Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Slamma Jamma

I'm learning two new sports this summer: tennis and golf. I'm pretty terrible at each of them. Before I played my first 9 holes of the summer, I ran into a former student of mine who plays varsity golf. "What'd you shoot?" I asked. He said 81. For 18 holes. I ended up shooting more than that for 9. At this course, you're required to put your scores into some computer, and when I put mine in it was too high for the system to accept. Turns out I had to round down. Still, I had a great time, and I have a golf lesson on Friday with the kids. I'm predicting spectacular improvement.

I'm marginally better at tennis, in that cardiovascular fitness figures into your tennis performance. I do not have tennis skillz, but I do have endurance. Did a little online research, and found out tennis is actually a great sport to play for many reasons. One of my favorite reasons is that tennis improves problem-solving because it's based on angles, geometry and physics. I'm not particularly skilled in these mathematical and scientific domains, so I'm looking forward to positive results. Further, tennis improves agility because you have to change directions up to five times in 10 seconds. Cool!

Finally, and this is a quote from the website I linked up there, "Tennis players scored higher in vigor, optimism and self-esteem while scoring lower in depression, anger, confusion, anxiety and tension than other athletes and nonathletes, according to Dr. Joan Finn and colleagues at Southern Connecticut State University."

My conclusion is that we should all probably learn the life-time sport of tennis. Let's get on it. I'm attending (and humiliating myself) at beginners' drill tomorrow at 10am. Keep you posted.

4 comments:

mm said...

I love playing golf although I rarely keep score because I typically suck.

Playing tennis, playing golf, and playing pool all seem to have the angles one needs to contemplate. I'd prefer to hit the ball and see where it lands.

LH said...

I'm going to play tennis next year when I'm in Israel.

Sarah Gardner said...

I'm equally awful at golf and I just don't see the point. I'd like to learn tennis though - I did love playing badminton as a kid at family reunions.

KC said...

I learned something at tennis drill this morning: I'm actually pretty good at tennis!! HOORAY!