My son is ten years old and takes tennis lessons at the YMCA. I send him to lessons because he enjoys tennis and refuses to take direction from me. I don't mind so much with baseball, f00tball, basketball etc., but I used to feed the family on my ability to teach tennis. So it grates me a little that I pay money to sit on the sideline watching a college girl spraying balls all over Heck while she tries to feed volleys to middle sk00lers. You can't feed balls using an extreme Western Forehand Grip!!!!. It takes all I have not to run onto the court, shake her by the ears and scream "Continental Volley Grip !!!! Use the same grip you are teaching the kids, you Dummy" Shheeeshh. ......Sorry, this is not that post either.
So I'm minding my own bidniz. I keep one eye on the class, the other on Y00T00b vids (iPhone) of TV reporters losing their kewl. Then near the end of the class the other instructor lines the kids up for serve practice and pulls out the radar gun. OK. Now you have my attention. Its one of those cheap models and he explains how you get the best results if you serve right over the top. He even gives them the BS about your MPH only counts if it goes in. Like that matters. We aren't worried about world records here. We are talking about strutting rights amoung 10-12 year oldes.
As expected, the kids' form goes to crap as they try to over hit and most of their serves are so errant that they can't get the gun to register. When they do get a reading, nobody breaks 40 MPH. Meanwhile, my adrenal glands begin to tingle. The instructors walk around and give hints to the kids. It does no g00d. Learning to serve takes years. The guy instructor serves a few to demonstrate form and pr00ve that the radar gun is in fact working. The girl serves a few. Her technique makes me kringe. The hour is almost over and the kids are losing interest. Failure is like that. The guy instructor walks over to me, hands me his racket and says, "You wanna try?"
I haven't played tennis in a year. I haven't used a radar gun in ten years. You can really hurt yourself if you serve hard with out warming up. My right shoulder makes sounds like breakfast cereal because I made this mistake in high sk00l. Yer dern t00tin' I 'wanna try'.
I pull off my jacket and my sweatshirt cuz they are restricting. I kick off my snow b00ts so I don't break my ankle. I take off my glasses so they don't fly off my face. I take 3 balls out of the hopper out of sheer muscle memory. I have to put one back when I realize I'm wearing jeans. I toe the line thinking 'this is going to hurt'. First serve 80 mph. Wow thats embarrassing. Second serve 85 mph. Gimme another ball. 92 mph. The instructor starts telling to kids to pay attention to my balance and weight transfer. My form goes to crap and I slap one in the net. I collect myself and serve another in the low nineties. If I keep this up my arm will fall off but I want to use that third digit on the radar gun. "Last one" I say. I take a deep breath....lean forward, come set.....toss ball, bend knees, cock arm.......uncoil, pronate wrist, strike ball, explode into court.
Not bad really. No warmup, out of practice, borrowed racket, flat tennis ball, right on the center line, 97 mph....in my socks. Tomorrow I'll ask my son if I impressed him. I am not sure if I did. I would have liked to have topped 100mph. Deep down I know I still have it in me, but I don't play tennis anymore. As you may have noticed I've spent the last year or so focused on running. I plan on using this blog to discuss this coming year's training/racing experiences. I should post my first pre-Shamrock Shuffle blog, but I've got this kink in my neck that came out of nowhere. I'll have to go ice it and get back to you later.
