The black basketball player within me

Get me. It’s only taken a couple of hours of practice but now I am able to stand on a swiss ball. My core stability rocks. I knew I could kneel on it and do lateral shoulder raises, but hell yeah, now I can stand, albeit for short periods of time.

At 13h40 this afternoon I would have never thought it possible that my core would stand it. I’d only just mastered bicep curling in a kneeling position. I look back at that point around lunchtime where that would have satisfied me with pity. Talk about a lack of ambition. Perhaps it was something in neighbours that inspired me to go the extra yard. Perhaps it was Lou finally getting over his fear of flying that made me believe that I too could confront my fears. Perhaps it was Lolly deciding she would stand up to her stepmother who had been slapping her about a bit. Whatever it was, it allowed me to break free from my self-imposed swiss ball related shackles and reach deep into my soul.

At first it wasn’t easy. My footing was all over the place. As Doctors reached its dramatic conclusion I was managing a good ten seconds. Thinking about all the motivational speeches I have heard from films over the last 27 ½ years I could feel a foreign energy in the room every time I gingerly let go of the wall and journeyed into the unknown. I was pushing the limits of my core stability. For one afternoon I came to understand the feeling that 18th century gold rush pioneers must have felt as they travelled across the vast plains towards a new life. In the same way their existences were fraught with danger, I was all too aware that a small slip in concentration could have brought me crashing down onto the mattress I had positioned nearby.

As a toddler eventually sheds their stabilisers as they learn to ride a bike for the first time, the mattress was re-stowed under my bed - I felt as free as a bird. As the episode of Peep Show I was watching ended at 15h15, I knew time was against me; I was using all my physical and mental capacity to master this trickiest of core stability related goals so once Countdown began at 15h30 I would have to stop. It was now or never (or after Countdown I suppose).

The first time I withdrew my hands from the wall and placed them in a funereal pose across my chest I could feel the result of the 1h25mins’ practice. It was like my hard work was being rewarded at last. That was my Waterloo; with the Napoleonic swiss ball back in the corner of the room it was time to return to Apsley House and become prime minister of my sofa in front of Countdown.