. Those were also the games We Won.

There were other games where I was so wrapped up in the result of winning or not losing that I was tight, and I felt anxiety which prevented me from performing my best.