Wow, crazy week - Bay's been looking for work for the past four months or so since the second half of her co-op term started. She's intelligent enough to know that the more time you give yourself to find a job the better, and so the early start was meant to avoid the last minute stress attack when the deadline of your job is looming very near and you still don't have a job lined up.

There's never been any doubt in my mind that Bay would get hired - Part of the reason I'm attracted to her is because of how diverse and intelligent she is - I think that people that have this combination of characteristics can find a place in any niche - but that doesn't make it any less stressful to be trying to find that niche.

On Monday she had an interview at the CFB base for a job doing marketing similar to what she did for the Martlet at UVic. She interviewed at 8:00, finished at 9:00, and they called to offer her the job at 2:00 - pretty good deal! She also found out she'd have a little extra cash coming her way as a result of a contract her union worked out. I had already found out that morning that another friend of mine has gotten a promotion so all of these good things in one day was totally overwhelming.

I was just nursing the remnants of the flu that had taken a hold of me for the past two weeks and so I haven't had much time to make it onto the squash courts and do some training. I'm planning on starting up again hard this coming Monday.

In the meantime, I've had plenty of time to think about dancing and what direction I want to take on next. Lexi, Adam, Davey and I all went down to Hush and The Jungle Room last night - my friend Davin was spinning with another DJ I really like, and dancing to electronic music is much more inducive to the styles of dance I'm into - it's way easier to pop and house step when you're expected to be dancing by yourself rather than getting judged for it. I don't mind people watching me dance, but I prefer to be able to just sink into the background as much as possible and do my thing - I dance because I love doing it, not because I'm trying to impress people (likewise with squash).

I titled this entry Motion because that's what I'm going to focus on for the next few weeks. Motion is an important aspect of popping - a dancer that stays static in the same place, no matter how good they are with their arms and upper body, is going to start to look boring. Your lower body is important and needs just as much attention as the rest of your body. This is the most common mistake I see people starting out with liquid/waving/popping making. It's an easy aspect to neglect, and lower body work and motion is a lot more subtle than flashy hand/arm movements. I'm a firm believer that the subtle things are what makes a good popper look so powerful on the dance floor, so I try to focus on things that are inline with this principle.

So yah, motion. I can glide and move around the dance floor fairly well. I'm no where near at the skill level of my friends Graham or Michi, who have both spent time learning that illusion well. I'm a tall guy (though Graham is as well) and sometimes have a difficult time maintaining my balance when gliding, so I've learned other techniques to make up for it. I started thinking about this, and decided to come up with a few moves that I think I can learn (given practice) and that will help add to my repetoire of footwork.

Both things I'm working on are techniques that I've seen David Elsewhere make great use of. If you haven't seen any videos of him dance yet, you have NO idea what you're missing, and should make an effort to go and do that right now. Actually, I'll just make his name a link to search Google for him, so go and click it right now - his Kollaboration videos are my favorite. I hold David Elsewhere in very high regard - he's one of my main influences, and I think he's extremely intelligent. Some his thoughts about his dancing are here, and they're a really good read.

1. Rotating pedestal

I have no idea what this technique is actually called, so I just chose a name for it that sounds like an accurate description of what it looks like. The technique operates as follows: Both feet are spaced between a one and two feet apart. The illusion works best if they are wider than shoulder-width, but that is more advanced than I can currently do, so I'm leaving about a foot in between. You put all of your weight one of your two feet, on the heel of that foot, with the rest of your foot raised just slightly off of the ground so that there's less friction. Pivot on the heel of that foot while rotating your entire body around that pivot point. Keeping the upper body isolated and frozen for me is something I'm used to, but the really tricky part is keeping the other foot steady and moving across the ground around your pivot point. For those that have watched the Kollaboration video where Elsewhere is wearing an orange sweater, he does this technique at 1:29 in that video.

I've got a video made of me working on this move here. It sucks, but part of how I improve is putting my stuff up here and watching the videos now and then, figuring out what I'm doing right and wrong, and then fixing those things.

2. Character Walks

I love character walks. If I understand my popping terminology correctly, character walks are a subset of the dancing style called animating. Animating is related to moving your body in a manner that imparts the impression of watching a cartoon character. Elsewhere is also a master of this technique, and has a huge variety of these that he pulls out in his dance routines. I'm very new to this technique, and am still refining exactly what I'm going to work on. Part of coming up with a good character walk for me is figuring out exactly what the character I'm mimicking is going to be - am I going to move like a big ogre-type creature? Maybe someone that is bumbling and clumsy?

This is probably more than most dancers would think about it, but I'm a pretty technically minded guy, and breaking things down in my head helps me organize my thoughts and tackle something like this piece by piece. Some of what I've been playing with is animating a large frankenstein like character. It's totally preliminary right now, but given that I keep putting effort into it, I think it could look pretty dope. A good example of Elsewhere doing this can be seen in the same video mentioned above at 1:00.

I've got a video of me just starting out the very first steps of this technique here. More will follow.

A few people asked me about liquid recently, so I put together a video of me doing a little bit of it. Liquid was how I first started to get into popping and the other funk styles. I saw a dancer at one of the first raves I'd been to named Chuck - his movement and fluidity was amazing, and he and another guy named Paul (who was 15 and lived in Brentwood at the time) were two of my largest influences. Liquid makes use of the arms and hands to create the illusion of waves throughout the dancers torso. As a dancer progresses, they start to use more of their body and rely less on their hands for the illusion of waves. I don't have a problem with liquid - I just felt that keeping my hands together all the time limited my creativity, and pushing the waves out through the rest of my body gave me a lot more freedom to do what I wanted to do. The video is here and you can tell that I don't devote a lot of time to liquid any more - I've met quite a few guys in town that are more proficient at me when it comes to the specific art of liquid.

I wrote up most of what happened at the Pac Rim tournament last week, but I haven't had a chance to proof-read and then post it yet - that'll happen soon.

Bay also entered an Irish Dance mini-competition/grading thing last weekend, which was pretty cool. I've got some good videos of her dancing, and will post those as soon as I make sure she's cool with that.

Hmm, okay, I just looked at the clock and it's 1:45. Plus, I have to be up at 8ish tomorrow morning for a hardcore Magic the Nerding session. So there'll be a delay until I can get around to it tomorrow evening before those videos make it up. Cowboy up!

UPDATE: Videos are now uploaded and ready for viewing. I just realized that the other videos I'd uploaded (gliding) weren't compressed and so my server was taking massive bandwidth hits everytime someone downloaded the video. I've fixed this problem now.

UPDATE: Someone asked me for "that video with the noodle walk" the other day. I'm pretty sure that this is the original video that started getting me into trouble - there's a scarecrow/Wiggles glide towards the end of the clip, and this seems to be a hot ticket item of the dance techniques I know. I tried to find them the link by looking through the dance entries on my site, but noticed that this clip isn't present in any of them. BOOYAH, problem solved: that video can now be seen here.

I also found a few videos of some house stepping I'd done a few days ago that I'd left on my camera. House stepping is a lot less structured than popping, and is a lot more about grooving to the music and doing whatever feels right. There are still some techniques involved, but watching these videos, you'll notice that the movement is more about moving to the beat and a lot less about technical moves and bizarre illusions. When I housestep I like to incorporate the other styles of dancing that I'm into, so you'll see breaks into and back out of popping and small touches of locking throughout these two videos: here and here.

Pac Rim is over and that is the last squash tournament of the main season. I came off of this past long easter weekend feeling good, but at 10:00 PM Monday evening, I started to feel a little bit of sickness coming on. Little did I know that by Tuesday at 7:00 AM I'd be suffering from full-fledged mongolian death flu. And not the whimpy type of death flu that those chickens are dying from - this is the serious death flu. I lay on the couch and shivered from fever for most of Tuesday and Wednesday, and left work early on Thursday.

The timing couldn't have been better - just in time for the Pac Rim tournament and I was suffering big time. Oh well. I played three of my scheduled 5-6 matches. I beat John Foxall 3-0 which was good, but I was hitting quite a few lucky shots. The fact that I'd had luck on my side was evidenced when I played against Arnie Clark and lost 0-3 and then Bevan 1-3 on Saturday morning. After losing to Bevan (a match so ridiculous that we both lost points from laughing so much at the pathetic shot our opponent had hit) I withdrew from the tournament without any guilt. I'd given it my best, but my best pretty much sucked rocks.

I hung out at our squash club for the rest of the tournament, which was cool, and watched my friends play their matches. I tried to get into the mood of the banquet Saturday night, but was just not feeling up to it. It turns out Legends is an even worse place to be when you have the flu than a squash court is. I headed home early and got some Z's.

Sunday my friend Dan was playing in the finals for the A division. I didn't know this, but he'd only won his first ever A draw the tournament before in our club champs, so I was pretty stoked for him - the Pac Rim is the biggest tournament on the island, so it'd be a pretty sweet to win your first ever A draw and then follow that up with winning this one. Dan's opponent Brian had been matching him tequila shot for gingerale the night before, so they were both in pretty rough shape heading into the match. Dan had played Brian before in the city champs, but Brian had to concede to Dan in the fifth game due to a hamstring injury (I think that if Brian had waited another 5 minutes before conceded, Dan would have collapsed on the court and automatically given the match to Brian in a TKO though).

The game was pretty exciting, with me spending most of the time trying to drown out any of the cheers for Brian coming from his wife Sue and son Justin. Their daughter Kelsey wasn't anywhere around, but she'd already done her part to demoralize me by punching me in the ribs a few times when I was sitting at the front. You should see the bruises she gave me - she's gotta have a Bowflex (it's like having Chuck Norris as your personal trainer!!!).

Anyhow, Dan took the game down in the fifth, which was pretty exciting, and we all hung out afterwards to celebrate the outcome. I'm pretty burned out on squash right now - mainly because I've been focusing a lot on drills for the past while, and also because I'm very sick with the flu. As soon as I'm done with that, I'll be back on court, focusing mostly on games until I've got a clear idea of what I want to improve on next.

I can home from a friend's place today and had the notion of gliding stuck in my head. I'm not sure why, the urge to move and think about dancing usually comes after I've been listening to really good music. Different genres of music obviously bring out different styles of dancing - breakbeat and drum and bass can give me the urge to use a lot of glides, but other than Friday night I haven't been listening to these types of music very much. Incidentally, if anyone is looking for good breaks, I'd recommend Z-trip, he's pretty ridiculous.

So yah, I pulled out my camera, set up the tripod, and started experimenting with glides. I've got a long way to go if I ever wanted to perfect my glides. The movement is a very tricky one requiring very good balance. When you walk normally, you have the freedom to move your mobile foot in a number of directions. Gliding requires that your stationary foot be the foot that is raised up on its ball (this greatly reduces the amount of contact you have with the floor, and thus your balance), and your mobile foot is moving while attempting to keep it as level with the ground and otherwise motionless as possible.

A few people have asked about this technique (probably because it looks the coolest out of the more commonly used techniques) - the illusion that the glide generates is caused by the motion I'm talking about above. When you walk or run normally, it is the foot that is inclined (relative to the ground) that is in motion. Think about it - your flat foot remains on the ground, with all of your weight on it, while your raised foot is generally in the air, moving, and bent at the ankle. The glide looks so crazy because your raised foot (inclined at the ankle, with your weight on it, only the ball of your foot in contact with the floor) is motionless while the flat foot is moving. The brain has a hiccup as it watches the raised foot for motion, sees nothing, then notices that the flat foot is moving. Your brain keeps switching back and forth trying to process this, and before you realize it, the dancer has moved a few feet further away.

This is such a tough trick for me because of the transferrance of weight. You stand on one foot, and slide your other foot along the ground away from you. Once you've moved it about two feet away, you have to raise this foot on to its ball, transfer your weight to this foot, lower the other foot, and begin sliding that towards your newly raised foot. This may not sound like much, but just give it a try and make it look smooth. The weight transfer is really tough.

All glides generally operate on this premise. There are a few other techniques that are similar but operate on slightly different principles - the one in particular that comes to mind is everyone's favorite - the scarecrow glide (also called the Wiggles walk, since I think Mr. Wiggles either created this glide or brought it to a lot of people's attention). The reason this looks so crazy is because all of the motion the feet make appear to be from side to side, with nothing to transfer weight and motion in a forward direction. If you look closely though, you'll notice that each foot is actually slowly being placed in front of the other. If you really wanted to break it down, the motion would be based on raising your feet just up on their heels and walking forward by placing one foot in front of the other. Throw in a bunch of side movement with your feet before you place it down in front of the other and you've got the basis for the glide. It looks so crazy because your eyes are distracted by the extra movement.

A few people have asked for some of the basics, which is cool - it's awesome that people are interested in popping because it's such an unknown on the island. Actually, breaking in general is pretty low key, but there are a few dedicated crews that I see out now and then. Popping is even less known, and locking almost completely non-existant (I think I've seen one person other than myself out actually doing it once). I'm trying to put together a video breaking down the glide into its most basic components. This is difficult because balance needs to be so precise with a normal glide, slowing it down requires even more effort.

However, that makes for a great goal to work towards, so that'll be what I'm doing in the next few weeks, as far as dancing is concerned. I'll post videos in a weeks time showing my progress as I try and break things down. Exciting!

Latest video of glides can be found here.

Woot, it's easter weekend. I've just loaded up on Turkey and while that sweet sweet tryptophan runs through my system, I'm writing out words waiting for Bay and her family to return from church (I'm not religious so I don't head out with them to church for these holidays except at Midnight Mass before Christmas).

I did some drills with Jesse this morning and they sucked. My drives were coming out loose, my lobs were either hitting the ceiling or at head height (prime real-estate for your opponent to call a stroke against you or drive the ball directly into your frontal lobe, cutting off most of your ability to use reason and logic), and my drops have suddenly picked up some weird kind of wrist flicky thing I need to correct.

Huzzah! Whenever I find myself at this point, I try and remind myself that it's not really all that bad. I use the word whenever because I've been here many times before. Squash (and every other thing that I work to improve at) progresses in a series of peaks and troughs. I practice new things, and then spend a lot of time trying to get them to work right. Eventually the effort pays off and my body has learned how to execute naturally what I've been practicing pragmatically. Once this happens, I see a quick improvement in my game. Everything is working so smoothly! Sooner or later though, my opponents start to see their own improvements, I start to get used to the positive changes in my game, and I start to notice the other parts of my game that are lacking. Back into the trough.

Being in a trough sucks, but the part where I can't stop sucking at drills isn't really a negative thing. I think that if I'm out there on the court doing drills when nothing is working, it's a sign that I've got dedication, and is really one of the times I need to be on the court the most. Frustrating as it is, I find that the best way to come out of a trough is to just keep practicing through it.

If things haven't improved in a few weeks time, I take a step back, take a few days off and relax. I might watch a squash match at home while relaxing and seeing what the pros are doing that I'm not (everything, as it turns out), and re-visualize to myself how it is that I want to play.

Ultimately it comes down to a battle with myself. Having the dedication to keep practicing, even when nothing is working, and being willing to take a step back if it's necessary. Both of these things sound like they're at odds with each other, since one advocates pushing through things when the going is tough, and the other suggests taking time off when the going is tough, but I think that for anyone that really wants to excel in what they do (this very much applies to my progression as a dancer as well as a squash player) needs to know when they should push through, and when they should take some time off, and have the discipline to do each of these things when it's time.

Jesse and I were working on straight lobs today because this is a definitively weak part of my game, especially on my backhand. The motion to lob on the backhand side feels so foreign, using very little arm and mostly wrist. It's tough to train yourself to stick with it, and even tougher to get it working such that the ball is getting close enough to the ceiling to give you time to clear out of the way. What does that mean for the Pac Rim? I probably won't be lobbing much from my backhand side.

On a more positive note, Dan helped me correct a major problem I was having on my forehand boasts. I've known for some time that the idea is to hit the ball later, when your racquet is further back in the swing. This means your racquet makes contact with the ball when it is at an angle to the wall, hits the ball diagonally INTO the wall, and then the ball sails beautifully to the front corner and nicks out. I've known this. For some time. But for some reason, I've been hitting the ball at the same place I would with a regular drive, and trying to force the angle of the racquet. This has caused all sorts of weird unnatural swings on my part, and has left me wondering why the swing doesn't feel natural. Now I know. And so that's the other thing I'll be practicing over the next few weeks.

Backhand lobs, forehand boasts. Rinse, repeat. I think the family is just about back from churching, so that's it from me.

Another tournament down. We're burning through these things. I wish the squash season lasted longer than it does - getting together with everyone, playing squash, and hanging out is such a blast, and even though Sunday is a day that revolves around serious recovery, it's totally worth it.

This weekend was our club champs. I guess other clubs in the city have the same kind of dealie - only members of the club can play in the tournament so it was all familiar faces. This was the second B draw tournament for me, and as I said before, the idea was to play relaxed and just use this as an opportunity to play people better than me and try hard to keep in the game.

Nikki spanked me, hard. I mean, okay, I knew that was probably going to happen, but did she have to laugh the whole time she was doing it and then make fun of my haircut? She didn't actually do anything like that, but pretending that she did makes for a better story and might garner me more sympathy. People were being really supportive and saying I played well, which was nice, but it felt like I was the one doing all the running. Good thing I'm young and pretty fast. I think I should be able to compete with her in a reasonable amount of time if I keep training the way I have been.

So that meant I was in the consolation draw, which means I play everyone else that had lost some matches. The second game I played was on Friday against Tim. Tim's a great guy and had already played one match that night and lost to Steve Montgomery. I figured the least I could do was offer to match him beer for beer, and we figured that since our game wasn't scheduled until 10pm (and actually would end up being even later than that), we would probably miss out on the frosty beer in the keg unless we did this.

We got on at 10:45 and had each had three beers at this point, and walked on with full cups. After five games and four beers, I was declared the winner at 11:45. Yikes.

I played Zupanc at 10:40 the next morning after going out to the bar with Bevan. I wasn't feeling as bad as I figured I might have after having played until 11:45 and then gone out dancing for another two hours, so that was good. Zupanc was talking trash all the way up to the game, but sang a different tune when I beat him 3-1. That punk told me that he let me win so that he wouldn't have to referee, but the joke was on him because I let him let me win.

Bevan and I played each other again in the finals for the consolation. He took the first game from me 10-8, and the second game went 10-9 for me. Close matches. I switched the pace to a much slower game in the third and took it from Bevan 9-3, so I was feeling great, but I just couldn't close the deal and he came back to win the last two games for the victory. We played a really good game, and I can't complain about the loss - Like I said before, Bevan and I go back and forth - I'll take a match off of him when it counts sooner or later. Would have been nice to make this the one, but he fought hard for it.

On another positive note, Bevan got awarded the most improved player of the year award - that's pretty wicked. Of course, I wouldn't have complained if it had been awarded to me, but Bevan's been putting in a lot of effort and definitely earned it. Plus, as his training partner, I can quietly feel partly responsible for that.

We went out to Legends afterwards for the banquet, but Bay and I had to call it quits at midnight - that place is just way too much for me to handle once they open the gates and let the freakshow in. At one point a sailor came up and asked me where the best place to get laid in town was. Rather than answering "Johnson St. Bridge", I half-jokingly suggested the Boom Boom Room (what do I know?) - turns out that they're banned from going to Boom Boom Room and Diego's. Weird. It must have been a sad day when the Boom Boom Room had it's doors closed permanently to sailors around the world.

I don't really have anything in particular that I'm working towards right now - During tournaments it's generally better to focus on playing the game that you do have at your disposal as best as possible and ignoring (or better yet, avoiding) the shots that you don't have down well. After the Pac Rim, I'm sure I'll have a lot of things to work on and will be putting those up here. Apparently some people are using that to try and figure out how to best destroy me on court. That suits me fine - the more chance I get to practice the things that I suck at, the better I get at them.

So that's that - the rest of Sunday is going to be a lazy day spent sitting around doing income tax. Huzzah! Tomorrow is the final for Division 3 league, with Bevan and I playing spots one and two (we've been alternating). I'm playing Ken Moselle tomorrow and expect to win that match. He's been trying to gain some kind of psychological leverage against me by repeatedly telling me why he'll beat me. I guess that's fine, but I would rather not have to listen to it. We'll see how things go down tomorrow.

Oh yeah, more training too - I've been thinking about how to keep things on the path to improvement, and as soon as my company moves (we're moving from the fourth and fifth floor down to the third floor), I'm going to start jogging three times a week on my lunch break. Waiting until we've moved might seem like a weird idea, but it's mostly because our new floor will also include a shower, which is essential to avoid ponging the people that I work with. There's nothing worse than trying to complete a challenging task on time while the person that sits beside you is ponging you. I don't want to be that guy.

I'm not fully sure yet how I'm going to keep track of my progress. I know some people might think it's stupid to worry about something like that, but I'm definitely a goal oriented person, and the best way for me to stay motivated is to be able to see my improvement in a tangible manner. My main goal in doing this is to be able to play a hard five games twice in one day (tournament stylee) without gassing and starting to hit lazy winners when I shouldn't be. Playing against Bevan in the Courtney tournament showed me that even though I consider myself fairly fit, I still have lots of room for improvement, and I'd really like to be able to keep up a fast pace and apply continuous pressure to my opponent while being able to handle anything they throw out myself.

Hmm, weird, tournament season is drawing towards an end in the squash circuit. I hate that - tournaments are pretty fun, a good way to improve, and a chance to hang out with everyone that you get to know throughout the year playing squash.

Bevan and I have both made some big strides this past year. Our goal to become B level players at the end of last summer was in retrospect highly optimistic - I remember reading somewhere that you should expect to put between 500-1000 hours on the court before you're ready to move up a level. I guess we just assumed that we'd be able to act as an exception to that rule.

This time I think I'm going to go over what my goals were around this time last year and see how far along I've progressed, and whether or not I've still got some dangling things to fix up. The idea here is that I get more motivated because I see that I've fixed a bunch of things. The more likely option is that I realize I still need to work on everything and that nothing is ever good enough in squash and that I should just take up shuffleboard. I like those sticks they get in shuffleboard, and I hear you can play it a lot on cruise ships.

• Boasts

My boasts suck ass. For those that don't know, and somehow still care, a boast is a shot that hits at least two walls before bouncing. Typically you hit the ball hard off the side wall, and it then hits the front wall, dying in the front corner. All of my boasts usually end up above the service line. A good boast should hit low on the front wall to pressure the opponent - although you don't want to use a defensive boast unless you have no other option (usually), you should at least be getting it as low as possible so that the opponent doesn't have a lot of options for their return.

Wow, no change here at all. I guess that's fair though - I've had it drilled into my head that this is one of the weaker shots to play. I think the key to the boast is that you use it sparingly to chagne up the pace and move your opponent around the court. The key to winning C level squash, at least in my experience, has been to keep your opponent in the back of the court. You can hit winners, sure, and go for drop shots now and then, but if you keep driving the ball hard to the back corners, you're eventually going to either force an error on your opponent, or hit the ball clean enough that they won't be able to get to it in time for a return. Given that, I have a tendency to neglect practicing boasts in favour of the shots I use more often - drives (of course), drop shots (the obvious winner shot), and lobs (my favorite shots, and most difficult for me to get down properly).

So, back to practicing boasts again. I was working on volley boasts with Dan the other daym, and goddamn I suck ass. And not suck like "go suck an egg". Suck like that thing they jam in your mouth to suck out your tonsils for you when you go to the dentist (does anyone think this is really necessary? Does that thing have a setting lower than "harvest internal organs"?). It's all part of the fun of becoming a more rounded player.

I have a semi deceptive backhand boast that I can pull out now and then when around mid-court and my opponent is expecting a drive. I'd at least like to be able to make this shot on the forehand side too. If there was one thing in particular I noticed when watching Kevin and Dan play on the weekend, it was their effective use of this shot - it wasn't used gratuitously, but every time it was played, the other guy looked like he was really put under pressure to get to it and make a clean return.




• Back court lobs

Nate and I spent a bunch of time tonight doing this specific drill. Although I feel pretty good about my length for standard drives, I'm not happy with my lobs from the back court. I talk about this shot all the time, but I have so much more room to improve in it. When I make these shots, I'm putting too much power into them, and that means that they're coming off the backwall - this makes a big difference to the quality of the shot, and I'm never going to graduate from being the chaser to the person sitting on the T if I can't master this shot.

Hey, that's not bad, I've done a lot of work on this shot over the past year, and used it to get myself out of trouble more than a few times. I still never seem to pull this shot out when I most need it though - under pressure. I think I might need to follow some of my older advice and play some games where I limit myself to two shots - drop shots and lobs, and just practice hitting a clean lob from the back of the court when under pressure.

One variation on this shot that I've been using lately, and found quite helpful has been a crosscourt lob from deep in the back corner. I've done a few drills with my friend Jesse on this shot, and have noticed that it's a great way to subtlely put the opponent under pressure, especially if they're starting to cheat over anticipating a hard drive down the rail. So there's one thing I'm not too worried about working on, at least, not for a little while yet.

• Drop shots and volleys

I'm also spending a lot of time working on drop shots and volleys - I need more practice with volleys, to try and get better accuracy and to better be able to make dying shots that don't rebound off the back wall when volleying to pressure the opponent.

I've put so much time and effort into drop shots over the past few months that I'm sick of them. The biggest hurdle I've had to overcome in the past two months has been this weird crazy forehand drop shot thing I do where I randomly decide to turn my racquet nearly sideways, and presumably do the world's greatest rimjob shot. Then, if everything goes according to play, the ball goes straight into the tin, and I call myself a dillhole.

Ben made a comment on one of my previous entries suggesting that I apply the same notion to squash that I do with dancing, and stand in front of a mirror. I was one step ahead of him on this one, and after a particularly grueling lesson with Stu and Jarryd dissecting Bevan and I's games, I got Stu to show me what the shot should look like in the mirror, and then practiced it for several hours each night for the rest of the week. I looked stupid, and my arm was sore for a while, but I think it's helped. I can keep my wrist a lot stiffer through the shot now, and I get to call myself dillhole slightly less often, which is something I'm obviously very stoked about.

Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. There are a other things I'm currently working towards:

• Cross-court drops

This is a shot that isn't really worth practicing until having moved up higher in rankings than C. In the C level, if you're drop shots are marginally low and above the tin (don't laugh, this only happens 50% of the time), you're probably going to get the point. B division players are watching the ball more, keeping the ball in the back more often, playing longer rallies, and able to get to more shots (or so it seems to me).

The consequence of this is that deception begins to play a larger role. Although I'd like it, I'm not trying to move towards weird Jonathan Power shots where he deliberately misses his first drive shot so he can do some wacky drop off the backwall. I just want to have more than one option when I'm given a loose ball up at the front. I find this shot particularly challenging, because I've spent so much time keeping my wrist cocked and stiff on a drop shot that breaking the wrist to come across court on a shot throws everything off. Practice, practice...

• Court movement

Everytime I have a lesson with Dan, we warm up with me hitting the ball deep into one of the two back corners. I say we warm up, but he never looks like he's sweating very much. What a prick. Anyhow, the one thing I notice more than anything is that everytime he hits a good boast into the forehand corner, I run straight for the ball, head first, like a moth to a flame. Not even a smart moth that would take a good path either, but a retarded moth that all the other moths hate because he's awkward and not very good at flying towards flames.

So. These are my court movement rules:

1. Don't run in a diagonal line straight towards the corner when someone boasts.

Run from the T, towards the front wall, then square my shoulders to the side wall so that I can hit a wide variety of shots and make a clean return (and most importantly, not get a stroke called against me).

2. Clear properly after a forehand drop!

Why is this causing me so much trouble? I have no idea. But it's something to keep in the back of my mind. Dan takes great pleasure in pointing it out every time I screw it up, so I've been secretly installing viruses on his computer when he's not looking. I'd say we're about even. Anyhow, move in for the shot in the manner described above, then move out in the same direction - back towards the center of the court, and then back towards the T. Noone likes losing points to strokes.

Okay, so, that's everything I'm going to be working on in the next few weeks. I think I'm going to see when the next reffing tutorial that Gerry will be putting on is, and make sure that I set aside time for that. You can get away with making a few mistakes when reffing lower level games, but as you move up, you start to expect a higher level of reffing yourself, and in doing so, it's only fair to provide that same level to other players that you referee.

My first game in the club champs is against Nikki, who should be able to defeat me soundly. That means that goal is to play a relaxed game of squash, and take one game of squash off of her. No worries about winning, and don't think too much about pressure.

On a positive note, the feedback about squash journals has been really good motivation, and gotten me back in the writing mood. Part of the trouble is that sitting down and firing off a good size bit of writing is time-consuming. With squash, working out, making dinner, practicing dancing, tending the girlfriend (I don't really tend her, it's more like she puts up with me), and playing video games, I don't really find a lot of spare time floating around. I think I can make it work though.

One of the things I wanted the most when I started out was anecdotes and stories of other players like me that were trying to make it up through the ranks - it can be discouraging getting shown the thirty billion things you're doing wrong during your first lesson and trying to improve on them.

On another vein I'm apparently getting pretty infamous for "doing the robot". Stupid internet. I keep practicing whenever I have a chance, and make videos of the practice sessions so I can watch them and learn from what I'm doing good/bad. A few people asked for some basic isolations and moves that they could do, so I'm going to put together a few videos, when I have the time, and show a few simple moves, like a basic twist-o-flex, and the theory behind a glide.

That's all from now! Good luck to everyone playing in their respective club champs tournaments!

What a wild weekend. My friends and I headed up to Courtney this weekend for a squash tournament. It was the first B draw I've entered since winning the city championships two weeks ago and moving from C division to B division. Harder games, longer rallies, more tiring, etc. etc.

I wasn't too nervous about the tournament - being seeded to win a tournament means you have a lot of pressure on you to play well and to win your games. The city championships were very intense for me and a lot of my friends expected me to win it. In general we do everything better when we're relaxed, and pressure has a tendency to bump you in the opposite direction. I was pretty anxious the whole way through. As I said, this was the first tournament that I was playing in division B, so I didn't really have any expectations on myself to win and would have been content to just play good squash and take a few games off of the people that I played.

The car ride up started fine, but went sideways pretty quickly. Bevan, Dan, Sarah and myself were being goofs and having fun when the car sputtered just above the Cobble Hill turn off. I wondered out loud how you can stall an automatic, just before the car did exactly that and died completely. Hmm. That sucks. Dan and I got out and pushed the car over to the side of the road, and Bevan got his cellphone and called BCAA.

BCAA came and picked us up, and I mentioned to Bevan that there was no way that we'd all be able to fit in the tow truck. He casually waved that off and said that there'd be no problem getting us all in there. The driver walked up to us and said "Okay, I can only take two people, who will it be". I wish Bevan had been right. Dan and I stayed behind so that Sarah didn't have to walk and because Bevan needed to be there for the car.

We were about 10 kilometers from Duncan where Bevan had the car towed to. We weren't really sure what we would do if the car couldn't get fixed in time, but were hoping that renting a car was an option we wouldn't have to go with. Dan and I started walking and stuck our thumbs out hoping we'd get picked up before the clouds looming overhead started to dump down on us.

We ended up getting picked up by some cartoon character. If he wasn't a cartoon character, he sure as hell should star in his own show. It looked like he'd just run a stick of butter through his hair, then slicked it from the very base of his neck all the way up to the front of his forehead. We chatted with him about where we were from and then he started telling us about his high maintenance girlfriend in Victoria that he had just dropped off. She was apparently "Blonde, six feet tall, hot". Dan and I saved our skeptical glances to each other for later - after all, he was nice enough to pick us up. He dropped us off at Quizno's subs, which mostly salvaged the current situation. We ate some subs, then got in touch with Bevan. Huzzah, the car would be fixed in time, and we'd be able to make our matches.

We got up there and played our matches, and we did pretty good. Bevan and I actually made it through to the semi-finals, then both got knocked out and played each other for 3rd and 4th spot. We both know each other's game very well, and go back and forth - he wins for a month or so, then I start to win for a month or so. I have been winning recently, though he's starting to dominate again. I was hoping I'd be able to hold that off for a little while longer, but I was completely out of gas by the third game in our match, and he took the victory in four games. Still, considering that we just moved up to this division, we were feeling pretty good about things.

The other story of this trip is the most surreal. In tournaments, the winner of a squash match goes on to referee the next match. It's a good system, because it forces you to learn the rules better yourself, and (in spirit) encourages people to be better sports, since you're getting refereed by someone you know. I won my first match on Saturday, and found out that the next person playing on my court was Kevin Smith. From what I've seen of him on court, I think he's a bit of a poor sport (that's purely a subjective opinion). When I play, I try and maintain composure (it's really hard sometimes), and I don't like to take things out on the other players, and especially not the referee.

The game went pretty much how I thought it would. Kevin wasn't happy with a good chunk of my calls. He questioned many of the decisions I made, told me that I was making bad calls, missing calls, said the other player was cheating by not calling his balls down, etc. I stood firm behind my decisions, and Kevin lost the match. Afterwards I went and thanked the other player for being a good sport and being patient with me. He told me that he felt I reffed well and that some of the calls were tough but that I had nothing to worry about.

See, the thing is, I don't pretend to be a great referee. I haven't taken classes or lessons to do it. However, I give all of my concentration to reffing the match (which is not necessarily the case for everyone), and I try my best. I think that's really all someone can expect. If you want to have someone else referee your match, that's an option and you can ask for that.

After talking to Wayne (Kevin's opponent), I was talking to a few other people that had been watching. They agreed that the match was a tough one to referee. I told them that Wayne was a really good sport, but that Kevin had been a bit of a prick that match. I think Kevin overheard this - he was standing behind us. Oh well, we all vent sometimes.

We had about three hours before our next match, so we left our gear at the club (this is pretty common) and headed back to our hotel room to hang out for a bit (it was ultimate fighter weekend on Spike TV!). We passed the time and then came back with about ten minutes before we were scheduled to go on court. I went to my bag to get my shoes to put on, and lo and behold someone had gone into my bag, taken the two beers I'd had in there, poured one of the beers into my squash shoes and poured the other one on the clothes that I'd brought to wear at the banquet that night.

Make no mistake - this wasn't an accident, like the beer leaking or something like that. These were cans of beer, they were opened and deliberately poured into my shoes and onto my clothes. I took my shoes out of my bag, went to the bathroom, wiped them out with paper towels, and then put them on and played in the stinkiest, beeriest squash shoes you could possibly imagine.

I want make it clear. None of us ever saw Kevin do this. So I can't really hold him accountable for it, and I don't want to have this taken as me accusing him and especially not confirming that he did it.

That being said, I can't fathom who would do something like this. I get along with almost everybody, and the likelihood of some kid randomly opening squash bags until they find beer, then deliberately pouring that beer into the shoes of the bag and the clothes seems pretty close to nil. The idea of a 33-40 year old doing something like this seems pretty impossible too. Actually, the idea of anyone other than a pre-pubescent kid doing this seems surreal.

When I told Dan about what had happened, he mentioned to me that someone had told him that Kevin had apparently done this to someone a few years back.

So yah, that was ridiculous. Some people suggested retaliation, but I don't think that ever really solves anything. Not only that, but it's not really something you can justify retaliating against when you don't have any evidence or proof of who did it.

So, as you can see, the weekend was pretty wild. I'd still do the whole thing over though, and I wouldn't change a thing. We had a blast, we placed well in the tournament, and everyone in Courtney and Comox was really cool and friendly. We felt very welcome and had a great time. I'll be heading up again next year, provided no one pours beer into the gas tank of our car.

UPDATE (April 5): Thanks for posting guys.

I talked to Aaron Hook tonight (April 5th) about all of this, and he mentioned that he felt I wasn't fair to Kevin in this column. The more thought I've given it, the more I think he's right.

As I mentioned, we never saw anyone doing this, so if I lead suggestion towards Kevin doing this, that wasn't warranted. However, in my defense, I think that anyone in my situation would probably have reacted in a similar manner. Try playing your semi-final game in beer-soaked shoes and then stay totally objective when you look at the various things that happened throughout the day.

I just want to re-iterate the fact that none of us ever saw Kevin do this. I've talked to Aaron Hook, and he says that Kevin wouldn't do anything like this. I don't have any experience with Kevin outside of the court, so I can only take that at face value. If he didn't do this, I would feel bad if people were to assume otherwise.

This has actually blown up quite a bit more substantially than I had expected (this was originally intended just as a means to not have to describe the entire events of the weekend to people over and over again), and I've written Kevin an e-mail so that we can hopefully resolve this and put it behind us. Thanks to everyone again for reading!

UPDATE (April 6): I've talked with Kevin over e-mail, and he was very civil and understanding of the situation. I apologized for not being fair to him when I initially wrote out this entry, and he apologized for how he had acted when I was reffing him. Apologizing for something like that isn't always easy, and I appreciate it.

As far as the beery shoes go, I think it's best at this point to let it rest and chalk it up as a pretty funny (in retrospect) squash story. I'm not sure what the PSA rules are, but I'm not aware of any rule against playing in beery shoes, so next time you're watching a high level squash game, listen very carefully to see if you can hear any squelching noises. I've donated the beery shoes to Dan who is going to clean them out and sell them as rare antiques. Barring that, I understand that they'll be given to the winner of the A draw in our club champs tournament this weekend.