On Basketball

It is an activity that demands speed, timing, quickness, strength, agility...one that requires running at top speed, jumping, gliding, pivoting, stopping on a dime, moving sideways and backwards, using hands, feet, legs, shoulders, core muscles, abdomen and back - allowing one to feel obscure tendons and joints - one that creates an ebb and flow of motion, generating a time-bending montage of sweat, soreness and fatigue happily obscured and subordinated to the greater task of mental focus and concentration...it is an activity that sends teams back and forth along a hardwood floor,  ninety feet at a time, shifting haphazardly between defense and offense, necessitating make-shift, ad-hoc, spur-of-the-moment, decision-making and instantaneous moves in ever-changing configurations arising out of nowhere and dissolving into other combinations of players....it is a game of rudiments and fundamentals - building-blocks and skill-sets, including but not limited to: dribbling, passing, shooting, rebounding, blocking, screening, diving, defending - all relating in some way to a necessary ongoing obsession with an orange bouncing ball .....a game that balances team spirit and cooperation with individuated talent....a sport that like few others makes the experience of inhabiting a body on actual ground a living-and-breathing visceral reality - a massive contrast to the bulk of our sedentary down-time or the awkwardness of a life tilted toward exclusively non-bodily cerebral pursuits...