Gym, Flag Football practice, Sunday afternoon

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Today's flag football practice found Willow in the gym. She had a clipboard, a blue gremlins cap, a whistle, and a terrifyingly eager expression.

"Hi everybody!" she said. "John's running late so he asked me to take care of organizing today's practice. So Gold Team, you have to listen to me even though technically you are not my people. Anybody trying to get around that will get reported to John who will then kick you in the shin. Or something else. I don't know what John normally does to keep you in line but whatever it is he'll do it! Plus you will feel the wrath of my stern expressions and my Blue Team can tell you that that is a fate worse than a fate worse than death. So there.

"Anyway I've been reading up on sports and one of the things that they say is very important is psychology. Granted it might not be as high in the top ten as things like being conscious, somehow ambulatory, and wearing protection in the right places, but it is up there! In fact, this is how folks who are otherwise lacking in things like 'co-ordination' or 'muscle strength' or 'ability to carry a ball down the field without tripping within three steps' - not that I know what that's like, of course - can still kick serious behind.

"Now there's two kinds of psychology to deal with. Or, if you think about it, directions. You want to psych yourself up while psyching your opponents out. I realise these are not technically opposites but psyching down is not actually an expression even though it would make much more sense, particularly if we were trying to graph this.

"Psyching yourself up involves doing things that make you believe that you are the bestest player ever. For example, you could say 'I am the bestest player ever!' though you'd want to keep that for appropriate contexts otherwise the guy you're ordering a sandwich from is going to look at you funny. You can give yourself other affirmations too, like 'I am good at throwing!' or 'I am the best catcher!' or 'I am so not going to trip after three steps this time!' Plus you could give yourself a cool nickname to help remind yourself of how great you are. Try to pick something intimidating though, because a nickname like 'Pookie,' while nice, doesn't strike fear in many people unless they have, say, a phobia about repeating vowels when you spell.

"You can also visualize your awesome player skills. Picture yourself winning and you can make that win happen. Though you're not allowed to do that so strongly that you force it to happen, like by magic, because John keeps telling me that's against the rules even though I've googled and googled and haven't found a single rulebook that talks about magic being forbidden, not that I'm implying John could be fibbing here or anything.

"Now for psyching your opponent out what you're trying to do is demoralize them without actually causing long-term psychological trauma because oh my God it's just a game, people. So you want to do things like say 'Boy are you clumsy!' or 'Your team couldn't win if it was the only one playing and medals were given out just for showing up!' and not, for instance, 'Your parents never loved you and your fear of commitment means you're going to die alone.'"

Willow looked around to make sure everyone had followed along. "Got it? Okay, so today we're going to be all nice and intermingley and work on saying things to ourselves and our teammates to help with that upward direction, and to our opponents to help with the outward direction. Use your imagination! Get creative! Oh - and don't forget to warm up! Stretch out your mouths with things like smiling and yawning so that nobody gets cramps. Gain without pain, people!"

Willow then unveiled some Tupperwares that she'd brought with her. "And anybody who does a good job will get a cookie. Even Gold Team members though they are naturally at a disadvantage by not being as awesome as Blue."

Willow them beamed proudly and made shooing motions to encourage everyone to get to practicing.

[ooc: OCD a-coming up! Practice away!]

Comments

Sign in!

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Willow "Killer" Rosenberg would like to know who's here. Also what inspiring nicknames they are giving themselves.

Re: Sign in!

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

Human Torch

What?

Chat!

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Say hi before practice starts, react to Willow's speech, if it's not practice itself it can go here.

Re: Chat!

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

Johnny stood there thinking about Willow's speech, thinking about specific ways to psyche himself up.

"I need a girl and a little privacy and I'll be good to go."

Re: Chat!

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

Evie was thinking and nodding as Willow spoke, trying to think of things from her Annoying Your Teachers class that would help in psyching people out. "Can we use handpuppets?"

Re: Chat!

[im-afrog.livejournal.com]

Adam listened intently to Willow's speech and wondered if anyone would look at him strangely, if he happened to go through some katas to psyche himself up.

Re: Chat!

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette just stood around. Probably looking stupid. She was having second thoughts about her inspiring football name. Hrm.

Re: Chat!

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders had to grin at Willow's speech.

He might seriously be considering getting her to record some of these to send to the C-Bucs back home, because they were kind of not doing so well these days. What? It could totally help!

Re: Chat!

[senor-chado.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was going to be interesting...

The last few times he'd managed to be psyched up about himself, he ended up tied to a bed.

He started scanning the audience to see if Ted'd be back in time to maybe take care of that...

Practice!

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Inspire yourself! Intimidate others! Don't forget to warm up!

Re: Practice!

[bookyeve.livejournal.com]

Evie jogged in place for a bit, then did some stretches, and grabbed a ball to throw. Hopefully not too badly.

Re: Practice!

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

She stretched her arms and legs and breathed deeply. It was a good day. She was going to get to see Dick later. Yay!

Grabbing a football, she tossed it in the air a few times and actually caught it two out of the three.

Re: Practice!

[im-afrog.livejournal.com]

Adam stretched, not wanting to get a silly injury during practice. He was glad that his arms were feeling better.

He found a football and was tossing it up in the air, wondering if anyone would like to partner up.

Re: Practice!

[fantastic-torch.livejournal.com]

He didn't warm up because he didn't need to warm up.

Johnny grabbed a belt and stuck on his flags, then he grabbed a ball and stood around, doing his best to look intimidating.

Re: Practice!

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders was in a notably good mood today as he went through his usual Pyramid warmup routines (he figured he'd be using about the same muscle groups, so it worked) and got his flag belt on.

He was a little amused by the flags.

He found himself a ball and spent a while fondling getting used to the shape and feel of it. Non-round balls? Weird.

Re: Practice!

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka ran into the gym way late, carrying all his camping gear. And still somewhat paint-stained.

"WOO! GO BLUE! YEAH!" he shouted. "What are we doing?"

Re: Practice!

[fat-halpert.livejournal.com]

Jim warmed up and practiced while trying to think of "Your mama" jokes to use to distract people. They were very useful tools for distraction.

Talk to Willow

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

She's here for comments and questions. Need it even be mentioned that she's watching everything and making notes about it into a spreadsheet?

Talk to John

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

When he gets here, and pings in to indicate the being of here.

Re: Talk to John

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

John arrived, better late than never.

Be an audience member!

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

All of the fun of staring, none of the pressure to perform.

...not dirty.

Re: Be an audience member!

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

Since he wasn't keen on being in his room right now and he was the faculty sponsor, John found his way to the gym and took a seat in the bleachers.

Re: Be an audience member!

[1ordinarygirl.livejournal.com]

Buffy showed up to cheer. Cheering was important!

Re: Be an audience member!

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle's there to watch and support her blue team! Go blue! Yay!

OOC!

[willbedone.livejournal.com]

Because the world has to continue on the odd chance Willow gets to lead more of these. 8)