“A vaincre sans périls, on triomphe sans gloire”
To win without danger is to triumph without glory. Pierre Corneille.
My kind of dude!
To win a sporting event you need a combination of skills, strategy… and luck.
In pétanque, like in many other sports, some players favor defense versus offense.
To each his own, but personally I prefer the latter.
I prefer to take chances rather than playing an overly cautious, colorless game.
Don’t shoot, don’t shoot! Hate to hear these apprehensive words from my partner. Hate to play with a timid, scaredy-cat teammate.
Declining to shoot when the occasion presents itself shows a lack of confidence, an admission of weakness, a white flag ready to be hoisted.
And a reluctant shooter is seldom a successful shooter.
One of my life biggest regret is to have been deprived of a twin. An ideal teammate, a guy who would think and act like me.
In sports there have been famous twins like Bob and Mike Bryan. Gifted tennis players born with a tremendous advantage: they are “mirror twins”, meaning that one is right-handed and the other one is left-handed.
Can you imagine? Thinking alike and being able to equally cover the right and left flank… Absolutely unbeatable combination.
Useless to say that they have won multiple tournaments and Olympic medals.
To make my life complete, one of these days I will have to have myself cloned…
When you shoot of course, you expose your partner(s) and yourself to friendly fire and collateral damage, but the benefits of a successful strike far outweigh the risks.
Shooting is like approaching a girl… you might get slapped a few times, but the end results could be highly satisfying. Girls like dashing fellows.
You just need to dare.
Winning is nice, but winning without “panache” is like shooting a wild caged animal.
Absolutely nothing to brag about!
Alain