Ouch. Ow, ooh, aah. And ouch again. I have just discovered at least two entire groups of muscles that I could have sworn never existed. And it's all Ian Pont's fault.
I remember one Monday this April, when I knelt down alongside a child's table to explain a piece of work. The sensation I experienced - nay, endured - on standing up again was roughly akin to having an industrial quantity of of molten lead poured down the backs of my hamstrings. That one was the result of keeping wicket, unprepared, for around three hours, the previous day. Today's steelworks are located roughly in an egg shape, and neatly enclose my stomach. This makes getting up off my backside remarkably difficult. The solution is to remain either (a) stood up, or (b) sat down. This has made for several lively maths lessons, and an entire evening parked in front of Sky TV.
Apparently, this bit of my body is called the "core" and it's where all of my strength and power ought to come from. This would also seemingly neatly explain why my bowling struggles to threaten anyone over the age of ten, and why my attempts at throwing closely resemble a morbidly obese pet cat, disinterestedly wafting away the offer of a tin of new, low-calorie Felix.
Did I mention that even rolling over in bed hurts now? One thing that came out of April's wicketkeeping-related excursion into the spectre of old age and constant joint ache was the realisation that I was now very much old enough to have to warm up, properly, or pay for it. So, before participating in Sunday's ABSAT course at Coventry University, I did that. The warm-up that's always prevented the day after I bowled pace feeling like a day out on the Styx. However, it appears that a short excerpt of the Macarena could have proven just as (in)effective in the injury prevention stakes.
When it came down to it, though (and when we all actually located the Sports Hall at Coventry University), it was four very well spent hours. Incidentally, I now wonder whether being sent to Coventry in the physical sense of the phrase is preferable to the metaphorical one, but I digress, for unlike the A4114 Ring Road, it's all really, really simple.
There is something oddly refreshing about having your own bowling action held up for inspection as fundamentally flawed within the first five minutes of a course. It's encouraging to see your own rudimentary video analyses being vindicated by someone who so clearly knows what he's talking about - and maybe, just maybe, it gives me a sliver of hope that it's technique that I'm lacking, rather than the rather more critical talent.
Three years ago, when I first wrote parts of CricketWeb's coaching section, I wrote that a good coach should be able to make himself redundant by helping players to understand WHY their technique was lacking, rather than simply telling them that fact. Today, I feel like I know exactly why my action generates a gentle scattergun, prevents the umpire from ever seeing an LBW decision and sends me following through to extra cover. Two hours of drills gave me a follow through - minus ball, minus run up - twice the length of my initial meander.
I know I've forseen a hundred false dawns in my cricket a hundred times before, but today I feel like I actually know why the sun's trying to burn through 22 years without a single seam-up delivery in an 11-a-side match.
Tomorrow evening, I'm going to stake out the Gym and send down a few balls either side of the Year 5/6 cricket session. I wonder if disposing, entirely, of that run-up is enough to cut the strings of muscle memory attached to the old action? I wonder if I can ever generate anything that even broadly approximates to pace? I wonder if I can bribe any of my form to video it?