Tonight's training was not very fascinating, it was all practicing hits and serves and no matches, which took the excitement of competition out of it. However, it really helped me to master the backhand hit, and greatly improve in serves.
I hope the training from today will visibly pay off the next time we play the double or triple matches, as last time we lost all points depending on my serve.
Today was the first lesson in a long time that was carried out online. It was because my teacher was sick, not too seriously to teach me, but we could not meet in person.
As a new piece, she sent me the sheet music to an intro song from a tv show entitled "Polskie drogi" that aired in the 1970s. I never heard of this show before, and playing the music from it made me research and ask my parents and grandparents about it.
This week's violin lesson gave me an insight not only into the world of mastering the instrument, but also into the history of my country's pop culture. I had an interesting talk with my grandma about the show, and I feel like I learned a lot.
Today we discussed problems in Qatar.
The government of Qatar has promised that they would take care of workers' rights, but they have not delivered on this promise.
Over two million migrant workers are being abused and exploited according to the reports.
Tonight we were joined by another tennis player, who has more experience than any of the four of us. Due to the fact that there were more players than usual, we tried something new.
After the usual training - warm-up, practice hits and so on, we played a version of a double match, but with three players on each side instead of two. It was an entirely new, and if I am being honest, weird experience for me.
I did not know what to do, no matter which position I played, as in my team there was a person who is so much better at tennis than I am, so they took most of the balls.
I hope to get better at team tennis playing, as I believe I would prefer it to the one-by-one play, as soon as I get the hang of it.
This week I am visiting my aunt and cousins in Scotland, so instead of usual tennis training, I am posting about our badminton hour.
We planned it days before and after we picked my little cousins up from school we all (me, my mom, my aunt and them) took a long walk to the sports center, where we had reserved two badminton courts.
We played for the whole hour, in different combinations. Of course, with the kids, the play was not very demanding, but playing with my aunt got really intense.
The last time I played badminton was in Summer, so quite a long time ago. First few serves and hits did not go as well as I would wish them to, but after few warm-up tries I got my old skills back.
After the whole hour of badminton, we were all tired, but happy as well. It was a great way of spending an afternoon
This time, instead of starting a new piece, like we did last week, we decided to review all that I have played before, so I could see the progress my teacher swears exists.
Of course, 90min we had did not allow us to go through literally every melody, but we managed to get done quite a few.
I started by playing the soundtrack from Pirates of the Caribbean, which I remember was hard for me last year. I mastered it, but still after a long break in playing it I expected it to go worse than it actually did.
The same applies to all other pieces I played. Every single one on the first, or sometimes second try sounded as good as ever.
It made me really proud and eager to learn even more and further improve my skills.
The next lesson is in a week. I cannot wait, and will practice in between, if I only find the time.
