Posts tagged with "table tennis"

A Bunch Of Things With No Title

This has been the busiest week­end EVAR. It’s been the first time that I was too busy to write an entry. I mean, I usu­al­ly make time to write, with the same pri­or­i­ty as show­er­ing and eat­ing, but yes­ter­day I only had time for two of the three.

Friday was all run­ning errands and watch­ing Return of the King (which was alright). Much to my sur­prise, Aaron, Trolley, Wheaties, and Nick all chipped in and bought me Double Dash, which we prompt­ly played until five in the morn­ing. I woke up with just enough time to get to prac­tice (although it was only four hours of sleep), played for two hours, then came back home and slept some more.

Thumbnail: Chocolate truffles

By the time I was awake, it was time for Aaron’s pot luck. I had a chance to meet Chris, Mel’s boyfriend, who’s a fuck­ing great guy to hang out with. Of note were Jen’s pota­toes, which must have been the most flavour­ful I’ve ever tast­ed. I brought about three dozen of the Bailey’s truf­fles I made, which were well received and gone in five min­utes.

I got back around two in the morn­ing, col­lapsed on my bed, and here I am now, grog­gy and hun­gry. In half an hour I have a ride to the first match­es of the new­ly formed city-wide table ten­nis league. I’ll be play­ing for about five hours in rota­tion, vary­ing between sin­gles and dou­bles match­es. I expect to be one of the worst play­er there, which means that I’ll prob­a­bly gain a lot of play expe­ri­ence.

I still need to start an eco­nom­ics assign­ment and watch an account­ing tape, both of which were sup­posed to be done on Friday. Today might just be anoth­er total write-off.

New Laptop, Birthday Party, TT League

Apparently, my new lap­top is sched­uled for deliv­ery on Monday. I was hop­ing for Friday so I’d have the week­end to work on it, but I’m gen­er­al­ly only busy on the week­ends so it does­n’t make too much dif­fer­ence. Cristina’s hav­ing a birth­day par­ty at the Honest Lawyer on Saturday, which works out per­fect­ly because prac­tice on Sundays are usu­al­ly mid-after­noon. After the Halloween par­ty last Friday, I was too hung over to attend the Saturday prac­tice. I’ve been con­sid­er­ing enter­ing a team in the new­ly formed city league, but I would prob­a­bly need a fourth and I’d rather not social­ize with the avail­able peo­ple.

The TT Characters

At the club yes­ter­day there was a woman who must have been in her sev­en­ties, who played a fair­ly fast (though unbal­anced) game. She liked to talk some shit against my lucky shots, which was pret­ty fun­ny, cause oth­er­wise she’s a sweet old lady with a slight British accent. I was also matched up against Barry, a para­plegic who was kick­ing my ass in his wheel­chair, after hav­ing played two hours of wheel­chair ten­nis. He plays much faster and more aggres­sive­ly than me, and can place his shots with amaz­ing pre­ci­sion. It’s real­ly help­ing me work on my fore­hand to back­hand returns.

I’m get­ting my abs back, espe­cial­ly the obliques. My right arm is rough­ly an inch big­ger than the left now. I’m think­ing that it’s all the weight trans­fer that needs to be done when smash­ing, espe­cial­ly against Dan. He’s like an artist on the court, aware of all vari­ables involved in a sin­gle hit, able to make the ball do what­ev­er he wants. It’s a plea­sure to watch him play.

I'll Take The Win

I final­ly beat Pat at table ten­nis, although he was run­ning on fif­teen hours of sleep over the last three days due to four midterms. I real­ized that I was let­ting him play offen­sive­ly when I was adapt­ing to his game, instead of play­ing more aggres­sive than him, forc­ing him to be defen­sive which is his weak point. It’s tricky play­ing him because he uses a strong and pow­er­ful fore­hand grip that lim­its his back­hand capa­bil­i­ties, but plays most­ly off his back­hand. I end up hav­ing to adapt to his unique shots every time I face him. I can feel myself improv­ing, espe­cial­ly the con­sis­ten­cy and spin of my serves, which is always a good thing.

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.