So let me catch you up. I was forced off my computer for awhile as I basically had no internet for a solid week. (Damn Chinese internet!) Before the sad Wednesday night I was doing pretty good. Tuesday was a great day with my friends, and Wednesday’s class was hard but awesome. During one drill I actually exhausted my teacher. It meant I was 10 times more exhausted than he was, but I’ve never worn him out before.
We hit through about 2 dozen birdies before we need to take a little break to gather them up again. During this time he always asks me “lei bu lei?” Are you tired?
Despite panting heavily and sweating more than any normal human should I always answer like a scrappy pup.
“Bu lei!” Not tired!
“Okay. Then do corners,” he told me this time.
Corners, as it turned out, meant, he wanted me to run (using proper footwork) to the 4 corners of the court and lunge to touch the line, while keeping my back straight. So, I had to do a really deep right foot lunge, get really close to the ground, and just put my arm out in front of me to touch the corner. I wasn’t allowed to bend my back forward at all to touch the corner. It had to be all in the lunge.
Kinda like this. He’s very strict about keeping my knee above my ankle, so the length needs to come from my back leg.
It was murder on my thighs. He made me do 20 (5 times around the court) and by the end when I tried to lift myself out of the lunge, I barely had the strength. I was all shaky and wobbly. We went back to hitting the birdie.
Next time we ran out of birdies he asked me, “lei bu lei?”
“Bu….lei…” I answered knowing what was coming. I was beyond tired, but I’m more stubborn.
“Corners,” he said. “This time do 4 corners in 45 seconds.” There was no way that was gonna happen, but under his relentless “faster! faster!” I did 20 more as fast as I could…which wasn’t very.
My leg was so sore after that I had a post-class burn for FOUR days.
And then I had the depressing night.
So going into Thursday’s play I knew I needed a strategy for building myself up again. I decided to begin the night by partnering with the strongest people in the group. “I don’t have it in me tonight, but we need to win. You gotta win it for us,” I told my partner before each game. And they did! I tricked myself into thinking their wins were my wins, and their talent was my talent. By the end of the night, I was playing like normal. I was still depressed, but it helped a lot.
Until the following Tuesday when I basically spent the whole time flailing around the court, missing even the easiest shots. I was depressed again until Wednesday morning when I woke up with a full-blown cold.
“Thank god I’m sick!” I said to a friend the next morning.
“Thank god?” she asked.
“It means there was a reason I did bad last night other than I suck.”
“No reason,” she said. My friends are very supportive.
Then I took the rest of the week off to get better.
