My Wednesday play was about like all the other Wednesdays. I lost a bunch of games, I have no idea what to do in order to win, I have no idea why I even care to win. I just want to have fun and on Wednesdays, it is tough.
The best thing that happened today was I got to see some of my friends from when I first started playing. I think I finally have them convinced to let me play with them on Thursday and maybe even open a court for me to drill on if the numbers are off because I showed up.
I am grateful that I get to play on Wednesday but today had me contemplating paying for a drill session instead of paying to play. It’s not good if that’s running through my head during a game. It would cost a lot more but it would be a hard workout that wouldn’t cause confusion. I’d know what I’ve done right and what I’ve done wrong.
I did the drill group and it went fairly well. It snowed today so a couple of people were out. We had a nice group and my big focus today was to really hit them hard with drops.
They did their normal dinks, I had them do fast hands and some dinks with a target. We did 3 drills for drops and one for drives. Each drill had an element for both people to practice. Like all drill groups, some people are better feeders than others so it seems like the more I try to create things that will help multiple areas, the more likely someone is going to get hit in the head/armpit/back from the other side of the court. I’ve had requests more than once for cross-court dinking and I know it’s something we need to do but I can only imagine the ball-going-everywhere outcome.
The last 15 minutes we played the net zero game and I had to participate. I helped my team get 8 points twice and both times I was the one who hit it in the net, bringing us back to zero. Oops.
I don’t know if my partner was mad that I stripped us of our points or happy that it wasn’t her that hit it in the net, but we ended up losing the game.
I wasn’t depressed or sad that we lost but hitting the ball in the net, the same way each time – a ball came back short and I hustled to hit it – made me realize how important it is to be fully dialed in and focused, always. I don’t want to be super intense, no fun to play with, but a lot of my mistakes are errors I could avoid by just being ready. It’s a weird position to be in, not caring to win (when it is rec play) but caring about not making errors.
