One more racquetball story. Got a game in Bend Oregon a few weeks back.
Judy dropped me off and waited to make sure I got a court. The owner walked
her out to show her something, and out comes this guy to get his gear,
saying: "Hey Jerry. There's this old guy in there that wants to play. I
wonder if he's got a game." Judy got a kick out of that, figuring I had to
be the "old guy" inside that wanted to play. She asked him to take it easy
on me.
We had a good time. We traded serves a lot. Finally, he had me down 14 to
10. That was a good score. His game was just that much better than my
game. We traded more serves. I hung in there. He got frustrated. He got
the serve back and announced: "This is it."
That was the turning point. In announcing, "This is it!" he completely gave
up on his winning strategy, the strategy that had got him the 14 to 10 lead,
and shifted to trying to win the game with one stroke. Winning the game
with one stroke is not a good strategy. He made a lot of mistakes, which
inspired him to try harder, and make more mistakes. He lost that game 15 to
14. It got worse after that. He lost the next game at three. Then he had
to leave for an appointment.
Old guys rule!
You know, it's fun to win, and it sucks to play poorly, but it's fun to play
well whether you win or lose. I like just hanging in there and hanging in
there, doing everything that can be done, watching the dynamics of the game
and looking for opportunities. It's about how it feels to play. I'll go
hit the ball by myself, thinking about stroke mechanics, and working on
hitting the perfect shot. That's what feels the best, setting up and
hitting the perfect shot. Not the lucky rollout that could just as easily
been a skip, but the high percentage wide-angle pass two feet high off the
front wall that is placed just right, and hit with such pace that there is
no chance for the opponent to return it as it goes past, and no chance to
catch it off the back wall because it dies there. That's what's best.
But I don't get many chances to do that. Oftentimes there are no
racquetball courts within a reasonable distance of where we're staying and
working. I could switch to tennis. There are a lot more tennis courts out
there than racquetball courts. But tennis requires two people of similar
ability who both want to play at the same time. Golf! Now that's
different. There are golf courses everywhere we go and you don't have to
have an opponent or partner to play. Maybe we should switch to golf.
