Dynamo Water Polo<\/a> club in Atlanta, although there were several times when one would have been appreciated. Either that or, at the very least, a commercial break or two.<\/p>\nBut there is no rest in water polo. Of that fact I was made exhaustively clear.<\/p>\n
Even in times of apparent inaction (of which there are few), legs and arms move constantly to keep bodies afloat. You cannot touch feet to the pool floor in water polo. You cannot rest arms on the pool side.<\/p>\n
“When the match is over,” explained Cumming resident and Dynamo player Ken Beamon, “and your muscles ache and your body is completely exhausted, that burn is really satisfying.”<\/p>\n
True enough. But my body didn’t wait until the match was over to become exhausted. And the burn fired up right away.<\/p>\n
I felt it first in my biceps, then my calves. I stopped keeping track after that.<\/p>\n
“Alleve works nicely,” Stuart Sheldon said with a knowing smile. Sheldon, 34, of Atlanta, has been playing water polo for 15 years. He helped form the Dynamo team \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which plays out of the Dynamo Swim Club on Shallowford Road near Chamblee \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in 1995.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/waterpolo2.jpg\")
Sheldon likens water polo to basketball played in a vat of Jell-O. He didn’t mention what flavor.<\/p>\n
Without getting drowned in the details, the basic premise of water polo is quite simple: two teams try to place a ball inside goals located on opposite ends of a 30-meter playing area.<\/p>\n
But the water keeps getting in the way.<\/p>\n
Teams don numbered colored caps that make players’ heads look like giant bobbing billiard balls.<\/p>\n
Play is physical. A lot of grabbing and grappling occurs beneath the water’s surface. If you’re holding on to the ball, the other team can hold on to you.<\/p>\n
“It’s like wrestling in the water,” explained Beamon, a 27-year-old engineer. “Strength really plays a big part.”<\/p>\n
That’s fine, if you have strength left to summon. I spent most of mine in the first 10 minutes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a whirl of wild shots, wheezes and referee’s whistles.<\/p>\n
The game moved quickly. Often, I did not. As the yellow ball raced from end to end, I found myself hovering in the middle, moving toward one goal and then the other, never really catching up with the action. My teammates, those bobbing blue billiard balls, didn’t seem to mind.<\/p>\n
For when I was part of the action, I was largely a portrait of inaction. I knew what I wanted to do \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a quick cut here, a no-look pass there \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but my intentions were often slowed by my sore body and the water that surrounded it.<\/p>\n
I volunteered for a short stint in goal (a not-so-subtle attempt to sneak in some wall-hanging time) and quickly realized the going was no easier in there. Legs still must churn like an egg-beater, while the rest of the body becomes a target of sorts for projectiles hurled from close range.<\/p>\n
I decided to join the ranks of the hurlers for good. When play settles down, and teams are able to get into offensive sets, the strategies involved often mimic those of basketball. There are pick-and-rolls, post-up players and back-door cuts.<\/p>\n
And there are journalists, numb with pain, who tend to hover just outside of where all the action is.<\/p>\n
They say the only way to train for water polo is by playing water polo.<\/p>\n
“Lap swimming gets old real quick,” Beamon said. “You put a ball in the water, it makes it a little more interesting.”<\/p>\n
The Dynamo team \u00e2\u20ac\u201d comprised of everyone from beginners to former college stars \u00e2\u20ac\u201d travels to tournaments throughout the Southeast and plays host to several of its own. During the typical two-day events, teams play an average of five games, swimming up to three miles per contest.<\/p>\n
“We eat a lot of Powerbars,” Sheldon understated.<\/p>\n
My water polo weekend closed with a final game. First team to five goals wins. And the goals couldn’t come fast enough for me.<\/p>\n
My body was tired, my mind weak. It seemed as though I was lost at sea, forced to tread water for hours and hours and hours.<\/p>\n
Higgins, T.C. and Rick nowhere to be found, I took matters into my own hands and nailed the game-winning goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
October 24, 2000 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I remember an episode of “Magnum, P.I.” in which Magnum is forced to tread water for hours and hours and hours. He was lost at sea, fighting for his life in shark-friendly saltwater under a hot Hawaii sun. His body grew tired, his mind weak \u00e2\u20ac\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,9,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/waterpolo.jpg\")
<\/p>\n