Photo credit: zengame on Flickr
After my initial tennis lesson last month, I was excited to continue. I’m just terrible, but I at least felt a little more confident to try again. I had a few bumps along the way over the last month – between the hurricane and the school holiday for Election Day, I had to cancel my lessons. But, I’ve taken three so far, and definitely am seeing improvement each week. My short-term goal is to be good enough to take cardio tennis classes and group lessons which are designated for advanced beginners. Hopefully I’ll be at that point over the next few months. Ultimately, I want to be good enough to play with friends without embarrassing myself.
I’ve noticed that people really want to say that I’m getting “back” into tennis. Someone on Twitter gave me accolades for “getting back out there”. Even my instructor said that it can be difficult to “get back into it”. Let me clarify that there is no “back” here I’ve never played tennis. I’m not a former high school or college player who had kids and is trying to get back into it. I never played a sport before, not even soccer as a child, and certainly have never played tennis. That’s what makes it so frightening to me – I’m a horrible athlete, and I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to do things that I’m not good at. But, as I get older and look for ways to stay fit, I felt that tennis would be a nice way to be social and fit – something that distant running couldn’t do for me.
Since my next lesson isn’t for two weeks, I’ll have to keep active in other ways. We are going on vacation to Disney World, so I’ll be doing lots of walking, and I may even see if I can use the courts at our hotel to play a bit. That way, I may progress even a little more by my next lesson.
I’ve partnered with Harvard Pilgrim on this sponsored post but the thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. You can find more ways to be well at HarvardPilgrim.org/CountUsIn.
