It's been a while since a dance related entry, so I've got a fair bit to write about. I've been going out to the bar lately, which has lead to a lot more desire to dance and work on improving. Squash is at the middle of the start of an upswing in improvement for me, but until I start to feel that more (I suspect this will really come into effect after the next tournament), my focus has been dancing first, squash second.

I've been spending a lot of time working on subtle movement, because it's easier to do when I don't want to really bust out, it still looks very cool (in my opinion), and it's a good way to start moving before I really get into the music. The key to making small subtle movements look good is moving to the beat, isolating well, not doing what is expected and being subtle. That last one is redundant and self-explanatory, but I still see a lot of people going for this kind of movement, and trying to move too much at once.

I'll go through each of these:

1. Moving to the beat

By now this shouldn't even need explaining. If you're not moving to the music, you're not dancing, and it's jarring to watch.

2. Isolating well

Isolationg means just that; Isolate the part of your body that is moving, and keep the rest stationary. This is so important. I can't speak for styles of dance that I don't study, but I know that popping and the other funk styles place heavy emphasis on isolation. To create the best effect, don't move the rest of your body - this makes the movement look more unnatural (in a good way) and this is what you want.

3. Don't do what is expected

This is the hardest of the items to explain. When popping, the part of your body that is moving is typically following a line of direction - e.g. you're moving your left hand from your chest down to your waist. You're gliding your foot across the floor. Once you finish this movement, there's a following motion that the brain expects. This makes sense - everyone (for the most part) walks the same way. Our brain's have learned to recognize this, and to make some assumptions about that movement. Good popping breaks these assumptions. If you're gliding your foot across, maybe the next best movement is rotating at your waist and moving your torso in the opposite direction. Maybe you just finished waving through your hands, up your arms, and down to your waist - rather than continuing the wave down (which is fine as well sometimes), maybe finish with a twist-o-flex - the wave down to your feet is what is expected, the twist-o-flex finish throws off the brain.

4. Keep it simple

Wow, look at that, overlap between squash and dancing. In squash you've got your bread and butter shots - the straight drive to the back corner of the court is what you learn to rely on because it's difficult for your opponent to attack when returning, and it's reliable.

Dancing is similar. I have a set of moves - flashy things that I know I can do well, and that I like to bring into the dance. But in between specific moves, I have a set of reliable, simple movements that I can keep doing and improvise with for hours. This is part of the key of popping well. Even when I'm doing specific moves, I tend to keep each individual part of the movement simple - remember: isolate well and don't worry so much about something flashy. Even just shifting your weight back and forth from foot to foot can look cool if you isolate the rest of your body when you're shifting. In fact, that's a really good thing to practice if anyone is trying to start out. Just stand in front of a mirror and shift your weight back and forth from foot to foot (to the beat of the music), keeping the rest of your body stiff.

This video here shows what I'm talking about. The movements I'm making are simple and not complicated, but I'm isolating the parts that I'm moving. Notice also that I start and stop my movements on a beat. There's no rule that you need to start and stop on every beat, but you need to start and stop on a beat. What I mean is, popping is at its best when it's not predictable. Since dancing is done to the music, the beat still dictates your movements, but for variety I'll sometimes start/stop on three beats in a row, then move through two beats, stopping and starting again on the third beat.

There is almost always a part of my body that is moving, and another part that is held stationary. Even if I'm just walking, I can enhance the effect greatly by isolating the movement to my legs and feet and keeping my torso, head and arms still.

My friend Simon suggested that I try sticking with a hulking ogre like creature, but making him polite and posh. This is working alright, so I've been working on adding things like adjusting my shirt cuffs and collar. I've got some footage of this here, but it's still very weak. Like I said, this hasn't been my main focus - this phase of practicing a new technique is more about understanding what I can do within that character, kind of like brainstorming. Once I've found some things that I like, I'll start working on refining those things into something that won't look embarassing.

I'm slowly making more gliding progress as I work on refining the motion. The best part about the renewed interest in dancing is that I've put a fair amount of time back into the fundamentals of gliding, which is giving me a much larger array of motion to work with when I want to move somewhere on the dance floor. This video shows some of that movement. I'm using heavy walks and steps, some gliding, and some waves to move around the floor. You can see the same starting movement being used for two different types of motion as well, at 21 seconds into the video, and then at 25 seconds in. Both start with my left foot passing in front of my right foot.

I've spent time practicing waves whenever I'm bored lately, or whenever I need a break at work. It's easy to practice a simple arm wave when sitting in front of the computer, so I do these regularly throughout the day to help refine the movement. I've also been working on waving consitently during movement on the floor - that means waving throughout my body while actually gliding/stepping/floating around the dance floor. This is sounds like a simple concept, but it requires a good deal of ability to get your body to do something and then forget about it. You know when you were a kid and you were told to pat your head and rub your stomach? That's what this is like, but the motions are a lot more complex. This work can be seen in this video.

Last thing I was toying around with: some puppet motion. The idea here is that I'm miming holding marionette strings attached to my knees/feet. There's a lot of things I need to work on, but for now, let's go to the dance clinic. The video is here, and now I'll cover everything that needs improving.

1. Isolation

Club that horse! Oh wait, it's dead. Watch my arms and hands in this video - a marionette artist typically keeps their arms very straight, and is generating a lot of the motion from the movement in their hands and wrists. As I'm moving around the dance floor, my arms are moving all over the place - I should be lifting my hands and arms somewhat, but they should be in synch with the movement in my legs and feet - after all, the idea is that they are connected. My right arm is especially sloppy - I'm dropping it down throughout the dancing, when it should really be staying at the same height relative to the rest of my body unless I'm moving my right leg.

2. Emphasize raising the knees

If I want to capture a marionette's movement well, I need to exagerate the movements and make them appear as wooden as possible. If I remember correctly, marionettes have strings attached to their knees, so that when the pupeteer pulls on this string, the knee comes up quite high. At some points I'm doing this reasonably well, but there's a lot of laziness here. For the best effect, I should be lifting those knees up nice and high.

3. Keep it simple for now

This video is a bit of a dancing brainstorming session, so there are some things that I'm not sure if they will work yet. At about 33 seconds into this video, I throw in some waving - I kind of like the way this looks, but I'm not sure if it's really in tune with the theme of the character walk. For now the goal is going to be to keep things simple and true to the original motion, and then later on consider adding things like this. Once the notion of unifying the motion in my arms and hands with that in my legs and feet becomes automatic, there will be a lot more room for improvisation like this anyhow.

That's about all I have for now - 5 new videos though, and a lot of new things to work on. I've had an idea for another project in the back of my mind for quite some time now, but have yet to be able to get the time together to even start on it. When I get that started I'll make a note of it in an entry.

My friends know that I'm pretty difficult to please.. Talking to me about movies and TV shows is annoying, because I know what I like, I'm very particular, and I'm not willing to tolerate poor plots, predictable humour, and cheesy actors. In short, I'm what some people call "A prick".

That's alright though, I'm comfortable with who I am. The other thing that most of my friends know about me is that humour plays an integral part in who I am, and is something I'm constantly trying to learn more about. I appreciate humour in all of its forms, from arrogant and preachy humour (South Park), to sophistocated humour (Dustin Diamond), to random humour (Danger Bay, third season). Haha! I threw in humour in that list. Huzzah.

I consider myself open-minded about how the gestalt of humour is carried out, as long as it is well done and funny. I hate things that aren't funny but act like they are. I hate things that substitute any of the following for genuine humour: Shock-value, swearing, violence, stupidity, outrageousness, nudity, pop-culture references, randomness, and a bunch of other things.

All of the items on that list can be used within genuine humour, but taking them on their own, without understanding why something is funny, and simply assuming that something will be funny just because you used the word "poo" is annoying and stupid.

It has been a while since I've seen a good chunk of quality TV shows that really made me laugh, and I thought to myself that it's hard to just find a good show - I rely mostly on recommendations. That being said, I'm going to write here about TV shows that I really like that almost slipped past my radar.

Trailer Park Boys

What is it: Trailer Park Boys (TPB) is a mockumentary about life in Sunnyvale Trailer Park in Halifax, Nova Scotia ("The best fucking trailer park in the whole goddamn world", according to Ricky, one of the shows characters). The show follows the exploits of Ricky (Incredibly stupid, great at getting out of trouble, blissfully ignorant of just about everything), Julian (Seedy and devious, the brains of the operation, has moments of redemption), Bubbles (Sharpest man in the park, has awesome glasses, the moral balance of the show) and their day to day life in the park.

Why it's funny: Stupidity done well, great actors, nearly unbearable to watch.

1. Stupidity done well

I dismissed this show at first. See, stupidity done well is really funny. However, accomplishing this is a real rarity. There's already too much unintentional stupidity on TV already. If you don't believe me, turn on your TV at any time during the day, and change the channel to UPN. Did you do it? Good, you just lost the ability to do math. That's how powerful the wave of stupidity is that beams out of your TV from UPN. I saw that TPB made stupidity a central theme of the show's comedy, and avoided it.

Good stupidity has to be believable and outrageous, at the same time. It is both totally predictable and totally unpredictable, and when it's captured properly, it's almost too much to watch. This is written perfectly in the show.

2. Great actors

You know what I hate? When the description for a character on a show falls into something like this:

"Ricky is the perfect mental case. An idiot that is both blissfully ignorant of his shortcomings and mildly aware of them at the same time, his crazy schemes are always getting him into trouble"

Crazy schemes? Nooooo! Crazy schemes are horrible right? They're easy to see coming, they're unbelievable, they're annoying. Well, that's a pretty good description of Ricky, one of the three main characters on the show. And he's hilarious. This is partially due to the strength of the writing, but also by how believable the actor playing Ricky is. I'm actually told by my friend Dave that Ricky and Julian are real life trailer park people, but I haven't been able to confirm this, other than the fact that the actors are never seen in public out of character.

3. Nearly unbearable to watch

I like shows that are hard to watch. It's almost like a challenge in my brain between suffering through the disgust and appreciating it for what it is. TPB is constantly walking the line between unbearable and hilarious, and it's like the constant feeling of freefall. Again, thanks to the writing and the actors, things never break into the realm of pure disbelief - it's just pulled off too well.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

What is it: Curb Your Enthusiasm (CYE) is a show about Larry David's life after making Seinfeld. He's now a multimillionaire, but his outlook on life and attitude haven't changed a fraction, and he treats people and expects to be treated exactly the same as before he made his wealth.

Why it's funny: Larry David, the casting, no scripted dialogue

1. Larry David

Another personal hero of mine - Larry David understands and articulate comedy better than anyone else I've seen talk about it. I appreciate Jerry Seinfeld very much, but it's Larry David's edge that I think made Seinfeld a truly great show (plus a lot of other things that I'll talk about some other time). Larry David plays a charicature of himself on the show, and is incredibly believable. He's someone that tries to have an open mind, but will snap it shut as soon as things start to get difficult, or he passes judgement.

Most of Larry's problems seem to be a direct result of his own interpretation of the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself, except when it's difficult or you're irritated with them". Jason Alexader's Seinfeld character George, (who was based on Larry David in real life) is vividly apparent in many of the Larry's actions, and equally as difficult to watch at times.

2. The casting

So, by now we know how important I think believability is for humour. The easier it is for me to believe in something, the easier it is for me to buy into it, and the funnier it is when it's a ridiculous situation. Anyone can come up with a ridiculous situation like "Two rappers in outer space flying around". Making it believable is the hard part.

A good deal of humour comes from the casting of a show. You want actors that are believable in their roles (A good example of how to completely rape this rule is to look at the casting done for Scooby Doo (Now with 4 different varieties of Freddy Prinze Jr!)), and you need them to be able to pull off the timing and lines that are written for them. There's a two way relationship between the actors and the writers - the writers have to understand the actor and the character as a pair, and write lines for them that meet in the middle of this divide. The actors have to understand the writer has written and see why it's funny - if they're not good at this, their timing will be off, and what may have been hilarious on paper will be dead air on the show.

CYE has a bit of an exception to this rule, due to the fact that no dialogue in it is scripted (which we'll get into in a sec), but the casting is still spot on, and the actors do an incredible job with their dialogue. Since that is all improvised, casting the right people for the right roles is even more important.

3. No scripted dialogue

People always ask how a show could even exist without a script. CYE has a script, it just doesn't contain dialogue. There's a general idea of what points need to be coneyed in each scene, as well as what needs to get done, but that's it. All of the dialogue is improvised by the cast.

This in itself has an intrinsic value to me, just because I really appreciate that kind of talent and ability. Beyond that though, the need for translating a writer's words into something funny on the show is removed - the actors (who are all hired because they are very talented, funny people) understand what funny is, and are free to directly make use of that talent.

Unscripted dialogue has a tendency to lend a much more realistic feel to a show as well. The reaction you get from an actor to a given line that they have studied and are anticipating is much different than the one you get from a line that was just improvised. Chuckles and laughs break out of the mouths of the actors, and this makes the dialogue feel much more believable (which makes sense, since it's a far closer model of how we all have conversations).

Mr. Show.

What is it: Mr. Show is the sketch comedy written by David Cross and Bob Odenkirk (a long with a few other people I think). David Cross is a personal hero of mine - he's very intelligent, he does his own thing, he's very funny, and he's willing to speak his opinion.

Why it's funny:

1. Very good timing

When I was a kid, I always read about comedians, and what the elements were to comedy that make something funny. Timing was always mentioned, but I never fully understood what this meant. Shows like Mr. Show have taught me what this is. Timing is a critical component of being funny. Waiting an extra three seconds can be the difference between really good laughs, or a dead joke floating in the water.

Mr. Show's timing is impeccable - unlike every other sketch comedy show I've ever seen (seriously, not once have I seen a show emerge unscathed from this), none of the skits in Mr. Show go too long. Saturday Night Live is notorious for this - you've gotten the joke, you see where it's going, there's nothing more to do, except that SNL lets the skit run on for another three minutes. Oh, I get it, now they're still trapped on a deserted island, and they're still going crazy, you're just showing me more of that. Haha!.

For the best and most clear example of timing I've seen, watch David Cross on Arrested Development. In the pilot episode, there's a scene of dialog between him and Jason Bateman where Jason says something to David along the lines of "Maybe you can go as a pirate" (jokingly), to which David pauses and finally replies with "I hadn't packed for that". The timing on this is perfect - David Cross is a pro!

2. Excellent writing

This kind of pairs with the previous item, though timing relies a lot on the delivery of the actors, whereas writing is done statically before the show. Regardless, Mr. Show had a great writing staff. Every episode meanders in ways that are completely unexpected, and it's a constant surprise seeing which direction they are taking it. The best example I can think of is a sketch where the Dalai Lhama and his monks have to defeat the Fat Kid camp from across the lake in the 51st summer olympiad. The events? A two man baloon race (1 point for the victor), a bike race (1 point for the victor) and the freestyle rap-off (100 points to the victor). Booyah! You can't go wrong with a setup like that. Then to top it off, the fat kid's have hired a ringer to enter for them named "Professor Murder".

If you need more than this to convince you that you should watch this show, you won't like it, or you won't get it, or both - it's not worth watching if the above situation doesn't sound funny to you.

3. Very fluid

Mr. Show use transitions from one skit to the next, and does it seamlessly. The result is a much smoother show, and lets you stay absorbed in the show and its humour. When you break a scene, you give the viewer time to think about what they just watched and that removes them from the mindset of humour (remember, disecting humour makes it less funny).

The greatest show of all time, Arrested Development is not on here, along with a few other favorites, but these bad boys take a while to write, so they'll be included in a later update.

I put together a bunch of dance footage of things I've been toying around with last night, and will be writing about that as soon as I finish editing the clips and writing the entry. Things I'm covering this time are subtle movements, progress on my gliding, a few other things I'm working on, and a breakdown and critique of a new marionette walk I'm working on - should be pretty good.

So, last night, Jarryd gave a lesson to Bevan and I. And now my ass is sore.

Maybe I'll elaborate on that. Here's the deal Jarryd put forth - He gives me a free lesson, and I write about it on here. Pretty sweet deal for me - Jarryd's a great player and I'm not. And I write entries on the ol' website pretty frequently these days anyhow, so it's no big deal on my part.

We started off doing some warm up drills - Bevan and I both stand on the tee and take turns hitting whatever Jarryd feeds us with. I think I remember hitting one shot that Jarryd told me was "good", and that was about it. In all fairness, I was hitting pretty weak.

Jarryd asked us what we wanted to work on, and my first inclination was immediately drop shots. This is basically a constant thorn in my side - I think it's because drop shots are a much more precise shot than the rest of the shots in squash, and so it seems that much more obvious when I mess them up. If you're smashing a drive to the back wall, as long as it doesn't come off the back wall on the full, you can feel reasonably alright with it. Drop shots just seem to have so much more room for error.

I talked to Dan ther other night and he noticed that I lack a lot of confidence in my drop shots too, which is another problem. This also stems from trying to hit drop shots that are too low. Every single article you'll find out there says "Don't aim for the most perfect drop shot a millimeter above the tin - Aim for a drop shot that you know you can hit". This is so true - you're much better off hitting a drop shot that will put your opponent under pressure and definitely stay in than to risk hitting th tin and giving your opponent the rally immediately.

Thinking like this, I'm reminded that squash, once you're playing high level, is really a game that you need to think of in both the short-term and the long-term. Short term you need to get yourself to the ball and return it, tight. Long-term, you need to sometimes take the time to think that you're not trying to hit winners - you're just trying to continually apply pressure to your opponent until they can no longer make it to the ball. I try to remind myself of this everytime I make an attacking shot when I'm out of position, but it's really difficult!

Anyhow, I'm not a big fan of answering the question "What do you want to work on?" - Stu, Dan, and Jarryd are a lot better than I am, and are probably much more aware of the major weaknesses in my game. If they have an idea that they think would help my game, then that's what I want to work on. Some people prefer to work with the shots that they're good with, which makes sense, because it's a lot more fun. This is true, but the best thing to practice is usually the thing that you like the least. Jarryd suggested that we work on court movement - that's good, because I've done a bunch of this with Dan, and am well aware that it's a major weak point in my game.

We started out doing drills that we'd done before during pain and torture with Stu. Jarryd stands at the front of the court and points to one of six spots on the court - the four corners, and the two spots directly to the left and right of the tee against the wall (where you would volley a weak drive). Like I said, we'd done this drill a bunch during pain and torture, so why did I suck so much at it? The answer is pretty obvious I guess: I haven't really spent any time independantly training court movement since last summer.

Dan works with me on this kind of thing a lot - he boasts the ball to one of the two front corners, and I work on approaching the ball by moving forward first, then out to the side wall, giving myself lots of space to make my shot, which in turn gives me the best number of options for which shot to make. This is really tricky - I have this really bad habit of running head first straight towards the corner. I swear, I'm like a dog chasing a scent - I put my head down and charge straight for the ball. This would be good if I was a mountain goat, but there's a definite dearth of mountain goats playing squash.

So, we kept at it for a while, and Jarryd suggested that we come in ten minutes or so earlier than our games, and just work on doing these movement drills slowly. So...

1. Spend some time working on movement

I know that this is important, but I have a hard time getting into it. It's really difficult to motivate yourself to come down to the club by yourself and run back and forth on the court for 45 minutes. But, coming down ten minutes before your game and getting some movement drills in is a really good idea, and requires much less motivation. It's a little difficult to get on court before game-time right now, just because there are still a lot of people playing squash, but pretty soon it will be summer, and I'll have the courts all to myself.

Next up we took turns moving past each other on the tee, ghosting to various corners in the court and moving past each other. I felt a little better moving to the back of the court than I did the front, but it's all good practice - this is definitely the aspect of my game that is the most neglected.

2. Don't watch the other player

Okay, so, if they're about to hit the ball, then you should obviously be watching them. However, if you've dropped the ball to the front corner, and you're moving back to the tee as your opponent moves in to get the ball, your eyes should be on the ball. There's no doubt a bit of leighway here, but the main goal of this drill is to focus on the ball and keep your shoulders positioned so that its easy to get to any shot that your opponent makes. That leads to a tangent I need to work on, which is:

3. Don't commit to a shot early

Sometimes you can get away with making a small assumption about where your opponent is going to hit the ball - if you make a really tight drive deep to the back-corner, odds are that you're going to see a weak boast. Even making this assumption can be dangerous, because a good player will always have multiple shots at their disposal. I have a nasty habit of turning my shoulders and waiting to cut off a crosscourt everytime I see Bevan with the ball deep on his backhand. He's gotten wise to this, and just hits a straight drive, leaving me under a lot of pressure to turn my shoulders back around and make it to the back deep.

The solution to this is really just mental discipline. Everytime I don't make it to a shot, I need to take time to ask myself why I missed that shot. Is it because my opponent just kept up the pressure and I wasn't able to get back in the rally? That's one thing, but what about if I was standing on the tee? They say that a good squash player should be able to make it to any shot on the court if they're ready waiting on the tee. I'm not a great squash player, but I aspire to be, so that's definitely something for me to keep in mind.

So all in all, a good lesson. Getting lessons from Stu, Dan and Jarryd is really great, because I have three different perspectives on everything that I'm doing wrong. The chance to work on court movement exclusive of hitting the ball really made it apparent how I need to work on this aspect of my game.

If you have something that you can use as leverage against Jarryd, I'd strongly recommend doing it and forcing him into giving you a lesson.

Oh yah, one last thing I'm currently working towards - better back-hand lobs.

I really like high soft shots, and changing the pace is fun, and really effective when done at the right time. However, my backhand lob from the back of the court is always too low. If I'm under pressure, I need to be able to hit a soft high shot that will return deep and give me time to return to the tee. Dan and I worked on this shot for a while, and he mentioned that my technique was right, I just need to spend more time practicing the shot itself and getting it up on the wall higher.

4. Backhand lobs

Last item to work on then is getting this shot up higher. This means getting down low and underneath the ball, choking up high on the racquet, and getting my back foot deep into the back of the court. The farther back in the court you are, the more flick you're going to need to get the ball up on the front wall.

I feel a lot more confident with this shot on my forehand, and I think part of what I'm doing wrong is approaching the shot like a normal drive - putting very little wrist into it, and a lot of lateral motion (swinging through with the racquet generating momentum with my hips and shoulders). EVerytime I make this shot and it gets volleyed into the front corner, I need to stop and ask myself if I used the right motion - did I choke up on the racquet? How was the wrist action? Positioning correct?

Okay, that's it for now. Haven't had much time lately, as work has been very busy, and I'm preparing for a trip out to Prince George to meet with some clients for the project that I am working on. I hope to get a chance to do some dance practice when I'm there, as I can't imagine there will be too much else to do - I'll bring the camera, batteries, and cords to hook it up to the TV, and hopefully have some new footage of further practice on the two techniques I'm currently working on.

Final update tonight before I head to bed. My friend Cedar mentioned the other night that he had some old school videos I'd sent him about 6 years back when I first started to run Shaddup and Dance. No time for anything but posting the videos tonight, but I'll flesh this out later on tomorrow with some details and explanation of what's going on in the videos tomorrow.

Alright, the weekend is at an end, and I've got a few minutes to sit down and type out some words. As I said, my friend Cedar had mentioned tha the had some old school videos of me dancing, and sent them to me. It's kind of hard to watch these sometimes, just because of my progression and the direction I've taken. Most of these videos focus on house stepping, and show my own philosophy of mixing styles together into what ends up hopefully looking like my own unique style.

These videos were originally made for a website I ran six years ago called Shaddup and Dance. My friend and I put it together as a resource for people to come and get started dancing. As such, most of these clips show fairly basic moves down to slower tempo music.

This first video shows an example of using drops within the structure of house stepping. Dancing looks best when its done to make use of as many dimensions as possible - drops are a good way to move dancing beyond just front-back/side-side motion and include up-down. Video here.

Next up is a video I made to show a sample of bridging the gap from one dance style to another. This starts off with house stepping, and switches part way through into waving, then moving back to house stepping. The transitions aren't as seamless as I'd like to see, but the idea is there, and it's a decent example of the fact that dancing doesn't mean you have to limit yourself to one particular style. House to waving transition video is here.

This last video isn't really anything other than me just dancing. The title says something about "Maneuvering and Freestyle", but I don't really know what that means. Also, the music cuts out halfway through the video, so I'm left dancing like a moron to no beat. Me looking moronic can be seen here.

So what's changed since then?

There are a few things I notice immediately when I watch these videos - I like the transitions and general choreography of what I'm doing, but the isolations on the waves are still have a lot of room for improvement. The waves don't look bad, but I'm missing good movement on my elbow, and multiple parts of my arm are moving through the wave at once, when ideally it would be just one section of my arm moving at a given time.

I can see the basics of gliding in the house to waving transition video. This is actually a good introduction to the concepts of gliding. At about ten seconds into the video, if you watch my feet, you can see me starting to try and add the fundamentals of gliding into what I'm doing - although the amount of motion involved is very , you can still see that my weight is on the raised foot, and the foot flat on the ground is the one in motion. For a good glide, the break between one foot moving and the next should be as minimal as possible, and barely noticeable. That's clearly not the case in this video, and that's because I had just started to work on the basic technique of "raised-foot stays still, flat foot moves", and hadn't yet put any time into practicing the transfer of weight and motion.

Alright, that's the end of the trip down memory lane. Tomorrow I have a lesson with Jarryd and Bevan, so stay tuned for the details there. I'm sure they'll be good ones, because the last time I played doubles with Jarryd, Dan, and Bevan, I smoked Jarryd in the eye with the squash ball (yikes!). Fortunately we always wear glasses when we play doubles (and from now on, probably when I'm playing single matches too), and so I actually hit him in the best place possible - where he's fully protected. If you want to look at it honestly, I basically knew that he was going to get in the way of my brilliant shot, and so aimed the ball to hit him in a manner that would minimize any injury he sustained. I'm a hero!

I had my second lesson of the week today with Stuart. Jarryd hung out and played with us, so most of the game was spent doing conditioning games - playing to specific parts of the court in a normal game setting.

These kind of games are good, because they force you to think about specific shots in the context of a regular game. When you're doing regular drills, you aren't necessarily under pressure, and you're fully aware of the next shot. Playing conditional games forces you to continue guessing, but use a limited set of your shots. It's a good way to force yourself into thinking either Attack (should happen less often) or Defense (should be hit most of the time).

Jarryd is great to have around, just because he's got a third perspective (Stu and Dan both give me lessons) and has a point of view similar to Dan's. By that I mean that Dan and Jarryd have both come up through the ranks recently like I have, whereas Stu has been coaching for a looooong time. That doesn't mean I prefer either of them to Stu, or vice versa - just that it's sometimes helpful to have multiple perspectives on how to improve and what to work on.

The moral of the lesson that I picked up was to be way more smegging patient. Attack. Attack! Attack!! Why? I don't know. But I'm doing it. I receive the serve, and I attack it with a weak volley boast, perfectly setting my opponent up for about thirty-eight different shots (normally there are only five-ish shots in squash, but when I volley-boast, there are an additional thirty-three shots. Don't dispute me). So..

1. Be Patient

This is the single biggest benefit of playing people like Erik. Good tight shots literally force me to play a patient game. I'm a guy with a lot of energy - that's reflected in my dancing and the way I carry myself. I'm quick to jump into things, and need to be kept busy. However, in squash, you don't always get to decide what happens. If your opponent keeps playing tight shots, you need to respond with tight shots. Be patient, and wait for the opportunities to attack. This is also a benefit of playing people like Dan and Jarryd, but unfortunately, I'm less likely to play as I would in a standard game against these guys, because I'm well aware that they could be smoking me if they really wanted to. There's not much I can do about that, other than just try and get over it.

2. Play smart and simple

This is really a stupid thing to write, right? Well, maybe, but if that's the case, why do I keep playing stupid? Because I approach the ball and forget about everything I've been taught. This is attributable to a ton of different things, but it's ultimately just a matter of training and focus. It's important to approach the game in general with a game plan. That plan generally is summed up in something that Stu said tonight: "Build the rally". This re-iterates the above point - be patient. You build the rally by establishing a pattern with the opponent. Play deep, and simple. Then, once an opportunity is created, you attack. Don't come out of the gate with both guns blazing. This doesn't do you any good (though it's a big help to your opponent, because you typically end up setting them up nicely for a winner).

I have a bad habit of getting a nice loose ball from an opponent, thinking about nine different shots I could make, and then hitting some magical chimera of a shot that is a combination of all nine. That shot typically ends up in the tin, or somehow hitting myself in the back of the head. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? I don't know, but neither of those options usually ends up with a point for me. The thing is, building a rally leads naturally towards avoiding this problem. If you let yourself establish a pattern, each shot should lead naturally into the next. Loose ball? Now's the time to attack. Tight shot? Now is a good time to return a shot tight along the wall. Semi loose shot, but you've established a pattern of going deep and the opponent is starting to cheat to the one side? Boast that bad boy.

So these are the things I'm going to work on. The thing I noticed most in the past two days is that my strategy currently needs a lot of work. This is something that will partially be helped just by playing a lot of games - Leading up to the tournament mania period (three tournaments in or around the end of March) gives me a tendency to do a lot of drills, and think more about my shots rather than my shot selection, and my strategy on court. When I play more people, I start to think less about how to make a specific shot, and more about which shot to take.

The best analogy I can think of is to dancing. I spend time each day training a specific move. That move exists in isolation when I'm training it. I practice it without any other context and without any other moves involved. Then, on the weekends, I go out dancing. When I'm dancing, I'm not thinking about the execution of the move I've been practicing. I think about how it fits in with the other moves that I'm using, and how it works with the music that I'm listening to.

So, to deal with these goals, I'm going to play at least twice a week for the next month or so, and continue with the lessons. My shots are improving, but, like Bevan had felt a month or so ago, I think it's time to play some games before I can really hope to start to see some improvement.

Along with that, Jarryd's going to hook Bevan and I up with a lesson on Monday, on the condition that I write about it here afterwards. So stay tuned to hear about how that goes. I'm hoping for further insight into things I'm doing wrong - Jarryd's already pointed out that my forehand drop shots are causing embarassement for squash players as far away as Naden, so that'll probably be at least one thing that'll get touched upon. Next up: Old school dance videos I just tracked down.