We've had two good practices to kick off our season. So I begin the blog anew and describe what I think important for the beginning of our journey. A well conditioned athlete can cut down his risk of getting injured. When you get tired, you run a greater risk of getting injured.
The cardio conditioning, stretching and footwork is the foundation of our sport. The running helps our leg strength while enhancing our quickness and releasing more happy dopamine to the brain. The stretching helps our limbs to re-acclimate their tennis flexibility needs. We all worked with resistances bands today. If you have been to a PT and done some rehab you know what I am speaking of. We'll continue to use the bands throughout the season. A good idea here is three sets of 10 done slowly with a suffice range of motion.
I have always felt that paying attention to these three aspects is part and partial to why we haven't had any injuries in my three years with the team. I also feel that proper footwear, which I insist on you wearing, helps too. During practice today I noted our perfect injury record, so I am worried I may have jinxed us. I now feel we need the power of the entire team, acting as one, to negate my words.
See Jim Burns knocking on wood in the picture to the right. He did this during our playoff match with St Joe's Metuchen when one of our matches was turning in our favor. He observed the favorable turn and said, 'We have this in the bag." I was shocked what I just heard uttered, and being superstitious I then asked him to go to the nearest tree and knock on it. SO everybody please help me out and knock on wood right now.
See the eastern forehand grip description below. This was taken from the book 'Tennis," by Pancho Gonzales, my favorite tennis player. His bio video(Feb'10)was one of the my first blog posts.
http://paulvitennis.blogspot.com/2010/02/pancho-gonzales-tennis-history.html
I took about 10 pictures on that glorious day in Metuchen, but sadly I think I lost many of them during the recent tornado. We will continue to work hard each and everyday, wherein we can all experience the same success we had last year, and then some. "We will work on the little things to make the big thing happen." This idea is taken from John Wooden's Pyramid of Success which you can find on many blog posts here.
If I find the pictures I will post them. BUT KNOCK ON WOOD NOW. Our ability to avoid a jinx, is each and everyone of us knocking on WOOD, right after they read this!! If one person forgets, who knows what may happen next.
This picture and the circled area is the exact place on my hand where I turn the racquet down, from the serve grip to the eastern forehand grip, and up from the same forehand grip to the volley and overhead grip. We've noted this important movement in practice many times. Enjoy Dexter Gordon and the rest of your weekend.
