Loosen your grip

Noticed this lately:
When driving a bike at a fairly decent speed, if by mistake you run over a speed-breaker, you have better chance of still being in control of your bike only, if your hand-grip isn't all that strong

If by mistake your hand-grip is too hard, then the impact of the speed-breaker is directly proportional to you losing control of the bike.
Guess, it thus pays not to have a hard hand-grip.

I trust, one can draw a parallel of this scenario to 'cricket' or 'shuttle' or 'hockey' or to other sports too.

It is important to have a loose grip on the bat/racket/stick-handle cause that way you get to wait for the ball/cork and then use the wrist to play at the last moment.

I think the key to play extra-ordinary flicks in cricket is to have a superb bottom-hand game. In cricket of course, the right-hand batsman tend to have a loose left-hand grip and strong 'right-hand grip' to play those awesome flicks between mid-wicket region to fine-leg region. Of course if the bottom-hand grip is too hard the ball on collision with the bat will end up flying in the air, thus the chances of getting caught is also high. But feebler the grip is, the better the chance of ball going along the ground and more finer. Indians somehow seem to have a divine power to play these strokes on and on. Hyderabad cricketers Azharuddin and VVS Laxman are exponents of this stroke.

In the sport of 'shuttle' or 'badminton' too, another Hyderabad wristy genius P. Gopichand said that Indians play this sport with lots of wrist-skill than anyone else which helps them play those exorbitant cross-court shots or drop shots, while most other top-international contenders play the quick-fast-hard game, with little wrist-skill though. According to Gopi, where Indians miss out is in the fitness part, which traditionally our genes are never equipped to.

The sport of 'hockey' too used to depend on strong wrist-work and 'stick-magic' during the days of 'grass courts'. During grass-court days, a players stick work and anticipation of ball-bounce were important and I trust, Indians with their traditional strength which allows to play good wristy strokes and their soft-holding of the hockey stick helped them to adjust to bad ball-bounce and to play the strokes at the last moment which means they can hit from one end to another without much ado. But the introduction of 'astro-turf' meant the usual skills of 'stick-work', 'wrist-work' or 'individual brilliance' did not gain much recognition, instead it is more about speed-strategy-teamwork which became important.

Impact of hold on life in general:
The tight hold on material possessions or close linkages or bonding with people, means you will have more to lose when any of these possessions are lost or bondings broken. The lighter you hold, the better you are placed in the recovery road.

Are you 'there' ?

When you start communicating to someone new or learn a new skill, the initial energy is high.
The rise to reach the threshold potential is so difficult and takes lot of effort but it is also an enjoyable adventure.
You learn, you unlearn so many things during the course of this joyride.
But the moment you have reached the threshold point no romantic thoughts are with you, cause till then the 'quantity you were running towards was an enigma to you and that inspired you to race towards it'.
But the moment you have reached the target, you are so lost cause the sense of adventure stops the moment you achieve what you were hoping to achieve.

I think one would come across similar kind of emotions when you in pursuit of a friend or spouse or a sports-hobby or new skill or read about a new topic etc., the energy level you carry when you were in pursuit is so high, but the moment you are 'there' you stand puzzled with only one question running through your mind 'okay, what next?'.
You feel so happy when you are in pursuit cause that keeps your head occupied with interesting challenges, but the moment you are 'there', you feel upset cause what was your "raison d'etre" is lost.
No wonder you end up liking the phases where 'you struggle' or to put in better words 'you learn about life and yourself', so better enjoy the rise-up cause once after reaching the summit you only have to walk down!

Who is the real you ?

When you are feeling good, you will be calm and humble towards everyone and you do it cause you hate to be arrogant or rude to anyone.
Your guards are down, you speak to everyone and you want to help everyone.
But when down, you go through a different kind of emotions, what you do is 'suspect' everything and have major 'trust' issues.
You wonder if you have let your 'guards' down for long and introspect hard and you conclude you have been too kind and thus, ended up being too soft.

Trust these phases just come and go i.e being 'up' and 'down', and you run through the same emotions i.e confiding to people when doing good and then being secretive about yourself to people around you when down.

Now, the irritating part in this 'up' and 'down' phases, is that you are so lost in identifying what behavourial pattern is 'your' pattern i.e to be honest and approachable for others or to be conniving and behaving in a smartypants' manner.
I think this search for 'yourself' will go on and on, until we disappear from this planet earth.
Guess, there's nothing like the 'real your behaviour', you always end up fluctuating from one end of the spectrum to another i.e being happy and being sad.
But I think in spite of knowing the result of the contest i.e "you don't have a characteristic behavioural pattern",
I guess we still try very hard to classify as 'introvert' or 'extrovert'.
Can't believe how silly these words sound, when someone calls himself/herself either a 'introvert' or 'extrovert' !

Vacuum

You live with someone who is close to you, for example brother/sister/husband/wife/mother/father/friend etc., and you lose that person due to sudden turn of events.
What really hurts you at that point of time ?
I think you are enraged by the fact that you won't have that person with you anymore to confide all your thoughts. I think that's where it hurts you most. I think what we long for, is a person to confide and when that person is no more, the vacuum that's created really hits you hard.

Now what do you do, having reached a situation as this ?
Guess the inevitable way out is :
a. mourn the lost person for a while
b. soon, find a way to fill the vacuum through some other activity say sports/music/movie/another person etc.,

End of the day, I trust the solution to this problem is to just fill the vacuum.

Who do you speak to ?

Lately noticed this trait:

When we have something to communicate, even though we feel we are trying to communicate to the person who is standing opposite to us or the person who is on the other side of the chat or on the other end of the phone line, I trust we are not exactly trying to communicate to the other person but instead communicating those ideas to ourselves.

I think we perform this kind of communication to check if our theories are being accepted by the person opposite to you and if there's an acknowledgment 'we are happy that our theories are being accepted', if there's no acknowledgment 'we grow curious to find out what part of our theory is wrong'.

At times, 'we want to be proven wrong'. When proven wrong, it gives fresh impetus for us to look at things in different way and thus try to understand life/theories in different perspective.

No wonder, we are always keen to communicate our thoughts to someone or the other and yearn if our thoughts will be accepted, if not yearn to understand or know the reasons why those thoughts are not accepted and thus, keen to correct ourselves.