I started playing soccer which I used to play in my childhood again after I came to Cambodia. I’m in a team with business owners of various kinds of fields, and I had never thought that the experience in playing soccer in my childhood would be useful to have good communication with those business owners here in Cambodia at this age.
I was able to join the team not because I had an experience of playing soccer, but there certainly are some people who I had a chance to meet through playing soccer and I’d never have met without playing soccer here. I owe it to soccer, I think, even though I originally started playing soccer here in Cambodia expecting for some advantages for my work somehow anyways. However, my body didn’t work as it used to do when I was younger anymore, then I even started a muscle training out of the frustration of it, being into soccer itself.
I’ve been strongly feeling the weakening of physical strength whereas I’ve been through some trial of physical strength in my work at the same time, so I’ve tried some exercises like running, and it didn’t really last, but it’s easier to continue if that’s what I like to do, which is playing soccer. In fact, I sometimes work till very late at night just to make spare time for playing soccer.
I don’t think that I’ve got the same strength as I was younger, but there are much less chances of getting sick recently, which could be because of playing soccer regularly, and I had never thought that there’d be that much benefit of playing sports.
Furthermore, I was very surprised when I went back to Japan last month and went to a futsal court to play. One third of people playing futsal there was women. It might be because of the sensation of “Nadesiko Japan” (A nick name of All Japan women soccer team). At the court, it was an event called “Co-sal” in which random individuals gather together to make two teams to play against each other.
I thought it’d be a bit hard for some serious men players to play soccer at full force with women. I’m not sure about recent situations, but after graduating from elementary school, there would hardly be chances to play sports with men and women mixed together except some particular sports like golf, but it’s kind of exception most of the time.
Soccer is a sport with heavy contact plays if played seriously, but actually there was a match of All Japan Women Soccer Team against one of the strongest high school boys’ soccer team held the other day. Also, “Co-sal” doesn’t classify participants by their gender but skills and experiences, and the thought that men can’t play sports with women at full force might be a kind of obsolete thought of the predominance of men over women anymore.
Also, as I started playing soccer expecting for some merits for my work, everyone has different motivations of starting playing sports Some might do it for good health, or some might do it for meeting new people. There can be any motivations or purposes to start and play sports.
The fact that people can have a good communication through playing sports is universal both in Cambodia and Japan, and some experiences of playing sports would possibly be necessary as a great communication skill in this era from now on. I, as a person with an experience in playing soccer, would be very happy if soccer is going to be the mainstream of it.
I found myself smirking imagining teaching soccer to my son, I have no plans to get married or have a child in any future at the moment, though.
Various effects that sports bring.
