Larry Ryan: Small question, should you count your keepie-uppies?
We're all losing sleep over the big questions, right now. So let’s be thankful we can still wake up to the small questions. Such as, should you count your keepie-uppies.
It never occurred to me before, to ask the question. And it has never occurred to anyone else either, in modern human history, judging by Google, which draws a blank on this one.
There is no analysis of the rights and wrongs of this matter out there, if you search for answers to this small question. Just people counting. And keeping up. There are even, in recent times, ‘smart balls’, which will do the counting for you. And probably balls that will do the keeping up for you too, if you look hard enough.
But no, like the rest of mankind, I was blissfully unconcerned about this whole area until encountering a small girl before soccer training on Wednesday doing some, yes, keepie-uppies.
Just to make conversation, I asked her the eternal question: How many can you do?
And the answer rattled me: “I don’t know, I don’t really count them.”
It’s probably important to clarify that this girl hasn’t yet achieved the kind of mastery of the keepie-uppie that might cause her to lose count of the running tally. She is probably just into double-figures, on a good day. And I’m sure her counting is flawless. So this indifference to an accurate audit was stunning, quite frankly. Nor should her nonchalant attitude be misinterpreted as disinterest in football, in general, because she loves it.
But kids always count their keepie-uppies, don’t they? While they are still at that stage of fascination with the achievement. And having been conditioned by all those people asking them how many they can do. In those early, unsteady days, they are always able to tell you their record is seven, or 19, or 24. Until they start rounding things off to the nearest hundred.
At that age, you’re forever lunging around a garden, giving chase to a loose one, trying to get the last desperate touch to post a fresh landmark.
Or more often falling short, growing frustrated, distrustful of the ball’s wiles, that last wild lurch having sent it over a wall again.
Later in life, we stop counting. We’ve put any bad feeling towards the ball behind us. The keepie-uppie is a place of refuge, where you can’t be caught for pace. You are essentially meditating in the gentle backspin.
And here was a young girl with the wisdom to find that peace early in life, where every pure touch could be appreciated as much as the last without any fear it might break the sequence. Despite the best efforts of onlookers trying to introduce stress into this equation.
So I will never again ask a small child how many they can do, in case I’m disturbing the peace.
Counting has its place, no doubt, maybe as a means of loading on some internal pressure, to acclimate for external pressures down the line. Or just to measure how you are getting on.
, the translated biography of German NBA icon Dirk, is out this week and judging by the sample chapters it’s magnificent.
There’s an early fascinating passage where writer Thomas Pletzinger watches the veteran Nowitzki work endless shooting drills in a gym with coach and mentor Holger Geschwindner.
“You might be inclined to think: he scored 30,000 points, by now it’s all just routine. But it has to be established each and every day.”
Nowitzki counts the makes, Geschwindner the misses. 19 out of 23. 20 out of 23. 21 out of 23. They purposely avoid counting in 10s, to discourage thinking in decimals and percentages.
“So that he never begins to make mathematical calculations during a game situation, so that it never turns into a potential mental weakness. The number of times the 11th shot is a miss is disproportionately high. Because you’re either pleased or displeased with what you’ve achieved instead of focusing on the mechanics.
“The goal of this training is to take the next shot as if it were the only one that mattered. What happened before and what could come later are irrelevant. You want to make the next shot. Just the next one.”
It sounds like Dirk had to work hard to get his head as clear as the small girl’s.
These days, we must cherish these simple freedoms. A girl with a ball without worry. The young lad on the green with his pals. Playing what we used to call World Cup or Wembley. Teams of two, one keeper. Score to go through to the next round.
They are calling it Mexican Duo now, for some reason. Not sure if that’s a local variant.
There are some small additions for the 21st century: knocked out players now double as VAR officials. But it was heartening to note that the same old controversies are still at play. Mainly, what to do about the goal-hanger who touches in someone else’s worldy?
Your man came home complaining about one such outrage, so I counselled him with solutions. What about if you have to bring it back outside the box before you can score?
Back came another reproach for an old man with his structures and his metrics, who had just made fun sound like a drill. Who was disturbing the peace again.
“We don’t want rules. That’s boring.”
Consider me butted out.
Which brings me to his cousin, the 10-year-old nephew. A Chelsea fan, through negligent rearing.
A lad for whom big questions are circling too early in life as he processes words like sanctions for the first time. And who will soon realise that a bill always arrives for the good times.
For now, I suppose we should leave him to the blissful peace of three precious points at Carrow Road.
