What do I love about racquetball?

I love everything involved in the sport.

But I especially love the exercise, my fellow players, and the clothes.

I’d rather play racquetball than ride a bike (stationary or down the road), walk on the treadmill or in the streets, or any number of other ways to keep the body moving in the ultimate goal of physical fitness.

I like the movement of playing racquetball. There’s a stop and go to it that seems to have its own special rhythm. When you are running to get to the ball there’s that fast-paced movement of the feet. Sometimes I stop to hit the ball. Sometimes I hit it on the fly (in this case not always successfully).

Before I or my opponent serve I can take up to ten seconds to ready myself. If I’m receiving the serve I may saunter my way to the back of the court. No rushing. I’ll save my rushing for chasing the ball during play. If I am the one serving then I’ll take my time getting to the service area, maybe I’ll even bounce the ball a few times before serving to my opponent. All this is another part of the movement of the game.

The exercise of racquetball varies in intensity. Some younger players like to hit the ball very hard, sending it zooming across the court. There’s the mental exercise of trying to calculate the best place to be to return that ball and the physical exercise of getting to that point.

There is a difference between hitting the ball that hard and hitting the ball with strong flick of the wrest. The exercise level may increase with the softer touch because you have to go farther to get to the ball for the return.

A ceiling ball might just caress or bounce hard off the ceiling to return to the floor and then perhaps bounce back out again. There is a knack to calculating where that ball will end up and calculating how much energy to put into getting that ball returned. That knack also includes how much energy to expend keeping the ball in play so your opponent makes the mistake ending the rally instead of you.

I love my fellow racquetball players because they are generally nice people. Most of the men and women I know through racquetball rarely speak ill of each other, are kind and considerate to fellow racquetball players, and are great to be around when playing or not.

I have played against people who are better players than I am and worse players than I am. The games and/or matches have mostly been friendly; sometimes competitive, other times not so competitive; and usually fun exercise.

Talking to my fellow players in between games and/or matches can be delightful and informative. That’s another reason I like racquetball – learning information from other players during the down time between playing.

You can also watch racquetball and chat without missing a beat in the competition or the conversation.

Then there are the clothes? Yes, the clothes.

Previous to playing racquetball I occasionally played tennis. I don’t remember buying very many tennis “outfits.” I wore shorts and tops that were suited to the game, but not necessarily designed for the game. Now I buy those tennis-designed outfits to play racquetball in. But I don’t just walk into any store to buy them.When we travel we looked for the outlet malls and the sporting outfit stores in those malls. The brand I prefer shall remain nameless, but I do prefer and can usually find something I like and can wear in that brand. The outfit makes me feel somewhat special when I play. Maybe it’s because those outlet malls are far from where we usually play. I don’t see my fellow women player in the same costume.

There are other things I like about playing racquetball, but I’ll talk about those later.

  Bye for now!