Page 8 - HGS Suburb News 139 - Summer 2019
P. 8
Mike Brearley on table tennis California to Hawaii
on the Suburb – in a rowing boat?
Suburb News has featured the a particular bit of technique, If you’d told me 20 years ago
Suburb Table Tennis Club, but when you ‘become’ the that I would be attempting to
founded in 2015, which uses teacher, embodying Nico or break the world record for rowing
the Free Church Hall and runs Elinor in your strokes. And the 2,400 miles from California PHOTOS: BEN RODFORD
sessions on Thursday evenings finally, in table tennis as with to Hawaii, I’m not sure whether
(www.suburbttc.com), several times other difficult activities, things I would have laughed, cried, or
(see SN124/129/135) and recently start to fall apart so easily, just stared at you in bewilderment.
learnt of an article which appeared whether because of something You see, 20 years ago, I was very
in the New Statesman based on unusual in your opponent, or much a ‘regular’ pupil at Brookland
the experience of the author, because he is a bit sharper than Junior School. Sure, I relished
psychoanalyst, pyschotherapist, you, or because you become our swimming lessons and was
journalist and retired cricketer, complacent or over-anxious. gravely disappointed when the
Mike Brearley. He writes about I came to it as a result of two netball teacher went on maternity
how his learning table tennis stimuli: first from watching a leave, but I’m not sure anyone
has informed his views on the TV programme in which a would have described me as
process of learning, being human group of old people were particularly intrepid.
and psychoanalysis. divided into three: one section I went on to secondary
The New Statesman has very carried on without any extra school at South Hampstead
kindly given us permission to activities, the second played where, if anything, my sporting
reprint the following excerpt table tennis three times a week activity dwindled (something far
from the article Mike Brearley and the third went for a 60 too common amongst teenage
wrote for the paper and which minute walk several times a girls and something I’m now
appeared on October 8 last year. tables available to play on after week. At the end of the passionate about preventing). I
the game ended. I would play experiment, cognitive and other did, however, participate in the
I’m giving a public lecture on with my father, who would let abilities were measured and Duke of Edinburgh Award and a
September 8, on ‘Freeing up me get to 20-16 and then polish compared with how they were World Challenge Expedition to
thought in sport, psychoanalysis me off at 22-20. He was a at the start. What I recall is that Vietnam, which sparked my
and everyday life’ (which covers Yorkshireman. As one spectator at both table tennis and walking passion for travel and adventure.
just about everything). And I’ve Headingley once shouted, ‘Don’t improved people’s reactions, This is all very well, but
taken up table tennis. I discover think yourself so clever, Brearley, cognition, memory and alertness, there’s still no rowing in my life
there are links between the two. just because you wear socks.” in slightly different ways that I story. It wasn’t until I went to
I go once a week to a club in The learning process is so can’t remember. The second university at Oxford that I
Hampstead Garden Suburb, where interesting, even at my age. factor was meeting Matthew Syed discovered the sport, but I still a 29-foot boat for close to seven you actively avoid scary situations.
there are two wonderful teachers Partly it’s a matter of grooving. when we were invited to perform wasn’t committed. In my head,
(Nico from Albania and Elinor Play four back hands followed together at the Cheltenham sport was generally just a bit of weeks, rowing two hours on, Each time you take on a challenge,
you build your resilience arsenal;
two hours off around the clock.
from Moldova), and varying by one forehand. Play three Literary Festival last year. Matthew an inconvenience; the sweat, We will be battling sea- the more you do things that
attenders from a mainly male forehands down the forehand was England’s number-one player, the uncomfortable bras, the fact sickness and waves of up to 60 scare you, the more you’re able
group, many of us of a certain side followed by a backhand. and has written books (as well that it didn’t really fit in with
age. I never learned table tennis, Use your forearm not your as in columns in The Times) nights out. feet. When sea-sickness doesn’t to do things that scare you.
stop us eating, we will be trying
To that end, our crew is
never had a lesson, and only whole arm for back hands. on table tennis and on the But then I fell ill; just before to plough our way through the called Girls Who Dare and our
played when encountering a Don’t move so far with your psychology of sport. He put me my 21st birthday – I spent the 4,000 calories of dehydrated tagline is ‘dream, dare, do’. We
table by chance, for instance, at whole body for a forehand. You in touch with Richard Grethe best part of a month in hospital
the house of psychoanalyst have to be ready for the return, and the club. fighting for my leg and life. I food we’ll need to fuel our want our row to encourage
efforts. We’ll be using a public
people, but especially girls, to
colleagues who had a table in fractions of a second later. Spin I think learning table tennis was in Oxford when I’d been bucket instead of a loo. Showers dream big, set goals, and have
their basement in Italy, or those and how to counter it. You have is not unlike learning how to be bitten and became ill with will be makeshift at best. I won’t the courage to go out and pursue
rare cricket clubs (often I suspect to think, but also let things more human through psycho- necrotising fasciitis, a potentially
bank grounds) where there would happen. Moreover, you often analysis. In the latter patients fatal flesh-eating disease. There’s go into detail on the sores we’ll them. We are just four ordinary
women, but we are setting out
expect to develop. But it’s too
be snooker and/or table tennis play better not when you learn are asked to free associate, to nothing like facing your own late to pull out now! to do something extraordinary.
say what comes into our minds; mortality at the age of 20 to So why am I doing this? I Our wish is that we inspire you
the analyst (among other things) make you realise just how
notices moments of hesitation precious your body is! obviously love challenging myself to do the same, whatever that
and I truly believe that we only
might mean for you!
or obstruction to the free flow of As part of my recovery, grow as individuals when we If you want to find out more
thoughts, and invites the patient exercise became a life-line, and force ourselves outside our about our crew and our row,
to notice them too. This sometimes I embraced training in a way I
leads to the interfering thought never had before. Rowing and comfort zones. Many people please visit our website at www.
have recently remarked on my
dreamdaredo.org.uk or follow us
or feeling that blocked the flow, exercise became a part of my assumed fearlessness in the face on Instagram @Girls.Who.Dare
which patients sometimes life and followed me back to of such an immense challenge
come to recognise in statu London, where I now work for an JESSICA SHUMAN
nascendi, in the moment of its asset manager. It just so happens but they couldn’t be further
from the truth; when I stop and
The editor adds: Girls who Dare
emerging. Thus we can come to that this asset manager sponsors think about what I’m taking on, will be undertaking this challenging
feel, as they arise, thoughts that a number of rowing events and,
would otherwise never emerge, through them, I have had the I’m utterly terrified! But the row in June next year. I hope
or never be taken seriously, but most incredible opportunities reality is that you’re highly Suburb News will be able to let
unlikely to live a fulfilling life if
which are parts of the underlying to race at international regattas, residents know how it goes.
assumptions that drive us and and also row across the Irish
often restrict us. This is potentially Sea. It was that Celtic row that
freeing, and, as with small proved to be a turning point. I
children moving from babbling met a girl, Anna, who, two and
into language, opens up new a half years later, would ask me
worlds and new forms of if I’d join her and two others to
possible life. Suddenly, we can form a four-woman crew to
come to feel on the pulses what take on the Pacific.
inhibits, and may be able to In the interim, I had climbed
turn partial and vague ideas a mountain in Nepal and
into more specific, more completed an ultra-triathlon in
accurate and more articulate Malawi so the ocean row seemed
thoughts. As the American analyst like a natural progression to my
Jonathan Lear says, we can adventuring résumé. I said yes
“win wisdom from illness.” Old in a heartbeat; you can’t deliberate
automatic habits, compulsions, about decisions like these or
addictions, repetitions, may common sense will talk you out
gradually become replaced by of it! Trust me when I say that
newer more inclusive capacities there are many, many aspects of
of awareness and in the end of the row that would put most
new, firmer, stronger habits of people off. The world record
mind, forms of life. currently stands at 50 days.
As in table tennis these forms This means we will be living on
become in-formed, ingrained in
positive ways, but always with a P R HARTLEY
degree of precariousness. In
sport as in everyday life we are
prone to fall back into old habits CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT
of mind and body, whether & REGISTERED AUDITOR
when tested too hard, or tired
or pressured, or tempted once Accounting & Taxation Services
again by delusory seductions.
Call 020 8731 9745 or 07850 634395
The article followed the publication Email paul@prhartley.co.uk
of Mike Brearley, On Cricket, Little,
Brown, published 4 October 2018 www.prhartley.co.uk
at £20.
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