You Are Playing a Team Sport, You Might Not Understand Well

Team sports require coordination between players. I never really appreciated how important it was to develop this.

The sport I want to mention briefly is Rugby. This is a catch, run and pass game. We would practise these three skills: catching, running and passing. The skill we didn't practise much was "communicating". One of our players had been coached by a national representative: this teammate told us that if you wanted to tell the person immediately beside you about your intentions you said "okay", if you were going to run to his left to get the ball, and "right-oh", if you were going to run to his right. Okay = left; right-oh = right. The beauty of this is that you intentions are instantly clear.

However, we never regularly practised this dynamic communication skill. Most of our practise time was spent practising set patterns. But in the heat of the battle, it is more effective to have a constantly adaptable attack.

Something tangentially related that I've learned recently from the individual sport of tennis:

You need to learn the skills, but that's not enough. You also need to know how to play the game.

And "how to play the game" requires a certain maturity of understanding what sports and competition are: physically outsmarting (an)other human(s).

Skills can be taught by a coach, but playing the game requires... playing the game; working it out by doing, and each opponent requires a slightly different approach.

Team sports (or working with other people) adds a layer of complexity to what is already complex. Games within games.

The joys and frustration of life itself.