Adventures in Tennis

Well this has taken off

Thank you to all the people who have read this over the past couple, it has been far more than I ever expected it to be, and I am blown away by the number of people who have actually visited the blog. So thanks guys.

So, the reason I am in Croatia at the moment is for a tennis camp, and it has been an interesting experience so far. The pull quote I think should come from one of the Croatian coaches at the end of my first session, translated: "you have a really good eye for the ball, but for almost all of your shots, you are just making up how to make the shots". My tennis experience before this week is very little to absolutely none.. However, helping my cause are around 4-5 years of squash experience (shoutout to Kevin Dorrius for the ridiculous amount of work he did running and maintaining the Revelstoke Racquet Den during my years there) and an inexplicable talent for badminton. However, tennis is very different from those two sports, chiefly because everything is so much bigger and heavier. This means that the swing is a completely different technique, and you get tired much more quickly. I am improving though. It has been 4 days so far and all but one of my lessons have been 1 on 1 in an effort to catch me up to everybody else. So far I look kind of like this:

Here is a video of my host brother Michael playing (so that you know what it's supposed to look like)

If there is a theme for this opening week, it would probably be things that I knew were going to be different, but still surprised me. Clay courts: I knew they were going to be a totally different surface to play sports on, but still got surprised when I tried to run to find my foot skidding 2 feet as I pushed off of it to start running. Carbonated water: I knew that when you ask for water in Europe, you get sparkling water, but I was still shocked that you drink it while you are playing sports. It took a couple days to get used to, but now I'm ok with it, and possibly like it better than flat water, I haven't decided yet.

Anyways, that is all for this week. Again, if you have questions, recommendations, or suggestions for future articles, post it below in the comments. I already have a huge pile of Drafts on the go, so if there is a request, it may take a couple of weeks but I promise I will take care of all your suggestions eventually.