Last night's AAR:
Played ~3 hrs pretty much non-stop... after 2 hrs though, felt a little weak, took 10 mins break.. had a granola bar and a protein bar. Weather unseasonably warm, club was not that humid, perhaps I didn't hydrate well enough.
Hit with 6 players last night, one of which is a gentleman at my level or so. He was the only one I played a match with. I lost first 2 games at -8, -9. Could've went my way. Not to take away from his game/skill, but i was feeling weak. won 3rd game close, and explained to him i needed a break. Sat and ate.
The others were a little lower level than me (except 1 gentleman), so i blocked for them and let them groove their strokes.
The last guy is a total beginner... a friend asked me to hit with him, despite me being pretty tired, i knew he was a beginner and most others that would even hit with this beginner would not drill/play steady, they would just kill the ball on the guy. So i blocked. His FH stroke is not there yet... i tried to show him, despite me being a PH player, that the SH FH stroke is like this, and you close the racket, and you stand like this and you followthrough on the stroke ... he nodded his understanding but didn't do as i showed him, not sure if he understood english... or he wouldn't take advice. i used my CPen and held it SH grip to show him the FH... not sure if he was observing or not.
not sure if it's language barrier or not, at some point, a gentleman was watching us and asked if he could hit with me, partly cos he didn't play in 10 yrs and also testing how dead his rubbers were and partly to show the beginner the FH stroke. the beginner says to this other gentleman, he wanted to hit for 5 more mins with me. Beginner seems to speak english! the gentleman has good strokes, am sure back in the day he was a 'playa'
I thought after hitting with the gentleman, i would leave... very tired, but the beginner jumped back on... so i hit with him a total of 45 mins.
@ Der_Echte,
The first gentleman i hit with, is a CPen who plays away from the table. We did mostly BH to BH. This afforded me the opportunity to really work my close-to-the-table punches and i also had some half BH strokes. As he returned some to my FH, i didn't smash as we were just drilling ... he didn't use a RPB. But some shots, I stepped around and FH stroke. Really liking the Amazon/MX-P combo. THANK YOU!
I'm really getting used to the Amazon with MX-P on BH blocking and punching. I can vary yin-yang now between passive block and aggressive punch. Last night, I had some half BH strokes that surprised me as generally i don't hit with my BH strokes.
The grip tape was surprising for me, my first time ever using grip tape. Not sure if it's psychosomatic or your jedi mind trick, but after a night of 90% BH techniques, my hand wasn't sore. I have a slightly unorthodox CPen grip i believe. the handle is not in the web of my hand, it's closer to the knuckle of my index finger. This facilitates punching much better for me than if the handle is in the web of my hand, downside though is the side of my index finger knuckle is usually sore.
After 3 nights rest, hand didn't hurt from the added weight of the short pips from last week. My FH stroke was back ... last week thursday, after trying the short pips tues/weds for added weight, it threw my FH off.
Ordered RITC 837 LP Ox from colestt.com last night.