I really don’t get how I keep breaking rackets! I play pretty carefully and have become much more adept at not hitting the walls when I am swinging. I don’t throw the racket and I carry it around in its original case. This crack happened after one swing in which I hit the side wall. One swing and the thing just snapped. Whenever this happens, the person I’m playing with says that it must be a defective racket, but there is no way I keep happening to buy defective rackets. I have also never seen anyone else’s racket break in this manner, despite hitting the wall with it multiple times or throwing it at the floor.
Anyway, I’ve gotten back to playing three times a week. I play Monday nights at the Claremont Club with Francisco. This ends up being quite a workout for me. He keeps a monitor on him that counts the amount of calories he’s burned. Last Monday, he burned over 700, which means that I likely burned more, since he had me running all over the court. Francisco is a far better player than I am and he’s started giving me tips on improving my game. I’m finding it hard to change some of the habits I’ve fallen into, and this can be frustrating during my second game of the week at CalTech in Pasadena.
The CalTech game is a round robin on Tuesday nights that I actually learned about from a guy I e-mailed when I was still living in Boston. He told me about a bunch of people, of all skill levels, who get together and play multiple games of squash on Tuesday nights at the CalTech courts. It costs five dollars to get in and we usually play for one and a half to two hours. It’s a fun time usually, but it is less competitive than when you are playing a ladder match or a tournament. The players are generally more skilled than I am, but they do not play as aggressively as they would if a ladder ranking were at stake. I find it hard to really learn and to improve my game at this round robin, but I appreciate that there are so many people who are willing to play squash on a weekly basis. Francisco came with me one week to the CalTech game and he decided that his goal would be to work with me until I could beat everyone there. This could lengthen my stay in California by at least a decade. He delivers babies, so he thinks he can do anything!
On Thursday mornings, I’ve started playing at the Claremont Club with a colleague. He hasn’t played in many years, but he has great control of the racket. I still beat him in every game, but he is improving quickly. He thinks I’m being generous when he gets a point (or he’s just messing with me), but in reality, he’s earning each point. Of course, I can blame any losses on the broken racket, until I get a new one this weekend.
September 22, 2007 at 1:57 pm
You’ve always been a very generous opponent – I’m not saying that you give points away, but I’ve always thought that whenever there’s a moment of doubt as to whose benefit a questionable call should go to, you’ve always seemed more likely to defer the call to your opponent rather than fight for it to go your way.
This isn’t to say that you’re a pushover, either – these cases are always informed by your notion of What Actually Happened. And it’s also not done from the perspective of that Cosby Show where Theo and Cockroach went back and forth saying, “No, you go dance on tv,” and then Theo is upset because Cockroach finally listened to him and seized the opportunity. When you encourage someone else to take the point, you aren’t looking for the other to argue back for you to take the point instead.
Sucks about the racket(s) – at least your Squash habit fully justifies each purchase of a new one, though.
September 22, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Thanks Bill. By the way, I’ve been working on that morning routine video. I’ve been having trouble editing it, though. Hopefully it’ll be posted soon.