Kicking Into Gear...

Well, four weeks into playing and three tournaments later, so far, so good. Loric and I haven't dropped a game, have had pretty good control, and have 3 tourney wins under our belts. For me, the hardest part has been getting my body to not hold back, and to act more explosively. I felt like I had a few moments in last week's tournament that were like that, able to get more than two inches off the ground and able to react somewhat quickly to pick up a few shots. My abdomen is feeling 100% now. I give a lot of credit to the kettlebell training, as it is my only exercise right now. I've been feeling strong throughout the tourneys, and even started with a bit of jump serving. You know, the fun parts of the game...

So, the good/bad news is that my partner will be leaving the end of the summer. The bad news is of course that Loric is leaving the state and we won't be able to play together out here any more. The good news is that he is heading to Santa Barbara with his family where they have great teaching jobs lined up and will be living near the beach, where the sport is meant to be played. I'm sure we'll get periodic reunions, hopefully surfside.

I'm not sure how I feel about all the sand tourneys for men being on Sundays coming up. It seems the schedule got a bit patchworked this year, with grass/sand happening on different days of the same weekend. Also, with the sand being so rough at Sneakerz, I wish there would be more events at 66 for us between now and mid-August.

In a couple of weeks, the Sandia Mountain Classic is coming up, and there are going to be some rediculously good teams from around the country showing up. My original goal was to get healthy enough to play in the event, and it looks like that will happen. Now I want to be competitive, we will see. Guarenteed to be a good time. They tore up the sand court here in Santa Fe, so I'm not getting any other playing time outside of tournaments, but I might make a trip to Abq. next week for a practice day. After Sandia, the next tournament we'll play is King of the Mountain in Vail in mid-June. We'll have to try and improve on our second place finish a couple years back.