Friday, June 01, 2007

a muddy practice

It’s a rainy spring morning, so the field at the high school is wet and muddy, but with their first game just a couple weeks away, I make them practice in the mud anyway. They start out whining, avoiding the puddles and holding the ball with just the tip of their fingers and a disgusted look on their face. Then Isamar fakes a pass and Giselle falls for it and slips in the mud as she tries to chase after her. Isamar laughs as she touches it down past the orange cones that mark the try line and Giselle, no longer worried about getting dirty, is up quick and tackling Isamar to the ground even though the play is over. It spreads quickly now, with the muddiest girls eager to make a good tackle on the cleanest girls, the sort of tackle that dents the ground and forces mud into the space between fabric and skin, hair and scalp, shoes and sox. Soon, all brown, they are no longer distinguishable by the colors they wear. Only the natural shape of their faces and bodies separates them into individuals.

I have organized them into four teams of five, and marked out a small grid with cones, ten paces by fifteen paces. The teams are lined up along the side lines. When I say go, one team runs around the far right cone and another team runs around the far left cone. They meet in the middle. First there is a tackle, the fastest defender wrapping her arms around the legs of the ball carrier and bringing her and the ball to the ground. Then a ruck, where the opposing teams push against one another until the stronger team is able to step over the ball. Once the ruck has moved over the ball, another player picks it up and runs with it until she is brought to the ground and another ruck forms.

The girls work harder than usual, diving for tackles and throwing their bodies into rucks. When they have the ball in their hands they spin and juke and stretch their bodies to touch it down across the try line. They whisper strategy to one another as they wait their turn on the sideline: “Joana you take it in first, and Christina be ready to ruck. Then I’ll try to dish it out to Pearl.” And they yell in support as they run through the drill: “Joana! Give me ball! Help! Who’s rucking?! Ball out!” The teams converge in a ruck, a shoulder fitting into the cup of an opposing hip, fingers grabbing jerseys and shorts, cleats digging and clinging to mud and grass and roots, and then once the ball is passed out of the ruck everyone breaks apart and sprints to the next break-down, where they will converge again. Tight and solid and pushing together in one unit and then running and cutting and exploding apart, together, apart, they pulse.

It isn’t always an easy thing to teach, getting dirty, but it is the only way to teach rugby. The hardest worker on the field is usually the one with the dirtiest jersey. When I teach tackling to new players, I am constantly telling them that the easiest way to bring someone down is to throw yourself on the ground with them. The more seasoned players have already learned this, and then there are some girls who never need to be taught, who have no problem jumping right in and getting dirty. I was one of these girls.

Growing up, I don’t remember ever halting my play because I was afraid of getting dirty—flipping the rocks that create the border of my mom’s garden, pinching the soft wet body of earthworms, pulling them up from the soil and feeling the tickle of them wriggling in my hand, or constructing sandcastles in the sandbox with Chris. I remember summer nights when we would be in the sand box for hours, adding a roof-top skate board ramp (Chris) or a clover-leafed moat (me) to our designs. Our shoes and sox would come off and be set on one of the thick rail ties that served as a border for our 5’x5’ beach. Without an ocean tide, we would haul pails of water to test our moats and rivers, watch the water wind through the trenches and then disappear as it seeped into the sand, leaving the mini-banks smoother and a shade darker than the rest of the sand.

After the sun had set and the cool sand and breeze brought out goose-bumps on my arms, I would sit on the rails and rub my hands together, knocking the little grains of rock back into their box. I would rub my hands over my arms and legs and poke a finger between my toes, step out of the sandbox onto tip toes, grab my shoes and sox, and dart up across the sharp mulch path to the front of our house. I would rinse my feet and hands off under the cold sharp sting of the outdoor tap, leave wet toe prints in the entry way and kitchen as I walk back to the bathroom to clean feet and hands again, this time with warm water and soap.

I don’t think anyone can know how good it feels to be clean unless they’ve been really dirty. The shower after a camping trip, or a day of work in the garden, is a completely different one from the wake up and get ready shower in the morning. It is a wind-down shower, a long comprehensive shower that requires you to really scrub at every patch of skin to rinse away the dirt and sweat. The stream of water is felt underneath your skin as well, slowing down and soothing the pulse of your muscles to a hum, a quiet song of the activity of the day, a lullaby.

*

Practice is over. The girls got in trouble last week for tracking the mud from their cleats into the school, so I’ve brought them plastic bags to put their muddy shoes and clothes in.

“Ahh… Thanks Coach!” Diana says with a glint in her eye as hugs me from behind and is sure to wipe her muddy hands along the clean gray sleeve of my coat. I watch as the rest of the girls catch Diana’s glint. Then I am sprinting to my car as the mob of brown muddy bodies chase after me, hands out stretched. I am running away because I am in my work clothes and can’t get muddy. Coming from practice, I will already be late to work, with no time to change or shower. As I run away, I imagine turning around and chasing Diana down. I imagine dropping my hips just as I approach her, bringing my shoulder up into her hip, my hands grabbing behind her knees, lifting her up for a split second and then letting gravity pull us back down, the thud on the ground, the spray of mud, the perfect tackle, the perfect response. I imagine playing until I am as muddy as the rest of them. I imagine going home and stripping the wet dirty layers off, turning the shower on, feeling the hot water hit my body, watching the mud slide off my skin and slip down the drain. I am clean, calm, content.