Serve it up

Now I’ve gone and done it.

I’ve been itching to start playing tennis more regularly for years now, so when LivingSocial offered a 50% discount for entry into a Seattle tennis league, I just had to do it. The problem is I’ve never really played tennis competitively before! I’ve had lessons and camps here and there but have never been part of a team or an organized league. The camps were in middle school and the last organized lesson I took was right out of high school. I haven’t hit around regularly since the summer of 2004 when I lived with my mom in Kansas City, but “hitting around” literally meant just hitting around and not playing a regular match. Even when I tried to play a match with my mom (who has taken up the sport and is quite good), I didn’t have the stamina to play through the whole match because my fitness was so poor.

Cut to 2011 and my fitness has improved drastically, but my tennis experience is still lacking. However, I can’t keep hoping that someday I’ll make the time to get better without actually making the time to take some steps to get better. So this is my first step. True to form, my second step was panicking about my unpreparedness and asking a friend of ours if he could hit with me so I wouldn’t feel completely out of place when the league starts in September. He had some great pointers and it felt SO good to be able to work on my form and rally consistently. Of course, also true to form, I’m now sore from using these muscles that haven’t seen consistent action in years. But I love being sore because it means you’re actually doing something! Plus, I love the forearm muscle you get from playing tennis, even though I only get it on my right arm. Unbalanced arms, what can I say.

And I may also be sporting a Transformers Band-Aid on a monster blister I got from my racket (nice to see you too, racket). Hopefully it’s a one-time-only kind of thing.