Has there ever been a time in your life when you accomplished something all by yourself and proved it to yourself that you could do it? I have, and I’ve never felt better. It was March 22, 2008 at Schoolcraft College for a fencing tournament. I was 14 and ready to fence. It was a cold, windy day with about four inches of snow on the ground. I entered the gymnasium with my fencing bag at hand. My heart was pounding.
After an hour of the strenuous anticipation of waiting for the event to start, the fencing was about to start. The gymnasium was filled with people, all in silence due to suspense. I was called to the strip. I hooked up to the score box and began to fence. Before I knew it, the bout was over. I had lost. Several minutes later I was called up again to fence my second bout. When it was over the cheers of the crowd pierced through me as I lost once again. Three more bouts followed and I had lost all but one. My confidence was falling rapidly.
In despair, I told my parents that they should probably start packing up. One of the directors walked up to the bulletin ...
Trophies were once infrequent in society. You would have to go to your local jewelry store and spend top dollar on a shiny piece of sterling silver or gold. Thus, you didn’t see a whole lot of children running around with new trophies every week. However, with the arrival of the 1960s, many factories that had been once used to produce military goods during WWII would now be available for mass-production consumer goods. Trophies would now be marketed and sold to coaches and athletic departments, or available at your hometown sporting goods store (Merryman). In modern day society, sports participation trophies are almost guaranteed, ensuring every child is a “winner” at the end of the day. These participation trophies are extremely harmful to our youth and should only be given out when deemed necessary.
I had been practicing harder than the rest of the kids in 7th grade, but yet they were still so much better than I was. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I kept thinking that I wasn’t going to make the basketball team again. One day I had enough and just started working hard on building confidence in my shot. I would spend hours on end just trying to build confidence because I had no confidence in anything I did.
Once I joined the wrestling team, I sense of pride and respect for myself returned. This sense was short lived for only a month, when the football players who wrestled came to practice. It became apparent that I was the smallest on the wrestling team and became the practice dummy. The biggest wrestler on the team was called the heavyweight since he stood six feet and weighed about two hundred and ninety pounds. He became my wo...
When I was a kid I saw Princess Bride and I formed a strong love for sword play. I was eight years old and in the living room when I first saw this dramatic, entertaining, and beautiful film. After I saw this I tried very hard to learn how to fence but it was not easy to learn because I had no one to teach me or train with me. Then a college that was in my hometown opened a fencing club when I was fifteen. However, when I got there everything was very different then I imagined.
Although this drive to always be better has become an integral part of my character, through my high school career it was not, and I derived my drive to succeed from other’s disbelief. When my track coach told me I was too short to be a triple jumper, overcoming his doubt became the driving force in my life. I toiled endlessly in
This memorable moment happened while I was living in Hawaii. No longer were my parents enforcing a higher standard; I wanted it for myself. I started to implement this higher standard onto myself when I tore my ACL my junior year of high school by doing therapeutic writing to help me get through that hard time. Therapeutic writing led to the immense development in my reading and writing skills. This goes to show that there is always something good that comes out of out of something bad.
Fencing is a method of personal expression and release. It is ultimatly a way of life for some. Nevertheless, this noble lifestyle is dying out. There are those who would convince others that classical fencing is a way of the past. In its place they would promote a sport that uses the same equipment and yet, is so different, that one cannot think of it in the same light. The controversy between these two poses the question "is Olympic fencing better than classical?"; A question that will require some research.
We were playing against the McAllen High School. I was a starter post on the team we were losing by 10 the first half of the game. We had 5 minutes of halftime the team and I were so upset that we were losing so we decided to pray to gain our confidence back. Once halftime was over starting five went back in we started well with defense once again, we stole some passes, but didn’t make all baskets to catch up to. Until last quarter I made 12 points and I was so happy to make 12 points for the to catch up against our opponent. Our team was still a few behind at the end of the game we didn’t win but I was proud of myself for making those 12 points for the team even if we did not win. My teammates and coaches were so proud of all of us not just me but of each one us for working together not to lose by a lot and not making ourselves look like fools. It was the first since tournaments that I realized that we had a great team that would support each other during a game. Success comes from people who believe in you and support you through things you go through. Success is nor found nor is it a miracle, success is created by you own self from being prepared of how to succeed in life and how you are going to get there because you cannot find success you have to make success find you in. Success is not miracle to be success is something thst
Finally Friday came. The tournament lasted for about three hours, peppered with constant complaints, arguments, and threatened fist fights. To my own disbelief, we lost -- by one point! For the rest of the night I rationalized our loss by creating stories of how they must have cheated, accented by remarks about the character blemishes of their mothers. I just kept saying that we were still the best and it didn't matter that we had lost. By the end of the night no one was speaking to me, not even my partner in the competition. I finally snuck off and went home. All the way, I could feel myself choking on ...
I dip my toes in—feels cold. My nerves rise up and spread like fire throughout my body while I watch—while I wait. Stomach hurts. All those butterflies clash and crowd. They come every time that I race—it never fails. There is so much noise—the splash of water, talking, yelling, whistling, cheering.
...ng side of it tend to invest much more time and effort into what we do there. Therefore we spend a lot more time together than with any of the others. A unique bond forms between us. We are almost like a family. We know what each of us goes through while we are there. We all know what it feels like to work ourselves to exhaustion night after night in preparation for a fight. We know the dread of waking up before the suns up to run. We know the feeling of stepping into the ring in front of a thousand pairs of eyes looking only at you. We know what it feels like to look across the ring and stare into the eyes of a man who would like nothing better than to knock you out cold. We know the adrenaline rush followed by the ring of the bell. Only we feel the pride accompanied when our hand is raised in victory, or the disappointment of having it left hanging in defeat.
I almost fell off a cliff on the side of a mountain. I was in Pitkin, Colorado, on a camping trip during the summer of 2009. The trees were green, the air was fresh so were the lakes, rivers, and ponds were stocked with fish and wildlife was everywhere. Usually, on these camping trips, I would be accompanied by a large number of people. However, this time, it was just my parents, my three brothers, and my two sisters. I was almost 12 years old at the time and having three older brothers made me very competitive. Naturally, when my family decided to climb one of the mountain’s which were around us, I wanted to be the first one to reach its peak.
My opponent’s name was John Doe. There were other competitors at the tournament, but they had never posed any threat to my title. For as long as I had competed in this tournament, I had easily taken the black belt championship in my division. John, however, was the most phenomenal martial artist I had ever had the honor of witnessing at my young age of thirteen. And he was in my division. Although he was the same rank, age, size, and weight as I, he surpassed me in almost every aspect of our training. His feet were lightning, and his hands were virtually invisible in their agile swiftness. He wielded the power of a bear while appearing no larger than I. His form and techniques were executed with near perfection. Although I had never defeated his flawlessness before, victory did not seem unattainable. For even though he was extraordinary, he was not much more talented than I. I am not saying that he was not skilled or even that he was not more skilled than I, for he most certainly was, but just not much more than I. I still had one hope, however little, of vanquishing this incredible adversary, for John had one weakness: he was lazy. He didn’t enjoy practicing long hours or working hard. He didn’t have to. Nevertheless, I had found my passage to triumph.
The greatest achievement in my life would have to be my success in the sport of football. I started playing the game at the age of eight. It stuck with me throughout my life until now. During a football game there are numerous amounts of dynamic situations to be involved with. There are so many crucial actions that take place in the matter of seconds. In a certain instance in my life , the game had a strong impact on my life. It took place my senior year against our rivals, the best team in the district. That Monday we began preparing for the coming Friday. It was a typical week until I woke up Wednesday morning. I was routinely late for school running around the house. On my way out the door the phone brought me to an abrupt stop. Turning around, I started to sprint to the phone. A few steps into it, I crushed my little toe on the leg of my couch. Face down on the carpet, I proceeded to scream in pain. Answering the phone quickly got check off my things to do list. As soon as I could regain my sanity I hopped over to the couch and forgot about school. My toe suddenly turned black and swollen. It was the worst coincidence that could’ve happened to me. I went to the hospital later that day, where I heard that my foot was broken and I couldn’t play.
...e advantage of my strengths. Since I am a better cyclist than runner, I passed two of the competitors in my age division while on the road. On the last transition, I took a deep breath and focused on my goal. There were two people in front of me. Mile by mile I got closer until I was finally able to pass one guy. Eventually, there was one mile left so I had to sprint. Two hundred feet away… one hundred feet away… fifty feet away… I barely passed the other runner. I finished the race in first place! After the race, I met the second place winner who told me he was a professional cyclist from Wimberley, Texas that traveled around the world competing. I was glad to hear this because I got very close to beating him, while being sick at the same time. I will employ this experience as a motivation that I will never make excuses nor give up on something till the very end.