Racquetball

You know, I sometimes forget just how competitive my family gets at times. I've lost a lot of my competitive edge when it comes to a lot of different sports. In 99 I dislocated my shoulder tackling a guy twice my size, well 40 dislocations later, surgery, and a few more dislocations, etc., etc., and I've had to calm down a lot while playing sports. Racquetball is one of the exceptions to the rule. Since I'm right-handed, I don't have any sort of problem playing and risk dislocating my shoulder.

So anyway, today in racquetball, we're continuing to play doubles. Now normally, the teams would have been pretty much even, but a couple people showed up late, so teams were rather mismatched. Since I was second in the singles tournament, I was paired with the second worst. The other team was the guy who got first and the guy who got third. So our strategy was I cover front and she covers back. Now since these guys play hard, and I let my competitiveness get the better of me, it leaves most people rather amused. I don't get angry or anything, I just sacrifice my body to win. I've gotten so good at diving and running into walls at full sprints, that I can be back on my feet before they have a chance to return it. Some words that they've used to describe me is a cat or a breakdancer.

Well, I positioned myself pretty close to the front. Usually in the service zone, or more forward than that, and use my reactions to try to get some kill shots in and gain the lead. Well, the game was pretty much tied throughout with no one gaining a real lead. And at this point, no thought is being given to the condition of my body. So I'm pretty far forward, and a ball was hit high and left. There was no way my partner was going to get it, and I had one chance to get it. Now being in the center and having to cover a distance of about 6 feet to hit a ball based on a really quick reaction, especially when you expected the ball to go the right and started for that direction before the ball was even hit. I dove for it. Now, normally, when you dive for a ball, it's close to the ground, so you fall from a fairly low point to the ground. Well, since it was five feet off the ground, and it was technically a dive made for a really interesting picture. You see me dive and have my body horizontal to the ground about four feet above ground. The other players just watched like it was some slow motion matrix thing. Since I didn't have time to bring my racquet around to hit it to the front wall, I swing it towards the back wall with all the might I can afford in hopes that I can make it get to the front wall. I plow my head into the wall as my body smacks the floor. I'm up in time to see my ball hit 5 feet before getting to the front wall. Everyone just stares at me in disbelief at what I was trying to do. I wish I could say this was a one time ordeal, but I'm the worst for beating myself up at this game. I've slammed into walls hard enough to knock my glasses off, done so many somersaults and spins, kicked off walls at full sprints, dodged so many missiles by jumping over them or pulling my legs out from under me to avoid getting hit. I gave myself a really good charlie horse doing that last one, which left me limping several days. I also limped for a while after diving knee first into a wall. My racquet looks just about as bad too. I ran into a wall with my racquet perpedicular in front of me. My racquet is now more of a trapezoid now(if that's the correct word, I haven't had geometry since sophomore year of high school). I wish I had a video of all these, I'm sure my words don't do it justice.

Well, we ended up losing 13-15. Not as bad as I thought we'd do. I actually was the person the last point was scored on. He used a Z shot, and hadn't used one yet, and I forgot to compensate for the spin. Oh well. It's a fun game and one I can actually be competitive in, unlike basketball, football, volleyball, etc.