The subject is practice, not playing. Practice is boring, as a matter of fact. It can be made exciting especially for team games to encourage players to practice more or at least as much as they should.

I was thinking of something that may be related to practice being boring or unpopular. It occurred to me that repetition is used as a form of punishment. Punishment is to impose something unpleasant to a person in response to unwanted behavior. It means that for those who have been punished that way, practice is a punishment. Even as an adult who can reason, some may still think practice is a bad thing. Just like punishment was a bad thing. Bart Simpson comes to mind. Imagine filling a page with this: "When I grow up, I will never repeat anything. When I grow up, I will never repeat anything."

I don't know why repetition is used as punishment. Perhaps it comes from the fact that repetition itself is thought of as unpleasant. But I don't think that's that true reason. Instead, I think it comes from the laziness of teachers who can't think of a better way to punish or think that this kind of punishment will "drill some sense into that kid's brain". Well, I know some people who are now compelled to never practice anything and thus condemned to remain mediocre.

I can't help but think that only two kinds of people practice: The talented and the punished. Sarcasm aside, I think that those who have been punished with repetition may have tried to convince themselves that practice is a bad thing in every way possible. "Don't practice, you'll learn bad habits." "Practice is boring, we don't learn anything from it." "Practice is permanent, anything you learn, you'll get stuck with."

If we can think of other ways to convince ourselves that practice is a bad thing, perhaps it's time to think of our underlying reasons for doing so. See if those reasons are truly reasonable.