The Great Tournament

A couple of weeks ago, I joined a bocce ball group. We’ve been playing in the backyard of a pizza restaurant. The restaurant hosts a tournament every Monday, and the winning team gets a food and drinks voucher that is enough for a big pizza party for the whole group. There are 2-4 players per team. Our group is much bigger, so we usually split the group into smaller teams so that we can enter the tournament with as many teams as possible. If one of our teams wins, the whole group shares the prize.

Cut to Monday night. It’s my turn to throw the ball. I’m not too fond of team sports because I don’t like the feeling of letting someone else down. We are playing against a large group of Dutch boys here on vacation. They want to win, and they’re not shy about it. I’m doing my best to plan out my throw, examining the texture of the terrain and visualizing the ball’s trajectory. “Angela’s talking to the grass again,” the referee jokes. I hear screaming from the sidelines: 

“Hurry up!”

“Throw the ball!”

“They should have a time limit.”

“10, 9, 8, 7, 6…” 

You get the point. 

Twelve teams entered the tournament that day. My teammate and I made it to the semi-finals. That’s a big deal for me since it’s only my third time playing bocce ball, and I have never gotten this far. The countdown was initiated by a woman who was mad that we beat her group of friends in the quarter-finals. 

The Dutch boys had a big group. There were sixteen of them, split into four teams of four. They talked trash the entire time, even when they weren’t in the game. 

We proceeded to win the semi-finals. So far, we’ve taken out two Dutch teams and one other team. Having played three matches already, I was exhausted. I almost didn’t show up to the tournament because I woke up feeling anxious, so I didn’t RSVP to the event. Three hours before the event, I got a text: 

“Hey! It’s Lauren. Are you coming to bocce tonight?” 

I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say. I had no other plans, so I texted back: 

“I wasn’t quite sure was kinda waiting for a sign… guess this is it! Let’s do it!” 

After we arrived, Lauren and I decided to team up. We’ve never played together, and I’ve never played with anyone good. Because I was still new to the game, I’ve only been paired up with other newbies. Six of us showed up that day, four guys and two girls, so we split ourselves into three teams of two: two teams of guys and one team of girls. I secretly hoped that one of the guy teams would pull through with a win. While waiting for our first match, I was observing the other teams. I was looking at their throwing styles and whether they were better in short or long ranges, and I was looking at how the ball traveled on the grass, how it spun, and where it slowed down and sped up. I picked up this habit after watching an interview of Isiah Thomas talking about how Dennis Rodman would count the rotations of basketball to predict where the rebound would go. I wasn’t consciously trying to memorize everything I saw, but I knew that if I just let myself observe, my subconscious would pick up on the crucial details. I remembered this quote from one of my favorite books “The Inner Game of Tennis”:

“If your body knows how to hit a forehand, then just let it happen; if it doesn’t, then let it learn.” 

The terrain was as untraditional as it could get. There were patches of dirt combined with patches of grass and rolling slopes, which, if you’re not careful, can cause a perfect toss to land where you least expect it to. By the time finals came around, everyone who was not part of the Dutch boys’ friend group became our biggest supporters. They were sick and tired of the taunting, yelling, and challenging of the referee when the point didn’t fall in their favor. Finals are played to seven points instead of the usual five. I have no idea what this means for us. There’s no point in thinking about it anyway. We’ve been playing Red the whole time, but this time, the Dutch boys wanted Red. I offered to rock paper scissors for it. The tall guy on the team agrees and takes his shirt off. Rock, paper, scissors, shoot. I lose. We’re Blue. 

This time around, the crowd got quiet. You could hear a pin drop on this beautiful night. We go head-to-head in our first two games, barely gaining an advantage. Every time our ball went too short or too far, the Dutch boys would mock us: 

“Too soft.”

“Throw harder.” 

It’s as if all the English they knew were words spoken during EuroCup. 

I try my best to focus on the current point. I learned from Maria Sharapova how detrimental it is to keep track of the score, as she emphasizes in her book, “Maybe, in sports, you have to be dumb enough to believe you always have a chance. And a bad memory—you need that, too. You must be able to forget.” I go to make the toss. It’s a short-range shot, which means that everyone has been able to get close to the white ball. Both of our colors are sitting right beside the white ball like a pack of sharks encircling a life raft, with Red being closer by a smidge. I bend down to talk to the grass. The grass looks flat and dry, so I know the ball will roll straight and slowly. My goal is to break apart the cluster and take away their advantage. We had three balls left. They had two. In bocce rules, the turn is given to the team behind in points, and they have to keep throwing until they either run out of balls or gain the advantage back. When a team runs out of balls, they no longer have control of the game; they have to rely on God’s goodwill to get a win. Therefore, the goal is to let your opponent run out of balls first.

I visualize the path of the ball. I speak it into my subconscious. Then, I let go, just as the book says. The ball rolls precisely as I pictured it. It hits the white ball, knocking back some of the other balls. The crowd goes wild. Everyone is calling for a check because if the ball is touching, we get double the points. The referee inspects the ball, and the Dutch boys inspect the inspection. The ball is touching. The Dutch boys have two throws left. If they don’t figure out a way to either get closer or knock our balls out of the way, we win the match. Based on how the matches went, I figured they would try to take some riskier shots. They make their first throw. It goes far, rolling past all the balls on the court through the only gap available. Second throw. Same thing. Skipping over the target like a jump shot. Even the referee is in disbelief. The boys have been playing well the entire time, and they just cost themselves the game. Because of the point double, we win the whole tournament. We ended up sharing the pizza with everyone who cheered us on and enjoying a beautiful evening together underneath the stars, sitting on beanbag chairs.

I was conversing with God earlier that day, and I was thinking about how, when I decided to publish weekly blog posts, I had no idea if I would pull it off. It felt so foreign at the time—having a schedule, being consistent, and balancing writing with all of my other activities. Now, four weeks later, it feels like second nature. That’s when I decided that I was going to overcome my social anxiety. I’ve always labeled myself as an introvert, even though, as a kid, I was never shy. I believe that somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling safe. I figured that if I can do something I once thought was impossible, I can do anything. The decision was all I needed. Once I decided, I could see through the obstacles like an x-ray machine—the same obstacles that have always been there. The only difference was the decision. Once the decision is made, it is as good as done. There’s no need to do anything else but to watch the synchronicities. Once you tell your body what you want, trust your body to deliver it to you; let it happen, just like the book says.