The 8th Nerve

I’ve been playing tennis once or twice a week in preparation for the USTA season. Last night one of the players couldn’t make it, so another player called a guy friend who showed up ten minutes later. I have been playing with all women for the past several months, so maybe this was why this was more noticeable to me. I’m a fairly (my father is scoffing right now at the use of the word “fairly”) competitive person, but when a guy steps on the court, my competitiveness takes on a new twist.

It is a pretty understandable fact of nature that any guy who plays tennis regularly will assume that he is the better player when he plays with a woman. I can see this assumption permeating his body language. Now, I’m not some sort of die hard feminist. I don’t want to destroy him and wipe the court with him. I don’t mind losing to this guy.

But I want to shake his assumption. Bad. I want to see his confident stance jump back at the unexpected speed of the returning shots. I want to ace him and see his posture change to a physical representation of whoa. It is fun to shake someone’s assumptions and see them become more alert and back further away from the service line for my next serve.

After I put away a couple of this guy’s fast serves and aced him, then I settle in and just have fun. I’m not necessarily that great a player, but I can pull out some good serves or shots from time to time. For a long time, my tennis game was very responsive to my anxiety and I frequently choked, got tentative or fell apart. Not these days- I’m amazed at what my body can do when I let go. It feels like I never stopped playing, that I’ve just picked up where I left off, without the anxiety or frustration. I try not to regret that this has not happened sooner.

A warm spell has returned and melted the snow away. My birdfeeder is already half empty.

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Mar 11th 2006Everyday life & Tennis

Suddenly it is here, one of my favorite times of the year. Here and there in small gatherings on certain trees, leaves are turning. Yesterday, when I walked outside to go play tennis, I felt it in the air. A definite twinge that means fall is coming. Summer is ending, long sleeved shirts and jeans and the smell of woodsmoke is nearly here. Cozy cozy! It is also suddenly darker nearly an hour earlier. We hit the tennis ball until we couldn’t see it anymore.

I felt so relaxed, and was so enjoying just hitting the ball around, that it was like I had never stopped playing tennis regularly. Everything in my game was working effortlessly. There is a distinct feel to it, to being in the groove and to having let go. I am frustrated that I am so easily affected otherwise- by competition, nerves, insecurity, whoever I might be playing. There were times in my life where I felt so affected that it was as if I had never played before, so plagued I was by acute self-consciousness.

But those times when it falls away, when you have let go mentally, the body takes over. The body pulls out shots that I couldn’t have placed any better if I consciously planned it, it knows how to catch the angles and the lines with pinpoint accuracy and it loves to do it most when I am unconcerned, purely in my body and not in my mind. Damn, my body knows how to play tennis.

If only I could take out my mind and put it in a jar everytime I go to play.

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Aug 23rd 2005Tennis