The Sports of Drinking
Round One… You will need a buddy. And that buddy must be a good one at that. Just as in a table tennis game, you choose one who is as competitive as you are to play with. No one wants to play with a loser at first service, right? Then, you will need the right equipment. If the sports of fencing requires you a fencing suit and a smallsword at hand, a round of beer for you perhaps is as needed. Or whatever your trip of drink is, for that matter. Finally, you will need a motivation to play. If for Muhammad Ali, his motivation is to win at deforming his opponent’s face inside the ring, in the sports of drinking, you will need the right motivation as well. May it be because you just had lost a chance at scoring a “chick” at school after class, or you just suck at being your best in front of the crowd today, one needs an ultimate motivation to play the game. Round Two… Make sense. It must be the ultimatum of your play. If in the game of basketball, the goal is to have fun and score, the ultimate goal in drinking is to, yes, have a good time and actually make sense. That is, to make sense while playing, to your teammates, and to yourself of course. Every sports out there presents its player, at the first minute, the ultimate goal to achieve at playing the game. In the case of drinking, just make sense at it, or out of it. Be you, be yourself. Talk, yes. But never talk for another person. You can quote someone, for example, Friedrich Nietzsche, his personal realizations or principles in life, yes. That would inspire and benefit you and the team. In some sense, always try to contribute something worthwhile. But never… ever… talk for someone else, or “play” for another teammate of the game. It defeats you of the purpose of the play itself, just as Tiger Woods, for one, defeats himself by playing for Efren “Bata” Reyes in a pool of billiards. A golf club could never take that nine-ball home to the pocket hole, just as Bata’s cue stick could never swing and hit that golf ball precisely right to finish Wood’s winding course of golf in a tournament. Round Three… Go on. Keep talking, and keep being talking for yourself. Keep talking for yourself. Talking nonsense, from time to time, can never be eliminated from the chances while playing the game, it is a given. Even, as the legend himself, Michael Jordan, would say: “I failed at shooting hoops for a million of times, but never did I stop shooting hoops.” It is a paraphrase of what he actually said, but you get the point. Just keep talking, and never stop. Keep talking with the aim in mind to talk with sense in the end.
In every sports, the player’s most common mandate is always to play good. But do not worry. Fail at it, and play better the next time whenever possible. So, just keep talking, fail at making sense at talking by spitting out some bullshit sometimes, but always talk again with more sense, or with better sense, than the last time. Round Four… Now, by this time, you probably are improving at your game, and are already playing it nicely. “Practice is key”, you already heard of this. Respect your teammates, too, if it is a team game. Respect yourself, as well, if it is a solo exhibition. With this, your coach could never be prouder of you. This will get you somewhere for sure, most probably at the end of game. You will win that trophy eventually, just you wait and see. You will become the champion in no time. You will become a champion not only in front of your teammates, but more importantly in front of yourself. You will be your own champion. Wait, and be proud! Round Five… and so on… Remember that unlike in a match of boxing, where at most you will only get a maximum of twelve rounds, here in the sports of drinking, you can have as many rounds as you want, or as many as you can handle. But never be too confident. Though no matter how confident you can get, probably after a succeeding feat of rounds at this game, by the end of the day, you must know your own limit. And you must know when to stop and quit. Quitting, however defeating the idea of it in most of the sports you probably know and have played, is actually crucial. Recognizing your limit at this game is as important as establishing your readiness for this game at the start. In this kind of game, you would not want to be a Derrick Rose, suffering serious emasculating knee injuries, in a sense, while playing it, would you not? When this happens, unfortunately, the only loser you can shout at is no other teammate, and no one else for that matter, but yourself. Never forget that you, as well, are a part of the team. You are your own teammate. Final Round… Though it is not yet an official event in the Olympics, the sports of drinking is every man’s game. That is a fact of history and of the times yet to come. You can ask the Romans. You can ask the Brits. Go ask the Americans, too. And so, with that in mind and with all of that spoken out under a little influence, let us cheers to the native sports of man, dead or alive! Happy drinking!