Fencing

One day, I decided to watch my daughter playing tennis at the gym at Palia Ilektriki, accompanied by my son, who doesn't like sports at all. He doesn't like to rush for anything, he hates ball games, he's a slow walker, and I have always been wary of his weight, which has never been a problem, but he's young, so if it ever becomes a problem, it won't show up for quite a while anyway, which is why I worry. I wanted him to take up a sport, but nothing interested him, only chess, a sit-down game with no physical activity.

After he finished his homework while sitting at the outdoor tables at the closed cafe across the road from the tennis lesson, we went back to the gym where his sister was still playing a game, and wandered around, watching other children playing a bit of football and basketball, while others were doing warm-up exercises inside the gym. One of the coaches opened up a door to a section of the gym that we hadn't noticed before; actually it looked more like a shed. There were swords and masks hanging on one of the walls, just the perfect implements to entice a little pirate-loving musketeer like my son. In that shed-like shelter, my son found a sports activity that he wanted to take part in, without my begging him to become more active.

By a random stroll around the gym, my son had found his calling. We signed up for lessons immediately. Apart from the actual sport of fencing, the coach gets them to run around the courtyard, chase a ball and generally remain active for 1 1/2 hours. And if my son doesn't become an Olympic champion fencer, I really don't mind; he's keeping himself active a couple of days a week, and that's what counts.