Give me a break!

It’s been straight weeks of non-stop work and shortened sleep hours for me lately, too many to keep track of, and my body tells me to slow down. All business and no leisure, all work and no play makes one not dull but too grumpy for company, so a leisurely break should do it for me, starting off with this week’s column. No business issues for now, let the brain rest and the endorphins get to work.

I share with many the joy of sports shooting, though I am definitely not in the category of tournament players.  I meant just plain and simple target shooting which seems to drain the weariness out of my tired bones. Many Saturdays, even weekdays actually if the work schedule permits, I hie off to my favorite range and spend a few hours honing my less than competitive shooting skills. In the range, with one’s mufflers and protective goggles on, you can be oblivious to everyone else around you and train your mind and your full concentration on the concentric circles several meters in front of you. The idea is to have groupings nearest to or on that smallest of circles, which is no mean feat. But seeing your charts over the months that you have spent on the range brings a sense of progress, a warm feeling of achievement. I bring home those target sheets like a trophy and actually study my groupings, comparing them with last month’s.

Many of our motoring friends are literally golf addicts, but when I junked it several years ago, I could never get the hang of it again. Friends like Danny Isla, Al Mendoza, Arnel Doria, Eric Roxas and others have been begging me to go back to the sport, but my muscles simply had no memory of the game, so I settled for a racquet sport instead.

Badminton used to be another passion, having played that literally for decades until an injury sidelined me late last year. The profuse sweating and the ache in the limbs and aging joints may be anathema for others, but for us who are used to playing it three times a week, these are what make us go back to the court every other day. Not that I am in the tournament category either, but the muscles seem to have a memory of their own and send perfunctory messages to the brain that a game is now in order.

Badminton, though, wreaks havoc on the knees due to the constant braking and stretching to catch that fast shuttle, but when I see my octogenarian badminton friend who still plays a mean game regularly, I have my doubts. Atty. Ben Arcinas who used to be the corporate lawyer of the Elizalde group of companies back then packs his bag and his very lean frame to the badminton court weekly, and though his brand of game is more heady than physical, he still catches the much younger guys flatfooted with his carefully calculated shots. Cheers Mang Ben.

Like many sidelined by a sport injury, the gym becomes a welcoming friend. Half an hour at the treadmill and another half an hour with the weights invigorate me, leaving me with a ravishing appetite after a nice long hot shower.  But I guess age is really creeping in because, feeling like Superman, I have steadily increased my weights until something snapped in my right arm which rendered it inutile for some time. Actually, that is the injury that sidelined me from badminton, and after several trips to various healing centers (I’ve had cold laser treatments, sessions with the chiropractor and physical therapists), I am slowly healing.  Stay away from the weights for now, my Chiro friend, Dr. Bill Brush tells me, and definitely stay away from the badminton court. The tread mill is my best friend for now.

With all those injuries, what other sport can a guy have? Stay indoors, that’s what the muscles and bones are telling me now, until the injuries heal completely and the spasms go away, and what better indoor sport for me than the mind-stimulating, endorphin-inducing game of poker. My apologies to the new poker converts, but I don’t mean the Texas hold’em variant, though I play that occasionally with friends from the motoring beat. I am referring to the classic card game, the Pinoy brand of poker with all the nuances that can give a foreign poker player a really bad headache. The high-low brand of poker which is indigenous to us is bad enough for them, but the thousand and one variations of the same basic deals add to their woes, but those are par for the course for mean Pinoy poker players. 

Our “big league”, which I play with my poker mentor, my brother Rey, a fellow Star columnist,  is a mean one, but our “small league” group, a basically younger age group, with my wife Babes as the only thorn among the roses, is the one where you can let your hair down and shed the defenses. Years of sitting in on my games and years of serving up dinners for the group have honed Babes into a player who can hold her own against five more experienced men. This weekly session is much anticipated by the group because the heady game inevitably turns into a night of heckling, and the poor guy who turns chicken at the last minute and safely hedges the odds of a “double bok” will never hear the end of it.  Ask Coach Joe Lipa.

All night long we have endless retro music playing, if one can hear it above the din of noises. The game is also not complete without some hearty home cooked dinner, another highlight of the evening.  It’s usually just simple fare like the usual tandem of monggo and double-cooked adobo, or halaan soup and crispy pork roast.  It could be as spartan as chicken curry or piccadillo alone, served in a large heaping mound with so much left for midnight snack.  The rice-eating pack is always a joy to serve dinner to and the endless basketball stories  with the trio of Coach Joe Lipa, Coach Rey Madrid and Kia’s Bobby Rosales  keep us glued around the dining table until someone reminds us that tonight is actually poker night, so can we please go about the business? Btw, the standing bet is for UP to beat Ateneo just once, and Bobby will treat the whole gang to three dinners, all in one night!

In spite the backbreaking recent weeks, these are the joys that keep one going.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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