Intense Soccer Saturdays

Benjamin really does love soccer.  He has pretty much been on the

same team, The Wild Cats, with a bunch of his preschool buddies for the past 3 years.  He played Fall and Spring soccer, both of which were played outdoors - through rain and wind and even sometimes sunny weather, he played soccer.
He likes to compete and he likes to win and even though he was liking Lacrosse it didn't feed the fire the way soccer does. So when we found out their was space on the 3rd grade team we jumped at it.   He was able to join this team because a friend has her son on this team and she told me that there happened to be room whereas the 2nd grade team apparently has such a long waiting list they told me not to bother.

They do this little circle up chant to start and
end each practice.  Benjamin wasn't so sure about
it at first but now swings his arm around his team
mates and joins in. 

He definitely the youngest player being one grade younger than the entire team, he has never played indoor soccer before and hadn't played soccer for over 6 months since his Spring soccer team in West Seattle. And soccer is just a lot more intense than in Seattle in my opinion.
The first couple of times we went to practice he seemed to like it.  There aren't really games.  They have a 90-100 minute practice once a week on Saturday mornings.  They do some conditioning work and then play a series of scrimmages against members of the same team.
Each and every practice there are kids on the floor wailing!  They've been hit in the face or the neck or the shin but most commonly the gut.  Then they can't breathe because it knocks the wind out of the them.  When this happens, when a child is on the floor screaming and rolling around in pain the coach, who is hilariously calm, just saunters over with no real concern or alarm and slowly picks up the players two arms and tells them to breath and then slowly walks them off the court.  This happens no less than 10 times EVERY single practice.  It is a bit disconcerting because the entire court-full of young boys watching as their team writhes in pain and I have to assume wonders when will it be me on the floor.

Another interesting note is that there are a handful of parents who sit in the gym and watch practice.  Benjamin has asked that I stay and watch so I do.  But when I notice the other parents and if it is their son who just got hurt they barely seem to even notice.  I

know for a fact if it were Benjamin on the floor I would really and I mean REALLY have to hold back until he was walked off the court and then I would snuggle him and make sure he was OK.  The other parents barely seem to notice as they continue their conversations and sometimes but not always just give their injured child a brief pat on the back.
I'm noticing more and more than that it tends to be the same few kids getting hurt.  I'm starting to think they may just be good actors.  This past practice Benjamin fell hard on the court leaving him a bit bruised and with a huge floor burn (side note: I remember have dozens and dozens of floor burns from back when I played basketball and my dad spraying some god awful antibacterial spray that stung SOOO bad right into the sore - I told Benjamin about what Papa used to do to me and his eyes got big and he asked "why?  Why would Papa do that? "  Good question buddy....we all wondered the same thing.  Thanks for taking care of our floor burns though, Papa!!!  I'm sure you saved us from some horrible infection 😉 )
He came off the court and said "I fell so hard it took the skin off my knee! "  He didn't cry or roll on the ground.  Then he went back in and someone kicked the ball super hard and it hit him right smack in the leg and knee.  In the same spot as the previous injury. He teared up a bit and rubbed it but stayed in and didn't cry.  I'm certain that some of those previous injuries were much worse than Benjamin's but I'm also wondering if maybe they like to play it up a bit?  Those injured, screaming players did seem to be just fine with a minute or two
Anyway, this last practice when the number of injured kids rolling on the court seemed to be at an all time high Benjamin did ask if I thought there was any way he could try out on the 2nd grade team.  Unfortunately, I know there isn't and he decided to stick it out.  Hoping he isn't the one writhing in pain at the next practice.