Ping pong league nights - experiments in humility

JOURNAL / BLOG ENTRY
----Ping pong matches won last (monday) night:
Kory: 1
Kory's opponents: 5
----Ping pong matches won the last time I played:
Kory: 1
Kory's opponents: 5
----Ping pong matches won the time before that:
Kory: 1
Kory's opponents: 5
----And I really thought I was pretty good. I dont know what's going on. Ok, ok.. I -Am- pretty good. Ok, fine... I'm downright awesome. The problem is, so is everyone else I play with. They're consistent, I'm not... not yet. And so I lose.
----BUT... it is without a doubt the most fun I have all week, ...playing sports, that is (yes, volleyball and football included). I truly marvel, even after all these years of playing, at our brains' ability to throw an arm, a hand and paddle out to a spot in space where your paddle defensively parries a hard smashed ball. A ball hit so hard at you, that if you had to think about what you were trying to do, you'd never be able to return it. Volleyball, football, basketball, heck, even tennis, the parent sport to ping pong - they're all more conscious sports.. With ping pong (at least on defense) you can lose yourself in the zone of seemingly automated reactions. In the microseconds where your body takes over before your brain catches up, you can watch the years of practice instantaneously play themselves out without regard to confidence, ego, doubt. It's more than just "the sports zone" that people talk about - I always think of 'focussed determination' when I think of that 'zone'. No, I think of this pong zone as a short cut straight around the Ego to the most optimal play you didn't even realize you had in you. Interestingly enough, it seems to only appear in the lightning quick reaction times of defensive play - hardly ever when you're on offense.. Ok. End of story..... for now. I sense that I'm about to ramble on about sports again.
----More later if I can win more than just 1 match per night.
.... 11/15/05 UPDATE!
Yessssssss. thank you baby Jesus. I won 3 out of 5 matches last night. Granted, all of them came down to the 3rd of best of 3 games and two of them ended with 25 to 23 scores, but hot damn, I won. won more than I lost, that is. The two losses came at the hands of two players obviously way more skilled than I... one of which sorta toyed around with me, trying out various drop shots and top spins, side spins, back spins, you name it, he was having fun with it - and as much as it sounds like he was being patronizing, I much preferred it to the other loss I took where my opponent took every point ultra seriously and sought to put me away as fast as possible. In both matches, I got to play a little more loose, taking chances and hitting harder than I would normally, in a close game - so even though I lost both matches, I got to see a little more of my potential skill show itself - which I guess softened the blow of losing a little. Repeat: a little. losing still sucks.