Games and sports have been one of favorite pastimes and I am fairly good at some of them. I can play football, volleyball, basketball, snooker, table tennis, chess and badminton. And as a person hailing from a remote corner of the country, I can also play traditional sports like khuru, archery and dego.
While I have played most sports in my country, there are many sports I haven't experienced playing like tennis and bowling because these sports are yet to flourish in our country. We have few but they are in the country’s capital town and common folk like me can hardly get access to them. I just watched these sports in TV. I wished to play them one day.
However, my coming to Thailand gave me opportunities to try out few of those untried sports. You already read about how I got into Tennis (earlier post).
As for bowling, last Sunday the university organized a tournament among the students of various faculties of the university. The faculty of education invited two teams from Bhutanese students. We formed two teams. One, of three men and one, of three women.
Before I proceed to tell what happened during the tournament I would like to ask you a question.. "Are athletes/sportsmen born or made?" Ask me about it. I will go with the former-sportsmen are born. The reason to account for my claim comes from the results of the bowling tournament we played.
None of us had ever played bowling before. We had neither any idea nor skills of playing it. But we were certain of one thing, that bowing ball is rolled along the lane to knock over pins. We were given few minutes to warm up. At one moment we were apprehensive about whether we would know how to hold the ball correctly and whether we would be able to keep the balls on the lane. Every one took few shots and we were quite fine. We did the Bhutanese way. We rolled the balls and up it went and hit the pins.
The tournament began and we rolled one ball after another. We had no idea about how the scores were done. A monitor was hung before us from the ceiling and it displayed the total points each player scored.
But I was quite impressed by the way my two friends were playing. They were playing well. So, I thought that I should also try and keep my score abreast them. Despite the fact that we dint know how to take proper stance, we managed not to let the ball in the drains. Finally, we scored a good 638, 630 and 421, the highest being mine.
The tournament ended and we were sitting and clapping in appreciation at the Thai friends who won prizes. Out of the blue, suddenly, our names were called and we were quite not sure as to why our names were called. The MC said ‘Your team is second.’ We were taken by surprise and at the same time jubilant.
Even though we dint have any formal training or prior experience in bowling our natural skills paid off. So that's why "Atheletes are born not made." Is it justifiable? Lol.
The trophy
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