Squash

One of the other partners and I have been talking about renewing our Squash Club memberships. Renew maybe to strong a term since it was probably five years since my partner had a membership and and probably closer to ten since I had a membership. So things were finally going well enough that we decided we had the time and the money (the company is paying for the membership, I'm sure I'll come to regret that come tax time but for now it's nice) Our first stop was at the Nordstrom Rack so I could pick up some white soled shoes, which are surprisingly rare, but because of scuffs they don't allow black soles in the squash courts. After that we had to go back to the office because my partner had forgotten his wallet with the company card. But we eventually made it to the Squash Club.

The two women at the sign-up counter were super nice, though the locker room had suffered some water damage and was being repaired. Anyway, I could tell that I would need to work on my equipment. I don't really have any athletic shorts, so I was using some pretty heavy cargo shorts. My gym bag was a plastic sack from walmart, and I forgot the key thing for someone who's going to exercise, deodorant. Fortunately I do have a squash racquet of my own from back when I used to play. I was pretty worried about how I'd do, from a conditioning standpoint and a cardiovascular standpoint. It wasn't pretty, but I ended up playing for an hour and we got four games in. (the record was 2-2 if you're curious) Overall a very satisfactory experience.

You may think, "Why Squash?" Well the story of how I ended up discovering squash is long and complicated, and I'll have to tell it some other time, but the story of what drew me to it once I started playing may be worth telling. The sport most people use as a comparison for squash is racquetball, and there are similarities. But IMHO, squash is clearly superior (I enjoy racquetball, but hear me out.) With racquetball, the ball is very bouncy as a result it ends up being primarily about strength, hitting the ball as hard as you can, with squash on the other hand, the ball is not very bouncy at all and as a result there's a lot more skill/choice involved in where you put the ball. To give one example hitting the ball backwards and banking it off the back wall is a fairly common shot in racquetball, but a fairly difficult shot in squash.

I realize I'm not explaining myself very well. Fine I'll go to my hole card. Back in 2003 Forbes decided to put together a list of the "10 Healthiest Sports" Squash was #1. The most important thing about exercise is that you enjoy it so that you do it a lot, and I really, really enjoy squash, so there you have it.

If I could have survived a fifth game I think I would have won