My experience playing kickingball.

   Greetings friends of Steemit, today I want to share with this wonderful community a personal article, because it is a very pleasant sporting experience I lived some time ago, for me represents a valuable memory and I hope it will be kept in the blockchain for posterity, but before knowing the details I would like to talk a little about Kickingball for those who do not know it yet.

   Kickingball is a light sport that can be played by people of any age or gender, it is very famous among women who like baseball, but it has some differences, the main one being a game that lasts two hours by regulation or the arrival of the fifth inning, whichever comes first. If after two hours the game is tied for the same number of runs, it will go to an extra inning, if it is not defined at that time either, as many innings will be played if necessary for a team to play a tie.

   Its origin dates back to 1960 in the United States where it was first seen in the national school games in primary school sports activities, to make it easy for them to use a soccer to kick and run for three bases in a game very similar to baseball. Over time it was included in school programs as part of the physical education course, because of the lack of sports clothing required, to develop a game only requires a ball.

   Its arrived in Venezuela in 1965 through the oil companies, extending to the private education institutes thanks to a teacher who witnessed it during her trip to the United States. In 1980, the first national sports meeting was held in Cabudare, Lara State.

   It is in Venezuela where it is given the quality of female sport to this discipline, the most important boom that it has had was during the 90's when it began to be practiced in the sports meetings of the federation of bar associations and in the national universities.

   Kickingball is a kind of mix between the rules of baseball and the techniques used to throw the ball in bowling, it is recommended to encourage children and young people to participate in the sport and even adults. As every discipline has specific rules and procedures for national competitions, it is played between two teams of at least ten players and a maximum of twenty, two managers and one coach.

   The pitch, unlike the baseball field, is smaller, has the same characteristics, but with a shorter distance between the bases and the pitching area, from where the pitcher must throw the ball rolling on the ground in a movement similar to the regular bowling throw.

   I discovered this sport when I was in elementary school, at my school for the annual intercourse games the disciplines played were basketball for the men's teams and Kickingball for the women's teams, participation was mandatory and although I enjoyed the excitement of the games I regretted that they always ended in fights and fights that lasted for the rest of the year.

   In high school it was practiced the same way and although the time of the fights was now over, it was the time of intense bullying, which meant that any mistake would result in massive mockery until someone else made a mistake, then they would continue with it and forget about the first one.

   For these reasons I never wanted to participate actively in this sport, I preferred to be among the public supporting my teammates where the real fun was, because the pressure of being in the game was stressing me. This stage of my life was the best of all because at that age, there are no worries or responsibilities, the only thing that matters is the parties and the friends, I feel nostalgic for these times that will not return.

   I never thought about going back to this activity again until one day I was invited to participate in the team that was being formed in the instruction where I worked, the proposal did not seem provocative to me because I am not very good at sports and I am also a little shy, but after having missed several practices and games I decided to join.

   The training meant that I had to stay away from work for a few hours so they were well received by me, during those days I made a friendly relationship with many of my colleagues who I knew very little about before, we became close and very friendly. Since we were all learning, I felt comfortable with all of them, as in every time some of them stood out more than others for their talent and knowledge of the sport

   The high point came when our team was invited to play a women's home run with other institutions allied to ours, it was my first experience in an official tournament and I felt very nervous, especially because I had been appointed pitcher and a great responsibility fell on my shoulders.

   The long awaited day arrived, the training was very little and I really didn't feel ready, I was very tense, but I had to do my best because there were many co-workers and my boyfriend who came to see me on this important day. The field of play was the national Kickingball team, located in Caracas.

   To talk about our rivals is to admit that they were superior, starting because they had uniforms and we didn't, they were very big and robust women, unlike us who are small. Their way of playing shows the great training they had, so they deserved to win. We won the first game and went on to the second round with the other team that had won, where the first and second place would be determined, although we played well, we didn't manage to win, but we won a very pleasant second place, being the happiest runners-up in the world.

   This experience was very rewarding, these photos are a souvenir of that day. The only gentleman you can see there is the Coach who gave us a lot of encouragement and good advice, in the company he works as a driver of vehicles, our captain is the journalist and the star of the team works in the area of cleaning. During that activity the hierarchy was left aside and we were a horizontal team. Unfortunately, there were only a few championships that we were able to attend because the team was disbanded due to lack of participants, some of them left the company and others left the country.