learn to play tennis

So I missed 3 tennis lessons do to a hectic renovation (had to move everything out the house and into boxes in a storage pod. so they could finish the wood floors in my house).

The other reason would be pure laziness. I live in Miami and Ive been playing every Sat on an outside court at 2:30 arguably the hottest hour of the day. Its quite tiring.

This Saturday I called my instructor and went though. It was great. According to him I played my best yet and this despite a derth of practice. My backhand is very strong but my forehand needs work. Still trying to get a strong consistent serve down. Joined a tennis forum to help.

Ok. I missed last lesson because I was out of town for my cousin’s grad party.

I’ve been practicing at a middle school up the street from my house. I go there after work and hit against the wall till the sun goes down.

I’ve figured out how to give the ball a little topspin They say this is the sceret to keeping it in the court. Air pressure exerted on the ball from above causes it to fall just before it goes out of bounds.

Ive also discovered what low-to-high swing is. For the life of me I just couldnt figure it out. I had a mental block. Now I see though and its really very simple.

My forehand is much better after practicing twice one hour each time. Im now confident that with some work I could be good at this so its worth continuing.
Im also happy to say I dont think I’ll scare off my instructor with my suckiness again.

Ive already started inviting more senior players than myself to a future a** kicking

bombed unfortunately. I wonder if tennis is gonna be one of those things Im innately bad at or if I just need practice.

Anyway, my instructor cut the lesson short 10 minutes because I was hitting so badly and he was hot and tired (He’d hosted a tennis tournie- so he’d been out in the sun 4 hrs already).

On the up side he only charged me $30 and offered to regrip my racket for free.

I’m sorta discouraged. Teach tells me I better practice between my once a week lessons or I’ll never improve but with current “skill” level I’m almost embarrassed to attempt this anywhere public.

Maybe I’ll get one of those ball machines.

It went fairly well. Strongest at forehand then at backhand with both hands on the grip. Can’t serve to save my live. I’ll have to work on it.

Older guy thats teaching me is charging ony $35 an hour. Much better than the $60 many other people were asking. I like him and he seems lonely. He let me borrow his racket so I wouldnt blow $ before determining if I liked it and had enough potential to continue.

I’ll try this again next week but with the miami sun being what it is I probably wont try to do it at 2:30 in the afternoon.

I’ll buy a water bottle, a cute tennis skirt and read up on the sport in the mean time. I think I have a racket somewhere around this house….

Feels so good to simply take the initiative to learn something new instead of sitting on my a** watching tv.
I love it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/sports/playmagazine/601gift.html?ref=sports