The last time i had took part in a project was when i was around 17-18 In Nottingham to learn how to play golf, i used to partake in sports nearly everyday but when i Moved to Grantham up until last year, I hardly did any sports and i struggled a lot to go for long walks.
here is a picture of young me trying to look cool haha,
While i was seeking help for my mental health issues. I came across a leaflet for a project lasting 12 weeks. This scheme was to teach people how to play tennis, help with their social skills, but the main objective was just to come down for 2 hours every week and have fun (:
For me this was something that i knew would be a test of my physical health, and a chance to do something i have always wanted to learn.
The only tennis i ever did was with someone and that was just hitting the ball any old how just to get the ball to the other person. There was no scoring to think about, positioning, heck I never did any serves, it was just the case of getting out for a hour every few weeks, and getting enjoyment out of it (:
As i arrived i was greeted by Dale, who with other staff from the club set the project up.
He had a chat with me, and asked a member of staff to give me a tour around the club.
I had seen the place for the outside many times in my travels around Grantham, but until i was shown around i never knew how much it had to offer like,
An amazing Cafe,with plenty of seats even sofas, with a great view of the indoor courts, great for watching people play,
I got to see the gym, which was top class, and even had a upstairs, which then leads through a door, onto the balcony, to watch tennis upstairs,
which you can then access
Exhale Therapy you will find a wide range of treatments offered by experienced professional therapists.
Whether you are looking for help with your injury, advice with your general wellbeing or wanting that special treat for yourself, you need look no further.
- Sports Massage
- Sports injury rehab and prevention – Taping
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- Holistic therapy – Reflexology / Aromatherapy / Basalt Hot Stones / Reiki
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Also home to Blue owl Art -Is an art gallery based in Grantham which brings contemporary art and craft to Grantham Tennis Club
At the club, you also have a bar, A reception area, with staff always friendly, up for a chat, and a selection of different tennis Ratchets and balls to buy, as well as a huge ratchet with sticky notes, where you can post about something that inspires you about tennis.
The club also has, a clubhouse, 4 astro, 5 clay courts, and mini courts for juniors (:
I was amazed at the high standards of the place, and i was told that only a few years back, the club only had a few courts, as was not like the place you see here today, i am so glad the business has been able to expand and was able to put on the project which you will know how well the outcome of that was a little later on in this post (:
As the first session started, Dale explained how the project was going to work, with fresh fruit being served every week,
He mentioned that at the end of the course there would be a chance to win some awards, and your very own racket. At the end of the project would also be a Christmas meal where we could all enjoy a meal and a nice get together.
what we had learned from the first session was how to watch were the ball is going, by throwing and catching, may seem very basic skills to learn, and something that people may go, why would we need to do this rather then play tennis ???
A big part of tennis, is watching the ball, watching the other player, where that person is standing, if you can not keep up with the pace of the ball, you will find it hard to return a shot, if you can not see where the other player is standing, you can not make a judgement, of where you would like to place your shot to win the point.
like most things you see on TV, like bike racing, cars, football etc, you can not really grasp how fast things are moving in real life, what may seem really slow and easy to learn by watching it, does not mean it is the same when doing it in real life.
If a player is serving and gets a speed of over 100 MPH, on TV you think meh, that is nothing when in reality this is what your brain is thinking - watching the ball come at you with speed, where is it going to bounce, does it have spin on the ball, how am i going to return it, where do i want to return it, and so on, Serving is the most essential part of the game as it can really shake your confidence for the rest of the game.
so learning to watch and catch the ball, helps with your movement, positioning and vision of where the ball is going to go.
another part of good eye contact and learning how to hold a racket, is being able to bounce the ball on top of it while moving. After learning different skills, we then used soft balls, to work on hitting it to each other to get a rally going, hitting the ball in a straight line is no easy task, even with ultra soft balls, you have to learn to watch where the ball is going and make sure you have the right position of grip, and standing in the right direction to keep the rally going.
You then went further and further back which meant you now had to adjust your power to get it over the net, while at the same time keeping it mostly going straight to the other player.
Lastly we worked on backhands, and having a small match still with the soft balls, and just playing the point out.
I went away feeling great and happy, and wished the next session would come around sooner.
As the sessions progressed, we went from soft balls to proper ones, working on getting our feet moving and running for the ball to return it, as in tennis, you are allowed one bounce only, if the ball is played soft, low etc you can not expect it to come to you, this is where the cardio part of your game comes into play !!!
A series of deep feeds to the corners of the court was done so that you not only had to run to it but in that moment decide where you are going to hit it, what power, etc, both forehand and backhands are needed in your game, to not only get the ball over the net but to try and win the point.
We worked on net shots how best to return it, smashes, so if the ball is high in the air, you have to learn to make sure your body is sideways on, watching where the ball is going to land, and where you want to place the smash to make it harder for the other player to return it.
One of the best moments across the project, was a little fun game called botch.
you split into 2 teams on either side of the court, the idea is the coach will feed the ball to a player, and you play out the point, whoever goes for the ball and misses, is then out, you play until there is only one player left on one side of the court, and that person has to try and get the other remanding players out before they win the point and you lose.
Its fun because so many people on the court, sometimes you are unsure who is going to hit it, its fast paced and a barrel of laughs.
Going back to the start of blog where i mentioned about serves, In the 12 weeks we got taught about how important serves are, about the rules of the serves that you get 2 tries however if it clips the top of the net on your first serve, you still get 2 more serves, etc .To this day its something that i am learning because there are many different ways of how to position yourself, how high to throw the ball, varying your serves, from a fast serve to a soft one where it just goes over the net and can sometimes surprise the other player, you will find that a player who is naturally good at fast serves, will put a lot of pressure on the others game, not only that but if you can master the fast with the soft, it will put even more pressure on as, they will expect to be standing further back in order to return your fast serve but then have to rapidly run in to the net, making the player often make mistakes as they are not thinking of where the other player is, yet along what shot to play, other then just being able to get the ball over the net.
The thing with serving is your always trying to improve it, and can take years to get it to a really good standard, i will explain about how i have been developing my serve later on.
6 weeks into the course and it honestly just flew by, I was enjoying myself more and more, and making some good friends, everyone skills and understanding of the sport was coming along nicely and was amazed how good people were.
Now that we was halfway into the project, we started having more matches, singles and doubles, learning the positions in double matches, but also playing fun games like doubles champions, where the team that wins stays on as champions until someone beats you, and takes your place.
The coaches would often also join in, which brought the competitiveness out of me and loved it, i have always been able to play to my best, if i am trying to show my teacher that i can beat them (:
With only a few weeks left until the project finished, the advanced stuff was starting to be taught.
Like how to put spin on your serves, forehands, how to return a shot on the rise and fall.
More mini games like having 2 teams on either side of one half of the court, with cones on the other.
Using what you learned with serving, trying to knock over the other teams cones and at the end of say 5 Minutes the team with the less cones wins.
I could go into more detail about sessions but overall, there was never a dull moment, the coaches were always up for a laugh and a banter, they trained you hard but fair making sure you was ok, telling you to take breaks to get a drink if you needed it and making sure everyone was coping with what was being taught.
From when i first started till now i was made into a much better tennis player, it took me weeks just to be able to get a serve over, and now i am working on improving my serve all the time.
I had no idea to start with about thinking tactical about tennis, even though there is so much to think about, i guess like with most things in life, it was hard to learn but at the same time it was just very chilled out and fun, and that was the key element, going away from the session, having learned something, being able to get exercise and feeling good and happy, hence the project name of feeling good.
It was now the end of the project, and time for the Christmas meal, the last session was made just to have a lot of laughs before getting changed for the meal.
Lovely festive table was laid out, the week before we gave the club our choice of the meats we liked,so that on the day the staff knew who was having what.
Coaches and staff were there to offer awards, for attendance, best forehand, best dressed etc.
I got 2 awards, one for a speech i did, i thought it would be nice to thank all the staff for their hard work, to mention how much i enjoyed the project and other things,
the other award was for attending every session.
Like with 99 percent of things i do in life, i always make sure to get there early but to also never miss anything either.
I really enjoyed the night, and was over the moon to be holding my own racket, that i did a video about how i felt the project went but also photography of the awards i got (:
It was mentioned at the meal that the session would continue a few weeks later but a fee of a few pounds would be needed, which was fair due to the time and effort the staff but into the project in the first place, and it was good that they wanted to keep it going.
I was very excited as the last thing i wanted to do was to stop playing tennis after learning so much.
At the sessions carried on i arranged with a friend, to meet half a hour before the session to have a quick hit, as we both loved tennis so much.
One person who i got on very well with could not make it to the sessions due to him being in sleaford and getting a job,which was a shame as he was a amazing player.
within a month of the sessions starting,again we played even more matches, and got working on improving all of our skills,whilst learning a few different things.
This was also the time i decided, that i had fount something that not only was the place that made me the happiest but something i enjoyed more and more, so i joined the club.
I was told about the socials which ran Monday and Friday 10-12, a place where members of the club, could come along to have some friendly game of doubles and be social.
This was my first step at seeing what my skills were like in a proper doubles match, and playing with members that had been playing tennis for a very long time.
For the first few socials i was very anxious, and was making a lot of mistakes, i was also not used to the level of players skills, and just took time to adapt myself.
I made it my goal to still go to the sessions, but to play at socials and arrange with my friend once a week to have a hit as well.
Now that i had learned everything about tennis up to this point, it was just finding my rhythm, I was good at serving with some cheeky soft serves close to the net, but i was having the problem off the percentage of them going in.
I could do some really epic serves but most of the time i would be double faulting, something you can not afford to do if you was playing in a competition.
I got a lot of tips for the players, about trying to throw the ball higher, and also when you start getting into a stage where you can do that, start watching where your hitting the ball when it comes back down.
at i mentioned above the serving is one of the hardest parts in the game, its not as simply as chucking it up and hitting it.
At the same time, if you focus all your attention on the serve your brain wont have time to get back into the game and watch where the other player has returned your serve to, so you have to think about so much at once when playing tennis.
In February 2017 The club was looking for members to put their names down to be part of a team to enter the swimmarthon over at the meres leisure center, i wrote a post about the experience so i wont go into a lot of detail.
All i can say is, it really tested my stamina and push my limits, it was great to be a part of a team, to represent the tennis club and have fun.
As April hit Talks of another Project for the club was under going, which gave exciting opportunities.
Dale had asked me, if i would like to Join him, on Gravity Fm our local Radio station, to talk about how the project has helped me but to also promote Feeling Good again,
12 more funded weeks were going to be on offer, which was great as i wanted to see even more talent come to the club !!!
I could not ever imagine being on the radio, a very new aspect to my life was starting as the following week, Thanks to connections from the club, Me, Dale, and James Prior one of the coaches at the club, got the chance to speak about the project again this time with a bigger audience across Lincolnshire, at BBC Radio Lincolnshire.
It was a really fun Day out as we went in the car and had lots of chats about a lot of things, I got to see parts of Lincolnshire i had never shown going by, and Dale even stopped for me to do some photography of a amazing looking Building.
melvyn prior, was the host interviewing us, Dale and James spoke about How the project went, and even i got a chance to speak about mental health and how much the club had changed my life.
Which was true, i still suffer with mental health, but being at the tennis club makes life that little bit easier, i feel happy, and had made me into the person i am today (:
Links to the interview will be at the end of this post (:
Being a part of the club, only made me a more confident person, but also more dedicated to get stronger an faster, which lead me to take part in the coach to 5k course ran by Grantham Running Club !!!!
Who connected with the tennis club in order to hold the sessions there, even if the manager of the club got involved in this project which was amazing to see, how well businesses work Together (:
I had written many posts about the running club, so i will not say anymore about it, otherwise i will be going off topic onto what this post it about hehe.
With doing so much physical sport, Injuries can often come into play, a month into doing the running alongside tennis i picked up my first minor leg problem.
my whole left leg, was very painful to walk on, which meant i had to take my first week of tennis since i started playing, and miss 2 sessions of the running club.
When you love being outdoors but also have a strong love for the things you do, it can be so frustrating not being able to do them, it is always best though not to push through it and to take the rest your body is telling you otherwise you will end up doing more harm then good (:
As with times i had struggle in life with my mental health i came back stronger then ever.
I had made a plan that every time i would go to the social games, i would get there a hour early to warm up my serves and other parts of my game, this often lead to meeting more people anyway, due to most people at the club who took part in the social getting there at least half a hour before it starts to do the same thing.
I find the socials always a laugh, pulling off shots that i never know how thats possible, and to this day i have connected with so many people, that everyone just makes me feel so welcome.
I think in a week, as well as the Project every Wednesday, i must play tennis 3-4 times a week.
I am able to play tennis more and more because of the club putting on more socials days,
I think around may time it was announced that a social would start on Saturday and i tell you what its gone down so well, to the point there are more players then courts sometimes haha.
My next steps Towards progressing my skills, was playing at competition level.
So i decided to ask if i could be put down in a team for the club.
Which would play matches across other tennis courts across Lincolnshire but also on their home ground at the club.
Fate had called as a chap who was part of my team for the swim marthon was set to be my partner going into my first doubles match.
A fee of course had to be paid, in order to play as well as bringing something to eat so everyone who was playing could sit down after, talk to each other and enjoy some food (:
In life you have Ups and down, which can often happen in playing sports at a competitive level, not matter how much you enjoy the sport you are playing there are times when you question not playing ever again.
It was my toughest test one of which, impacted my mental health a lot, as from playing so well in the socials, i suddenly forgot everything i had learned and could not play making me get more frustrated at myself, and well my game only getting worse and worse.
I ended up for days tearing myself up of this, because the matches lasted for 3 hours, on a normal day i would be physically fit to manage it but at such a competitive level it drained me.
I was in pain physically and mentally for days, and never wanted to pick up a racket again !!!
Luckily The members and staff from the club even my friend all showed me support, talked some sense into me and a week later, had a new mind set of not giving up and trying harder then i ever had done.
The Blue owl art was holding a exhibition of work being on offer to public to buy, so i decided to pop along to have a look around.
You can tell by now how much i love tennis when i am there for this even and i am more drawn to watching the tennis that was happening indoors !!!! (:
It was a hour of Intense Cardio, lead by the amazing talented coach Lewis Rae, who also took the sessions for the feeling good project.
In life when you make a decision you stick with it so that is what i did, i went down after the session had finished to have a work with him about it, and by next week i was partaking.
This saw how keen i really was to amp up my skills, my game, my fitness levels and so much more.
I came away feeling super happy, and had some really good practice as deep forehands, backhands, running to the net to get drop shots and doing a fun mini game which got everyone laughing (:
A few weeks later i saw the same chap for the 3rd time who was my partner for the doubles matches.
He had managed to get some funding from a local church, to offer the feeling club memebers a feast of pure yummy treats, scones with jam, teas and coffees, huge strawberries, chocolates and so much more, it was a great afternoon and instead of being healthy i decided just to aim to eat the chocolates hehe what can i say i have a sweet tooth (:
Just over a month a go members of the feeling good project got the chance to be in a picture,
as well as kids who were learning how to play tennis, as the club had won a award for their Disability Program of the Year Awards for the Midlands.
The club has a lot of talent coming through at the moment and has a wonderful Program to help people who need to use a wheelchair to be able to still play tennis and you know what do not let the fact that they have to use one fool you, some amazing players competing at a very high level, that will give anyone a hard test to beat them in a match (:
When i am not playing tennis its just nice to head to the club for afternoon to watch people play. One afternoon i was just in shock to see kids around the age of 10 play out of this world, I believe there was Regional championships taking place and wow, it put me to shame, to see these kids making it look so easy why us adults have to work harder and harder just to play the shots they were haha (: Again this made me want to train ever harder, in all aspects my game and my fitness. One weekend i had played the best tennis ever because i had a lot of adrenaline rush running through me, due to doing Park run at Rutland water in the morning, and then for some reason decided i was not tired and wanting to play in the social.
which leads into the last few weeks which is August. A flyer was on the desk at the club about a closed Tournament just for the club members, you could participate in doubles, singes, novice doubles and many others. One of the coaches mentioned i should enter the doubles, and bring along one of the members from the project, The thing with me is i love playing at the social a lot, and can play great shots but learning where to stand, and be able to communite with your partner was something i lacked a lot of, i much preferred playing singles, although you have to run for every ball, its much more fast paced and suits my playing style, so that is what i decided to enter.
This was another chance to see how much my skills had come along, i made the decision to stop going to the running club for the next few weeks so i could focus on training for the competition ahead. One day while i was at the club, a friend pointed a chap to my direction who talked to me for about half a hour who was helping me with getting a better serve in, it was nice to see members of the club just taking their time out to help others (: These tips improved the percentage of my serves and i was really happy, i tested this is the social games and really worked, and had some great games.
Then yet again, as you work harder and harder in life to try and better yourself things do not seem to go right, I changed nothing with my serve because, it was working for me, but for some reason 90 percent of my first serves were not going over the net and my second serves rate was rapidly getting worse as well.
The more i focused on fixing what was wrong the worse my game got. This was now worrying me for the big games ahead, on the day of the matches, i had a hour practice with a friend and played a hour of social my game was great but again my serve was not improving. In the competition in my opinion i played against to of the best the club has, Rob, who works at the club, and Tim who is one of the receptionists, both players played top class, both plays had really fast serves that put my whole game under pressure, making me make silly mistakes and running for every ball.
It was fun to play in the matches as it push my limits, it helped me learn how to read their serves. To start with i struggle to even return a serve but after losing a few games i got used to the pace. After playing my first match with rob, i got chance to have a hit with Tim, that is when my game completely fell apart. He has the fastest serve i have ever seen, and for some reason my whole body was shaking, my feet heavy and i could not run as fast towards the ball as i normally had. yes the last competition i entered affected the way i felt, but even in those games i was not shaking. It could have been many things, such as the weather as it was over 20 degrees and anytime it is i struggle to cope, could even be the fast serves that messed with my head, who knows all i knew is that i was struggling more and more. Overall i was happy that i gave it a go, i still have a lot to learn and train for and i am ready to keep pushing myself and to keep improving. The club is still searching for more funding in order to help with putting on more projects so that more people can get out, join in, have fun and learn to play tennis (: So why has Grantham tennis club changed my life so much??? If it was not for the amazing staff and members of the club making me feel welcome i would not have been able to come more out of my shell and starting building my life up, thanks to them, i had more drive in my life, to learn about photography, to start covering events and helping my local community, they gave me the drive, to get stronger, faster and even if its only for a few hours a day to help my overall mental health !!!!
I would love to be able to expand the sports i do, like getting into football again, playing badminton as i used to play it every week in Nottingham, when i had finished school and i would say i was really good at it, would be nice to see Lincolnshire get funding for sports of all ages, this again would improve your overall mental health (: So what are my next steps with tennis? Well i am going to keep training off course, and enter more competitions, the more you enter the more you will get used to the level of play. work on my social skills more because although i get on well with people from the club, my heart is focused so much on playing tennis that i often do not stop to chat with people .
It would be cool, to be able to promote the club some more, by going on the radio, and helping them with finding funding to continue the project. Someday i would like to learn about coaching, so that i help be a part of the club and teach people tennis (:
Thank you all for reading my Journey of my tennis career, its been a long read i know but i hope you have some understand of how learning tennis can help you in life and why the community of Grantham is a rare place because i have never had such a loving caring and supportive group of people in my life like Grantham has provided !!!!!!!
Want to find out more !!!! then look below and have a nice day (: Grantham tennis club Interview -
Full Voice Interview
https://soundcloud.com/dmpworldmusic/bbc-radio-lincolnshire-interview-grantham-tennis-club
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