Rants and raves: Play with a pro

People say practice makes perfect. In most cases that is true. For instance, backing out of a seemingly impossible corner in my parking lot that I was so lucky to be assigned to. Now I can do it without adding more scratches on the sides. But tennis, tennis is a whole new different ball game (no pun intended).

For months I have been practicing against the only wall I can found in town, day after day, fighting with kids who bounce big red balls and simply won't leave. From day one, I had known my forehand is stronger than my backhand because, well, I do everything better with my right hand. In all honesty, I probably only spend 20% of time working on my backhand, and even then it is total hit and miss, literally. I could get a couple of good ones, but I wouldn't know what I did that was right. Most of the time, my backhand failed parlously, hopelessly. Judging by my backhand, people would not believe I have played tennis for as long as I told them I have. What we try to avoid eventually comes around and bites us in the ass. On the court, I would unconsciously change my stance last minute in the face of a fastball intended for a backhand. I got yelled all the time for going out of my way, awkwardly, to avoid backhand. Needless to say, I didn't last very long on the court.

Today, none of my classmates showed up for our weekly tennis class, and I found myself unexpectedly practicing one-on-one with Raul, our instructor with seemingly infinite patience. Still, I nearly drove Raul up the walls with my consistent failing backhand. I made every mistake in the book. My grib was wrong. My racket was not ready. I tended to forget to swing my racket from low to high. I did not turn my shoulders enough. I turned my shoulders too much that I completely spun around. I did not follow through with my arm. My eyes were not on the ball. My step was too big and I got cornered by the racket and ball... the list goes on. But all was about to change! Having a pro feed balls was fantastic!! Every ball was thrown at just the right height. The undivided attention of Raul and everything done 50 times in a row worked like a miracle, or more like a magnifying glass exposing all my faulty moves. At the end of the practice, Raul didn't have to tell me what caused a bad backhand--I knew it myself.

Doing four people's work by myself was exhausting, and I will from now on call "tennis practice with a pro" an aerobic exercise that resulted in my racing heart beat and pouring sweat. Fourty-five mintues later, my clothes were soaked in sweat, and more dripping from my forehead. It feels wonderful being exhausted but knowing that I was doing the right thing... finally.