The Self-Appreciation Society

I got an email the other day from a guy on the national kendo team asking me to consider becoming a member of the squad for the world championships in Brazil next year. He'd like to step down and have someone younger take his place.

That my name has come up means they're scraping the bottom of the barrel in my opinion - a team is comprised of five people and the three names I recognise on ours can all completely paste me with ease. However, the few obvious restrictions make it quite difficult to recruit for the team - many of our best kendoka aren't Irish citizens, and it seems many can't commit to two weeks in Brazil because of financial or familial issues.

Apart from how I'm crap, there's the problem that kendo is a hobby to me, not a way of life. I do it for fun, once or twice a week, and in the past when I was training five nights a week I burned the hell out on it and got sick of it for quite some time. There are people who train in Dublin three and four times a week, people who travel for seminars and competitions, who read books and watch videos. I'd have to become that, and I fear it might put me off kendo forever from sheer overexposure.

I don't know yet when the final decisions will be made - the team will officially be picked by the coaches, so perhaps I'm just being asked to try out.

After about a quarter of an hour of soul-searching, I of course decided to go for it. I reckon I've got the grit to stick it through, and if I never want to do kendo again after next August at least I'll have had a chance to represent my country at a world sport championship, and hasn't everyone at some stage fantasised about that?