The Myopia Polo Club, in South Hamilton, MA, is one of the oldest active polo clubs in America and has been in existence since around the 1890s.  If you’ve never seen a polo competition up close and in person, you’ve missed a tremendous opportunity to see team members and their “polo ponies” battle it out against the opposing team using long-handled wooden mallets while trying to hit a small, very hard ball into the other’s goal while riding at speeds upwards of 30+ mph.

Besides being exciting to watch, polo is also a fabulous way to learn how to be prepared for the unexpected.   Learning about how the game is played, what to watch out for in order to stay safe, how to set your camera up for success, and then, following through in capturing the riders, the horses, and the balls, all in focus, at full speed can begin to feel like second nature.  That entire process turned out to be a major boost in my preparation for Africa, because I took the skills I learned at the matches and translated them into other uses, such as capturing sports and thousands of Wildebeest crossing the Mara River in Kenya.  Practice, preparation, and then, more practice and preparation.