I |
我梦想成为一名职业橄榄球运动员,但是16岁时受的伤让我的梦想破碎了。医生告诉我,我能再次走路就很幸运了,更不用说从事运动了。 |
had dreams of becoming a professional rugby player but they were shattered by an injury when I was 16. The doctors said I’d be lucky to walk again, never mind play sport. |
那是7年前的事,现在回头看看,这其实是件好事,因为它迫使我开始关注非身体接触类的运动。受伤一年多后,离我18岁生日还有1个月的时候,我成了英国花式足球冠军(右图为本文口述者安德鲁•亨德森在展示他的花式足球技巧)。当时我还在学习高中A-level课程。 |
That was seven years ago and, looking back now, it was actually a good thing because it forced me to focus on a non-contact sport. Just over a year later, a month before my 18th birthday and in the middle of my A-levels, I became the UK freestyle football champion. |
花式足球糅合了足球控球技巧、杂技表演和舞蹈动作,并且富于自我表现。开始时,我还以为花式足球不可能成为一项正经的职业,部分原因在于我自认为练得不够好。我记得当时我在网上学习荷兰花式足球先驱Soufiane Touzani的视频——我试着找出那条绳子,我不敢相信这些动作是真的。 |
Freestyle football combines the technical side of ball control with acrobatics, dance moves and self-expression. At the beginning I didn’t even think freestyling could be a serious career, partly because I thought I wasn’t good enough. I remember studying online videos of Dutch pioneer Soufiane Touzani — I was trying to see the string. I couldn’t believe it was real. |
5年来,这项运动如雨后春笋般迅速流行开来,我与莱昂内尔•梅西(Lionel Messi)和内马尔(Neymar)一起拍过广告,与大卫•贝克汉姆(David Beckham)一起出席活动。我还在伦敦奥运会和里约足球世界杯上表演过花式足球。 |
The sport’s popularity has mushroomed over the past five years and I’ve shot adverts with Lionel Messi and Neymar and done events with David Beckham. I also performed at the London Olympics and last year’s World Cup in Rio. |
我对运动的热爱,是受到我的父亲罗伯特(Robert)的感染。他是英国大学柔道冠军,是个运动狂人。我在康沃尔(Cornwall)西部长大,孩提时他带我走遍了全国各地。我练过乒乓球、足球和橄榄球,后来把全副精力放在了橄榄球上。我是一名动作敏捷的争球前卫,到我受伤时,我已经踢了差不多十年的橄榄球。 |
It was my dad, Robert, who infected me with an obsessive enthusiasm for sports. He was British Universities judo champion and sport mad. When I was a child growing up in west Cornwall, he ferried me all around the country as I played table tennis, football and rugby — the sport I eventually concentrated my efforts on. I was a nippy scrum-half and when my injury happened I’d been playing the game for about a decade. |
我是在一次杯赛中受伤的,当时我情绪激昂。我沿着边线疾跑,之后突然折身向内冲,左脚却陷在浸水的场地上。 |
It was during a cup match and I was so fired up. I hared down the line and jinked inside, planting my left foot on the waterlogged pitch. |
我感觉腿扭了一下,随后被阻挡球员牢牢压住。我的腿骨折了,脚踝脱臼了,胫骨和腓骨断了,所以当我的骨头啪啪作响时——声音很大——连续响了5次。大家看到我的腿垂着、脚扭向反方向时,都恶心坏了,在球场上干呕起来。 |
I felt my leg twist before being nailed by tacklers. It was a fracture break, so when it snapped — and it was loud — it dislocated my ankle and broke my tibia and fibula, five times through the bone. People were so grossed-out at the sight of my leg hanging, and my foot facing the wrong way, they were sick on the pitch. |
受伤时我没有哭,做了好几个手术,几周后医生们认为我康复前景不理想,我失声痛哭起来。运动一直是我生活中的重心。那是改变我一生的时刻,也是我人生中的低谷。 |
I didn’t cry when it happened but weeks later, after various operations and when the medics had voiced their woeful prognosis, I wept uncontrollably. Sport had always been central to my life. It was a life-altering moment, and the lowest I’ve ever been. |
但是那次受伤让我长大了,我也随之改变了目标。在复健过程中,我练习了一些花式足球的动作——学着控制球的平衡,尽管我还打着石膏。这有助于我康复,让我有事可做。不过理疗师可不建议这么做! |
But the injury made me grow up and reconfigure my goals. Throughout my recovery I was doing a few freestyle football moves — learning to balance the ball, even in my cast. It helped me with rehab. It gave me something to work on. The physios certainly weren’t recommending it, though! |
在那段黑暗的日子里,身体和精神上的痛苦激励着我尽力做到最好。我到现在已经连续四次夺得世界冠军。还不坏,毕竟我的腿里有一块大钢板和9枚钢钉。我的肩膀里另有一块大钢板和9枚钢钉——拜我刚开始练习时一次技巧失误所赐。在停车场的大梁上掉下后,我的胳膊和肩膀摔断了。但我没有因这次受伤而畏缩不前;在腿断之后我知道不会有比那更疼的了。我希望自己的态度能激励那些经历了类似挫折的孩子们。 |
It’s the physical and mental pain I felt in those dark days that motivates me to be the best I can be. I’m now the reigning world champion, having won four times on the trot. Not bad considering I have a large metal plate and nine screws in my leg. I’ve got another large metal plate and nine more screws in my shoulder — the last lot arriving thanks to a trick that went wrong when I was starting out. I broke my arm and shoulder after falling from a girder in a car park. I didn’t let it deter me, though; after breaking my leg I knew the pain couldn’t be worse. I hope my attitude will prove inspirational to kids who suffer similar setbacks. |
我每天训练10个小时,坚持精心制定的营养计划,以使体内脂肪比例维持在5%左右。我还会做几个小时的瑜伽和其他一些柔韧性训练,我的腿比以前任何时候都强壮。但是我也需要不断发明新技巧以保持领先。讽刺的是,这正是我的初恋橄榄球能派上用场的地方。我对花式规则进行了略微调整,用椭圆形的橄榄球取代足球,并且在比赛中进行表演,试着向新观众介绍花式表演。但愿我今年能在橄榄球世界杯(Rugby World Cup)上,在特威克纳姆(Twickenham)橄榄球场内表演。 |
I train for 10 hours a day and adhere to a careful nutrition plan that means I have about 5 per cent body fat. I do hours of yoga and other flexibility exercises, and my leg has never felt stronger. But I also need to keep inventing new skills to stay ahead of the pack. Ironically, this is where rugby, my first love, is helping. I’ve been fine-tuning a freestyle set that uses an oval rugby ball as opposed to a football and I’ve performed it at matches, trying to introduce freestyle to a new audience. Hopefully I’ll be performing inside Twickenham rugby stadium later this year during the Rugby World Cup. |