A funny thing happened

Sean is playing on a couple of different soccer teams. On Thursday night, he had an injury that took him out of the game; the other players suggested he go visit this particular massage therapist who specializes in sports injuries. So yesterday Sean went to see the masajero. After he'd been gone a couple of hours he called me to report that he'd passed out on the table. 

Apparently the masajero is a practioner of deep and unrelenting pressure, neither solicitous nor mindful of customer requests for mercy. And so one minute Sean was cringing through the pain, trying to breathe through it...and then suddenly the next minute he was struggling to consciousness, completely disoriented,  the masajero yelling at him to wake up. 

Where am I? Why am I naked? And who is this big man slapping me?

(As Sean was leaving, the masajero said, "For two weeks, no alcohol, no sex, and no weightlifting. And what time do you want to come back on Monday?")

~~~

Speaking of the mysteries and perils of Mexican athletics, we visited Tenam Puente, another Mayan ruin, last weekend on our way to Guatemala. Like many sites, Tenam Puente has a ball court (actually I think it has more than one), an H- or I-shaped field with angled sides like bleachers along the edges. We read the plaque describing what is known about how the game was played, and we all agreed that no matter how many times we read about this game it still is very hard to picture (except the part where they behead the losers; there are enough carvings of this to make this aspect vivid in our minds): the two teams played with a solid rubber ball (heavy) and hit it back and forth using only their hips. (Only their hips??)

(Okay, I just read this description from Señor Wikipedia which was very interesting (I still can't picture it though):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame )

We were the only ones at the site that afternoon. It was so beautiful. We played tag in the ballcourt and the kids got all mesoamerican.