Nice Shot!

My visually impaired teammate had not played in a year. He mentioned it while we sat and waited. I originally assumed a year off would probably take a toll on his performance that day. I was wrong as he was tracking the ball the moment it left the bat, anticipating where the ball would be before I had worked out which direction it was coming from. He reminded me once again of the extraordinarily acute hearing visually impaired players have.


But it is not his skill I keep remembering. Every point we won, he shouted "Nice shot!" It was always loud and instant, no matter how 'lucky' the point had been.


Out team name was 덤벼, roughly meaning "bring it on," a bold thing to write as a name before winning anything. By the end of the day it felt pretty accurate.


We had won, and I was happy about that for maybe ten seconds. No, maybe twenty. What really stuck with me was his reaction because he spent a year away from the sport, and the first tournament back ends like that. Getting to be a small part of that special day, for him, was really much better than the trophy. 

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