Tennis

"500 Swedes crawling through the weeds, fleeing from one Norwegian."

"Where do they send the dumb Norwegians? To teach in Sweden."

On Fridays I have a Tennis class which is so awesome. My teacher is around 65 years old and loves teaching Tennis. He is always stopping mid-thought to tell a joke or a story. It's funny. I also like the class because it's relaxed. He has to give us at least one test so there will be a final, but he told us we don't need a book and that we'll never do any lecturing during class. Sweet! I have a Strength Conditioning class that has a little lecture everyday as well as weekly reading assignments and tests. I don't understand either, but I think they're supposed to.

At one point this past Friday he had all of us standing in the shade against the fence as he was telling us about our next drill when he stopped mid-thought and asked me if I was Swedish. Mind you, this is a relaxed class so he doesn't take role so it wasn't because of my last name. I told him I wasn't but my husband was. At this he smiled and told me the little rhyme and joke that is above. He is Norwegian. I couldn't help laugh the whole time he was saying this.

Anyway, I just thought that I'd let you Thelins know that my Scandinavian Tennis coach thought I looked Swedish. I hope that makes you all happy...even if I'm not really.

Also on Friday, the coach, Dave, saw me helping my partner with her stance and explaining why she needed to hold her racket a certain way. When I was walking back to my side he walked with me and asked if I'd played before, which I did in high school, and then told me he may want me in his tennis 2 class. Later that day we were doing a drill where there were several of us on the court and he would throw the ball to us at random. The point was to have good form more than hit the ball into the other court. The first time he threw the ball to me it, I hit it and he said, "show off." The second time I hit it he stopped, and sent me and another guy to the last court to just rally.

At the end of the day he came up to me and told me he would like me to come to his tennis 2 class instead next week. That's when I explained that I was in tennis 1 because I needed help because my technique can be pretty shotty and inconsistent. At this point he looked over to another student standing near by and said, "this coming from the girl who didn't miss a ball today." I had to inform him that he probably wasn't looking all the times I did. Actually when he sent me to the end of the court with the other guy I missed most of the time. Anyway, I convinced him to let me stay so I could work on my technique more but he said that in a couple weeks he'll be pushing me up to tennis 2 anyway.

I'm really glad I decided to take tennis. I have really really missed it!