07 December 2014

pingety pongety

I went to play pingpong today at the invitation of a new friend. 

It had probably been 20 years since I last played pingpong. We may (?) have had a pingpong table in our basement at one point, but we didn't play much. 

Initially, I was terrible. I couldn't return the ball at all. I couldn't have returned the ball if someone offered me one million dollars. (I wish they had offered me one million dollars, though.) I kept swinging too early, just as the ball came over the net, and then swinging again as it passed me, missing both times. 

"I don't know how you manage to get two swings in!" my new friend said, as I actually hit the ball on the second swing one time. 

The game came back pretty quickly, and within a few minutes I was hitting the majority of the directly lobbed balls. By the end of the night, I could sometimes even keep the ball relatively low, rather than letting it bounce high into the air. I still missed it when my opponent had any skill at spin or aim, and I have a bad tendency to swing too hard. 

It sort of makes me miss real tennis, although I would probably need an occupational therapist on speed dial if I ever decided to use my golf elbow arm that way again.

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