那年那些事 -

I liked sports ever since middle school. However, it was hard for me to compete with the top athletes in my grade since I was 2 to 3 years younger than my classmates and was not as fast, tall, strong, durable and aggressive as them. After a SWOT analysis (did not know the technical term that time), I found that I have a special talent to learn sport techniques faster than most of the classmates. Concentrating more on the technical sports for a while, I began to excel in sports like high jump, long jump, triple jump, hurdler, volleyball, etc. As a fast learner, the coach would often ask me to assist him in his physical education classes. Actually, I did a very nice job as the "assistant" coach. In the later years of middle school and freshmen year in high school, many older students began to secretly date. But they have to keep a distance openly since dating in those years was not permitted in school. Even a normal talk or unintentional touch between a boy and a girl could be the laughing materials for the fellow students. A girl in my class, has secretly chased me for a while. Of cause, because of my much younger age, I could not understand the boy-girl things. I would like to work and play with boys most of the times. For a while we were learning horse jumping, I was again the first one to master the techniques and assigned to "coach" the others. For some reason, this girl had hard time to get the technique right. One afternoon after dinner, she asked me to assist her to do the horse jumping alone. Unable to find excuse, I reluctantly accepted her request. Once in the exercise room, she asked me to stand in front of the horse to catch her in case she fell. Well, I did my coach job well until she began to fall flat forward from the top of the horse. At that time, my boy's instinct of not touching girl stroke me. Instead of moving forward to help her, I stepped backward to avoid any possible contact. You should know the consequence.  We did not talk to each other until the graduation from high school.