The end of the league season is upon us. Later this week, we will see what squashmates look like in regular clothes at the MSRA league party; we will cheer as the plaques are distributed to the division winners and finalists; and we will honor the most improved players of the season. If we don’t win anything, we will be happy that our sport comes with an occasional open bar and (mostly) such convivial comrades. Congrats to all. Speaking of congratulations, I have a bit of a confession to make—which I don’t believe that I’ve owned up to until now. I was awarded the most improved female player award last year. The plexiglass award is sitting on my mantle. I am very proud of it. But I should not have received it. No, I did not rig the nominee process, nor bribe the MSRA. I had no idea I was going to receive it until someone at the MSRA told me it would be a good idea to show up to the end-of-season party. That’s where they called my name and mentioned things like my much improved match record, my signing up for tournaments and round robins and ref-ing clinics. Uh, yeah, most of this was true, but clearly they did not know this one fact that should’ve knocked me right out of the running. I only played once or twice a week. I was a much-improved fraud. Did I refuse the award, though? Well, no. But I pretty much decided then and there that I was going to earn that award going forward. I would spend the next year being the most improved female player. Many people make resolutions at the beginning of the year, or the beginning of a season. I make them at the end. Often after I do something kind of crappy. I act out of further embarrassment. I guess you could also call it learning from your mistakes. This was the specific point made in an article in Squash Magazine that I—in resolution #1—decided to begin reading, instead of letting pile up and molder in the bathroom. In the article, the author stated the importance of evaluating one’s matches, in order to determine what one needed to improve in the future. Up until that point, my self-evaluations had consisted of something like this: You won? You’re doing great! You lost? You suck. Perhaps I needed to reevaluate my evaluations. Lucky for you, I no longer can remember the details of my reevaluation, but I did make a list of resolutions. And because I like to give out free advice, here they are: 1.Play more. But how much more? Soon after I resolved to do this, a friend shared his frequency of playing philosophy. Playing once a week was slipping slowly backwards, twice a week was maintaining the status quo, and anything three times and preferably more you had a chance of improving. I’ve been logging three to six days a week ever since. What my friend failed to mention was the improved chances of injury; I’ve been resting my elbow on an icepack as I type this…. 2.Play with a more varied group of players. Now I love the camaraderie of the women’s round robin I’ve participated in since I joined the Printing House oh so many years ago. But I wasn’t playing matches other than league and I wasn’t playing that hard. So I branched out, to guys. I played in the summer Street Squash RRs, the co-ed (but mostly guy) RRs at Printing House, and in the ultimate traitorous act to my gender, joined the men’s 3.0 team at Printing House. It worked; I got faster and stronger. Then again, it also made me appreciate playing women more. 3.Play with a pro. In other words, get some coaching. I would’ve done this years ago, but I already spend a goodly amount every month just to play squash. I am not cheap, I just don’t make a bundle in my publishing job. So weekly lessons were pretty much not an option. But a friend invited me to share a lesson with her every few weeks or so. And that I could do—if I handed her the money really fast and didn’t think about all the other stuff I could buy with it. I could also probably write a whole season’s worth of blog posts on how valuable those lessons were. As the coaching slowly attached to my brain and my body, I could feel my legs lunge more, my torso twist more, my wrist snap more. Gradually, the game and all of its parts meant more. 4.Don’t just play. This is not so appealing to some squash players, but fortunately for me I’m addicted to a body conditioning class at my gym and when our club pro (shout out to Sean Gibbon) advised core strengthening to avoid injury, I just made sure I kept the other stuff up. I also added in more squash drills. They always seemed somewhat boring to me, but now that they make much more sense, I often combine half an hour of drills with half an hour of games. I’m happy to say that I now feel worthy of last year’s most-improved player award. So what if I did it retroactively? And now that this season is wrapping up, it’s time for more resolutions. Here’s the first: no more confessions.
