Start planning your back to sport routine with WSNet/HerMoJo - keep fit and have fun playing sport following our Sam Taylor's 100 sports challenge!
This challenge has certainly thrown me squarely out of my comfort zone but I do have a few sports which take me back to the familiar and back to my zone. The main one is hockey, as I’ve been playing since I was 11. This sweet little trump card has been hiding up my sleeve all this time and now, I am ready to play it, as I’ve organised a “badgers” tournament, hosted at my club.
Due to the time commitments of running around doing all of these sports, I’ve taken the season off playing but I have retained my behind the scenes roles at the club, which include being Club Secretary and helping with the juniors. I’m not going to detail about what happened at the tournament, but it did make me reflect on what “my” sport means to me.
As a kid, I was quite sporty and one of the PE teachers, a keen hockey player, introduced me to the sport and over the next few years of secondary school, I developed into a club and county player. I am a massive advocate of children developing an interest in sport and if this challenge has shown me anything, it’s that there is something out there for everybody. Maybe I should start a dating service for people to find their soul sport? Anyway, I digress - like 95% of teenage girls, I absolutely hated cross country running every PE lesson but I enjoyed team sports. The benefits of any kind of sport are obvious; it keeps you active and healthy but aside from the health benefits, I have always enjoyed the social side, the banter and my time with my “family away from my family.”
When I moved to London as a 16-year-old, I didn’t know anybody, so one of the first things I did was to join my local hockey club. Southgate Hockey Club happened to be one of the largest clubs in the country, so I got to meet lots of new people and every Saturday was taken up with playing a game and socialising after. I’m still very good friends with some of the girls I met, way back when.
Why not join in? Follow them on Twitter: @EnglandHockey
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Have you seen MoJoManuals? FOOTBALLMoJo, LACROSSEMoJo, ROWMoJo, NETBALLMoJo – www.WSNet.co.uk/MoJoManuals
MoJoManuals addressing the wide range of issues which teenage girls face as they engage in competitive sport. Predicated on 'Physical Literacy' but also cover a range of other emotive issues such as: body image, diet, fit or thin, social media, training with menstruation, coaching style etc. – which impact how girls engage/drop out of sport – and potentially go on to be elite athletes and confident, mature young women outside of sport.