Today I did some drilling, for about an hour and 40 minutes. We did lots of dinking cross court with both of us doing work on our forehand and backhand dinks. I think we dedicated easily 30 minutes, if not more, to dinking.
We took one of the buckets from the facility again and we both brought more balls than last time so that worked out well. We helped each other with our attack balls. Me specifically, I was working on figuring out forehand and backhand rolls. He worked on the same shots, but those are a little bit more comfortable shots for him. He practiced them but also added some lob work.
I am still in the infancy phase of really understanding I can do it. I’m just now starting to see how it all connects and clicks and because of that I also have to learn to undo some messes I’ve created (bad habits). He gave me some ideas and things I can do by myself without needing someone to help me. The one tip he gave me actually helped me visualize it a lot better.
Watching him also helped me because I was able to try to mimic it. Then being able to have balls hit at me and apply it seemed to work. They weren’t super powerful shots I took, on the forehand specifically. But on the backhand, I was really starting to get it, which was really interesting because I thought it would be the slowest.
We then played skinny singles and he kicked my butt which is okay because I felt really good about how both of us were hitting the balls. I actually lost 1 point because he lobbed and I went back to get it and forgot it was skinny. I did this really crazy shot off that lob, to the exact wrong side of the court. It was disappointing that I lost focus that badly.
It is sizzling today for February. It is a 73 degrees out. So in the bubble, I feel like I got pretty hot pretty fast. And per usual, I have not been drinking water at the proper rate. It was a little ugly how sweaty I got. And a couple of times I was even light headed, which is disturbing. But I like finishing up with a hard game and a game that lets you apply whatever you want.
You can drop, you can drive, you can do all the shots that you would do in doubles with skinny singles. I think that’s important, as long as you can remember that you’re playing skinny singles. It was another good workout.
