Improving My Game

I spent the greater half of Saturday prac­tice try­ing to unlearn what I got used to with the 38mm ball. I’m prob­a­bly not going to use that size ball any­more, for fear that it’ll fuck up my game.

Yesterday I was able to play Dan for the first time, who hap­pens to be the best play­er at the club with good rea­son. He was the leader in the city ama­teur divi­sions at one point, and has won leagues, tour­na­ments, mon­ey prizes, even coach­ing vic­to­ries. The best part of play­ing him is his atti­tude. As far as I can tell, he’s the only per­son there aside from me, play­ing for fun. Everyone else is either play­ing to keep in shape or to win. It’s fun­ny to go against these young cocky guys who get angry when they miss a shot.

Dan is able adapt his style to his oppo­nent dur­ing ral­lies; for me he’ll go defen­sive and let me smash the whole time (which is my favourite part), though he does­n’t loop return as much as the pros. He’s amaz­ing at return­ing too…he’ll be backed up against the wall about twelve feet from the table, arc the ball ten feet in the air, and it’ll still land on my side. He even adds a crazy amount of side-spin to throw me off. It usu­al­ly takes about a dozen kill shots to actu­al­ly win the point against him, and since I go all out when I smash, I’m wast­ed after five min­utes of ral­ly­ing with him.

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