The Athlete

So, the youngest is turning out to be the most serious athlete of the three.  She has been playing in the goal for her soccer team full time for about a year.  The team is moving from an independent D2 to join a club run by a former EPL player.  The older two both did/do sports, but never showed much interest in watching other games or the pros to improve their own game.  Not so for the youngest.  She watches EPL & La Liga all the time.  She asks me to take her out to the fields & work on technique with her.  She's serious.

This week, she had tryouts for the new club.  I can tell that she is a really good, aggressive keeper, when compared to the D2 teams we have played.  I didn't have any way to gauge how good she might be on an absolute scale.  Well, after the end of tryouts, I got a hint.  The parents and kids were standing around after listening to the head of the club cover some business.  One of the coaches/trainers approached me while I was talking to my kid & asked "is this your daughter?"  Hearing that she is, he said "she is spectacular!"  I guess she made the team.

So, umm.. yeah.  this is just a "brag on my kid" post. 

Making Connections

Yesterday was a pretty interesting day. It started with a soccer game that began sunny and then became enveloped in fog. My father came down from Dallas after and we headed over to Sitagu Vihara for a ceremony honoring Sitagu Sayadaw.

In Sayadaw's Dhamma lecture, he talked about the ability for one's name to live on after their death. He explained that one way to accomplish this "extended life" was to have a positive influence on as many people as possible while you are alive, inspiring others to view you with reverence.

After the ceremony, my father and I went to the Moody theater to listen to the Experience Hendrix 2012. This is an annual tour where various musicians perform Jimi Hendrix music. Heavy on guitarists, as you might expect. There are different lineups for different segments of the tour. For the Austin shows, Eric Johnson, Dweezil Zappa, Eric Gales, Robert Randolph, Robby Krieger of the Doors, and others were scheduled to play. One thing I saw that disappointed me was that Bootsy Collins was doing several shows, the last of which was Houston, the show before Austin. I'm a big Bootsy fan, so I was a little bummed that he wasn't coming to Austin.

Well, much to my surprise, Bootsy did show up to play in Austin! He performed several songs with Robert Randolph. At one point, during 'Purple Haze' he lead the crowd in a chant "'scuse me while I funk the blue sky, Jimi's music will never die!"

It occurred to me later that Bootsy was articulating the same message as the Buddhist monk, in a roundabout way. The fact that the tour exists, and the chant that Bootsy was leading both are indications of the positive impact that Jimi Hendrix has had on people. The people gathered there were there as much for a celebration of Jimi as they were to hear the different artists. I know from having seen some of them perform Hendrix songs in other shows, that these weren't a bunch of musicians who learned Hendrix songs for this tour. They connect with his music just as much as the fans.

It was a good day.