Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

It all started with someone I first knew as Tennis Star. My current girlfriend, not sure how she put up with me this long. I met her while in high school. She had just become state champ in Tennis and I had just become infatuated with a picture of her showing off her legs on the champions podium. Lucky for me, she was in one of my classes. She was shy, I was outgoing, so I needed a way to strike up a conversation with

her. Naturally I would boost my standing with her by congratulating, and calling her Tennis Star, every class period I would try to meet up with her afterwards and discuss her game. I knew nothing about tennis so I usually just ended up calling her Tennis Star and asking her how her day was.

One thing led to another, and six years later here we are living in Hawaii together. And six years later I am still bad at tennis.

My game started when I was young. I took a racket to the park, hit against a giant green board and then over it and then broke the racket. Didn’t like it cause I wasn’t any good at it. Since then I have played in gym class and maybe 30 times since I have been with Kimberly (girlfriend). I have gotten lessons here and there from her. Her father has showed me a thing or two, but nothing too extensive. I can hit the ball, put ok spin on it sometimes, and get it in maybe 50% of the time. I tend to hit long a lot, have not much of a backhand although I did start with a one handed, and can’t serve worth a darn. Which I am told is odd since I played quarterback and it’s “Just the same thing.” Yeah right, I say to that.

With that said I feel like I really need to become good at tennis. I have a girlfriend who would really enjoy it if I could rally and serve some games with her, plus its a sport you can play until you croak.

Her and I decided that trying to become a 4.5 tennis player was a reasonable goal. A 4.5 tennis player as told by a document at StateGames.org is:

4.5 = Someone who has begun to master the use of power and spins and is beginning to handle pace, has sound footwork, can control depth of shots, and is beginning to vary tactics according to opponents. This player can hit first serves with power accuracy and place the second serve and is able to rush the net successfully.

There you have the goal is added to the list, and has a completion time of six years. By the time I am 30 I will have become a 4.5 tennis player.

How I plan on doing this
I am going to focus on technique. Through what experience I have had playing tennis, and the massive amounts of tennis that I have watched it seems a lot like golf. Like in golf there are a million ways one can approach hitting a ball. So long as you get the club face around to square it shouldn’t matter the how.

However to become consistent you must practice the same technique over and over again. Thousands of people have played both golf and tennis and they both have only a few ways that people teach consistently. This is because people have figured out the easiest most consistent way to repetitively hit these balls.

I am going to stick with what has worked for my girlfriend and learn from her.

First Lesson

First lesson is to have key elements of each shot and make a list of them. Then write these down on a note card and keep them with you when you play tennis. For instance, today Kimberly’s father was in town and I had him give a few pointers on serving. He said a couple of key things to start out with. Like the serve is more of a push of the ball then follow through, not a swat or a wrist turn to add spin. Also keeping the head up, and keeping the shoulder closed until you are ready to make contact with the ball. Therefore the first card would look like this.

Serving

As you figure out more on your own and as you hear and learn more tips you can add, subtract and reorganize your card. Rewriting will also help you learn better.

That’s enough for lesson one. We will expand on this with the next posting, and really narrow down a method for completing the serve.