Like this:

If psychologists ever manage to find a way to measure psychomotor intelligence, I will probably fail miserably. I have never really been good at anything that has to do with body movements. I have never been a sporty kid and the only sport that I really excelled at was fencing, which was relatively easy to master. Think of chess on your feet and that is what it is.

Now as a big kid (I still refer meself as such because in terms of maturity, I don’t think I have really made progress), I have been making up for those deprived years of inactive sports life (I don’t really want to say a deprived childhood because despite not being in sports, I have had a really great one). I have been learning to swim well and to cycle.

Swimming for me was relatively easy to learn because I was taught of the basics when I was small but I never really pursued it. Now as an adult, I found myself wanting to at least swim laps without feeling winded and dying at the end of pool session. So I found myself a great swim teacher who’s doing the total immersion technique. The essential goal behind it is to learn how to move through the water with less effort. I would like to say that I have made good progress with him since at the end of three sessions I was already doing laps without tiring. I’m actually enjoying swimming now whereas before a lap makes me wish I was dead.

Cycling on the other hand is a different story altogether. It took me a long time to learn how to balance on a bike. I’m not very good at that balancing thing. Think of a person who falls flat in every conceivable way and I guarantee you that I have done all of those. I was finally able to do it after countless bumps and bruises and constant pushing from a friend (both literally and emotionally). I really, really thought that that was the end of the struggle and it would just go beautifully from there.

But no! Someone up there has a pretty strange sense of humor because for some reason or the other, I still don’t know how to cycle in a straight line. And as a result, whilst cycling in one of those quiet villages in Chiang Mai, I fell flat on my face AGAIN when a motorcycle made an unexpected appearance. I was so startled when I saw it that rather than hitting the breaks, idiotic me decided to jump out of my bike and pretty much fell flat on a ditch. Thankfully, I got away with a small gash and a minor scrape. I am still going back on that damn bike though and by God, I’m going to learn how to cycle in a straight line!

Advertisement