Learning to play polo is an extremely humbling experience, especially if you’ve ridden horses in the past and had a bit of a break. Stick and balling on foot is one thing; transferring those shots to a stick twice the length while riding half a tonne of individual animal is another. The most challenging thing was remembering everything that needed to be done: leg on, seat, knees, feet, shoulders, angle, stirrup weight, posture, and then shot technique on top. Everything I just listed, and more, needs to be done correctly in order for a shot to be successful. It’s a lot to think about when you get started, and it can be overwhelming, frustrating, and discouraging. I’m not proud of it, but there were times when I blamed the horse and finished lessons early because I got so wound up. A fire lit in my chest and I felt like the whole thing was pointless, futile—that I would never be able to do it and I should just give up.
A couple of lessons ago, that incapable feeling that plagued me started to change. Shots felt more natural, I was getting the hang of tapping, and while doing more, I was thinking less. While the lesson I am referring to was done entirely in walk, my coach said that he could see muscle memory kicking in and everything was starting to click. I’d reached another level and there was no going back—the point of no return had been crossed. We’ve recently switched up the lesson structure: we used to do stick and balling on a Tuesday evening, then go for a hack on Saturday morning, but now we do a double lesson on Saturday. The first was the Saturday just gone, and it was in that last lesson that I felt a real change, not only in my abilities but also in how much I was enjoying my practice.
Up until this point, anytime the topic of polo came up, I would say, “I practice”, because it always felt unfair to the game to say, “I play”. My last lesson felt like playing. I was having fun. Stick and balling was relaxed—tough, but relaxed. The mental rattle of a half-cocked checklist ticking off to-dos as you’re more focused on how to ride a horse than on how to hit the ball fell away. Hearing the thump of the mallet head connecting with the thin rubber ball, firing the wannabe basketball 50–60 yards into the distance, narrowly missing the road up from the green, filled my heart with the pride I imagine parents feel watching their child win a sports day or sing on stage. My body felt light—fluid—as if both a gas and a liquid, becoming the cup and escaping it. Shots taken as if two opposing magnets were in the ball and my mallet head—a heat-seeking missile from one required action to the next. Enza and I were one, connected by a single goal and not a long-winded, heavy-set checklist of this, then that. I felt it in my soul.
That last lesson was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve tried a lot of things in my time, but none felt quite as right in my heart as polo.
If you, my lovely reader, can take anything away from this, it’s that starting any new hobby or building any new skill is going to be tough, frustrating, overwhelming, or even boring at times, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be the most exciting thing in the world every second that you’re doing it, but if you really want it, for any reason, then the early weeks and months—the struggle, the heartache, pain, and internal battles—are worth it. Especially for polo. Hold out; that muscle memory will kick in soon enough. I also highly recommend getting a private coach in whatever you’re training, if you can. It makes a whole world of difference.
