Squash Dashers And Bashers

James Willstrop's Squash Book, "Shot and Ghost..." -- A Review

2012-02-01T13:44:00.000-08:00

Wow! For those of you who like to know the inner workings of the lives of professional athletes, this is a great read, a diary in the life of a professional squash player. It is right up there with my favorite squash books, Shattered by Peter Marshall, and, Murder on the Squash Court by Jonah Barrington. It is all the more special because James Willstrop, current number 1 in the world, is a very gifted writer (or at least storyteller if his collaborator Ralph Gilmour did much of the writing). Wilstrop is clever, ironic and sometimes outright funny. He can also be very poignant, especially in the passages about his squash-iconic-father, Malcolm (“Malc”). I can hear my own son describe me to someone the same way as Willstrop describes his own father's difficult personality. Just the other day my son described me as a jerk that just happens to help people, go figure. “Jerk” wasn't his exact word more like that reference to one of our less than public orifices.

No doubt squash players who have competed at any club, regional or national as well as professional level with bask in the narrative of this book. These guys who play at the highest level of their sport have days when they hate the sport, when they don't want to train, bicker, complain, feel sore, insecure and even eat a big bowl of cereal for breakfast as they head for a tough training session.

I was never a big fan of Willstrop's game, I confess, until I watched a match between him and I think Darwish or one of the Egyptians and my son pointed out just how devastating Willstrop is especially when attacking to the front courty. This, all from a player at 6'4 the tallest on the tour! When he won the Tournament of Champions in 2011, a major win for him, he spent 30 minutes thanking everyone from his father to the milkman for his success. I found his litany annoying; after having read his book I feel a bit bad for those feelings because it is just the way Willstrop is. He utilizes so many people in his success: nutritionist, coach, trainers, and masseuse -- whatever it takes to bring out the best in his body, mind and soul. And the quote he uses might be remembered by anyone aspiring to such accomplishments: "It's amazing just what can be achieved when nobody cares who takes glory."

In an age of fist pumping, or the zealous behavior of Shorbagy and Tom Richards gestures at this year’s TOC, Willstrop is a gracious gentleman and sportsman. His father emphasized proper court demeanor as much as anthing. Often accused of being too nice and lacking that acerbic edge of the so called "wunderkinds" of squash, he is much more, he is confident and knows himself very well, he goes with the flow until it becomes time to question where the flow leads him. You have the sense that he was raised properly with great appreciation for his gifts as an athlete and the gifts of others as well. He is rarely critical of a person, outright, maybe critical of behavior or character traits, especially exhibited towards his ongoing perceived feud with fellow squash great and countryman Nick Matthew.

In the end, Willstrop, as great an athlete as he is at the pinnacle of his success, is simply human. Nowhere do you have a sense of this dichotomy between supreme athlete and simple human being than his entries about his "mum". Very moving passages without being maudlin. For any sports fan, squash enthusiast, aspiring professional squash player this is a great read and I only hope we can come to expect more from Willstrop both in terms of his wonderful prose and his squash game as well. I always contend that the greatest gift a professional player can make to the game, aside from his or her actual play, is a documented history of their game and how they played it and lived it in their time.

Available on smashwords.com and amazon.com.uk

Nick Matthew: Would A Million Praises Appease Your Anger?

2012-01-25T11:13:00.000-08:00

I was just reading Nick Matthew's interview in skynews.com.au, "Matthew Annoyed Little Attention". The article is along the lines that professional squash players are given little publicity in what is arguably the iron man/women sport of all sports. Forget about all the other sport comparisons, these men and women are the fittest athletes on the planet. One need only compare the training regiments of Nick Matthew with any other athlete in any sport to realize what these athletes put their bodies through. I can only compare it to perhaps fencing for intensity and fitness, but unlike fencing bouts which are quick and intense, professional level squash matches can go nearly 90 minutes at a pace that is unfathomable to most.

So why is Matthew angry? First of all, I can't imagine Nick Matthew ever angry, which isn't to say he is a pushover or overly mellow. He is as fierce and competitive and tough as Mike Ditka, Larry Bird, Mike Tyson, and Pete Rose and probably has attained their level of excellence in a career that has culminated in major tournament championships. He arguably has the best forehand volley of any player in the history of the game, and while his career has seen a number of injuries, most recently toward the end of the 2011 season, he is back, and back with his usual ferocity. So why is he mad, how could he be mad at all the success he's achieved? Why is he angry at being one of the few in the hundreds of thousands of squash players to have achieved greatness, to have brushed shoulders with the gods of squash -- what anger?

If it truly is because of the lack of publicity in this video/media intensive age of ours, then I would only say he picked the wrong sport for recognition. I can only think of Vincent Van Gogh, perhaps a bit extreme example, who in his lifetime was never awarded the accolades for his brilliant and visionary paintings. I hope Mathew isn't so angry that he doesn't, like Van Gogh, go insane and cut off his ear, or worse his right hand. If you look at the paintings of Van Gogh you intuitively know this man could not have done anything else in his life, thank god he didn't. He could have done copy or commercial art or spent a lifetime rambling on some park bench somewhere in a European public garden, maybe he wouldn't have gone mad, or maybe he wouldn’t have simply been mad. I can't imagine Matthew doing anything else: tennis, soccer, cricket? Nah, he was destined to do what he does.

This great sport of squash in its own right is recognition enough, for most of us, for Matthew, I hope that his absolute brilliance in the most difficult game on the planet is reward enough, if that isn't then maybe the admiration of those who at such a different level sacrifice so much for this game we love: bodily pain after tough hits with John Gross, Haadi Ahmat, young Vedaant Kukadia (in the same evening after work). We do it because we can't imagine not doing it, and we watch in awe and are inspired by the likes of Nick Matthew who does it every day and doesn't have to go to a day job, or watch the kids or miss the train, but does what we love, not two hours if we're lucky, but every minute of his life.

Squash as a Rite of Passage

2011-12-05T12:57:00.000-08:00

As a parent, perhaps the greatest reward in life is living to see who your child has become as an adult. All of the work you put in, starting with the infant years, the glory years of 4-8 years, truly magical, the beginning of the parent torture years 11 to 19, when as a teenager there is no boundaries to how your teenager can aggravate you and give you angina.

But then that truly remarkable moment occurs, out of no where, when you see your child, your son, as a man, separate from you, he is equal if not surpassing you. He's beginning to take those steps to replace you in the world.

Out at Westchester on Saturday for the latest Pro Squash Tour stop at the Westchester Squash Club in Mamaroneck, New York, it was my first attendence to the PST since back last year at the Sportsclub LA. The energy or squash vibe was so good at this club, it was special from the beginning. Leter Brown, head coach has done something great at this club. Whenever I walk into a club and see all the squash bags and then see juniors on the court doing a clinic and parents sitting about watching them or talking to Lester or other parents, it simply makes me happy. Squash, at any level, makes me happy, It is one of my passions and when I see others partcipating and excited about squash, it just makes me happy to be around them, or in the club, and talking and walking about. It's a Saturday mid day and the place is humming with activity.

Joe McManus, the Commissioner of the PST, has become a great ambassador for the game here in the U.S. He greets the fans arriving to see the weekend's pro matches. He talks squash, talks about his vision to grow this game. He believes in it, he is getting you to believe as well.

On the court is the recently signed pro player to the PST, David Palmer of Australia, conducting a junior clinic. He's an imposing figure, he's in his element on the squash court, he is master there and as comfortable as he is on court, he's even more comfortable competing.

Palmer is idolized in my household and has been for years. Like many great players, you become so accustomed to seeing him play, that you take it for granted. And then, they reach the end of their careers and you realize just how much they mean to the game. How often did my son and I go out and play and try and emulate that massive forehand kill of Palmer's, how often when we had a great point did we imagine that the point was like Palmer and Power, Palmer and White, Palmer and Nicol.

We were there for the PST's main draw matches, Palmer was facing a qualifier. How often had we seen this at the Tournament of Champions over the years? How often on video, PSA live, YouTube did we see this great player warming up. We just awed at his perfect strokes, his balance, his court demeanor. He was the player you looked up to if everything in life wasn't handed to you.

Palmer worked for everything, and as McManus pointed out, this great champion was once thought by the powers from the Australian Institiue of Sport that he didn't have future in Squash. He went out an proved them so wrong. He worked harder than anyone to become the fittest player on tour, he perfected his game, he went instead to that "school of hard knocks" whose facades have no ivy, no brownstone, but through grit and determination he emerged the player he was and will be remembered as.

McManus introduced the qualifier who came out onto the court and began warming up. What must he be thinking? I love to watch these qualifiers go up against the masters in the main draw, those qualies are that "school of hard knocks". The qualifier is warming up, hitting the ball pretty well, is he thinking "this guy Palmer is one of the greats, my squash idol, what am I doing here, but I'm here, don't embarass yourself, enjoy the moment, I'm tight, relax, he's just another opponent"...and then Palmer comes bounding on to the court, doesn't acknowledge his young opponent, and begins his warmup. The qualifier looks good, he's fit, he hits the ball pretty well. Hey, anything can happen, Buster Douglas, Leon Spinks, Larry Bird, US Hockey Gold...forget all that, unless Palmer isn't Palmer there isn't a snow ball's chance in hell...

Play begins, the rallies are crisp, this kid is good, he's hanging with Palmer, they're working the rallies. Have to remember who this is, the kid holds a forehand to the front and crosses and wrong foots Palmer, great hold, capture that on video! Palmer shows nothing in response, he's been wrong footed hundreds of times, no one is perfect. The first game goes to Palmer, in a methodical business like fashion. The qualifier comes off the court, he's worked hard, he's just as business like as Palmer, he knows, he's no fool. Palmer is 20% on the court, he's watched him enough over the years to know. But stay in it, I can hear him think, I love this qualifier's game, he's like a young Palmer himself or maybe he fashions himself that.
Second and third games Palmer goes to what we call the pretzel game, when you get your opponent twisting and turning retrieiving your shots as you control each rally. Palmer is barely working while running this qualifier all over the court. There's no quit in this qualifier, he tries to extend every point. The kicker is, while Palmer is beating him badly, the qualifier just can't quite take the ball early and negate Palmer's pressure, the qualifier is just not at that level to turn the pressure on Palmer. But in every point the qualifier moves well hits well does his best, he has the right idea, he just can't quite execute his shots to a higher level.

In the end, it's Palmer of course. The hopes and dreams of the qualifier are not dashed, he's inspired, in the post game interview, he is humbly grateful to have had the opportunity to play Palmer, nice words. You can see in his face a calm, he just might want to do whatever it takes to be more like Palmer.

I stay on and watch the other matches, I'm thinking of that Palmer match. I'm thinking about what I'm going to write. What more can anyone say about this great champion who is now with the PST and doing what he can to grow this sport in the U.S. Nah, my bent is the qualifier. On the ride home back to Long Island the person who came to this tournament isn't the same person, he is, but he isn't. I look over at him, I see him differently, he is a grown man, the same grown man I saw on the court against Palmer, he's my son, the squash player, the one who just lost to Palmer. Is that qualifier the very same chubby kid I use to take to the courts, the chubby kid who used to talk squash with anyone and everyone and studied this game into the late night, the chubby kid who had great hands but couldn't move? He's chiselled now, lean, and strong and moves with great footwork, he has the same great hands, he has that same squash genius that can talk to the highest level squash mind and the beginner player in the same unassuming manner.

The ride home is different, unlike all the other hundreds of times we rode home together after tournaments, I'm driving but not the driver, he's in the passenger seat, but not the passenger. It's all changed, it's in that moment, how it seems to happen -- a young man's rite of passage.

What If...The PST (Professional Squash Tour) Set to Announce a Major New Signing

2011-11-30T10:23:00.000-08:00

Mr. McManus of the Pro Squash Tour (PST) may have found the marketing touch for his emerging US squash pro tour of up and coming professional squash players and some great near legends. He's announced that he will add another major top squash professional to the PST this week. This is on the heels of signing Australian great and former number 1, David Palmer to the tour a couple of weeks back. Ok, it's Wednesday, he's announcing it tomorrow. But I'm supposed to be running through some software tests but I can't concentrate. I keep thinking about all the possibilities. My mind starts to wander, I start thinking what if...

Here are some of the names I'm hearing and I've included a bit of my own wish list. This sure beats testing software. I hope the Commissioner has some deep pockets, if some wishes come true he'll need them.

Number 1: Wish list item -- I am imagining my most favorite player, Nick Mathew, joining the PST. That would be something. It would probably open up the flood gates...we'd no doubt have a signing a week. But if Mathew signs, then tied here would be Nicholas Mueller from Switzerland, the next generation number 1.

Number 2: Linceu -- Somewhat of a wish, he's still formidable. I always thought he was very low keyed and not sure what he would do for the PST. I'm on the fence with this one, I love his game, just not so sure he'd bring the punch of a Palmer to the PST. And you have to think do you want to see every PST final Linceu vs. Palmer?

Number 3: Stuart Boswell/Cameron Pillay -- These are my other favorite players and both still have it. I'd love to see either one or both on the PST.

Number 4: Wish list item -- And out of retirement, Peter Nicol or Jonathan Power. Call me sentimental, but as great as squash is right now, I miss these two...maybe I'm too sentimental, could either one beat Ball or Palmer?

Number 5: Wish list item -- Amir Shabanna...I admit I never really followed his game much. I'd like to see him tour in this country, I'd like to see him at some of the PST events just to see him up close and really study his game...then finding out what I missed all this time.

Number 6: Wael Hindi -- ok, cool. I did see Illingsworth come back and beat him in a PST event before the PSA banned its players from participating in the PST. Many find his play exciting and want to see him on the PST...just doesn't move me one way or the other.

Number 7: Wish list item -- Julian Illingsworth. I love his game, and I became a real fan of his in that PST Wael Hindi match.

Number 8: Allistair Walker -- He's in the US now, a great player to watch. Would really add more credibility to the PST.

Number 9: Wish List Item -- Jonathan White, full time on the PST. Another sentimental favorite. He's got to have 1-2 more years of touring left in him. Simply the most electrifying player in squash and just a great ambassador of the game.

Number 10: Any of the rising stars lingering in the top 40 to 60. Robbie Temple comes to mind or Adrian Wahler.

Okay, my boss just came by and wants the tests completed by 2 pm. I look forward to tomorrow's announcement.

Doubles Vision: The Squash Genius of Barbara Cooper

2011-11-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

Barb Cooper might be the equivalent or combination of Dale Cargnegie, Delphic Oracle, Sigmund Freud, and even Oprah. She's one of the most intelligent squash gurus, but what makes her really unique is she is able to connect the dots with squash and a squash player's temperment and personality along with all the other facets of the game (doubles or singles).

Her book, Double Up, is simply remarkable. It's a book about Doubles Squash, but like Ms. Cooper herself, the book goes well beyond what meets the eye. My recommendation to any serious squash player especially those coming up through the junior ranks, read everything you can from Ms. Cooper and then have your parents read the material too. And after your parents have read all her material, have your coach read the material as well.

Note: Barabara Cooper is the highest level certified coach in North America. Her credentials as a player and coach are so impressive. She currently resides in Canada and is instrumental in bringing Canadian Squash to the forefront of internatioonal competition.

And for any budding professional, pick up her book, read it for the same reasons you might have read Barrington's Murder on the Squash Court, or Khan's Eye on the Ball, or any other Master's blueprint to great squash fundamentals and tactics. However, what really sets Cooper apart is her attention to the mental aspects of the game. This is where she really excels.
Almost every player at any level will be able to relate to her book. While I'm not a Doubles Player, much of what she writes about transcends squash, singles or doubles, it's about having the right mind set to practices, to improve, to move that newfound experience and energy to a greater level...to find reward in playing and improving.

It doesn't matter if you are man, woman, or junior, you will benefit from this book. It is so packed full of information, and not the kind of infomration you can get just anywhere. It is the kind of infomration that comes with being at first a student of the game and then subsequently, a teacher of this game. She maintains the highest coaching level in North America. She's a level 5 (5 is the highest), which to put it into perspective, we have a few who are highest at Level 3 in the US.

And with all the seriousness of learning to be in the right frame of mind to play this game at a higher level, the chapters are punctuated with pencil drawings, and quotations appropriate to the topic. Squash does imitate life, and like life, you need a bit of humor, some fun. At least that is her message loud and clear, you can be a serious player and competitive, but don't forget this game is supposed to be fun, we're supposed to enjoy it to the point we never want to stop playing. If anyone has ever doubted the benefits of drilling, read her chapters on the essence of drilling and what it does to a player's game.

I found myself taking lots of notes about strategy that can be used in my own coaching, and by strategy I mean the mental and emotional aspects of the game. While Double Up is primarily about the ins and outs of doubles squash with many doubles drills, almost all of the book dedicated to the mental and emotional part of the game translate into the singles game as well.
As you read through this (and you will want to read through it again and again) you will realzie just how complex this game is on one level, afterall human nature is complex, but also how simple this game is (if you can believe that) on another level; in its simplest form the game moves fluidly as you become the very thing that holds all the court's four quadrants together.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It is so rich with wisdom and insight into this game that you sometimes can only take in just so much. I thought about quoting passages from the book, but I'm afraid I'd be including most of the book here, in this review. Read this book and also check out Barbara Cooper's new internet talk show help My Squash Game(http://helpmysquashgame.com).

Bring It On Home

2011-11-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

The PST signing of David Palmer, former World Champion and British Open Winner, is in my mind a great moment for the PST. Palmer, while being at the tail end of his illustrious career, still will manage to lend a jolt of credibility to the PST. Perhaps the PST will eventually become partners with the PSA, who has soundly rejected and even threatened their players from playing in the US Professional Squash based tour, the brainchild of its maverick commissioner, Joe McManus. I don't want to reopen the case of the PSA ban, but what I do want to do is take this time and while taking a break from the tedium of my Technology job, see where my thoughts about producing a world number 1 ranked U.S. born player leads.

It's no mystery, that no U.S. born player will make it to the "top ten" world rankings without a great deal of help from our more experienced and talented squash brothers from the UK, Europe, Australia and anywhere else. For those with deep pockets, and who can afford travel and expenses overseas, there's no need to care about international squash coming to the U.S. They can seek it out and sustain international coaching and competition. It's expensive, but if you can afford it what better way to spend the money. There are a number of retired world class former squash professionals residing in the U.S. but their services come at a premium rate. Squash is an expensive sport, no matter how you look at it, just like tennis, golf or fencing. These are highly technical and demanding sports. Fortunately, for most of these other sports the resources are more readily available here in the U.S. Then it becomes the question of so you have a world class coach, where do you then find players of similar caliber? While most junior squash development is primarily focused on college squash, almost no development is focused on professional squash. We could go into all the reasons, but our country is primarily concerned with attaining monetary success. Monetary success is how we measure ourselves. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not the ONLY measure. Squash doesn't pay well but neither does teaching, non-profit, governments, etc.

My son still maintains a dream of playing professionally, his passion and love for this game is sometimes overshadowed by his immense frustration at becoming better. What he has achieved he's achieved mostly on his own, he is the equivalent of a self made man. We all admire self-made men on one level but on another we still value more success through the easy road. I believe in what he is doing even when he doubts it himself and because the PST has come along offering the opportunity to play and aspire at a higher level of squash, he might reach some of his goals. While I admire those PSA professionals and attend those PSA events nearby, the PSA does little or nothing for professional U.S. Squash development.

Someone whose squash mind I admire greatly mentioned to me the other day that he is waiting for someone to write an article on why Ilingsworth and Gordon (US 1 and 2) play on the PSA and compete all the way in China and lose in the qualifiers or opening rounds when they could play on the PST? Yes, absolutely. What will it take to bring those players to the PST? What will it take to lure Allistair Walker, top 10 PSA, currently residing in the U.S. to join the PST? Will it take one more signing, a Linceau, a Shabanna?

Squash is one of my passions, and call it patriotic, nationalistic, whatever you want, I want to see a U.S. born player someday on the PST play for the World title against the players of the PSA, a sort of "superbowl" of squash. Wouldn't that be something. As for Ilingsworth and Gordon, bring it back home, play on the U.S. PST tour, show some junior who dreams of playing professionally that it's within your grasp, here in the U.S. and that aspiring to professional squash is a noble calling and not merely a means to an end. Back to work, oh, should Linceau, Shabanna, Walker, Gordon, Ilingsworth sign with the PST I hope they sign on the condition that the PST does away with the "No-Let" rule.

Letter To The PST Commissioner

2011-11-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

When I saw that the PST was going to announce a game changer on 11/11/11 at 11:00 a.m. I was hoping that it would be two rules changes (maybe three): do away with the No-Let rule; mandatory eye-wear for ALL players; and maybe for good measure changing the PAR scoring. While the announcement was not about any rule or regulatoion changes, and announcing the signing of David Palmer to the tour was great news, it would have been really great news to have included these rules changes.
The No-Let rule; I was watching a match last night from the Tuxedo Open and it was a match where the No-Let rule definitely came into play in terms of the outcome of play. The player, who will remain nameless, consistantly didn't clear, played back, and when there was contact seem to plead for sympathy from the referee because of the contact. The old rule is very simple. The player after hitting his or her shot MUST clear for the opponent. However, the rule is a bit gray if the player makes no attempt to return to the T, plays a very low T or is simply slow to get back because they are just slower than the other opponent or hasn't returned a shot good enough to allow time back to the T. When both players are in position the flow is very smooth. However, a tired player tends to hang back, not clear fully, and then just step into the area of play. While the rule is simple, it's complexity arises when the player, because of the other player not fully recovering back to the T doesn't allow the player to clear. The match I saw, this was what happened again and again. The referee observed the sympton but not the cause. One player was much quicker than the other player on the one hand and the slower player often blocked or didn't clear and on the other hand -- as the match wore on that "other" player drifted further and further back. The referee admonished the wrong player warning of unnecessary contact and played to the simpathy of the player complaining about the bumping and physicality. Because of the No-Let rule the advantage was to the player either not clearing or hanging back to get a jump on the ball in the back. The other player seemed flustered and really should have started redirecting the ball away from the area where the contact was occuring. But why should that player alter their shots because the other player takes advantage of this No-let. Many times in a game a referee will ignore the appeal of a player complaining of "incidental" contact, unless of course you 'flop" like NBA players do to take a charge or something. Unless the other players is a bit dirty and plays through his opponent rather than the ball, it's usually a legitimate let call. I think there's more potential for injury since players are forced to play through the contact, fearing losing a point should they call a let and it's overruled. My understanding, let denied point to your opponent, even though in your mind your opponuent may have been in harms way.
The answer to this is to realize the sole purpose of the let is to protect the players...whether or not it is abused or not that is its purpose. Cars are meant to get people to their destination as quickly as possible, safe and sound, no traffic signals or stop signs create chaos and accidents and are a detriment to driving. The same goes for this No-Let rule. Please do away with it.
My other major rule change is mandatory eyewhere. In this country we spend billions of dollars to enforce high standards of safety. Cetainly no other country spends more. Yet most squash professionals don't wear them. If it ends up saving the eye of one player wearing them it is worthwhile. This rule is safety, it's important, it sends a message to players and spectators, that safety is alwys first and foremost. Each organization is the sum of all its individuals and the individual is critical to any league and organization. If you put any individual at risk, implement the safety standard. Enforce it. Put this rule in effect, because we never want to be sickened by the loss of an eye especially during competition when it is easily preventable. Let's hope the PST isn't like City Hall and not put a traffic light in a dangerous intersectuon until someone is killed or maimed
Let me sneak one more in there...and this may be topic for a totally separate discussion. Let's settle this: PAR scoring has changed the game and has made it much less demanding for players. When you think of how the old scoring rarely produced first games under 45 minutes long, the strength and stamina required was Herculean. Yes that game was too slow as a spectator sport, but perhaps a compromise would be the old American 15 point PAR scoring....let's extend the game because after all this game is partly about fitness, endurance stamina, and attrition. Commissioner?

"Like a Kangaroo on Viagra!" Autstralian's David Palmer signs with Joe McManus and Pro Squash Tour (PST)

2011-11-11T08:11:00.000-08:00

It isn't exactly the upstart AFL signing of Joe Namanth to the New York Jets that eventually elevated the fledgling AFL to equal status to its rival NFL, it's more like the New York Mets signing Willie Mays towards the end of his career (he helped put the Mets in the '73 World Series). With the signing of this great, great squash champion and still one of the most formidable players out there, Joe McManus of the Pro Squash Tour has sent a message.

The PST is for real, it's legitimate and it will be a stomping ground for greats, near greats, Sherbini, Ball and Leanza and and young US born aspirants like Omar Sohby, Kyle Jens, and Ned Marks. Imagine what the signing of Willie Mays did to the New York Mets team of the 1973 season, he help take them to the World Series! Palmer no doubt will have a huge influence on the younger players. Those younger players can only benefit from playing someone of Palmer's calibre. Palmer will have some sage advice and give other players the opportunity to see him up close, in the "clubhouse". If you've ever met the man, he has a presence, the kind of presence that seems to say you want to play high level squash this is what it takes. He's been there and still is there.

With McManus signing of Palmer, which I'm sure is to sell tickets, it is still a business, he has provided something far greater than the price of admission. He has provided a level of play lesser players can aspire to. Knowing McManus' committment and passion for bringing squash to the fans here in the US, there's no doubt in my mind, he is doing it for the future great players of this game. Unlike White, a former number 1 who is retired, one can only hope that with the signing of Palmer and his high level play, he will attract other players who might otherwise never have the opportunity to be on court with him, to play him. I for one, if I could play the game at at least the qualifier level would be inspired to do whatever it took to try and get to the master in the main draw.

If you doubt just how good Palmer is in the twilight of his career, take a look at his last PSA match at the World Open which just completed. I've ranked him as one of the top ten greatest players of all time. I love to watch him play. I saw him play in the Hyder a few years back against Clive Leach and it was amazing to watch him on the club court. I watched him toy with Leach, a great player in his own right, and as I sat in the front row I tried to mark exactly on the side wall Palmer hit is cross court. I marked the cross courts from Leach as well and the difference was an inch or two at most but the effects were devastating for Leach. Palmer pressured him with punishing length and angle. I don't often get that close to see it.
How many good years does Palmer have, I guess you would have to ask him. I certainly want to see him go out a champion and then become one of the ambassadors of squash. While terms of the deal were undisclosed, money is money, what Palmer brings to this new league is priceless, you can't place a value on something like this. I hope to hear down the road some future PST star remark that Palmer in the league was a great influence and inspiration he taught him to think and play like a champion.
For all the younger players out there enamoured by the flash of the Egyptians, come watch David Palmer play, you won't see the likes of him ever again, he is one of a kind, one of the greatest, study his game, witness his mental toughness and lo and behold when he hits that forehand kill into the frontcourt nick remember that shot as one of the great shots in the game.

No Shame Except in Shaming – Bryan Patterson’s US Open Article.

2011-10-12T09:06:00.001-07:00

I read the article Bryan Patterson wrote about the poor attendance at the recently completed US Open Squash Tournament held in Philadelphia. “Shame on you Philadelphia” was his mantra. I thought about this and thought about this and couldn't’t figure out why it really bothered me. What bothered me about it as I realized later, was his mantra castigating people as if they weren't supporting a worthy charity! This is ironic because here US squash has been treating squash as a business with a board, CEO, profiting, and they sponsored/promoted this tournament. Yet when no one wants to be part of it probably for a number of reasons, which I can only guess, not having attended but having attended other US Open tournaments over the years, it’s not the fault of the tournament but the people not attending. So if no one attended this great event, it must not have been such a great event? Squash in my mind sells itself, and Paterson’s remark about players like playing and not watching isn’t true. Squash players, at all levels want to watch squash, they couldn't’t care less about the squash zones, the video games, the food, the alcohol, the technology…they care about squash at a level that transcends all that marketing crap and it is crap, crap used to try and market a sport that will never ever have mass appeal. Stop trying to copy professional tennis! I think back on the US Open that was run out of the Roseland Ballroom a few years back by Sean Gibbons from the Printing House, I was at the finals ( I think) and a great finals it was, which Nick Mathew, my squash hero at the time won. The venue was great but it was simple, it was squash with a few booths promoting Prince equipment, located in the heart of New York City at a wonderful venue. Financially it was ruinous ( I believe the US Open lacked sponsorship the following year), but you didn’t hear Shawn saying ”Shame on you New York”. I go back to the attempts to market squash as a glitzy, mass appealing sport by the same Roseland Ballroom US Open promoters when they hosted the first and only Village Open. I never forgot the big black suited thug body guards preventing people from going to their seats during points…hmm, I thought, Beth Rasin TOC Tournament Director seemed sufficient enforcement. Anyways, the TOC is the greatest squash event I’ve ever attended…Nimick really puts on a great show and it doesn’t have all the marketing crap, the feeling you get when attending is squash really sells itself. Again, I’m not pretending to know why the US Open failed in attracting attendance and I would have felt badly about it except for Patterson’s remarks. Live by the sword die by the sword. What I would have loved to have heard from him was some ideas about funding all the street squash kids to come from nearby cities to be in a attendance on kids day, to which I would have gladly contributed some money ( I’m sure it would have been a great time for them and anyone contributing) rather than hear the remarks of a bad-hip-and-knee curmudgeon sitting in an elite box shaming people for not attending. US Squash puts on some great amateur events, no doubt, and their support of urban squash initiatives and women’s squash is quite admirable. But, personally, I’d like the Pro US Open left to the likes of Joe McManus and John Nimick, the real entrepreneurs of professional squash in the US.

Peter Marshall -- The Genius Of Doing It Differently

2011-09-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Jeff Higgs is a new student of mine at LA Fitness, Lake Success, NY. He is a big, strong, ex-collegiate baseball player. He looks like he was once a catcher, he's affable, moves like a gazelle and has these gifted, soft hands, and you can just imagine him peppering the ball with that Walt Hriniak (that great Boston Red Sox hitting coach/guru and author) who emphasized the inside/outside swing as in going to the opposite field with the ball. I would see Jeff on the courts when I arrived at 5:30 a.m. playing Mike Rideout, of Rideout Media Productions, a definite type "A" personality who plays like he lives. I always watched Jeff and thought to myself he could be really good, with some better fitness and technique he could probably within a year or two be a high level B or A player. I spoke to him often offering some pointers and he would say to me on occasion how he'd really like some lessons. I didn't push the lessons since I was pretty booked in the morning slots and plus, he seemed like the type of player that needed a challenge. I didn't want to offer too many accolades on his hands and nice footwork, because I believed it wouldn't matter much unless he was beating his brother at Piping Rock in Oyster Bay, where Amanda Sohby, World junior under 19 women's champion trains. She used to play at LA Fitness with her stepfather, longtime New York coach, Ron Karn.
When Jeff finally approached me about lessons. I told him it wasn't really worth the time unless he was game for 6 months to a year of lessons, twice a week on the court with me. I outlined what he needed to do to get to that solid B and upper B level, to beat his brother, I added that I thought he could with a lot of work and his own fitness regiment and proper diet play A level within two years. I emphasized he wasn't fit for squash and on court with his 25-30 lbs overweight would just play like someone overweight all the time. We would improve his racket skills and footwork, but he would still be with that proverbial backpack of 30 lbs strapped to his back. I suggested he spend every morning 20 minutes level 8 on the stepper and 20 minutes level 14 on the stationary bike. I also asked his to cut out his favorite food and really try hard to refrain from eating it. If he had to eat it eat 1/2 as much. He should do this each week and within a month add his second favorite food. And he'd continue in this mode until he ran out of favorite foods, at which point, I could certainly guarantee he would have lost the 30-40 lbs he needed to lose.
Our first session was good we emphasized the basics of grip, racket preparation and some footwork. I told him What I noticed is that on his forehand and backhand he almost was hitting two handed on each side. I instinctively told him release the racket the two handed hit will impede his preparation and follow through. But then, the image of Peter Marshal, that wunderkind of squash from the 90's, came into my mind. I couldn't in all honesty say that about his two handed shots because Peter Marshall reached number 2 in the world and was poised to take over the reign of none other than the greatest player to ever play this game, Jansher Khan. I saw Marshall play, he was something to behold, he moved so beautifully, his squash court intelligence IQ was through the roof, he would hit both forehand and backhand double handed and it was only when really pushed to the extreme parts of the court that he would use the single hand. I don't know if there was an advantage or whether it was just what he did and if he hit with the racket between his teeth like Hendrix played the guitar with his teeth it would be just as great. That is what pure genius is, absolute genius. Some make money no matter what, everything they do they make money at, others hit great squash balls no matter how they hit them. Peter Marshal was certainly the Warren Buffet of squash.
But life has these strange ironies, it is what makes us different than any other species. As Marshal rocketed to number 2 in the world, he came down with what at the time was called the 'yuppie" disease of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, symptoms including swollen glands, lethargy, fever and a general physical malaise. At the time that syndrome was considered psycho-symatic, "in your head" sort of thing. But in reality it was a clinically proved affliction. Marshall came back from this disease and competed and won the British National Championship. I recently watched him in a match on Youtube playing and you could see that familiar two fisted backhand and forehand, the sort of wand, the magic wand that might not be like the wand of other powerful magicians, but still yielded the same potent magic. You could see the balding on the crown of his head, but he still moved beautifully and his hands on the racket were still simply magic.
Not to forget Jeff, I briefly said, ok, keep doing what your doing if your shots work. If the two hander doesn't work, if you can't hit a tight shot, then we'll change it. To be honest, how you hit the ball doesn't matter, I told him, if you hit it for good length and tight. Who cares whether you are great in your technique and it looks nice on file, if you can it the ball well no matter how you hit it, how you hit it doesn't change the fact you HIT THE BALL WELL. Just watch John White hit the ball, former number 1, and who in my opinion played the greatest 1 game of squash in the history of the game when he took game 4 from Gaultier in the 2009 tournament of Champions -- I was there and saw this incredible game. He once told me in a clinic I did with him he wouldn't advise any player to hit like him. So when you look at the classic techniques of Nicol, Mathew, Wilstrop and then compare them to the oddity of the likes of Marshall and White, you realize that there really isn't any recipe or script in this game for success. Marshall was brilliant, and if not for his illness, you can only imagine him and Nicol and Power on the circuit at the same time...while Nicol in my opinion will go down as one of the top 5 greatest players ever, I think Marshall would have been right there with him. Jeff doesn't have to worry about greatness, he can achieve what he will depending on his ability and dedication, and yes, if he hits the two hander well, then keep the two hander, do Peter Marshall proud.
While Jeff might not reach mercurial heights, I was watching the two hander from England Robbie Temple, wow, what a player he might reach some height.You can see Peter Marshall in his game, this player is so talented. I've been watching him on Youtube and just marvel at the two hander (unlike Marshall he hits it left handed from the backhand only). He is so good, and while in his mid twenties, based on what I saw how he played against the likes of top 10 Peter Barker, this kid is going to reach top 20...he's that good. And when you watch him it could be as if in the 90s you're perched on the edge of your seat watching Peter Marshal glide along the court and strike his familiar two hander for perfect length.
As I progress in the next weeks with Jeff, I'll think of Peter Marshall and Robbie Temple and their unique style in this game and encourage Jeff to find himself in whatever makes his game good. I'm a believer there's no right recipe or timeline for success in Squash. This game is a wheel of fortune, it's a given if you want to play it well fitness and skill are a given, but beyond that it's luck, truly luck in how you develop to play this game. Isn't that after all, how we live our own lives. When it's all said and done if we can just say, as Sinatra crooned, " I did it my way..." that would be quite an accomplishment.

Mr. Wyskers Never Set Foot On A Squash Court

2011-09-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

My best childhood friend , whom I have known since I was 12 years old back in that small New England town, Bernardston, Massachusetts, never held a squash racket, stepped foot on court nor struck a hard rail to good length. He is seriously ill with esophagal cancer and has a tumor so big he can’t swallow solid food. He is undergoing chemo therapy which is making him sick and he’s down to 123 lbs.
I have been coming off a series of squash injuries lately, have been really stressed out in my other work, technology, and have been a bit of a bear to live with, according to my wife. When I received the news about Mr. Wyskers (Wally Wysk whom I always called Wyskers), my son was away in England training with Steve Townsend in Birmingham, he is always good at putting things in perspective and when confronted with a crisis we usually have a hit for a bit and stop in between and talk about the elements of the crisis. He wasn’t around, my wife was great, but nothing was calming my spirit and mind. I seemed to be in that mindset am I now going to see those near and dear around to start dropping off. How long before I am struck with something like this – my wife was right, I was having a bit of a pity party. I did not go to church to pray or kneel at my bed to pray for Mr. Wyskers, I wanted to be on court 6 at LA Fitness in Lake Success, Long Island, where I coach and play.
I arrived and changed into my squash shoes, stretched a bit and went on court and closed the door. I looked around at the four white walls, the courts are enclosed so they are very quiet. Through the glass backed court the usual packed crowds and throngs of weight lifters silently, eerily so, as if it they were a silent movie, pumped their iron. This court was where I needed to be, the old feeling of calm and perspective began to come over me. Wife was right, pity; here I don’t feel pity, anxious, life is life and death or the prospect of it is part of this life. I began bouncing the ball with my racket, a couple of students paused to watch, they waved, I just nodded. They knew, I was in a place not accessible to them right now and they kindly left me alone. I was mad at myself for the complaints about my injured hand, my complaints about being tired and sore, and thinking about what’s going to happen to me too, all the while my friend was facing something much worse, reality. But the ball I was bouncing has that rhythmic sound , the same effect a Hindu mantra has or meditation might have…I was releasing the negative stuff breathing in the good energy and breathing out the bad energy. I started striking the ball, at first my hand really hurt and my knee was bothering me, but I ignored it I wanted to see the ball, hear the ball, move in my mind as if I were a gazelle….I was striking the ball well as it began to warm up, I stepped on the forehand side up and down the court repeatedly volleying the ball then playing it back keeping it going for as long as I could. I was working up a sweat, I was beginning to breathe as if I was in a good rally. I switched sides, my backhand was good, my racket was really quick, I wasn’t plodding with my feet….my mind began to wander I thought of how Mr. Wyskers and I use to skip school and hang out and talk about books and music.
Mr. Wyskers, what a talent, he taught himself classical Spanish guitar, played in a rock band, wrote countless songs for his beloved girl, Jill, and I wrote him some poems he used as lyrics. We were wiseasses, we went to a small rural school, certainly no squash nor any tennis even, we played football but were kicked off after a couple of years because we smoked and had long hair and read and were into art and music. He loved Steinbeck, I can remember him completely enthralled by his works, Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl…he loved Woody Guthrie and Mississippi John Hurt, I turned him on to blues. He was an artist as well and loved Michelangelo and studied his art and works…he joined a rock band and they began playing locally and we eventually drifted apart. I started thinking about what my son had sent me from England about how Steve was changing his stroke in the front. We had talked about how his game in the front needed work, I didn’t know how to really help him fix it, but Steve made an adjustment that worked immediately. He had him bring his racket down more and had him extend his arm more on the follow through in the same motion as if he were dropping, crossing, or railing…I see the pros do that…I thought wow, that is cool stuff. I can’t wait for him to show me this when he gets back.
I had to take a break, I had been hitting without stop for quite awhile, I felt like myself again, no matter what I do or don’t do in this game of squash , I am just happy to play it – just like I am so happy to know this friend of mine and share a critical moment in his life. When we reconnected through Facebook a few years back, he remarked how we seemed to pick up right where we left off. I was sitting outside the court drinking some water and looking into the court, no matter what, I thought, like my friendship with Mr. Wyskers, every time I get on that court should be as if I never stepped off of it. I want him better, I want my game better, but sometimes you just have to take what comes, as clichéd as that is, and just be happiest with what you have right now.

An Interview With "Lord Ganesha" of Zimbabwe Squash

2011-09-02T07:05:00.001-07:00

As a follow up to my article, The Lord Ganesha of Zimbabwe Squash (squashdashersbashers.blogspot.com and dailysquashreports.com), I conducted this interview with my squash brother, Mr. Mashumba Mukumba…head coach and Executive Trustee and founder of The Zimbabwe Squash Academy.

SDB: When did you start playing squash?

MM: I started playing squash at the age of 21; I never had an
opportunity to play at junior level and assuming that if I had had a
chance I could have gone further. I eventually decide to give this opportunity to others since I was also inthe same “boat” during and after my childhood.

SDB: Why do you coach?

MM: I have discovered that there are so many opportunities if we do it in the right way. Someone from my academy must make it to the top and I will make surethe type of practice and coaching I offer differs and has a huge
impact to change things.

SDB: Who was and is the biggest influence in your life?

MM: It is my wife because she said to me one day "will you be the champion in squash?" and I told her not me but the future generation that I will coach will be. She insisted that I must teach most of the kids from the poor
background as mine, that's why I ended up forming an academy which is what we have today.

SDB: why would you encourage squash where there is so little money for professional players?

MM: I would encourage it because most of the kids here in Africa (Zimbabwe) canhave good pass in academics but will not be able to go to varsity
because of funds and whereas combining it with squash you can easily get your scholarship and advance with your studies. I recommend squash because there is less competition compared to any other popular sports, you have to be extremely good to qualify but in squash you just have to be good enough.

SDB: What do you hope to accomplish? World top 10 from your country?

MM: I hope to be the best in the region of Southern Africa and to have players who willqualify to get varsity scholarships and also play in the world squash PSA circuit.

SDB: What has been your lowest point in this? Your highest point in this?

MM: We have just started and the other problem that affects our
development is the political stability. Today investors are waiting
and tomorrow is no different – we will have to see as we move along. We use
to be the best in the region and we will be from juniors to seniors.

SDB: When you turn off the lights on court each day what crosses your mind?

MM: I come here every day and I must reap what I am sowing otherwise with my other fellows we are not helping me prove or make my dream true.

The Remover of All Obstacles…Lord Ganesha of Zimbabwe Squash

2011-09-01T11:58:00.001-07:00

I don’t even remember how I recently came to know Mr. Mashumba Mukumba, executive member and founder of the Zimbabwe Squash Academy, a non-profit squash initiative that brings this great game of ours to the underprivileged and economically challenged children of his noble African state. But no matter, I’ve exchanged numerous emails with this man, this champion of squash and have been inspired. Today my Hindu wife, Shyamala, told me she needed to place flowers at her altar because it is Lord Ganesha’s birthday, the “elephant” god, as mythology goes is the holy offspring of Lord Shiva and Pavarthi, who is the remover of all obstacles. I asked her to say a prayer to Lord Ganesha for him and I have on my desk a small statue of the god to which I asked most humbly to remove all obstacles facing the Zimbabwe Squash Academy. I explained to the God, this is a great cause sustained by the passion for squash by it’s founder.
Mr. Mukumba. 3 years ago had a vision of promoting the game he has devoted his whole life to in attempts to widen the appeal and participation among all Zimbabwe children. When you read his charter, it reads like gospel, so determined is he to elevate the lives of the disadvantaged through squash. While we have organizations here in the US which promote squash among the best and brightest of underprivileged children, Mr. Mukumba and his dedicated staff of coaches and members of his “trust” seek to promote this game to any child who has an interest. Often many show up to his courts with just the clothes on their backs, barefoot, having no idea what this game is, but drawn by curiosity for anything that is different from their usual surroundings. Tirelessly through video demonstrations around urban areas, on court exhibitions, he is a magnet drawing these children to the clubs, often in the wealthier neighborhoods. He offers some glimmer of pursuing excellence in a sport that is demanding, difficult, which presents more obstacles than perhaps the children’s own lives, he gives them the opportunity to transcend those obstacles at least in squash., at least for the time they are on court. He gives them the dream of perhaps someday being a champion. The great thing about squash is when on court it is the great equalizer, it doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, privileged or not…you are equal to your opponent and superior if you can win.
Mr. Mukumba is not without his own agenda, while giving these children a place to learn squash, he seeks to find those rare gems who might rise above all others and become champions locally, in county and even nationally. He encourages openly that excellence in this game can mean pursuing a career playing professionally on the international circuit. His number 1 player and Zimbabwe’s national number 1, Ishmael Mubure, whom he has coached and who is part of his “trust”, coaching youngsters like he once was, recently won the Dunlop Open in the Netherlands and has won some other events s like Saxon and Kenyan Open. He could be much higher ranked than his 360 PSA ranking , according to Mr. Mukumba , but there’s not enough funding to get him additional coaching and more international exposure.
The academy is in desperate need of equipment like clothing, shoes, racquets, eyewear, balls. Well wishers from Canada squash donated 100 racquets which were a great gift from their Canadian Squash brothers because the little equipment the Academy does have is shared and worn out. When you look at the pictures of his children in the Academy they arenot unlike any other squash academies around the world, the children proudly hold their rackets and grin ear to ear, he has brought these expressions of pride and hope to children through our great game, children who otherwise might never experience the immense joy of accomplishing and overcoming obstacles, no matter how great or small in their lives.
Mr. Mukumba has many years coaching experience and is very active on the international coaching platform having attended conferences to learn about this game the latest developments and coaching techniques. Make no mistake, his efforts are all about squash and using squash to produce squash players, to remove the privileged aura of this game and make it anyone’s right who has an interest and aptitude for it. His mission is to feed these kids ball after ball to teach them proper footwork, sportsmanship and those rare players who show motivation and talent to rise above the rest to support their efforts to pursue squash as a profession. While he has this vision, he knows the realities of operating costs. Sustaining this vision with equipment, transportation, since many kids live far away from the suburbs where these courts are, courts, fees and snacks takes money. Anyone who can bring squash to the people, so to speak, deserves support and encouragement whatever that might be.
Squashdashersbashers is collecting rackets, balls, eye wear and preparing a shipment to Mr. Mukumba’s academy. If you would like to know more about this great squash initiative, please contact Mr. Mukumba mmmsquared400@gmail.com (Zimbabwe Squash Academy) or wcgconsult@hotmail.com (Squashdasherbashers.blogspot.com)

PST -- One Small Step For Squash...One Giant Step For Safety

2011-08-31T09:24:00.001-07:00

PST Commissioner Joe McManus canvassed fans in the recent online publication of Squash E-zine on whether or not PST professional sanctioned tournaments should require its players to wear protective eyewear. It's mandatory for its amateur tournaments. My son started playing PST pro tournaments and I absolutely encouraged him to wear protective eyewear. It is always, in my opinion as both parent and coach, "better to err on the side of caution". In a time when we spend billions of dollars on technology to make cars safer, why wouldn't we spend some money on investing in protective eyewear. Who would argue with the statement, if it means one player doesn't lose his or her sight from an errant squash ball or racquet, why not make wearing protective eyewear mandatory. The game is changing, McManus is correct. The PST with the No-Let rule makes the game more aggressive and exciting. Exciting doesn't have to mean dangerous. If there is one doubt on the safety of the evolved style of play, simply wear the protective eyewear.
Do construction workers wear hard hats, does a welder wear protective masks, does a professional baseball player wear a helmet? Of course they do, while most professions experience a small percentage of accidental injuries due to some mishap, the response should always be safety first -- at any level!. There is no reason, none, that players can't wear protective eyewear. There are issues with fogging and scratching and getting used to them, but all of these issues are easily remedied with proper well constructed protective eyewear. I have never had a problem with my glasses, I sweat profusely, I see clearly -- I recommend everyone wear the white colored prince court glasses. At $20.00 plus dollars, in my mind, there's no reason not to wear them. While I'm not a professional player, I have been hit with an aggressive racquet and a couple of times with the ball in the eye, squarely in the eye. But I was wearing my tried and true protective glasses.
Another critical reason is junior players copy professional players. I can't tell you how many times juniors will say they don't see the "pros" wearing protective glasses. I can only say they are wrong, it should be mandatory. If it saves one persons eyesight it's worth everyone wearing them. Once you are used to them you will be surprised how even when practicing you automatically put them on, they way you would automatically tie your laces.
I have a woman 4.5 student-player who could be a national champion and great amateur tournament player. My biggest challenge with her is not her technique or footwork but to get her to wear protective eyewear. She says it makes her feel clautraphobic, okay, but one-eyed darkness will really make her really feel clautraphobic. I tell her she can never compete because of this. We are working on it. Selena are you reading this?
And is there any professional squash player who can say the outcome of a match was determined by the use or lack thereof of protective eyewear. I'd like to hear from them.
McManus has shown he is the "commissioner" of this tour and he will openly discipline star players with suspensions for not adhering to the overall sportsmanship qualities of squash. I applaud him for taking this step; it is long overdue. Players will adapt, and perhaps the makers of the eyewear will listen to the players wearing those glasses and invest the money to improve the quality and effectiveness. I'm sure Prince, who already sponsors the PST with their torunament ball, would gladly contribute their protective eyewear, which is the best in the market, to the torunament players.
Next on the "commissioner's " agenda, should be getting rid of PAR scoring. But first things first.

Squash Mental or Mental Squash -- Barb Cooper's 10 Winning Tips to Improve Your Squash

2011-08-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

Simplify the game. So much easier said than done. I admire most those squash minds who have the ability to take the complexity of the squash game and simplify it to a pure and simple explanation. I sort of stumbled across this great little article by Barb Cooper entitled, "10 Winning Tips for Improving Your Squash Game”. She sells it for $7.00 USD dollars online. It is money well spent. There are so many “tips” in here that are such a great tenfold return on your $7.00 investment. Many of the tips we’ve heard before, but she writes about them in such a way that is just simple and direct.
As I’ve become an older player, I recognize the need to work on my mental part of the game. I only wish I had done this twenty years ago! But better late than never. I was drawn her article because if is written by a squash professional who has devoted her life to improving the game of others, with special emphasis on the “mental” aspects of them game. Barb Cooper’s squash resume along with 40 years coaching experience at the highest level might be impressive enough, but most of us have seen a lot of pompous, inflated, albeit well-intentioned professionals come onto to the US scene in recent years, that really lack the simple, straightforward approach to the game. Because you were a professional player from overseas doesn’t mean you are now “slumming” in the US and bringing squash religion to infidels. I can name a few very arrogant examples of this but will not open this up to that. I’d prefer to champion those less self-serving but who want to improve the game of others at any level.
Barb Cooper starts off her article with top 5 mental tips, okay, we’ve heard this before: “learn to relax”, if only I could. But what makes this so interesting is she offers up this observation, which I’ve never thought about. You are who you are on court as well as off court….how true is that? She sites some personality examples. And then proceeds to provide an exercise on how to relax off court first (this is so intelligent, do what you need to do off court first) and then work it into on the court. Breathing, how to breathe and relax between points. Start off by at night when you lay down for a night’s sleep to breathe and relax, I am trying that, since it takes forever for myself to unwind – but that is funny, because on court it takes me quite a bit to unwind and relax. Breathe deeply in through your nose and exhale out through your mouth. Practical and simple…yet this technique works and she doesn’t simply say breathe deeply, she tells you how to breathe. This I love as well. She sites an example or case in point of how critical it is between points to breathe, relax and clear your mind. She will tell you the most critical time is after you’ve lost a point and are returning your opponent’s serve.
Another really important piece of advise is she seems to clear up this annoying controversy. She will tell you to play players worse than yourself. I’ve most often heard you get better playing better players, but what she states is that with players worse than yourself you can practice breathing and relaxing techniques, shots in your game and strategy while not under the pressure of playing someone better than yourself. But she will add in that doesn’t mean lose the game of match, and when you have to win, win whatever way you know how. The other tip I really liked and one which I’ve followed for years (but have trouble getting my students to follow this) is really study the game, be a student of this game, “read and learn from others.” Of course there is always my favorite tip, when you practice leave your world behind. I am the worst offender of this, but I’m learning. Keep relationship, financial, world news out of the court. Again, this only creates stress, which leads to tightness and mistakes on the court.
Finally, the other tip I really like is her tip of building your game on quadrants. This is something Jim Masland my former coach and squash confidante, has told be for years; break the court down in quadrants, but it took her to explain what to do. Develop the shot you want to make within a single quadrant first before moving on to another shot and quadrant. This is great advise, breaking it down simple. One quadrant at a time – the easiest way to gauge your improvement. And finally, she cleared this up which often puzzled me, volley everything you can. This goes along way for me especially since I let balls go I should cut off, but -- you get a bit comfortable retrieving.
I have read so many squash books and seen so many instructional videos, I like this tip sheet a lot. There’s enough for a book here, especially if Ms. Cooper goes into all the ghastly details of actually implementing these improvements. I strongly encourage anyone wanting to improve their squash game to spend the money and download it…it’s well worth the read.
See her website: http:/www.racketdrills.com for how to purchase this guide.

The PST and the AFL -- Joe McManus and Al Davis Not So Far Fetched

2011-08-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

I was recently doing some reading on one of the most successful, actually the most successful, sports merger in the history of sports. That would be the merger of the American Football and National Football Leagues back in the late 1960's. If you read about this incredible merger you realize that it was the older established league, the NFL, which approached the AFL about a merger. The AFL was young and innovative and well funded, it reached out to markets where organized football didn't exists. It created new markets and even ventured into markets where the NFL had a strong foothold. Al Davis, probably more famous for being the much maligned owner of the Oakland Raiders (a powerhouse AFL team) was the visionary commissioner of the AFL. Many credit him for putting the AFL in such a great situation that this merger was able to take place, a merger that was intiated by the older and more established NFL.
What does this have to do with squash, which is what I write about? While I was reading about the football league mergers I couldn't help but make connections to what the Professional Squash Tournament (PST) organization founded and headed up by Joe McManus is doing alongside the older and much more established Professional Squash Association (PSA). When I stop to think about what McManus is doing for squash I get really excited. While I couldn't attend the recent PST tour stop in Southampton, Long Island (close to where I live) because of coaching commitments, I followed the draw along with my son who played in it, his second PST event (which he admittedly said he stunk at), and saw some of the local players whom most people otherwise wouldn't see, except for some grainy footage on YouTube. One such player, Dylan Murray, no doubt a young "phenom" beat one of the local standouts, Ely Slyder. The other match of note, pitted Faraz Khan, a young junior, and son of my good friend and former coach Farid Khan, against a very experienced professional player, Ned Marks, who happens to play my son quite frequently in the city. When I read about this and hear about it, it was such great news. What McManus has done has provided a venue for up and coming players or local established players the opportunity to get into the next round or two and play a world class player. This is not only a huge advantage for up and coming players, but it is also an added boon for squash fans to see these up and coming players. I saw Dylan Murray play years ago and then watched him on a clip from YouTube and this kid already exhibits professional level footwork and racket skills.
The AFL used to showcase all of the black standout football stars and the cast offs from the NFL. Funny thing, those castoffs, many of which, became NFL stars when the leagues merged. McManus has come up with such an intelligent formula for providing opportunity for players and fans alike to be part of great young talent and world class players. For a young player to play a Bradley Ball or John White if they get through the draw is fantastic. What a measuring stick and opportunity to come out of a match with a former number one just to have that experience. I took a clinic with John White years ago and he is such an incredible character, so down-to-earth and a reminder that you don't have to be coached by world class coaches to reach number 1 in the World (White will state he was never coached and with a smile doesn't advise any young player to copy his style). The best part of the clinic was the opportunity to play points with him. While I was certainly not at my fittest at the time and will admit to waddling a bit on court during a very busy time in my technology career when I just couldn't get to the courts as often as I liked (along with too much order in Chinese takeout lunches and dinners), I enjoyed those points like you wouldn't believe. I had never been on the court with someone who hit the ball where I had no idea, absolutely none, where the ball came from nor where it was going. I tried to imagine how anyone could compete with this guy, he held the ball for what seemed like forever and with this bionic wrist snapped his racket and redirected the ball. He did that shot where he swings and misses purposely and then snaps his second stroke to hit a fierce cross court the screeches by and dies in the back.
McManus has proven an innovator. His "no-let" rule is widely criticized as well as well received. Not unlike the AFL's implementation of the two point conversion. Innovation breathes new life into something tried and true. Our sport is the greatest sport on the planet, but when I receive an email about Mathew seeking revenge against Ashour at the Rowe British Open in September (Mathew recently lost in 5 to Ashour at the Australian Open) I stop and wonder, is it that predictable on the PSA that they can pick finalists based on world ranking ( Mathew number 1 and Ashour number2) a month in advance? The PSA is incredible because of the players, but the PSA isn't just about the top 50 players in the world. There are so many others whom we never see or hear about. Maybe in some of the overseas minor tournaments you would see the lower ranked players, but for the most part I have always liked the qualifiers at the NY Tournament of Champions (TOC), I like to see the young up and coming players. McManus has taken it a step further, he's garnered some young local talent and put them in a professional tournament when they might not otherwise have the opportunity to play professional level squash.
Do I hope some day the two squash governing bodies will merge, only if the PST keeps its identity and continues to bring innovation while at the same time guarding the traditions of the sport. If a US born men's player ever reaches world class stature in the squash world, I hope the credit goes to McManus for the efforts he has put forth in giving young US players the opportunity to experience world class play. I hope someone like Dylan Murray who has great talent gets enough of a taste of professional squash to want to pursue that calling, a calling whose beginning may well have started in these PST events. As for my son, it's a dream come true that he will play in as many PST events as he can this year, and when I get that phone call from him telling me he won his first PST match it will be a great day, and one of many to come.

Farewell , Paul Zummo: The Tasmanian Devil of LA Fitness Squash!

2011-08-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

Squash is a small and close-knit community, especially in the far reaches of the squash world like Lake Success, Long Island. The players here have formed a tight community made up of doctors, lawyers, business men and women, housewives, hair stylists, even a jam manufacturer . But a true standout for his squash and sportsmanship in our community is Paul Zummo, one of my most favorite students, and the one whom I derived great pride in watching him develop as a player. He is moving to Connecticut so won’t be a frequent player at our club anymore. I’ve come to know Paul both as a friend and his coach, the bond between is that ever lasting one called squash. The first time I saw him play was a few years back when he was about 45 lbs heavier and I thought for sure he’d have a heart attack as he rushed around the court sweating in buckets and red faced with fatigue. I turned to my son while watching him and said it’s like watching the Tasmanian Devil play squash! I told my son with some coaching he could be a really good player, get him fit and with some technique and he could be really good. That was then and this is now. Paul is fit, in fact very fit. He won this year’s Grand Open regional 3.0 level tournament and placed well in the US Nationals. No doubt if he hadn’t been hampered with chronic strep leading up to the Nationals he would have won. He has come so far and what was once one of the worst backhands I’d ever seen is pretty respectable now. He has a good foundation to progress certainly to the 4.5 level and with a lot of hard work maybe the 5.0 level.
Many times over the past 2 years of coaching him 6 am every Tuesday and Thursday I watched him push through so much impatience and type “A” personality stuff to begin to develop a good understanding of the game. He is the one person I believe will find the essence of the game and become a National champion a couple of times over. I’ve never met anyone with such heart and determination and will to win. It isn’t often pretty to watch him but he wears down better players and we often watch his matches and just shake our heads wondering how he was able to retrieve some of the balls he gets to. The biggest compliment I can pay him is that the club won’t be the same without him. I watched him play his biggest club rival on Saturday, John Gross, in what turned out to be a straight set win for Paul. He often loses to John, another tireless student of mine, but there were some incredible rallies (some quite forgettable ones too). A prospective squash member was watching them and was asking me what level they were at and I said probably a solid C level, to which he remarked , they look more like solid B players. It’s always good when a B player thinks the C’s are playing like the B’s…I wonder if the nickname will stick with him or will his new club come up with another nickname for him? When the dust settles around the Tasmanian Devil he just might now look like a squash player. I have all sorts of advice for him as he leaves for another club, but I stop myself, because I think, to keep it in perspective, it is I who have learned more from him than he from me. I wish this fellow squash dasher and basher all the luck – “racket up and back – move your feet!”…

Once A Student Always A Student

2011-07-21T10:19:00.000-07:00

Sam, one of my LA Fitness squash students, and potentially an excellent player was watching me and his training partner, Selena, drilling and when we came off the court I could tell he really enjoyed watching it, especially Selena who is slowly Pygmalion-like being transformed into some player. I was talking to them about how I was just figuring out after all these years how to change the pace of the game without changing the pace of the ball. I'm not an intuitive player who doesn't think about such things. But I am an analytical player who likes to figure out why and how we do certain things on the court. I really enjoy dissecting this game and just am awed by both it's complexity and simplicity, an oxymoron but like most great challenges in life it's about bring control to two opposing forces, to channel that kinetic energy into something resembling grace, movement and timing.
I was explaing how insanely effective the half volley is to pick up the pace of the game, by taking the ball early off the floor on the rise before it reaches its apex -- you need to really be strong in the core of your body and have the racket skills in preperation and execution to get very low to the ball and drive it for good width and length. If executed well, the half volley is as effective as a regular volley and when executed well puts a lot of pressure on your opponent. I like to play a style that is aggressive with my feet, cutting the ball off. What I am learning is that I am much more effective when I cut the ball off but then accentuate the point by not cutting it off and retrieving it in the back. The effects of this is much like a baseball pitcher throwing 3 fastballs at 90 something and then throwing the big hook or change up it puts the hitter off balance and messes with the hitters timing. So too in squash, if I'm cutting the ball off, trying to take it early by volleying or half volleying, and if executing well putting some real pressure, then I play the ball back, retrieve a bit and then go back to the pressure.
An attacking boast (two wall boast) off the half volley redirects the ball to the front of the court as does the half volley softly and deftly placed into the front corner...my point in this is I never stop learning new things about this game, sometimes it things that come easily to some...as for me, when Sam asked "you are still learning", I shot back, "you never stop learning this game." I am first and foremost above being a teacher or a player, a humble student of this game. What comes so intuitively to my son, I have to figure it out, analyze it (hopefully not to death) and then work on the mechanics and then the execution. When I grasp something new and difficult it is the best feeling in the world. Difficult is of course relative, but good mechanics and great execution are what we seem to strive for in becoming a better player and student...
Look next for a blog post on Selena Mahoney, what a player she's becoming, she's now taken up that position as most favorite and honored student, after me that is.

Squash And The Sands Of Time

2011-07-21T09:25:00.001-07:00

For those who live and breathe this game of squash, there’s nothing worse than sustaining a long term injury. Oh, perhaps there is, coming back from an injury especially one that has involved a tear, pull or fracture. I’m not even talking about surgically repaired tendons, joints, replacements or the like, I’m talking about those injuries that keep you away from the game, those that seem to trick you into believing you can come back early only to find you did indeed come back too early. It’s one thing to resign yourself to a torn Achilles, you simply can’t play, need surgery and rehabilitation. Same goes for that torn meniscus. From those injuries you know that if you don’t do what you are supposed to do you may never play again, so you have your surgery, rehabilitate, and take it slowly. I admire a warrior like Will Carlin, former US National Amateur champion, who has sustained some serious injuries and he keeps coming back…he will play until his very last breath.
I recently broke my hand playing one of my students. My best student in fact who was frustrated in our points so that he stepped aggresively in front of me while I was striking the ball and my racquet caught his leg in such a way that I couldn't release my racquet and it snapped my hand back. Very painful stuff. I spent hours in emergency, ironically on the fast track (5 hours) before being xray’d and released. The hand was too swollen to determine if it was a fracture. I was put in a splint and told to see a specialist. I saw a specialist who swore it was broken, spent 3 minutes, and said I'd have to see another specialist who actualy had an xray machine. He rewrapped my injured hand and set me up for another appointment.
I spend endless hours working on my computer so just prior to my next appointment I had enough, two weeks operating the mouse lefthanded and typing with the splint hitting the spacebar I took it off and said to myself I'll rest it another two weeks and see how it goes.
My son was after me to get it re-xray'd and I told him I'm old school. If a cast was applied I would be out for 6-8 weeks plus rehabilitation time. Given the fact that I am not a player in his 20's two months is an eternity and I thought, honestly, I will go insane if I can't get on court. I figured if I returned and it got worse I'd get the hand in a cast, if I could play, I would just play through it. I thought of Kevin Mchale in the 1987 NBA finals against the Lakers, he played the season with a stress fracture in his foot, inspired, I thought that is old school, the ways things were and still should be. Recently, Derek Jeter of the Yankees stayed out two weeks with a strained calf muscle, a muscle he uses if he's lucky 5 times in a game, my attitude, suck it up and go out there and play take nothing for granted it will someday be gone.
There are many who would disagree with this attitude and ask why risk serious injury, my son has been asking me that question for weeks. But I assured him if I can't play I won't, but if I can I will play.
So I went back out on court having popped a few Advil and started hitting the ball ever so carefully. It was weird the game didn't know me anymore, I was a stranger shaking the racquet's "hand"; it was awkward, deliberate and I was afraid of feelinng that pain when I hit the ball -- high looping shots, old man style squash; the ball felt heavy off the racquet. I started out slowly, my son noticed I was hitting the ball strangely, opening my elbow and advised me to use my natural stoke otherwise he said I'd hurt my elbow. He was right my elbow was a little sore. I went back to my natural stroke ever so carefully and the pain in my elbow went away. I went out every day like this then started coaching, focusing on moving my feet well and not putting too much pace on the ball. To cut down on the number of feeds I used more ghosting in the drills (not that ghosting isn't critical to a coaches repertoire of drills, but with more advanced players). Each time I started to feel the ball better and that reluctant and petulant mistress, which I sometimes call squash, came back slowly but surely. John Gross one of my better students (Hyder Cup 3.5 finalist) gave me a small squishy ball to exercise and loosen my hand up with -- that has turned out to be a godsend). The hand swells up a bit after hitting, but it seems okay, and doesn't bother me too much.
Then I started playing games with my son, and it was my third time out with him that I was feeling really good. I had been doing alot of biking and running and felt strong. We played some games and I knew squash was back and I was in her good graces again, I played the longest rallies of my life with my son, bullets, 40 and 50 shot rallies! I can't even begin to tell you how great it felt, the hand hurt, but who cares. I go out now and coach early a.m. and play at nights and restiong assured I made the right decision...eventually, I hope it heals, but this game again for me is worth whatever pain or difficulty it presents, I simply can't live too long without it.

Squash Gods Sometimes Smile On Us

2011-06-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Jay Arkin is a 65 year old racketballer at Lake Success' LA Fitness who converted to squash about 6 months ago. Around that time he became my student and a real student of the game. He has consistantly shown up eager for his twice a week lessons and with the exception of a few minor injuries has been on a steady course to eventually become a solid B level squash player. While many men his age are overweight and sedantry or simply go through the fitness motions at the gym, Jay is fit, lean, and as I remarked to one of my 15 year old students the other day when Jay was changing his shirt, "you should be so lucky to be that fit!" And other players at the club have made comments about why someone that age would take up such a demanding sport like squash or there have been comments like how good can he really be at his age (implying lessons are a waste of money). I dismiss all of that, the great thing about our sport is that it truanscends time, space, distance and that if you are willing to adapt your game and play within yourself you're capable at any age and at any level doing this game justice. When I have sessions with Jay, there's an hour glass, an element of time, I'm aware of the clock ticking and I want to put as much as I can into his game, I know he's not 22 years old and has near unlimited time to develop into good player, he's on a timeline and we need to make this happen. I've had my doubts, he has had some nagging injuries, the kind due to age, that has hindered his development as a squash player; but he didn't push it and took a bit of time off, but like most who would play if they had to crawl onto court he couldn't stay away and practiced a bit with himself. A certified Yoga instructor, I've marvelled at how hard I can push him and he's never out of breath. I mistake that sometimes for not being pushed by the drills, but as he told me one day, when I asked him about it he said that he does get tired! But the best part of what we are doing is the other day he was hitting rails off the feeds, and these were feeds designed to move and hit, like a real squash player. I do get very excited when a student of mine hits a milestone, and this was a big milestone the other day. He began getting the racquet behind the ball and stepping into his shot and driving it for good , tight length. They were solid B level shots. We had been working on hitting and moving and moving and hitting the ball for weeks -- and I admit it, it was sort of stagnant and I more than once thought we wouldn't get through this point in his game -- sudenly, lo and behold he comes out and it finally clicks. I stopped and remarked how he was hitting real squash shots for the first time, they were beautiful shots tight to the rail, and as I watched this 65 year old specimen move to and from the ball, I felt this rush of pride at being part of this. Not to be overly dramatic, but the human condition is fraught with failure and frustration and near misses...as you get older those elements become more evident. There are days I am so tired of this game and how my body feels and how frustrating it can be, but then I go out and hit some really good shots and the ball begins to sound like music again -- any my body somehow has a spring and lightness to it...I watched Jay and as cool and collected as he is, I could see in his eyes and demeanour he knew the squash gods were smiling kindly -- for the day at least. He'll continue coming back no matter what to try and defy the dificulties of this game, the immense frustratioins, if for no other reason than to have that feeling like no other that those squash gods occassionally smile on you, perhaps less so as you get older, but they will eventually smile on you no matter how old you are when you step onto their court. Like those ancient Greek gods, they do toy with us a bit and might even derive some perverse pleasure at seeing what we do to gain their favor -- learning to play squash at 65 included.

A Letter from the "Commissioner".

2011-05-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

I follow the Professional Squash Tour (PST) closely because it is perhaps the best thing to happen to squash since wooden rackets were replaced by graphite rackets. And then there is the "commisioner" of the newly formed league: Joe McManus. This guy is great for squash, I've at one point called him the Bill Veeck of squash -- I have to confess I am very much a traditionalist when it comes to certain things. Squash for one, I prefer the English players to the Egyptians, Nick Mathews game to Ramy Ashour's, PSA, attrition squash, softball, Dunlop Ball and rackets, and so on. But I also love innovation in this game when it doesn't tread on tradition. I don't believe this great game of ours will ever reach a mass audience, but then again I'm sure 30 years ago no one ever thought golf would be where it is today. Television makes a certain sport rich, squash just hasn't hit TV big time, will it every, I don't believe so? It's too fast, too complex, and unless you really appreciate the subtle nuances of the game, pretty boring to watch. But then again, people by the millions can sit through a basebal game where there is only 15-20 minutes of real action and 2-3 hours of boring stuff. How much action does a centerfielder experience in a game, probably barely 3 minutes. And squash, especially glass court squash where the ball is always difficult to hit the nick or kill shot and put the point away, not many spectacular nicks, or the equivalent of a home run in baseball, slam dunk in basketball or bomb in football. I cannot sit through an entire baseball game anymore, even a Red Sox and Yankee matchup without turning to something else after a couple of innings.
Anyways, squash in the Olympics? I'm not sure about that either, if you can't sell it to TV or a mass audience can you sell it to the Olympics? If it were to make the Olympics would it receive prime time?...but you can market anything . So squash for TV a, a mass audience, the Olympics, squash professional leagues...If anyone can make it happen the "commissioner" can. He reminds me of Pete Rozelle (football), Don King (Boxing), David Stern (Basketball) -- visionaries that took their respective sports to a new level of recognition...these men brought their sport into mainstream America via TV. But before they garnered the big TV dollars, they started somewhere and worked their way up, and the feeling might have been no fan of their sport was ever insignificant. And they were marketing geniuses.
A couple of weeks back on the PST Web site there was a question about whom the PST should sign next followed by a list of names of some great players. I for one am such a fan of David Palmer, who was first on the list and who can still compete in the top ten/twenty, but there were others. I saw Allistair Walker, wow, he's such an exciting player (from England!) and sorry Mr. Palmer, while it is great to see stars in any sport even past their prime, it's probably more exciting to watch a younger up and coming squash superstar like Walker -- so I voted for him. I made some of my usual comments in the comments box praising the PST and admonishing it on holding to tradition, I keep harping on this, but hey, those were free comments. I sent them off.
About a week later I receive an email from the "commissioner" thanking me for my comments. I was a bit surprised, but then I realized he reads every comment, every article, every word about his PST. I was impressed. Then I receive an email today announcing the PST league play and a draft of its constitution...and I thought, he really makes things happen, whether he is an idea man or is smart of enough to know a good idea when he sees it and executes it, whether a visionary or businessman or maybe a combination of both, I hope he succeeds at all of this, I want him to make playing squash something that anyone would want to play, sort of like, why wouldn't anyone want to play. I want him to reach the young athlete somewhere, anywhere from any walk of life so that young athlete walks into my club and wants to know how to play this game, barefooted or not. I want to see all those players that are overseas that we never see because they are outside the top 20, I want to see them play on the PST.
My son played his first PST event a few weeks back, I've written so much about his squash career. He was so excited, and I was so proud of him because this young man, in the past often hampered by severe asthma, has worked so hard in the past 3 years to drop 40 lbs and really train; he is tireless and while sometimes discouraged manages to get on the court for hours with me or by himself. For him, as gifted as he was as a junior -- he would be brilliant for a game or two sometimes only a few points-- and no one really looked twice at him because of his weight and poor stamina-- it has been a deserted island. But my son knows how I can be brutally honest and I never ever misled him in what I believed to be so much potential in him; I told him over and over it's a great privilege to play this game at a high level. I saw something in him, intangibles, what he sees, what he thinks, and knew intuitively his squash mind is pure genius. I've read every squash book, have seen so many players, have talked to them...can tell you the most gifted player I ever saw was Tristan Nancarrow, can tell you that Martin Heath has a great squash mind, that Hisham Ashour is more talented than Ramy, his brother, and that there will never ever be the likes of Jansher Khan...and my son, I always told him, there's no recipe for success, there's no blueprint, if you work hard and want it badly enough and you have the talent and you really learn this game any is possible.
So he played his first PST event, I didn't watch, and he was smoked. I asked over the phone him what happened, he said " he lost, it's just one match". He said he was nervous, he didn't play well. How was his opponent, I asked?, "He was good, hit hard," was all he said. I was impressed he sounded like a professional athlete!
As for the "commissioner", in true fashion, he came up to my son after his match and told him about a player who came out and was smoked too in his opening professional match and who is now a really good and consitent player on the tour. My son appreciated that gesture and encouragement. What will he remember most about his first professional match?, most likely his conversation aftwerwards with Commissoner McManus.

99 Wins -- A Lesson in Humility

2011-04-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

What really is arrogance in sports? Why do we admire it and yet despise it at the same time? Growing up Mohamed Ali was despised for his arrogance, then admired, and now as he shuffles along in the aging warrior spectrum, humbled by life's afflictions, he's revered. And Achilles, the penultimate warrior, was arrogant, young brash, putting himself above all others. And Homer seemed to counter that with Odysseus, humble and putting his journey back home to his wife and son above all else. And we'll say that God seems to punish the arrogant. Mike Tyson comes to mind.
Humility these days is something perceived as weak and pathetic. In this Hip-hop gadget producing sense of self dominance, in this ultimate fighter climate is there room for the humble person, the humble celebrity? Professional Squash players are the greatest athletes on the face of the earth, they are perhaps the most humble as well. All you need to do is go up to Nick Mathew the world number 1 player or chat with Ramy Ashour, the Egyptian wunderkind, while he watches his brother Hisham play; or offer praise to David Palmer, arguably one of the greatest players in the history of the game, and have him dismiss the mere suggestion of greatness with a wry smile -- to know these men are truly humble.
So when a 14 year old student of mine who can someday be a good player proclaims herself awesome and truly believes it every time she hits a good shot, and you try to teach humility, hey, it's one shot, squash gives you that occasional shot to keep you going, but for the most part it is a most humbling experience. Those professionals know what it takes to brush against greatest and just how fleeting it is...squash success seems to reward humility and punish arrogance.
I read in ESPN magazine that the top salaries for a professional racing driver was $63 million a year, for the top squash earner, Nick Mathew, a $160,000 a year in prize money, does it suggest some tie to money? Arrogance and money and power, hmm...Donald Trump seems to be riding that wave lately and hordes of people are listening to him, which is probably worse because he doesn't really have anything to say. Yet, Larry Bird made millions playing basketball, won championships, and was very humble. Ezra Pound perhaps the greatest poetic mind (to paraphrase his proclaimation by 30 he would know more about poetry than any man alive) was humble, Christ, Gandhi all so humble. In their humility, did they accept that humankind has limitations, did they ever proclaim they were the greatest? But I go back to what Llarry Bird once said, "it aint bragging if you can do it..." Muhammed Ali , the penultimate representative of arrogance in sports, could do it and maybe, he projected an arrogance in response to what white society said he wasn't, a man worthy of a drinking from the same water fountain as a white man.
Coaching squash, I see such arrogance from every age on the squash court. It seems if you aren't arrogant you must not be high on yourself, full of yourself, it seems to mask what might be wrong with your game. My best student who has a lot of talent will proclaim he's the greatest when he wins but beats himself up when he looses...Muhammed Ali believed he was the greatest win or loose...those great squash players seem to believe more in the game, the greatness of the game, than in their own accomplishments. When David Palmer pumps his fist, it isn't because he believes he is the greatest, it seems to mean, damn, he did it, at least this time.
None of my younger students who seem to exude the media induced arrogance have walked on water. Against a weaker opponent you try and teach and foster respect and appreciation for the effort, but it seems that arrogance disdains the weaker opponent. One of my students made a disparaging remark about an opponent she just beat.
And my son, ever so humble, was blitzed in his professional debut, but said it was just one match, ahh a tough lesson to teach, but he's got it. He is so squash smart, but quite a bit awed by what Chris Walker recently taught him during a weak of training. Jim Masland, former Harvard All-American, in all his brilliance is ever so humble, he seems often awestruck by what humankind is capable of, both good and bad, on and off the squash court; I’ve seen Jim marvel at something a much lesser player does on the court with him....and then I step onto the court for a lesson, my 10th lesson in a row, with a junior ("kids say the darndest things")and the student at some point in the lesson, in frustration says "I pay you to hit the ball so don't talk", when I try to suggest something in their technique; and later blurts out "your feeds suck can't you give me a ball that is perfect to hit?"
And then early next morning there is my student Matt Levine, who has all the reason to be arrogant ,a University of Chicago law graduate tops in his class and a successful lawyer now, is so humble on the court and whatever nugget of squash knowledge I pass to him it's like a cup of cool water to a man in the hot desert.
I'm reluctant to say arrogance is a roadmap to failure because there have been some really successful athletes who were perceived as arrogant yet achieved success. Jansher Khan, the greatest squash player ever, was said to be very arrogant. Yet, in the back of my mind, I think that maybe his 100th PSA win eluded him as a lesson, no matter how great, life is bigger, squash is bigger than any person or player. It's when you can't do it anymore that seems to matter most, it's then that what you accomplished means something else, which is what you figure out before you die. At some point, hopefully, you have to love the irony -- 99 wins.

PST Redeems Itself

2011-03-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

I have been recently critical of some of the PST's antics (see my post from 1/21). But then, lo and behold in my hotmail account pops in the latest PST newsletter. I can honestly say I really look forward to this newsletter. I love Shahier Razik's squash tips. He is such a great teacher, his Youtube videos are fantastic, every coach should study them routinely. I watched him beat Jonathan Kemp at the TOC this year, being down 2-1 he came back and just showed why he is as good as he is and has been around so long. Anyways, technically, for those of us who are crazy about technique, he is superb, it was fun to isolate his preparation or his footwork, or positioning. What also excited me was the announcement of a pro squash league, this is a great event and should be heralded across the pro and open level squash land. Hopefully, McManus' vision of bringing pro squash to every club from here to Timbuktu in the US and truly inspiring any would-be player seeing professional level squash for the first time, will be realized. I applaud this wholeheartedly and can't wait to see this league play. I'll even concede allowing top ranked women playing in the men's pro league. And finally, to show the tour's dedication to bringing great squash and promoting good sportsmanship McManus reviews the list of latest penalties levied against players for misconduct. Player arguments and disagreements with the refs with each other with the audience with the world, the tour has recognized as the down side of professional squash. I for one applaud the reprimands for misconduct and the fines, pro squash should be a place to take your family to see these great athletes compete in the greatest sport on the planet. I used to have season tickets to the Knicks years back. Bought them when my son was born and looked so forward to taking him to the Garden. After a couple of years and listening to all the bad language, watching the fights, and enduring the whining of players for every foul, I didn't renew my subscription. And finally, in a page taken from the TOC and the Grand Open, a number of the pro tournaments coincide with the PST's amateur tournaments. I would dare say that the PST's number 1 player should have been penalized by the PSA (that other governing body) for his antics during the Muellar match in the qualifying round. No doubt, if it occurred in the PST, the number 1 player would have been reminded that no one player is bigger than the game itself.

Squash Coach as Architect

2011-03-14T13:40:00.001-07:00

I've often asked myself what makes a really great squash coach? Over the past few years my opinion has varied significantly from being a good player exhibiting great technique to being able to feed the ball well at any level. Recently, I've begun to believe that a great coach isn't a great player, isn't an exhibiter of great technique, isn't superbly fit, doesn't have a room of trophies, hasn't competed at the highest level...a great coach is one who has the vision of an architect, who can see all the components needed for a specific player's ambition, skill and talent. A vision that is often not realized for years, a great coach is one who can patiently architect for a player at any level what he or she needs to do to become the best player a player can be given his or her level of talent, skill, work ethic, speed, quickness, intelligence and so forth. As a squash architect, squash architect above all else requires high squash IQ, the coach can see the beginning and end result and all else in between to accomplish and meet a players ambition and expection. Along the way the architect can make adjustments for the unforseen; a really great coach as architect can assess a player and create a blueprint for squash success. Squash success as in playing great squash... eventually. This is a difficult game, it takes a lot of time and patience to realize success in this game.
The architect can't make a player win or train, he can give the player the technique, the methods and the strategy to be successful in playing great squash. The blueprint is criitcal to building a squash player and fashioning his or her game according to capabilities.
Like any architect, the architet surveys what he or she has to work with. In the case of the squash architect, the assessment would include:
Hands
Feet
Intelligence
Balance and Coordination
Movement to the ball and away from the ball
Temperment
Most would agree that great hands are critical to great squash. I recently started working with Jenny Wang, a busy mother of 2 children, a business owner, who never played squash in her life, and within 5 minutes of our first ever lesson I was stunned. I had never seen someone with hands that had such a great feel for the racquet, I marvelled at this to her, and told her she was born to hold a squash racquet in her hand! She looked at me and seemed to think I was crazy, but I could see she would pick up the racket technique very quickly. After listening to what she wanted to accomplish, I began outlining and architecting where she would go and how I would take her there. I thought I would focus initially on lots of footwork and playing and let the stroke evolve on its own for awhile. After a couple of months everyone she plays marvells at how good she's become. Now that she rallies and strikes the ball pretty well, I'm working on her balance, and getting her to begin cutting the ball off and taking it early. We've started working on her fitness as well. She's fit but not squash fit and, as her technique and footwork evolve rapidly, she's going to need a level of fitness to sustain her quick racquet and playing development. My assessment within a short time was that this was a woman who probably could have gone as far as she wanted to in squash -- maybe 25 years ago -- but now can become an A level player provided she puts in the work and continues her techinical and strategic development. Would another coach have seen just a 38 year old beginner squash player who wanted to take a couple of lessons to learn the rules of the game, not sure. And my assessment isn't much until she's reached that goal, but she was game and has gone far beyond just learning the rules and hitting. She's easy because of her obvious skill, but what about Haadi Khan who came to me two years ago 45 lbs overweight and 13 years old. I would have coached him for free (and often have) because when I first went on court with him I saw a very overweight kid who moved like he had no weight and who had hands that were special, hands I've only seen in my son. I've had to work really hard with him, but he's coming into his own right now and technically is getting better and better and his footwork and quickness has gone to a different level. His temperment is still immature for serious competition, he gets frustrated and angry, but we've architected his squash that mentally and match savy and strategy will fall into place. I believe more than even the day I first came on court with him that he can be a top junior. He is now pushing to run the 5 court sprints in the 9 - 10 second range. In the last month he finally broke the 11 second series and runs them in under 11. Soon I see him running in the 9:50 second timeframe. This is huge for him. His game has followed, he's found himself quicker on the ball and his stamina better. He's beginning to break his opponents down by attacking the ball more with his feet.
If I'm now a so-called squash architect, It's not to say I haven't been wrong. I have been dead wrong but when I'm wrong I'm really wrong. Amanda Sohby is a good example. She used to come with her mom, her brother Omar and her younger sister to hit with Ron Karn, the club's professional at the time and their "step father". I thought Omar was fiercely competitive but technically not sound and was developing some bad habits that later on he'd have to come back and fix. His fitness, dedication and perseverance would only take him so far. Technically he wouldn't be able to advance beyond a certain point. I saw Omar at some tournaments a few years later and you could see where he would have trouble. Amanda was really strong for her age but I didn't think she moved very well, didn't have the great footwork and balance, and was in my judgment not that gifted a player. I don't follow either one now, but I know for a fact I was wrong about Amanda based on all her success, most notably the first American born to win the World Juniors The one I thought was really gifted and would make an amazing squash player was her younger sister. She had only recently started playing squash when I first saw her, was 7 or 8 years old, but had those intangible gifts, a very special player.
But a great coach or even a good one doesn't create success, he creates opportunity, just as a good building architect creates a place to live and work. So too, the squash architect builds a player's game, how that player uses his or her skills has little or nothing to do with the architecture of his or her game. And then there is my son, so gifted with his hands and feet and intelligence and now finally his fitness level. He's the smartest squash player I've ever met, one of the smartest people, but has had no success in the game that is the standard measurement. He has worked tirelessly on his game and his fitness and as often as he wanted to give up he's pushed harder. I looked at him and coached him when he was 50 lbs overweight and always believed in his talent. I thought, it might be a blessing in disguise because he compensated for his fitness by really studying the game and devleoping professional level technique. He's fitter than ever now and I've always said that he just needs matches to succeed. He will find his way, his whole game was architected on his brilliant hands, feet and sense of the game. Whether he ever wins and pushes through the losing to players he shouldn't lose to is part of something no coach can help him with. And certainly he cannot criticize his squash architecture.
I must be on to something because I realize that most of my students stay with me for a long time. We share in the vision of their game...I don't coach success, that I can't do, but I do try with every effort and bit of knowledge to get the best game possible for what the player has or can acquire. Should my players or my son achieve measurable success in this game I will be so happy for them, because their goal was always to play the best squash possible, win or lose. I hope for them alone, they experience that success, but mostly I hope they play for years and years great squash and pass this game along to others as it was passed on to me. Jim Masland was the first architect I met, while he must have seen that I would never achieve a high level as a player, he must have seen something in me where he spent countless hours passing along his great wisdom about this game. I was like a sponge. I absorbed everything he offered. In fact, every coach I've had I've absorbed every bit of their squash wisdom. I might not feed the best, or hang for more than a couple of games at the A level, and I might not follow the conventions of many coaches, but I want for every player that I come across to play the best squash, because when you play the best squash, this game is magical. There's no certification for this, no real measurement of success, as a building architect doesn't know why the building he's designed is a success other than to know that people live and flourish or work and thrive in the structures he or she designed and had built. I want a player like Haadi of my son, especially, to have the option of doing whatever they want with their game we've architected...that for me might just be the measure of success of being a good coach.

NY Grand Open Squash Tournament 2011 -- LA Fitness Squash Shines

2011-01-25T06:17:00.000-08:00

I was watching a lot of the professional men's squash matches at grand Central while a group of 7 from LA Fitness Squash in Lake Success, NY were competing at the amateur Grand Open and junior TOC. Some great success for these valiant students who braved some really cold temperatures to give it their all.

Congratulations to Paul Zummo, our own Tasmanian Devil, who swept through the 3.0's to capture that title. He had to face his nemisis in the semi-finals, our own John Gross, who was speechless, literally with laryngitis, after loosing. But no better person to loose to than a friendly adversary. John had already beaten another fellow LA fitness Squasher, Ali Mirza in the opening round. Incidentally Ali Mirza, made it to the finals of the consolation where he met up with Marc Schecter, another of our own. Ali had played his heart out all weekend like the warrior he is and came up short. Marc looked overmatched in his opening main draw loss to whom many believe at the club, especial my son and I, a national champion -- 15 year old Haadi Ahmad also from LA Fitness. Once Haadi learns how to play in tournaments, he will be a force to be reckoned with. Although he lost in the next round, he kept his composure and seemed happy with how he played.

In the junior TOC tournament at Streetsquash, Nicole Freedman played in her first tournament ever. She has trouble with the faster court -- courts at LA Fitness, floors are like molten lead, the ball just doesn't bounce! Against the number 1 see she went down 0-3 but her scores were respectable. Watch for this little juggernaut in torunaments to come. She is a fierce competitor and has only been playing 6 months....we predict another national champion with this one as well-- but she has to work and train harder and improve. Hopefully, she's not discouraged and encouraged to start training and improving. Veedant Kukhardia in the boy's under 15 lost...this might be a blessing in disguise. This young man has so much talent but has to decide whether or not he wants to do, and have the time, to do what it takes to win. He's another one to watch, if he takes it seriously and works really hard he will become a champion. Hopefully, he's had his taste of loosing and wants to win and do what it takes to win at this game.

opefulwe'll put even more LA Fitness squashers in the Hyder Cup or the junior and adult skill level nationals in the coming months. We have some solid players at the club, a number of which will move up in skill level over the next year or so.

With that said, my son played a great match in the quarters of the 5.5 men's division. He faced the number 1 seed and what a war. Great match to watch, he came up just a little short in the fifth game, no doubt, a match he should have won. I've posted this match video on this blog : http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZlU60J5gVo
Comments are welcomed. I've analyzed it and have my own opinion on what my son needs to improve. Your comments always welcomed and a free lesson who picks out the one major thing I think needs improvement. My son already knows what that is so he is judge of the comments.

Again, congratulations to all- -- fantastic work and let's hit the courts soon to start preparing for the upcoming events.

Page 6 Tournament of Champions 2011 Squash!

2011-01-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

This is truly the best week of the year! Once again, will be wandering about the tournament of the champions squash tournament, observing, talking, asking questions, sharing the bits and peices of information I gather. Hope you enjoy, oh and by the way, just happen to work my day job right in grand central so I'm taking frequent bathroom and coffee breaks to take in as much squash as I can.

Went over to the Princeton Club last night to see the Latourneau and Hisham Ashour qualifying match. On the elevator ride down looked across and noticed whom I thought was Hisham. I exchanged greetings and commented on his recent play and how fit he looked and asked him about his match. He stated he wasn't playing, he's been injured, surely a disconnect in the conversation. Strange, I thought, then it dawned on me, it was Ramy. Stupid me, I apologized for mixing the two of them up. Anyways, he's a lot fitter than Hisham. I texted my fiance and son to tell them just rode the elevator with god, but mixed him up with someone else.

Hisham looked really sharp and pretty fit. When will this guy -- so incredibly talented and really brilliant -- buckle down, train, and break the top 10. Latourneau was no match and it was quite evident mid-way through the second game when he was visibly tired and tinning. He even hit one shot with his racket low and I thought, wow, he does that too! But Hisham put relentless pressure on the game Canadian, taking the ball early, cutting off Latourneau's bullets. It was quick work for Hisham.

Bradley Ball and Nicholas Mueller, that was the match! By the way, what's up with the Princeton Club charging 40.00 to come to the qualifiers? Did any other club charge that? All of 10 people showed up for what turned out to be an incredible match. Nicholas Mueller I still maintain in the next 5 years will be a top ten ranked player. His footwork is already there, his pace not quite at that top ten level, but he beat an incredible player, albeit somewhat past his prime. But Ball was once ranked 15th. Mueller is currently ranked 39th on the PSA. I saw him beat Illingsworth, the top US player in the main draw last year. He is better, some mental errors, but he was tough in what was a physical and pressure filled match. But Ball is something. I saw him on the PST in November at Sports Club/LA against Tierry Linceau. He didn't look very good, slow and tired easily. But this time out, granted he wasn't playing the likes, yet, of Linceau, he was fitter and his front court game was really good and pressured Mueller. Fitness seemed at times a bit of an issue but he recoeved enough to come back brilliantly from 2 match balls to take the fourth game. He just crushes the ball but when he goes to the front he is so deft at the drop, especially on the back hand side. Too many tins otherwise we would have seen an even tighter match. He's clever and wily too first trying to distract Mueller with friendly banter, tirades over the referee calls, and general disruption, but to Mueller's credit, he recovered from the fourth game disappointment and really took it to Ball in the fifth game. Mueller is tough, a bit edgy, and outplayed a much more experienced opponent.

Can't say enough about Ball...every up and coming professional squash player or advanced junior player should watch this players tenacity, confidence and drive. And his drop shot, while still off timing wise, is just a beautiful shot. I can't wait to get back to the courts to try his technique.

Allister Walker watched the Hisham match but then disappeared. He seems much bigger on Squash Live TV.

Never saw this before but a fan agreed with the referee over a hotly contested call, Ball turned to the fan and asked him what did he know, nothing, just what Ball thought.. .

Has Bill Veeck Taken Over As PST Commissioner?

2011-01-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

Recent announcements coming from the PST's commissioner, Joe McManus, have this fan a bit perplexed. A woman on the men's tour, 100k USD to a PSA top 10 player to sign with the PST, a 14 year old junior and now an elite PST draw? I'm waiting for McManus to provide haircuts between games as well as bring an incarnation of Eddie Gaedel to the courts (the only midget to bat in the big leagues). Can you imagine Venus Williams in the men's tennis draw? I thought the PST would provide aspiring professional or former college great squash players a place to play at a higher level and bring higher level squash to the paltry professional American squash scene. Someone forwarded a letter from McManus to supporters that clubs can now option for the "elite" draw as part of the PST tour. Does this mean we can see the same players whom we've always seen: Palmer, Hindi, Ball, White? What about exposure for all those aspiring professionals? We won't see them on the elite tour.
And the addition of women or a 14 year old junior American player. This is the kind of stuff that makes us a bit laughable. I guess if you're going to put a woman in the men's draw, I'd prefer Vicky Botwright, but she retired; she looked great on court and she'd certainly fill more seats wearing a thong. Natalie Grainger playing on the men's (sorry he/she or she/he) PST tour? What is that going to accomplish, men and woman aren't equal in the sports arena, there's no value judgement there, they are different -- only in this country do we strive for equality across the sexes. I for one am glad women are constructed with hips preventing them from playing the front court like a man. I've always complained when woman are allowed to play in the amateur men's draw, sorry, I don't like to play someone young enough to be my daughter or someone I pardon myself everytime I bump into her...but that's a different argument. Is David Palmer really going to play Natalie Grainger as physical as he plays Shahir Razik? Doubt it...or what about a 14 year old junior? I'm all for making exhibition matches but did Heather McKay ever play on the pro men's tour? She was the greatest woman squash player ever and one of the greatest female athletes, but she did play exhibition matches and that Frank Satterthwaite match in NY years back as documented in his book Three Wall Nicks and Other Angles...was interesting reading. I'm hoping the PST is having a bit of an identity crisis and will get back on track, I've been to only one of their events and just loved it. It was squash at its best and purest, great players playing on courts where the game was made to be played. And please don't add Jahangir Khan or Hashim Khan to the PST .
As for an elite tour. Forget elite squash, it goes against everything American. This is an American tour, showcase players that will help aspiring American professional or encourage great amateurs to pursue this game at a professional level. Okay, I'm off to the TOC qualifiers, to see some top 100 players battle it out to qualify for the main draw. Two of the three US players gone in the opening round qualifiers, the third is the top US player with an automatic place in the main draw. I'm just thinking, 5 years from now would love to see 10 US players working their way to a bid in the main draw, one or two getting to the qualifier final...where did they get their start? They played on the PST for a while it was tough competition on that tour, it took them to a different level.

Great Squash Has No Winners or Losers

2011-01-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

If there is a Heaven above, chances are those in Heaven are there because of the quality and integrity of the lives they've lead. But, since no one has ever really reported back from heaven, it's just speculation -- but thousands of years of religion and philosphy seem to say that the good go to heaven and the bad to Hell. It's pretty cut and dry, you are either good or you are bad. You can be really good or sort of good, but in Heaven, continuing the speculation, Heaven is Heaven , you've arrived, you've lived your life in a way that allowed you to reach Heaven.

In the squash sphere, it's not much different. There's good squash, great squash, bad squash and abyssmal squash. Good squash, great squash releagtes its players to "heaven", bad squash its players to hell. Often at the club I coach at, LA Fitness in Lake Success, New York, I'll ask my students who are playing in a match, "how did the match go?" Invariably their answers surrounds winning and losing, one player in particular boasts, "I won so many games, I have been winning all the games this week!" I always respond with "great, but was the squash good?" This question is followed by a lengthy silence as the player tries to remember the squash he played, "not really." he says, "there weren't many good rallies and lots of tins."
Does scoring or winning really matter all that much when you aren't trying to win for food money or your family's survival. I don't think so. But good squash is worth its weight in gold or any other precious commodity and great squash is worth a place in heaven. Those who say "winning isn't everything..." might have been thinking of a great squash game.

I play so many games and players in the course of a week coaching, I don't even score the games, I don't want to score them, I want to play each point as an exercise in good squash and occassionally great squash. Of course it's all relative. Good squash to world ranked players is winning a hard fought 80 minute match in the Saudi final. Bad squash might be the same good squash of the winning player, but being on the loosing end of that 80 minute match. But to those not quite the high priests of squash, good squash is much simpler when you take out the money and ranking equation.

Good squash is playing up to your potential, playing the game in its simplest form, hitting the ball straight and tight moving your opponent, always moving your opponent and taking that coveted position on the "T". Do you reall need to keep score when playing good squash? And what about great squash? What exactly is great squash? At any level you ask a player did you play some great squash, watch them light up like a lamp, they'll describe a match where they played so beyond themselves, they pushed themselves to their outer limits skillwise or fitness wise, they might have finally lived up to their squash potential. Hardly does the outcome include who won and what the score was.

I've been beset with injury after injury lately, annoying injuries that always come after I start playing really well. I pray to the squash gods and swear I'll stretch more and focus on good squash rather than winning or loosing. The last time I played well was against my son. We played an amazing match, something seemed to click, I was moving effortlessly, balanced, with a great eye for the ball. It seemed there wasn't anything he could do that would trick me or fake me out. I was hitting the ball straight was actually moving him, forcing him to retrieve, which is huge for me because he usually just runs me all over the court while completely controlling the "T", sort of like just target practicing.

I played my heart out and knew I was playing at a different level. I remarked at one point after a long rally which he won, that this was the best squash we've played (going back to when he was 4 years old), for me at least, it might have been the best point ever. I had the opportunity to set up and volley drop his forehand cross court but was a tad late with my feet and tinned it. Great squash point over. I was exhilerated by the point and while the match never lived up to that one point, it was my own version great squash. When we completed the best match we've played together, I realized that I was thanking him for a well played match which I just lost 11-1, 11-0, 11-1. To which my son, in his inimitable way, responded, "yeah, it was ok..."

It's been over a month since that match, what I miss most is that squash feeling when you just play squash win or lose and play great squash and never look back. In heaven, I'm sure there's no scoring, no rating, and no winners or loosers. Being in heaven itself makes you a winner as it is and playing great squash is the winningest squash of all.

The Cold War Is Over

2010-12-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

It has been about 4 years (may have been 40 years) since Arif Hussai and Ali Mirza last stepped on the court together at our Lake Success LA Fitness club. They are two native Pakistanians with an absolute passion for squash. I have become friends with both of them and they both have impressed me with their passion for the game and their resolve to get better and help make lesser players better. All roads lead through them for beginner/intermediate players, except over the last four years there's been a fork in the road: Arif one way and Ali the other way. No one knows for sure what happened between the two of them to cause this "cold war"; legend has it some business deal gone awry, others say it was a series of bad let calls during a match...who knows for sure, these kind of things have a way of evolving to the point where no one knows for sure why there's even a feud.

But the wall between the two was impenetrable. During round robin play last year when I tried to get the two of them on court none would have any part in it. At one point when one referee'd the other's match, over a call, a confrontation ensued and we had to spearate the two.

But these two older squash gladiators are remarkable in their own right. Ali Mirza is a lesson in intensity and never ever give up on a point. He is also a master of the mind game and frequently gets inside the heads of his opponents causing them to fluster and make mistakes. He'll take it as much as he'll dish it out. He will admit that he's had little formal training with squash, so his technique and style are awkward, but he makes up for it in tenancity and a fierce competitive spirit. Sometimes that fierceness rubs players the wrong way. He can be agressive and pushy on the court, but outside the court he exudes a charm and confidence that is different from the chip he has on his squash shoulders.

Arif, is a gentleman on and off the court but very wily. Many of the younger players hate playing him because in his back court posture he will nick any ball not tightly served up to him. The points are short, he aims to win without to much exertion. The younger players try harder than ever to get the ball past him, but with his great hands, he just routinely dumps the ball into the front court nick. When one of the younger players moves him away from the T, or from his post in the back, when behind in the score he'll push hard to play it back. When winning, he won't bother to try. Conserve energy and movement, don't tire yourself out. Frustrate the opponent and with the nicest smile and demeanor smile slightly after every front court nick.

During a Muslem holdiay a couple of weeks back, Arif, as he tells me decides to end this cold war. He's very philosphical about it. It was a good time to end the "war" and get on court together. So one day he came to the club and saw Ali at the courts; Arif gently patted him on the back and said hello. Quite a gesture to which Ali, according to sources, nodded hello in approval. Later that evening they came onto the court to hit around for the first time in a very long time.

Last night I watched them play a very good match, two old squash warriors renewing their battle on court. The squash was fun to watch as Arif moved Ali all around but Ali was game, and seemed to get to everything and retrieve it well. It was cause for celebration, believe me, it took a lot for these two to put their differences behind them, forgive and forget, and simply just play squash.

I hope to see these guys on court alot and to see them individually continue to get on court with the less experienced players and even compare notes and maybe eventually root each other in match play. I am wondering, it's hard to resist, just how the cold war would have gone if Nixon and Brezhnev played squash?

Run To The Roar...Review of Assaiante and Zug's new book

2010-12-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

I had always thought if Trinity Men's squash had assembled it's astounding streak of titles and wins with American born players, then it would be something. I have always been of the belief that an American born player reaching the top ten at the professional level would be equivalent to the US Olympic Hockey team winning the gold in 1980...I never gave much consideration to college squash and not much more to Trinity College. Until now.
I am half way through Trinity men's squash coach, Paul Assaiante, and History of Squash author, James Zug's new book Run To The Roar. I had to stop to write a bit about what I've read so far.
From the opening page through the first half of the book this is a remarkable story of a remarkable man, "coach", as he is called by his players. This is a book about the true meaning of what it means to make sacrifices for your passions in life, for doing whatever it takes to achieve your goals, and to reflect, always reflect and stop and think did the end justify the means, was what you achieved worth those sacrifices? After some soul searching, it's only then, it seems that we begin to take on some wisdom. Ezra Pound said at 50 if you have no wisdom you are nothing. Paul Assaiante at 50-something or more, has wisdom, no doubt something far greater than the Trinity win streak or all the glory associated with it.
The book is the story of Trinity's squash 2009 men's varsity squash team. Filled with player matches, scores, discussions of squash, is woven in Assaiante, the man, the father, the coach, the friend....all of those titles a man seems to have throughout his life. He openly acknowledges and questions his failures and seems to push past his successes, which in the collegiate athletic world, are titanic -- getting to that point whereby (like many of us) he almost lies awake at night asking himself were the personal sacrifices worth his accomplishments: a failed marriage, single parenthood, a son, Mathew, lost to heroin addiction. Many of us admire a man when he owns up to his mistakes, perhaps this book is a bit of a journey for Mr. Assaiante, to comes to terms with the sacrifices he made, to ask first the question were they worth it, and of course, if he had to do it over again would he do it differently. In the asking of these questions, sometimes is as good as answering it.
The record, the streak, all those wins...Assaiante seems in the tone of his diversions from squash into his past and present personal life to say without having all those you love to share it with what can they mean?
When the ugly incident of Trinity's number one player, Baset Chawdhry and Yale Univeristy's Kenneth Chan hit prime time ESPN News earlier this year in the national collegiate title match for number 1 (and keeping the Trinity win streak alive), because of the unsportsmanlike and ugly behavior by Chawdhry, I for one was very critical of Assaiante and his handling of his player. I thought he was too lenient and forgiving of his player and was doing this young man a disservice by explaining away the player's behavior. I now understand Assaiante better and why he stood by his player, even though the player betrayed him and the team with his ugly behavior, he was in some sense standing by Mathew, his son, whom he gave up on many years ago and let his own child walk out of his life. He didn't give up on his young athlete even while the world was critical and coming down on the young man.
I am a single parent of two amazing children, whom I raised from the time they were very little and whom I am so proud of -- I often refer to them as my heart and soul -- which is which is anyone's guess. I made mistakes, tons of them, some I did out of arrogance when I should have been listening to, my daughter, especially. I made mistakes, alienated her, while my son and I basked in a commaraderie with squash, I ignored her interests in cheerleading, or just being a teenager. I lie awake at night, my body so sore from coaching squash all day, a passion as player, student and coach I've pursued most of my adult life, and think of my daughter and miss her now that she left home angry and hurt to go to school as far from me as she could -- yes, I would do it differently. I've questioned what I did as a single parent in so many different ways, I know I wanted the best for both my children, but I didn't know how to listen to anyone, not until it was too late. I can share in Assaiante's pain on this level.
I'm sure there are so many different ways to measure success, but maybe only one way to measure failure. If you've hurt someone you love you didn't succeed no matter how much you tell yourself and write about it or talk about it, that sense of failure, that sickening feeling, just never goes away.
I applaud this book immensely because it seems, probably like many who will read it, a book about being human...about this life and what we do in it regardless of the level of that success. As I'm ready to post this, I only hope I didn't read too much into Assaiante's personal journey because of my own, but who cares another's wisedom should inspire thought, reflection, and introspection as the wisdom of his book has.

David and Goliath -- A Lesson in Humility

2010-11-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Humility is healthy, it is good, it has a great purpose in life, especially in squash. Afterall, squash often imitates life, which is one of the many reasons this game is so great, and why on court I often begrudgingly accept some of those humbling squash ("life") lessons in humility.

Last night, my best student, Haadi Khan, whom I've written about before came to play squash. He had been frustrated by me for months in our match play often times venting his frustrations with broken rackets and childish sulking after defeat. He has talked so much trash in recent weeks and I've just gone out and played becoming comfortable in frustrating him with that brand of twisting and turning squash, Jim Masland (LA Lifetime Fitness Club Pro and great friend), termed the pretzel game.

The last two weeks has also seen another David and Goliath battle, the PST taking on the PSA (rivalling professional squash organizations). There's a parallell here of course, which I'll connect wutg my own defeat of last night.

What made last night different for Haadi and me in our match? I'm his coach, I know everything about his game, was always comfortable that I could turn it on when need be and take the games from him. Most of all I could frustrate him and wait for him to mentally break down and start his yelling and anger -- which spelled certain defeat for him. However, last night was different, was a poised young man, a player, a good player who didn't get rattled, who watched the ball, who had decided that he was going to win each eand every point. He attacked our game with discipline and quiet confidence. No bravado or trash, just business.

Sound familiar? If you've been following the David-like PST (Professional Squash Tour) and it's recent battles and lawsuit with the bigger and badder Goliath-like PSA (Professional Squash Association) there are so many similarities. The PST is young and purposeful in wanting to bring squash to a wider US audience. It has some former number 1 players, but most of the top 30 players are all ranked under the richer PSA tour. Joe McManus, commissioner of the PST, is gracious, humble and devoted to his purpose of bringing squash to the people. He and his PST are like David, going up against and challenging the dominance of the PSA. The biblical accounts of Goliath and his boastful arrogance in stating he will destroy David seems to be the same tactic the PSA has employed with it's mandate to it's players banning them from PST events. While David was all about what was good for his people and Goliath about what was good for his own image of invincibility, Mr. McManus is all about what's good for squash, especially here in the US. The PSA seems to be doing what's good for it's image of controlling and ruling the professional squash world and not what's good for squash. Enough said, the parallel is there, squash does really imitate life and it seems the bible as well.

...Haadi easily took the first game from me taking me a bit off guard as he was doing things we'd been working on for weeks, stepping up, cutting the ball off, not worrying about some loose shots, not fretting over the imperfections. At one point I hit a nice rail off his loose shot and was poised to return a week comeback from him when within a split second he rifled a cross court past me and had me scurrying. He cut the ball off and atttacked my shot with his quickness and early ppreperation. It may have been the stone from his slingshot right between my eyes; like Goliath, it brought me to my knees. While I recovered enough to take the third game and was up in the fourth, Haadi took the fourth game and match in a tie breaker when I mounted a ferocious comeback to tie the deciding game only to see him push through and close out the match.

Like David and Haadi, let's hope that the PST lawsuit is just the stone between the eyes of the PSA to bring it to its knees and loosen ts stronghold on professfional squash. It might mean the likes of Nick Mathew and Rany Ashour play on both tours. I for one, learned a lesson, never get too comfortable with the game and your hold on it or on a particular opponent and always do what is fair and right; expect and welcome change and grow with it, don't resist it. The game speaks for itself, as it did when Haadi beat me. It will again speak for itself when all the legal stuff is untangled with the lawsuit against the PSA's ban on PST participlation for its players. Haadi didn't behead me nor did the PST lawsuit close down the PSA, if the PSA learns anything, it should be to respect your opponent, do what is right for the game and not for your organization. Learn David's, Haadi's and McManus's lessons in defeat and look at yourself but get back out there, do battle where it counts -- in an arena of fair competition and rewarding games and make sure that battle promotes goodgreat battle, squash battles that is.

When our match ended, Haadi shook my hand, no bravado, no trash, just an indication that this is just the beginning of our future competition. He no doubt will push me to stretch, to be prepared, and come out to win in these match and most of all don't become comfortable and assume victory. Take nothing for granted and no matter make each other's games better.

America, Meet Squash -- Pro Squash Tour (PST)

2010-10-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

I recently attended the NY stop at Sports Club/LA for the newly formed Prof Squash Tour (PST). One of my students, John Gross, provided me with a ticket and a first row seat for the finals between a very game Bradley Ball (Union Club squash pro) and Thierry Lincou, former world number 1 player. The evening also included a wonderful match (for third place) featuring Julian Ilingsworth (US top ranked player and world ranked top 30 and his opponent, former world top 10 player, an Egyptian wizard, Wael Hindi (City View resident pro).
What a show! Kudos to Joe McManus for bringing high level squash back to the squash clubs and providing a venu for rising stars like Ilingsworth and veteran stars like Hindi, Ball and Lincou as well as those other stand out players like Chris Gordon and Graham Basset. For those who remember, Jahangir Khan played pro matches at Park Place Squash and 86th Street! I had a front row seat in a 40 to 50 plus crowd setting and I was immediately struck by how different the game was on regular club courts. This level of play is usually on the glass courts in a large venue like Grand Central Tournament (Tournament of Champions -- TOC), so this was a real treat. The game is different, the ball slower, the players more aggressive and attacking on the ball. This was how the game was designed to be played. With the ball slower, the players more aggressive, the play was so exciting, the slashing and slicing to the ball combined for some great rallies and rally finishers. I looked at the small crowd and wondered why weren't there 5 times more people, fellow squash lovers, watching? I wouldn't have known about it except for my student who bought me a ticket.
The PST has received quite a bit of press about it's "no-let" rule, I wasn't sure what it's accomplished except the referee is a bit more involved in the match, maybe too much involved in the match. Players still argue and complain about the calls and sometimes exaggerate contact to emphasize interferance, the game speaks for itself and always has. There are still the same questionable calls and questionable referee decisions and the flow of the game seems the same to me, may be I chose just to ignore the referee's attempt to be humorous and share a bit of the spotlight with the players.
Ilingsworth might well be the poster player for the PST, he is as an exciting player as there is. I for one wasn't ever that impressed with him. I saw him look very back in last years TOC match with Mueller...but a magic wand seems to have touched him. He is the real deal, a complete player, his attacking style is relentless, his front court game devastating. He looks to cut everything off and attack. Very exciting player. This young league should hang its proverbial hat on this guy because he is only going to get better. Dare say, the first American player to break top tenIt seems he goes a bit to the front too much, but once he starts feeling more comfortable with his style he will be a force to reckon with. He is so close to getting in the top 20 group with the likes of Anjema and the older Ashour.
I would have liked to have seen Graham Basset and Chris Gordon play in their matches and some of the other qualifiers, the marquees players are great, but so too are these eager young squash warriors.
McManus has delivered what his poster says: "America meet Squash" now he just needs to get the word out to America that squash is in town and would like to meet you.

Ramadan -- The Khans

2010-10-01T12:43:00.001-07:00

The Khan brothers of LA Fitness Squash in Lake Success couldn't be two more different players and personalities. Haadi is the younger brother, tempermental, very talented, technically getting better each month, a fierce competitor, very smart squash wise, but his physical ability hasn't caught up with his squash intelletual ability. He often gets frustrated, yells at himself on court, and has on occassion directed his ire towards his coach. I've written before how he often seems to be battling some demon in his head and easily looses focus on the match at hand. Fayaz, his older brother, a second year student at St. John's University, is an aspiring lawyer and will talk anyone's head off about politics, religion, Entourage, his mind thinks in express mode and his mouth matches his head. He doesn't have the same skills as Haadi on the court, but he is as fierce a warrior as there is. He's been accused of giving up, being lazy, and not really working hard at his squash. But these days he's been so motivated and seems to relish the hard court drills I put him through. He knows at the end of those drills are his rewards to play points.The two brothers are impossible to have on court during the same session, they can drive you crazy with their constant sibling rivalries. It's hard to work through this and focus on a lesson when every five minutes they're cursing and swiping balls at each other. And Fayaz does have a temper and has broken rackets, I'm told out of anger, but he'll only admitt he never knows how they break.But this month is the holy Muslem holiday, Ramadan. A month of fasting from sun up to sun down. What has impressed me with these two young squash warriors is how they are at the squash courts 6 a.m. to train and play when they are fasting from food and water. They seem inspired more than usual and they never seem to lose their cool or tempers during these sessions. During these holy days they are to reflect on patience, God, and the positive energy in life. There are no demons to battle, no tempers to control, no slamming rackets or berating themselves -- this is a time for inner peace, and on the squash court it translates into a warrior like approach to the game. They are all business, they are focused, the ball and racket are the center of their hour, they transcend thirst when running court sprints, they transcend hunger when doing star drills, they transcend dissension when playing rallies. At LA Fitness there are many observers of this holy holiday, and the squash players all seem to work squash into their fasting schedule, but nothing like these Khan brothers, who inspire me and whom I admire for their dedication and discipline...they are afterall Khans, descendents of great warriors, and while not related to the Hashim and Roshan tree of squash champions, in their own way they are their own tree of squash players who bring together their love of squash and honor to their religion and culture -- a most profound purpose anywhere whether it's on court or off court.

Squash is Like Religion...

2010-10-01T10:08:00.001-07:00

Hyperbole isn't hyperbole if it's true. The love of one's life is truly the love of one's life if it is true. The love of my life who has appeared in this blog before came into my life through squash. I coached her for awhile before lightening struck me, struck me in such a way that it sent a shock through my whole being. I would spare no words in writing about her, she is as part of my being as the air itself is. The ancient greeks thought inspiration was literally a Muse breathing into you, the very air of life, love and words, she has inspired me. You might ask what does this have to do with squash? This is afterall a blog about squash...
Someone very near and dear to her was diagnosed with cancer, brain cancer. A man to young to be dealt such a sentence. It is a long story to unravel here, but he and I have one thing in common. The love of our lives is one and the same. She is with me and I cherish her devotion and love. He has caused me some angst mostly because their estrangement has caused her much stress and pain. At first when she told me he was very ill, I thought, just another ploy to win her back. I was convinced this was the case, we men know there's nothing we wouldn't do to have the woman of our dreams. But as this story unfolded, I began to feel a sense of sorrow, I began to empathize with this man. I don't know him, never met him, what must he be going through? I could only imagine that he should not see his son become a man or see any of his dreams fulfilled or new ones fashioned. Most of all he will never feel the love of this woman whom we both love, he will die without her and I will go on living with her.
I thought about this and felt bad about my selfish jealously. Petty, insecure, it's not like me. I then turned to one of the few things in my life which I've always found solace in: squash. I thought, squash doesn't care if you are happy, sad, good, bad, rich, poor, dying, in love, heart broken, it cares about nothing but you and your ability at any level to play. It might sound a bit like religion, maybe to me it is. And with these thoughts I wondered what if it had been me dealt this tragedy and not him, what would I do? Like most, I'd turn to my "religion", I'd have to turn to it for comfort and the center of my being. My comfort would have to include how I'd want to leave this game as I know it. Here's my list, like a "kick-the-bucket squash list":
My first and foremost desire would be to see my son, my heart and soul, play and win in the British qualifiers. While this might sound not too ambitious, it would be one of my life's dreasuch a great achievement on any level. My son has overcome so much in his life, who has been in many ways my hero, I would do anything in my time to help him achieve his dream. Next I would love to teach my daughter this game. We are estranged from one another, we rarely speak, I miss her terribly, she never wanted to play squash, she rebelled against me in every way. Her rejection of squash was painful, I took it personally. I would give anything to have another chance with her, to teach her to strike the ball, move about the court, see her smile at her accomplishments, teach her something about this game I have loved so much. Equally important to me would be to play as much with my love this great game and remember and celebrate squash is what brought us together. I would in my limited time teach her to retrieve and strike the ball out of the back corners, teach her to move ever so gracefully to and from the corners of the court, and I would marvel at her grace and beauty knowing like I have -- since that first bolt of lightening struck me-- just how much she means to me. Next, I would like to play once and for all the game of my life, I would want to play this game or at least perceive to play it like Nick Mathew does. I would want to see the yellow dots of the ball while in play, hear the beautiful hiss of the strings as I cut deftly through the ball, I'd like to move as if I'm moving on air, and I would like to strike the ball with such precision and accuracy that any 5.0 player would be scampering to retrieve, did I say 5.0 player, sorry, I meant Greg Gaultier. Finally, I would like to go back to India where I lived for a bit and take some desolate, poor child, many of which I saw, take just one, and teach them this game, find a wall, give them a ball and racket, give them a meal, and shoes, and teach them this great game. Inspire him maybe to dream of being a champion, teach him in squash, he will always matter.
As I complete this list, I realize I don't need to be dying to accomplish any of this and more. I should do what I can in whatever time there is, I have no choice in that matter. I do have choice in striving and working towards becoming a better player and helping to make others better and inspiring those around me to love and cherish this game. May that young man who has nothing to do with squash directly someday rest gently in peace perhaps not knowing that he had something to do with fulfilling mine and other's squash dreams.

Arti Locker and Eric Ma RIP August 2009

2010-08-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe it's a year since Arti and Eric past away. I hope they found peace and a bit of squash in their latest travels.

When The D's Play like B's

2010-08-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

It sometimes happens when two intermediate players get on court and play the match of their lives and the squash looks like advanced squash. Matt Levine (my student) and Russ Feinberg (my son's student) play each other so much in the early a.m. at our LA Fitness Club in Lake Success that it's routine chaos or helter skelter squash. To be expected since both players are extremely competitve and play to win. Matt has been working with me for nearly a year and has suffered through back problems and the frustrations of trying to transfer his often stellar drilling in practice to real match play. Russ, is often an enigma, an accomplished ballroom dancer he moves on the court so well, the key word being 'move'. He often however comes on court and looks like and moves like he's on the tail end of one of those 72 hour dance marathons. He'll show up for the early morning lessons and matches running on a few hours of sleep.
Both players approach the game in a similar manner. They analyze the game, they want to understand it and they are very keen on technique and the right way to play. They are a coaches best type of student.
Last week I observed Matt and Russ play what was an ugly match, that helter skelter type of squash, anyone's guess where the ball was going. Matt wasn't watching the ball very well and was under lots of pressure from Russ' typical front court reverses and trickle boasts. My son and I could only watch the match for a few obligatory minutes. We argued who was bringing who's game down.
I'm not quite sure what happened but both players had lessons with me and my son on the same day and time. My son must have said or done something because I observed Russ in practice take the game up a level and was hitting well. I thought to myself there's no way he's that much better at hitting the ball than Matt. Matt was also watching Russ hit with my son. When I asked Matt to get on court and start I talked to him more like an older brother and less like a coach. I wanted both to encourage him and castigate him for his poor play the previous week. I told him he was awful, he can play better and then just said something as simple as he doesn't grasp the concept of the court 'T'. I explained to him it is the eye of the hurricane, it is the center of the squash universe, it is one of the few places on earth where it is center, where you can reach anything from. I also explained that if he doesn't really watch and see the ball he is at a huge disadvantage and will feel so rushed in trying to cover the court because in fact he's looking for the ball before it bounces twice rather than taking time to prepare a timely shot.
Something might have clicked, because we drilled and I noticed that he was moving better , was staying away from the ball and as the drill progressed he was hitting nice tight shots for good length. We made some further adjustments in his footwork and he was starting to hit the cross court out of the front with much more balanced. Was this the same guy who a week earlier looked so bad?
I looked outside the glass backed court and there was Russ watching Matt. He saw how well Matt was striking the ball. I noticed too that while Matt often has this friendly demeanor, his demeanor on court was fierce. He didn't smile, he was all squash business. I knew I had reached him he was practicing better and looked like a squash player.
When Matt and Russ met up for their usual match (my son was in the city playing an early match) and I had my most favorite student Haadi on court while Matt and Russ were warming up on the other court. Haadi and I were drilling and Haadi himself was striking the ball well and moving about the court during the drills. We took a break and I went over to watch the Matt and Russ. Both looked like they were in a match and when Russ served I was immediately struck by how structured their point was. 5-7 backhand rails then a cross court and then a few forehand rails. Matt was moving around the court and not rushing around. Russ was trying to control the 'T' with shots that were deep and tight. He was controlling the 'T' ever so slightly, but Matt was stepping in and cutting the ball off. I noticed Matt's racquet no longer dangled usellessly at his side, but was lifted and ready to strike the ball. His eyes were on the ball, he actually turned his head fully to see the shots being hit from the back corners. He moved purposefully and there was even some elusive squash agility in his movement.
Russ was playing very well, and his backhand, was really good, better than Matt's -- I could see my son's influence on his backhand, perfect preparation, quick feet and slow racquet. One thing I'm sure my son was on Russ about was that his non-racquet hand is held to his heart, a bit awkward, and not too good for balance when setting up to strike the ball or moving to cut the ball of behind the service box.I kept coming back to watch their match.
When they came off the court I told them how great their squash was, I was so impressed with their play and told Matt he should be proud of how he played. There wasn't the usual court chaos, the points were structured and the play at a much higher level.
Matt was so happy with his play, I could tell. It is the best time for a coach to see his student recognize an accomplishment for which that student has worked so hard. I didn't even gloat a bit that my student beat my son's student, certain games and matches sometimes transcend the outcome. They both played, sort of like each other, I was reminded of years ago when I played at Park Place Squash and had a rivalry with Jay Munsie, intense rivalry, who always seemed to bring out the best in my play and I his. We battled like Matt and Russ and played at a level that was well above our skill level, we just brought out the best. Hopefully, Matt and Russ will push themselves to solid B and eventually even A level play...I know my son would appreciate having a hand in that as I would too.

When A Parent Becomes A Spectator

2010-06-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

Squash always seems to my continued amazement to imitate life. Anyone who has been a parent, knows that when your children become young adults it's a major adjustment as your role as parent changes. I've been rightly accused by my young adult son and daughter of still treating them like children -- and I can tell you it does really make them mad. I'm often slow to adjust and make changes but once I recognize the need I do make the changes necessary to keep things going. I recently received a wake up call from my daughter that seem to say if I didn't relate to her as an adult, I might as well not talk to her. We recently had an AIM conversation, she can always go offline if I annoy her rather than just hang up the phone, where I asked her how her studies in pre-med were going. She said she was studying for a Micro-Biology exam, I then asked her what that was, and she proceeded to tell me quickly what that was. I'm still trying to understand what it is and how to relate to that. She never played squash but foil fenced and was really very good.
For my son, who plays squash and wants to play professionally, he is at the point where I coach him but mostly he likes the way I train him and feed him. It's on rare occassion that I'm allowed to offer any advice. He is incredibly demanding and edgy on court and has little or no patience if I am on court with him and have been coaching 7 hours and seem tired or sore. I'm not his father on court, I'm on court to help him train.
Recently our good friend and squash guru, Jim Masland (whom I've written about frequently on this Blog) was back in town. My son first joined Jim on court when he was 4 years old in Durham, North Carolina in 1993. Since then they have played numerous times, and even as recently as last December, Jim beat him. The gap has closed significantly since my son was 4 years old, and last time they played the better player lost to a wily fox, an Odyssean journeyman, a Yoda with the lightsaber. Jim has slowed in recent years, has put on some pounds, but his game is still great, he's a joy to watch. He has a magnificent forehand, short, compact, economical and holds the ball forever. His feathery drops to the front are tantalizing and he can punctuate a long rally with a sudden and winning trickle boast. Jim is a fierce competitor and I've often noticed just how fierce he is when he's pressured. He is used to winning, if not in score, then in the quality of the squash.
We invited the club members at LA Fitness in Great Neck to come watch, what was now becoming a grudge match between the two warriors. Trash talking started a week before. My son has been training hard and is in the best shape of his life. His game is the foundation of a professional game, 3 months ago it was but he tin'd the ball and didn't execute well. Thanks go to a brief stint in England playing in Birmingham with Chris Hall and Chris Fuller, under the tuteledge of Steve Townsend.
The crowd was small but some of my favorite members were there to watch. Margaret Higgins who had taken a break from squash was back, the place smelled wonderfully with some "beach" labelled perfume (she always adds class to the squash area there), Shyamala was there as well, beautiful and with that most infectious laugh. John Gross, Pooya, Tom, and a number of other passer-by's had stopped to watch
Jim was in considerably better shape than the last time they played, he was more muscular and balanced. You could see his footwork was sharper, he moved extremely well around the court. My son, was quick, his racquet speed and preperation explosive. A few early points into the game Jim returned shots and before he even looked back to follow his ball, my son had cut the ball off and rifled shots back. There was a nice even tone to the first game, Jim was still trying to find his timing and the way of the court, which is fast off the wall but slow on the floor. My son built an early lead and then Jim tied it and went ahead 9-7. I could see a very cool and calm player with a gameplan, every shot he hit had purpose. Jim was a bit impatient and when he tin'd a loose ball in the front he was a bit frustrated it was the opening he had been looking for. My son then missed a hard tight rail from Jim and Jim had game ball at 10-8. It was then that I realized that I wasn't watching my son, I was watching a player, a really good player in a great match. For years my son played, wasn't fit, was evolving, a work in progress, he'd hit a bad ball and look at me, I'd gesture with calm, focus, watch the ball signals, he's wave me off. He'd argue with the referee and yell at himself -- his squash mind was well beyond his physical abilities. Here, I was referreeing this match and he never even looked in my direction. He was separate, he was a young man on court simply playing a game he loves more than anything in the world. He won that first game 16-14, Jim looked like he had been through a round with a young Mike Tyson.
The second game began with Jim making an adjustment. He'd shorten the rallies and end the point on the fist opportunity he had. He wasn't going to "hang" with my son, so his gameplan was to frustrate my son, hold the ball, go for the nick, redirect the ball. It worked brilliantly, my son started playing Jim's game but was tin'ing. A couple of times I made some signals to settle and watch the ball come off Jim's racquet, but my son wasn't looking at me. By looking at him you wouldn't know whether he was winning or loosing. He just played. And the games were 1-1.
Between games my son came off the court didn't even notice me, I was talking to Shyamal and Margaret but was watching my son out of the corner of my eye: "is his asthma bothering him, does he need a hit from his nebulizer, how are his knees"; the floors at that club aren't sprung and unforgiving. But he took drinks of his vitamin water and stared blankly ahead.
My son played brilliantly in the third game and just dominated a fading Jim. I wanted to tell my son to beware of the aging possum, to finish Jim off and not let him in. In the fourth game, tensions mounted. Neither player gave an inch. My son was calm and composed, Jim was edgy, shaking his head, and when he missed a forehand volley off my son's backhand cross he seemed to drunkenly stumble to the side wall. He was tired. Jim was trying to upset the rhythm of the game he argued a let when no let was called. He opened the door and said "where was the let" I responded by saying "no let was called" a bit puzzled that he was arguing a call that wasn't requested. To Jim's credit he came back, he wasn't ready to concede and fought back, he was he now the underdog, the scrapper, fighting for every point. I've watched Jim play for years and I always marvelled at his balance and fluidity on court. Now it was my son, striking the ball with tremendous pace and precision, taking it right to Jim, he wanted to grind Jim into submission, and if it went to a fifth game, so be it, my son was none the weary for the match. My son had three match balls and when Jim went for a forehand trickle boast and tin'd it my son gently pumped his fist, job done, match over. He shook Jim's hand as an equal -- they walked off the court and sat for a while discussing the match. I watched with some regret but a great deal of respect that what I was once to my son in squash he now to himself. He was and is his own man both on the court and off the court. I briefly talked to him about my observations, but stopped myself, old habits are hard to get rid of, he didn't seem to notice as I cut myself off and said "well done".

The Future Mayor of Great Neck

2010-06-14T10:02:00.000-07:00

Samir of Pakistan heritage, just turned 10 years old last week. He missed his squash lessons at La Fitness in Lake Success, because this past week was a milestone for him to reach double digits in years. I had him on court this past Sunday, didn't recognize him because he had his hair cut short, big boy style, a crew cut, having cut off his long hair that often covered his eyes when he was hitting. For weeks he had been asking me when he would move off the large, bouncy, blue ball for beginners to the regulation double yellow dot ball. I kept telling him you have to show me you can hit the beginner ball first. He is smart, very smart, and at 10 years old still has more of the toddler in him than the strapping teenager he'll someday become. He plays soccer and seems to love squash, but it's a challenge to get him to focus and to get fitter. He has asthma, so I have to be careful not to push him too hard, I do emphasize "no bread, and certainly NO RICE, and no soda." He tells me he doesn't eat or drink that stuff. He probably won't be tournament ready in the junior under 11 and our goal is to get him playing in maybe the under 13's.

I look so forward to my sessions with Samir, not so much for the squash, that's always a challenge to coach someone that young, but for his keen presence in and around the court. I watch him leave the court frequently for water, on his way to the fountain, if he sees someone around the courts, he'll stop and say to that person "you play squash?, I'm Samir, what is your name". I watch how people react to him, he does this with such ease, I tell him he is a natural politician. People respond to him with genuine friendliness and ease as well. He has this ability, that rare ability, to make people feel so comfortable. I call him the future mayor of Great Neck.

During his most recent session, he showed me something on the court as he consistantly hit the beginner ball for nice tight rails and wide cross courts. After a while, I stopped play, and looked at him, and said he was hitting the ball very well. I said that I thought he was ready, "are you ready for the real ball?" "Yes", he shouted out, and pumped his fist. I went and took a yellow double dot and warmed it up a bit. We started hitting, and he was hitting the ball as if a magic wand had touched him. The balls were tight, deep and with decent pace. "Wow", I said, "it must be your haircut, you've never ever hit like this!" "Thanks, Mr. Will" (he always calls me Mr. Will). We worked through the session and he kept looking for his dad, he wanted so much to tell him he was off the beginner ball. When his dad showed up toward the end of the lesson he excused himself and went out to tell his dad, I could see by his face and rapidly moving face, he was so excited about this latest milestone. Whether it's double digits in age or double dot in the ball you hit, accomplishment is accomplishment.

As we finished up I noticed my next lesson, Shyamala, a beautiful Malaysian/Hindu woman, stretching. I pointed to her and asked Samir if he'd ever seen anyone so pretty as her. She smiled at us, I commented how beautiful her smile is. He asked me if I liked her, or "liked" her or was she just a friend? I told him I really "liked" her and asked him if he thought she would like me? He said "sure, Mr. Will, take her to a movie and out to dinner, she will really like you." Great advice from the future mayor, I'll let him know how it goes when I next see him on court. As he left the court he went up to Shyamala and asked her if she hit with the "real ball", to which he quickly added, "I hit with the real one too."

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As a follow-up to this posting I wanted to add that Samir's advice was very good indeed. When I saw him next on the court I complimented him for his advice. I told him that Shyamala is now my girlfriend. I added that it had been a while since I took a woman out to movie and a dinner and remarked how expensive it was. In typical Samir fashioned, he paused and said to me, "money doesn't ever equal love..." That is Samir, wise beyond his years.

Like a Man Possessed

2010-06-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Quite a while back I published a post on Arti Locker, my son's and my favorite fan, who passed away last August. Arti used to watch us play squash at our LA Fitness club in Lake Success, Long Island. He always bet on my son and I used to jokingly tell him, "Arti, stick with me, one day I'll win a game..."

His wife, Lola, the sharpest and prettiest senior around, and whom I check in with periodically to see how she's getting along in life after Arti, invited me over to her house because I showed an interest in learning to play the card game, Bridge. Arti, she told me was very good, and I thought it would be fun to have her teach me.

I had no idea about Bridge, but I know that many people play it and as you progress in life it's important to work your mind and memory the way you conitnue to work your body and heart. So I thought why not give it a try we spent weeks trying to coordinate our schedules -- last night I finally arrived at her home and I could tell she was eager to teach, I was hoping that I could keep up with her instruction and explanation to this very complex game.

When I arrived at her house she had lots of photographs of her wonderful familiy, including pictures of Arti. The ones she had of him playing handball years and years ago in Brooklyn (where American squash great Victor Niederhoffer used to play), taken sometime in the 50's showed a stocky and extremely muscular youn man in his late 20's or early 30's striking the ball...the pose reminded me of the Ancient Greek scuplture, The Discus Thrower. Arti, to his last days, was etremely fit.

Bridge is really hard, I can only equate it to squash. By evenings end my mind was exhausted and Lola only covered the first chapter of her introduction to this card game. But this post insn't really about learning Bridge or the comparisons to squash. It's about how I left Lola's house last night and on the drive home heard Arti's voice in my head and saw his face in my memory of him. I thought, how could it all have passed from that photo taken of him on the handball court in Brooklyn to now, simply memories among the people that knew him. I knew him only within a certain context and in the later years of his life, but for whatever reason, his impression on me has been lasting.

This morning my son and I went to the courts, we were both stiff and sore from a lot of weekend squash. We warmed up, we stretched, we did star drills and then played one game. What a game it was. My body was like air, my feet light and swift, my head was completely clear, no frustrations no over thinking my mistakes, not a care in the world, as if this game was outside of time,as if I was born to play it -- and I saw every ball no matter how fast the pace like we were playing in slow motion. My son dominated the points and the pace as usual, in the early going some long rallies but I kept it close. At 4-4 he hit some bullet crosses that I step up and cut off and cross nicked. It wasn't my intention, I wasn't even thinking, except for the thought who is this guy hitting the ball this morning. At 7-4 I nicked a serve into the backhand corner, I could hear my son mumbling that this is just luck 3-4 nicks. He started mounting his come-back, I felt no pressure even though he was running me around, I was retrieving anything and everything. Then, as I was up 9-8, he hit a cross-nick that rolled out -- but lo and behold, I was so quickly on it that as it came out ever so slightly I turned on it and ripped a low hard shot down the rail that he couldn't get a racket on. At game ball, a few shots into the rally, he hit a loose shot that I held and dumped ever so lightly into the forehand front nick. Game over. My son, who has never complimented me in any of my squash, was a bit stunned but recovered and reminded me it took 4 nicks to get it done.

Coming off the court there was Russ Feinberg, one of my son's students waiting to get on the court with a lesson with him. I looked over at him, I had to tell someone, and just pumped my fist and said I took a game! But the person I really wanted to tell wasn't there, the fan who for so many games watched me lose again and again, and who would just smile and say youth takes over, wasn't there -- maybe Arti wasn't on the bench just watching, maybe this day he was right on the court playing through me, forever the young Brooklyn hand baller; afterall, I did play like a man possessed.

Nick Matthew The Best Squash Player in the Universe

2010-05-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

As much as I marvel at Ramy Ashour's on court brilliance and his amazing early success , Nick Matthew, soon-to-attain the world number 1 PSA spot, is an inspiration to every athlete at any level. This unassuming young man has come back from serious injuries, has devoted his life to squash and reaching a pinnacle so few attain. He's been on the tour for 12 years, where most players stay half that time on the tour. Imagine all the years of qualifiers, imagine all the years climbing ever so slowing through the ranks, imagine the thousands of hours travelling from city to city, the countless hours of training and dedication, the huge expectations placed on himself...but most of all imagine coming back on two occassions from serious injuries to in some ways start part of the journey to the top over again.

I have watched him in both defeat and victory he is one and the same, perhaps the truest test of any great athlete. They seem to just relish the game. He is fierce, intense, but ever so gracious and seems almost in awe of his opponents, especially Ramy. This comes from a genuine respect for his opponents' talents and an almost gracious appreciation for an opponent who can bring out the best in his game.

I wrote 6 months ago he'd be number 1 by March (not too far off), he is my favorite player and has been for some time. But my son reminded me 6 years ago at the TOC when after a Matthew match he went up to him for an autograph (I asked him where was that autograph since I avidly collect everything past and present related to squash -- we'll look a bit harder for it now) and Beth Rasin, tournament magician, was there. Beth asked my then 14 year old son if he thought Nick Mattew would be number 1 someday, my son answered her emphatically "yes"! My son's point was he discovered Matthew long before I did and knew back then he'd be number 1 someday.

So I want to go on record here that Nicolas Muller will be number 1 within 5 years and if it isn't in 5 years, maybe 10 years. And as my son aspires to whatever level he will achieve in squash, should he or Muller ever get discouraged, I advise them to just think of Nick Matthew -- 12 years before reaching the top of the squash world -- the best place in the entire universe.

The Components of Squash

2010-05-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

I acquired a new student at LA Fitness, RJ Elrose, who lives in the area, but came to us because of reading this blog. He has been coached by Clive Leach and Mark Heather, two high level tour professional players. I've seen Clive play, a former #31 in the world, he has a beautiful game. While I saw him loose to David Palmer in last year's Hyder's Cup, I saw some brilliant play on his part. Ironically, I was studying the difference in where Clive's cross court hit the side wall with where Palmer's did. Amazed at how little in the length seemed to separate the two. But squash is a game of inches, an inch better length is huge. Anyways, RJ joined our club and sought me out for coaching. This is one of those players with a high squash IQ but was frustrated in his lack of success in competition and the ability to get better.

It's interesting having a student come from Leach and look for help in improving his game. I hit with RJ and observed his play and pointed out some things. He agreed with my observations and added he had heard it before, especially about his cross courts.

What transpired in the next few sessions indicates one of the challenges a coach faces. He was comparing me to Clive Leach, Clive told him this, told him that. What I realized is that Clive as a player can say your cross courts are short but how do you tell RJ why they are short? When was the last time Clive hit a "B" level cross court? What are the components that make up a decent cross court. I defer to Clive, he's a great player but great players are rarely students of the game. I began to break down the components of hitting a good cross court. Very basic stuff, racket up, shoulder turned, take the ball slightly in front. Very simple, yet RJ was so late in his preperation, didn't understand the angle of the ball when striking it to the front wall, and was just trying for a good cross court without understaning why he wasn't hitting them well. There resulted frustration, tense shoulders, and a stiff racket. To use Clive as an example, he doesn't need to think about bringing his racket back nor turning his shouldrer and striking through the ball, he does this in his sleep. But for a "B" level player like RJ what Clive does just won't work. RJ hasn't the wrists of Clive, so it's important he bring his racket up and back and turn his shoulder to generate racket speed. Basic stuff, but some of the components to build a good cross court on.

RJ and I also started working through some drills and focussed a lot on his footwork, his footwork is so good, but off, he does basic things that are wrong especially in how he recovers. He bends forward too much when retrieving in the extreme points of the court that he finds himself on every shot struggling to recover. This is most evident when covering shots in the front of the court. Also, he has a very long stride to the ball, but tends to play a bit flat footed. So worked on getting him when applicable playing on the balls of his feet, especially when coming out of the front. The other aspect we worked on adding was dragging his back foot as he went into his shot as an achor and to help his balance.

He has been doing a lot of "star drills" along with me to feel more comfortable and balanced. I'm not so concerned about his racket skills because I think that if he moves better to the ball and prepares a bit earlier and feels balanced even when striking under some pressure, he'll hit good shots, including cross courts.

Coaching is mostly a thankless job, but when a student compliments the lesson and the way in which you teach certain technique and that student has been coached by a high level coach,, it's the best compliment. The components of squash, I like that, each component builds on the next and you improve and try and perfect each component as you become a more advanced player. The components become fewer but bigger at Clive's level -- "your cross courts are short", now just imagine the hundreds of little components at the beginner level -- "racquet up, wrist cocked, grip right, shoulder relaxed, eye on the ball, strike through the ball, follow the ball with your follow through" and how long before you do it without thinking, I guess ask Clive.

3 Wishes from the Genie

2010-05-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

Don't confuse arrogance with excellence. I watch enough squash in the US and there is this arrogance about squash that is, frankly embarrassing. We in the US have a chip on our shoulders. Here we are one of the greatest countries in the history of civilization and when it comes to squash we look foolish. The US Squash organization doesn't help matters, they promote glimmers of immediate hope while sacrificing long term goals. What do I know? Not much, but I do know this, that we will never EVER producce a top 10 player in the world doing what we are doing.

Someone once asked me if I had a few wishes in this world before I die, what would they be. It didn't take me long to formulate my answer. First and foremost would be that when I drive into the city on a hot July day I don't see Ozone warmings but see a crisp hot blue, deep blue sky. Secondly, I'd like to see poverty eradicated, I would like to see every person of color celebrating the dream of this country and not wallow in its nightmares and find themselves disenfranchised. And finally, most dear of all to my heart, I'd like to see a US squash player reach top 10 in the world. I would die a most happy man, even if only the last on this list would be achieved.

When I read that Gilly Lane beat top 10 Peter Barker in Montreal recently, I thought, wow, this is the most magnificent achievement in US squash history. And this came a couple of years after Julian Illingsworth beat Ollie Thuummen in what was at that time the greatest victory a US player ever achieved in international squash. And here Gilly Lane didn't beat a top 20 player he beat a top 10 player!

I saw Gilly Lane play in the Rhode Island open a few years back. Nothing special, just solid 200 ranked level squash. Three years later what did he do? He went and trained in Europe and elevated his game to new levels. What's going on here? We have so many professionals and past touring professionals coming to the US and what are they contribuiting to the US game? If they are here why then do we have to send a serious US player to Europe or England to take his game to the next level?

To me, the US Squash Organization is like NASA. I challenge them to put a US player in the top 10 before this decade is out, like Kennedy challenged the establishment to put a man on the moon...We did that 40 years ago, surely we can do this and send a US player to the top 10 position.

It may not, most certainly not, be Gilly Lane or Jullian Illingsworth or Chris Gordon, but I dream that it might be my son, and if not my son, then my grandson. We will get there, and we'll get there, if the desire and dedication is there, and may my weary soul rest in peace when we do.

Josh Through The Looking Glass -- Literally...

2010-04-14T20:39:00.001-07:00

Our LA Fitness Squash Round Robin in Great Neck is great. Players of all levels -- upwards of 20 -- come to the Saturday 2-5 pm round robin. I run this round robin not unlike the Seinfeld Soup Nazi, hey, I need to get a lot of people playing and not siting out getting stiff and cold. Last weekend we had a smaller than usual crowd, but some good players showed up. there was a bit of electricity in the air as Margaret returned from a 10 day vacation to yet some other island, a number of players remarked on her striped turquoise colored coordinated skirt and top and how she always adds something really elegant to the Saturday RR. Inimitable Mets was on court 7 taking all comers. He is so much fun to watch because he gets the lower level players running endlessly all over the place. He rules the center of the court, dominating these players with a real presence...it gives the 3.0 players a glimpse of high B and low A level play. But then Michael Squillanted steps in former Queens College tennis standout and who happens to take up a lot of space with his 6'4" inch frame and his ability to cut everything off...He and Mets go at it. I think Mike is close to narrowing if not closing the slight gap between him and Mets. I've been coaching Mike a bit and have encouraged him to play up on the "T", use his incredibly soft hands to cut off everything and dump stuff to the front. Mets is a great athlete but doesn't play the extreme corners, front and back, as well as he should. Mike has an emerging frontcourt game the is showing some signs of being punishing.

Anyways, this very same Mike was on the court with Josh Epstein on Saturday. Josh is a former high level racket ball player who is lightening fast, agressive, pint size, and has this intensity that is just amazing to watch as in he will do anything to get a racket on the ball. I've seen him get to shots that leave you wondering is there anything this guy can't get to? It isn't always squash and not always pretty, but the shear determination overshadows that. Sometimes that quality crosses the boundary of safety -- that style can get someone hurt.. I once saw a player dive across the length of the court to get to a ball he was severley fooled on only to slam into his opponent, not such a wise move, because the opponent doesn't always expect such a move, and ended up with a severely sprained knee -- he was lucky, it could have been worse. I don't like the way Josh plays, but I admire his on court attitude.

Last Saturday I was casually telling him he needs to change how he plays, he has great hands and is lightening fast, but it works against him. I told him to start playing up and cutting the ball off, especially against the gym's A level players. He hangs back in returning the serve and when the pace picks up he plays such a low T that the court becomes cavernous, which is countered by this hurling and dervish type play of his.

But back to Mike Squillante, I match him and Josh up for a match in the Round Robin. The points are long, Mike is running Josh all over the place, Mike is so good at that. I'm watching Josh sprint tirelessly around the court and then Mike hits a shot first to the front court which Josh dives to cover, okay, we've seen John White do this many times, and then Mike pokes the ball back towards the glass back wall. Josh sprinting back in an attempt to retrieve it slides into the glass door, "boom" and the entire glass door explodes in this cascading flow of glass. Josh is cut on the arm and legs and is covered in glass, visibly shaken, we call for the paramedics.

I was talking to Josh while waiting for the ambulance, by the way some stitches but he checked out okay, and I was saying to him I guess like a father to a son, "you've got to change how you play, what were you thinking?" He just shook his head and said "I can't help myself." No one likes to see anyone hurt or hurt anyone else in this game, but more experienced players have an obligation to either help a player like Josh play safely or simply refuse to play him until he changes his game. Just as you wouldn't get on the court with a player who has an excessive backswing or follow through or who would rather nail the ball into your bakc than call a let, this kind of play can be applauded for a lot of its good qualities, athleticism, agressiveness, but ultimately it has to be channeled and controlled into structured points. I know Josh felt bad about taking the court out for however long it takes to repair, but I can't imagine how he might feel if he should hurl himself to a ball and catch his opponent at the knee, perhaps ending his opponents squash play for months.

Time to change how Josh plays squash, most of the better players at the Club are there to help, translate his style into a squash game that is first and foremost safe for him and any of his future opponents.

The Short Game -- Tom And The "Kid"

2010-04-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I was introduced to the "short game" of squash by Josh Easdon then club pro at Lincoln Squash at NYSC near Columbus Circle. I was working as a consultant just after 9/11 at Credit Suisse, had put on 40 lbs and had not played squash in 2 years. I would cut out at lunch and head out from Credit Suisse in the Old Met Life building in the Flat Iron District and do a 3 time a week session with Josh. It was really tough after being away for two years, and in the beginning I would take water breaks every 10 minutes. What was most difficult was my pride. I was always extremely fit and would get on the court with players often better, but my stamina and retrieving kept me competitive. At first, I could barely play a few long points without gasping and struggling for oxygen.
When Josh first suggested we play the "short game", which consists of playing in front of the mid court service line and everything above the front wall service line, it was a bit humiliating. It sort of meant that I couldn't play the full court, and it seemed a game that supported a bit of a handicap for the out of shape, really challenged player. My strokes were great, but my footwork and movement was that of a past-his-prime man, overweight and slow.
It turned out that this "short game" kept me coming back. I could play it, and gradually my stamina and footwork improved. I felt an accomplishment when Josh awarded me with some full court points towards the end of our session. Looking back, I think that if Josh hadn't gone to the "short game" when he did I probably would have given up in trying to come back.
But this "short game" has evolved for me as I'm fit again and coaching and drilling both myself and others really hard. I have a couple of students, like Tom Katagores and Haadi Khan, who really get it. Tom is a former racketball player who moved over to squash two years ago. He is in his mid-fifties and surviced double by-pass surgery, and works very hard at his game. He is a fierce competitor, but has the rare quality of being very gracious and sportsmanlike. He owns the Jackson Hole Diners, which serve up some of the most amazing hamburgers in the City and Queens. Coming from racketball he is a bit challenged in his racket skills, but is so eager to learn the right technique, that it makes him the perfect student. When I introduced him to the "short game", keep in mind Tom is incredibly fit, he embraced it immediately. I used the "short game" to teach Tom how to control the center of the court, to cut the ball off, stay off the wall, and to hit as many straight balls as possible, and resorting to boasting only when it was a last resort. The result was extensive rallies where we moved each other around and I could see he softened his racket and really start moving the ball away from me.
The great thing about the "short game" is that it is a minature version of the regular game. If you don't move your feet, hang back, don't cut the ball off or control the center you will run around like crazy. Not unlike the regulation game of squash.
What was quite remarkable to me about Tom was that he understood what we were trying to do immediately. We came off of one of our recent sessions both drenched in perspiration and I think he really had a feeling for controlling the ball, placing it, and positioning himself in the center of the court.
I smile to myself when Haadi, who is 14 years old, asks me to play the "short game", he likes this game because it gets his feet moving. He too, extends the "short game" rallies to the point where we are breathing heavily (he more than me of course), but he really understands this drill and how important it is to his development as a squash player.
Both Tom and Haadi have great regulation games together, they are fun to watch, the older player really trying to help improve the younger "kid" as Tom calls him.
I love the irony of this game, "short", "long", or just regulation squash, in that what was once a bit of humiliation for me is a source of pride for me and my students.
I should point out that I replaced Tom's racket, the Feather 2125 Cyclone, with another one since he told me, like the "kid", he broke his racket -- you might remember Haadi is a racket breaker. Figure that one out.

Vidant's First Tournament -- His Parents' First One Too.

2010-03-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

Vidant, one of my students, played in his first junior tournament (BU11) this past weekend at City View. I wasn't able to attend, but I did receive emails and text messages expressing concern over his first round loss (later I learned to the Number 1 seed). Knowing the pain and disappointment of parents when seeing their child loose, is hard, but I think most kids take it in stride. My son was very mediocre in the juniors, but he was always or for the most part I thought one of the better players. He just wasn't fit enough to hang with the usual dashers and bashers who dominate the junior tournaments through most of the ranks. But to really keep it in perspective, what you do in the juniors won't seem all that important unless you stop playing squash. But if you go on to college squash or professional competition, the "juniors" won't matter. Squash players develop differently, but with the emphasis on winning, just learning the game correctly is often overlooked. That correct way will pay dividends down the road because it is the foundation for all future squash endevours. A junior's play, especially at a young age isn't an indication of their character or future successes. Because Vidant faulted on the serve, dosn't mean he'll be a failure for his junior career, nor isn't indicative of what he'll do later on in his real life and squash life. Vidant's mother really means well, his father a bit more laid back on it I think took it in stride. As for Vidant, he's very court smart, and I had him hit with Haadi on the court while I talked to his mother about the tournament. I listened carefully to what she was saying, she picked out all valid points, his shots to the middle of the court, faulting on the serve (it seems he was trying to hit a lob serve for a winner), and generally just being overmatched. While I was listening I was watching Vidant and Haadi have some nice rallies. What I saw was a junior player who was structuring the point extremely well but just not executing his shots. So I turned to his mother and said watch how he plays, look at the structure in his game, rail, rail, deep cross, volley drop tin! But it was impressive because it was squash, not some semblance of squash mixed with 5 other rackets sports. Haadi came off the court and remarked Vidant's shots are a lot better, to which his mom added he's comfortable with Haadie. Yes, tournament play is different, but if you have a structure that is solid you can always impose that structure against an opponent, even one who just happens to hit down on the ball with a two handed backhanded number 1 seed that he is. If Vidant works hard (not to be confused with pushed hard) and continues the way he's doing, somewhere in the 14 thru 17 year old range he'll be a force. I just hope I'm there to coach this really talented junior who is just now beginning to have a dialogue with me -- he is a young lad of so few words, for now.

If It Works, Why Change It? Lob vs Backhand Serve...

2010-03-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

I am a student of the game, just plain and simple. I study this game and am always looking for ways to improve my understanding, my technique, level of play so I can pass that on to my students or anyone who listens. I am fortunate because my son is a high level player and I can always pass these things by him and thrash it about. He is also an astute student of the game, but his goal is to pick up things he can use first and foremost in match play.

About a month ago, much to the encouragement of my son I started converting my service to the forehand side to my opponents backhand receiving side from a very effective lob serve to the backhand serve the pros started using years back. My son has been using this server for a number of years. I knew it had an advantage, a significant advantage, in theory but I have a great lob serve so why would I change it? That the backhand serve is a better serve, straight and simple, there's no doubt -- the pros wouldn't use it if it weren't. It eliminates one complete step (this is a game of inches, here we're talking about a foot or more) in moving to the T off the serve and preparing for your opponents return. It's not an eacy serve to hit but with practice and the right technique, it didn't take long to start hitting that serve with a good deal of effectiveness. And most importantly, I find myself early in preparing for my opponents return off the serve.

My most favorite student, Margaret Higgins, started converting to this serve and, while it's only been a couple of weeks, it's coming along nicely. She recently told me she played one of the better players at the club and faulted alot. Her opponent remarked, "if the lob serve works, why change it?" I didn't have much time to go into it with her, but just told her stick with it, it will happen and it's without a doubt a better serve. I should have qualified this by explaining you basically target the ball in the same way you do with the lob serve with a couple of differences, one of which I already described with less a step for early preperation to receive the opponents return of your serve. The other, is you put a slight angle slice on the inside of the ball (that part of the inside of the ball closest to the racquet face), creating a rotation on the ball equivalent to a righthand pitcher's curve ball tailing away on a lefthand batter -- I think that's right. The ball isn't flat nor does it have the underspin of a lob server. The motion on the ball is different.

The great thing about squash is that it is constantly evolving, changing, as a number of outside variables come into play and pro players adapt to changes in fitness levels, speed, racket technology, even changes in the ball composition. Students of the game learn from the pros, learn by observing and understanding what they're doing and why they're doing it.

During our club round robin the other day Margaret served from the backhand side to her opponents rightside forehand and faulted. A few points later, she served with the backhand serve to her opponents backhand and faulted and shot me this dagger of a look, as if to say, "you're making me do this!" and being the fierce competitor she is, she doesn't like to give any points away. When she came off the court I remarked how well she played, and then paused, and reminded her matter-of-factly that she earlier faulted on the forehand side of the court as well. No explanation needed. She got it.

I will be surprised if her opponent who remarked on why 'change her serve' isn't hitting the same backhand serve in 3 months, certain then that Margaret was only too happy to show him how.

Be Careful What You Wish For -- Squash Alive and Well at LA Fitness

2010-03-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

What a difference a year makes -- I've written before how squash at the Lake Success, NY LA Fitness club has gone from empty courts to a solid squash membership. A year ago the courts were empty, few people played, and whenever I'd call for court time and ask what was available the front desk taking racquetball and squash court reservations would laugh, "any court you want anytime;" followed by "what exactly is squash?" It was around that time that we heard rumors that one of the two squash courts would be converted to a racketball court (sort of like devolution if you ask me). That was really worrisome, because it would be first one court then the other and then no squash for us, except playing in the City. My son and I spent years playing and paying in the City to the tune of thousands of dollars in court time, tolls, gas, driving and parking.

My son and I both coach so we decided to start making some things happen at the club. It's worked out so far beyond what we expected. We have literally an influx of players from racketball who have converted to squash. Some are really good. and will no doubt be even better as they play more and take some lessons. We match up players and I was doing many lessons each week and spending hours on the court, often hitting and just pointing things out about someone's game. And then people watch me and my son play and the fierce battles (in my own mind -- my son is playing in his head conditional games) we have and they like that, especially when I come off the court drenched in perspiration and breathing so hard I think my lungs will burts, "quite a good workout," they'll ask. To which I say, "the best there is."

We have a very active Saturday afternoon round robin that is very competitive, especially now that we've implemented a handicap system. The better players have to really play the points hard, because with a 5 point disadvantage in par scoring anything can happen. The energy is great and we don't charge -- it also gives me an opportunity to see my students play and see what we need to work on for the next lesson time. We've just now put together a league of our own fielding 5 teams of 3 players and 1 alternative. Juniors are assigned to a team and play the junior member of the opposing team. It's worked out very well and you can see players stepping outside their usual circle. The round robin has also spawned match play among players who played well against each other. Pooya and Faraz had a great round robin match last weekend, both solid 3.5 players +, they had long rallies, very structured points, they just fed into each other's games and it was very fun to watch. We also referee the match because my students came back from a tournament asking rules and referee questions, so best to just do some hands on refereeing with them during these matches.

So with all this activity, wouldn't you believe you just can't get a court now, they are booked 6 am until 10 pm every night! People are complaining, is this a good thing? We're beginning to eye the racketball court next to squash court 7, can you imagine now, "can I reserve a squash court for next Wednesday, 7 or 8 pm?", the front desk says, " Court 8, 8 pm is the last court available." I book it just happy to have that court. In the long run those complaining will welcome what's going on ... there will be a bigger pool of better players, better matches and better play. Wishes do somtimes come true.

Haadi Takes the T and Margaret Glides

2010-03-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

My two most favorite students, young 14 year old Afghani warlord descendant Haadi and ex-Princeton Captain, Margaret (aka Grace Kelly/Pitbull) reached some incredible milestones this week. For weeks, or what seemed like an eternity, Haadi, struggled in the rotating rails drill. He hung back, missed shots, and spent 99% of his time up against the backwall. I kept telling him over and over again to step up, cut the ball off and take the T. He would hit his shot, stop and watch, and then move towards the T as I struck the ball he'd have to scurry to the back, after awhile, the mind and body kept telling him, just stay back, why bother, your pinned back there. But his coach is telling him no, step up, move up, cut the ball off, hit a better shot and take the T! We'd repeat this over and over again...maybe it was because I told him that if he broke another racquet in anger, threw a tantrum when he was loosing, yell in frustration, I wouldn't coach him for a month. I meant it. I gave him my Hotmelt Pro last night, we drilled a bit, played the short game, did ghosting, he was moving well. We went into rotating rails, and just like that, it clicked, he stepped up, cut the ball off and moved me off the T. I could see by the expression on his face, he knew what I knew, he took another step towards becoming a squash player.
Prior to Haadi's lesson, I had a session with Margaret. We'd recently had some difficult sessions, but tonight, when we were doing these ghosting drills with Haadi, I observed a woman who really just is smooth, who can really glide on the court. We did some drills, mostly getting her to cut the ball off in the back by vollying of the side walls or stepping up and cutting the ball off -- I play cross courts out of the front court, she retrieves, volleys, to herself and boasts back to me. She struggled a bit, but then started to pick it up, lunging towards the ball, cutting it off or taking it early off the side wall. But what so impressed me is that while she lacks strength in the quads and whatever that muscle in the achilles that makes you explode on your first step, she moves beautifully. We talked about what she needs to do to strengthen those quads and calves/achilles like lunges and skipping rope. She has three children, her life is incredbily demanding, so it's hard to train and devote that kind of time, she said. I showed no sympathy, and reminded her I was a single parent with two small kids and a demanding job and trained relentlessly. I hope she took it in the vein I meant it, encouragement. I do believe she can be a national champion, and it is for me to push her and if she wants that to get her prepared for that level of competition.
What was most rewarding to me was the next day receiving an email from her telling me she didn't know how I trained her, got on the court with Haadi, all in a day where I trained my son at 530 am and worked on my tech project --my answer was simple, it's so darn easy when I watch Haadi step up and strike that ball early and see Margaret run her star drills, move around the court so smoothly, and above all, to know and recognize that it is those two who raise the bar, not me.

Angles of Both the Squash Court and Real Life -- To Oleg Pakidoff

2010-03-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

I've often wondered what makes this great game of squash so incredible and yet so immensely challenging. I won't say I've come to any conclusions, because that too, in squash isn't always the best thing to do. But this has been quite a week...I was on the court hitting with my new EyeRacket 120, I finally found a racket to switch to, never thinking I'd give up 6 years of Dunlop Hotmelt Pro use -- but I did. Anyways, I just loved the feel of this racket and the forehands and backhands I was hitting, great control, nice on the follow through. Of course 15 grams or so lighter did make a difference in racket speed. As I started to move the ball around from rail to cross to rail again, I found myself moving to the ball extremely well, great distance, good preparation and great length (the ghosting drills are paying off). I picked up the pace a bit and then the aforementioned elements began to break down a bit. It sort of just hit me, my shots were better, so my retrieval of my own shots were more pressured and then the angles began to move around which is really the source of the challenge in this game. I stopped and just looked at those simple, elegant, red lines that dip on the side walls to lower on the back corners, it opens up so manyu possibilities, almost endless. It introduces so many different variables where the ball hits and at what pace -- in combination with movement, distance, quickness, racquet preparation...well, you sort of get the hint. I thought about this all week how this came to me and how I might have intuitively known it, but when I started playing with the new racquet, it made sense. But another event much more incredible to me than what I just described happened to me outside the court. My beloved uncle, Oleg Packidoff, from Russia called me late last night through Skype, remarkable, because I lost touch with him and my Grandpa Igor and the family there after the fall of the USSR. I have been searching to reconnect for well over 20 years and here, in an instant, through a phone call it just came to me. His life, their lives, spanning wars, exodus, and this most wonderful uncle who was once orphaned for two years after the war and my Grandpa finding him in a post wore torn Russian orphanage... I met him years ago when he came to visit and we wrote once a week to one another for years until communication just stopped. What does this have to do with squash? Not much, except these angles in life, infinite in possiblity, are no different than those on the squash court. While I have been frustrated in squash and equally in life, for example, losing my Russian relatives as well as enduring a few years of injuries on the court, things change, the angles become different. What was once hard on the court now is easier and what was once unfathomable on the court now seems possible. The same with my Russian relatives, what once seemed so futile finding them amidst all the chaos, now seems so simple, it was Skype, we both just needed to be on Skype. As for my Eyeracket, maybe like Skype that brought me and my uncle together over a vast array of different angles in our lives, it just took me hitting with a different racket to get a different feel, a different angle(s) on the court. As long as I can connect the dots to life and squash it will always be just something to shake my head about and smile widely inside at this good fortune.

Dear Mr. Fantasy -- Ramy Ashour

2010-02-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

I was watching this great video of Stevie Winwood, okay, this might date me a bit, but for those of you that know about Winwood, he was the wunderkind of rock in the 60's and 70's. He was a mere 17 years old when he recorded with Traffic and barely 20 when he sang those exquisite, and I mean exquisite lyrics, for, and I will say, the greatest rock group ever to record, Blind Faith. It's so rare that we experience this virtuosity at such an early age. Read the poems of Rimbaud, about the same age as Winwood, and similarly the same age as this brillian racquet genius, Ramy Ashour. I have to confess, I'm not a big fan of Egyptian squash. I didn't put Amr Shabana in my top ten, I never ever really saw him play a great match. But I have seen matches recently of what undoubtably is a true virtuousa, a rock star of squash, pure and absolute poetry he writes these lyrics with a racquet rather than a pen. Ramy Ashour, aside from all the hype, does things with the squash ball not unlike Steve Winwood does with vocals with the likes of Traffic and Blind Faith. While I have no doubt that there is no one in the history of the planet that was meant to sing vocals on Dear Mr. Fantasy, I have no doubt that there was no one ever meant to be number 1 in squash. Such genius transcends time, it always does, there will come a time when people will look at the great amasss of videos of Ramy playing and shake their heads astounded at just how great this talent is. When I watch Steve Winwood with Blind Faith in Hyde Park London, singing Sea of Joy, I can feel the same thing. I shake my head and say this man is perhaps the greatest rock vocalist ever. Those who know me might be surprised at this, I'm conservative and love the British and Australian approach to squash. Nick Matthew to me is truly a genius on the court, he is so good, but he's the Clapton of Blind Faith, what made that group so great were the vocals of the Wunderkind, Steve Winwood. Strange correlations, but when you step outside of time and place you can invariably connect the dots you otherwise wouldn't connect. I have to say that Ramy is perhaps the greatest player I've seen since Jahnsher, what he does simply astounds me. The racquets of Ramy, the vocals of Winwood, if we could somehow bring them to a similar medium it would be perfect poetry, perfect squash.

Trinity Squash Chaudry Should Silence All Those...

2010-02-24T19:34:00.000-08:00

For the Ron Beck's (SquashTalk.com) and followers who single squash out as the penultimate example of sportsmanship, just watch the ESPN clip of the behavior of Trinity's number 1 player as the team clinched its 12th national title. I grew up amidst the bravado of Ali, Reggie Jackson and Joe Namath and each of them had a great story associated with their bravado...they were all at one point underdogs who rose to the occasion. Could you imagine Ali pumping his fist in the face of Chuck Wepner when he bloodied and beat him? It was expected that Chaudry would win and dominate his opponent. But what a sad ending, a Goliath indeed, a target, no doubt, for some David down the road. So while Trinity celebrates its 12th National title, it's great they made it to ESPN, but that 20 second clip has done, I hope, enough to dispel the arrogance of those who believe because you play squash you're a better sportsman and competitor than the rest. But need we be reminded, that Chaudry's behavior is no different than low level club players, and unlike any professionals I've seen, imagine Nick Matthew pumping his fist and slamming the court door on a qualifier whom he just beat because that qualifier talked some trash.

By the way, here's the link to the clip...http://misstrade.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/even-squash-gets-heated-at-times/

Joey Barrington vs. Martin Heath

2010-02-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

I watched PSA Live for years now I watch Squash TV...the commentary is first rate. I have to say Martin Heath might well be the best color commentator ever. His insights into those matches are phenomenal. The problem with Barrington is he hasn't played at the level he's watching. Martin Heath has. Do you really understand this game at a level beyond what you've played? Tricky question. Martin Heath, former number 4 player in the world, played at a top ten level. Most of squash tv is about the top ten level play. Joey Barrington, while very quick and bright, is a bit dull, sorry to say...he seems just a bit of a dull knife in a drawer with something really sharp. But then again, is it a question of whether or not Martin Heath is a better student of the game than Joey Barrington? I'm not sure of the answer. I know one thing, that I hear Martin Heath's analysis of these great players resounding in my ears, "...a player with phenomenal skills..." as he said in Ramy Ashour's match with Ikslander a couple of years ago...it's something, I guess, when the announcer reverberates in your ear years after an event, sort of like Cossell and all his quips: "DOWN goes Frazer...DOWN goes Frazer!" And so, I hear forever, "...a player with phenomenal skills..." Nothing yet has echoed in my head that Joey Barrington has said.

The Rites of Passage -- The Squash Khans of LA Fitness

2010-02-17T09:45:00.000-08:00

Asad Khan is one of the better players at our club, LA Fitness, in Lake Success, New York. About 5 months ago he asked me to start coaching his son, Ali, a straight A ninth grade student. Asad played intrmural hardball squash at SUNY Stony Brook in the hey day of hard ball, on courts built by a generous alumni contribution from the great pro-hard baller, Stu Goldstein. Harry Gordon, who plays out of Sports Club/LA was on that intramural team. Anyways, it's always great to talk with Asad about the hard ball glory days, we both remember many of the great players, both professionals and amateurs. Asad adapted very well to the softball game where he can demonstrate that deft, economic volley stroke hard ballers had as he directs the balls to reverse corners, nicks, and solid cross courts. Some of his less experienced opponents are flustered by this kind of shot making because you can see they don't really watch the ball as well as they should and the cross reverses are especially troublesome. I coached Ali for awhile and he began to really show signs of improvement. Technically, he had numerous problems in his preparation, racquet striking and movement skills. We worked extensively in all three areas over time. He started showing improvement, but what impressed me the most was Ali's spirit and desire to improve. He works very hard and made the sessions easy from a standpoint of motivation and coaching. I applauded his effort and strong desire to improve. They took a break from lessons for a while and I received an email from Asad recently saying he wanted to start Ali back with the lessons. Okay, that's good, but what really struck me about the email was Asad's description of his son's developing passion for the game. He always wants to be on the court. The words leapt out from the email, Asad is not one to exaggerate, so it meant so much to me that a father, like myself and my son, can now embark on this very special path and bond through their shared passion for squash. From experience, there's probably nothing like it in the universe, when your child shares your own passion for a game like squash, a game you introduced him to. As Ali returns back into the lesson fold, we are on a mission, to teach him and guide him to a level where he can compete against, and hopefully, eventually beat his father. As my son moves in a different direction with squash, I know the time will come soon enough where we won't be training partners anymore and won't play our early a.m. cathartic matches...it's all changing. I've been given a gift beyond my wildest expectation, that my son, has this great passion to play and compete in squash. I hope as the months and years unfold, that Asad will cherish that same gift, and when Ali does eventually beat him (confident as I am as a coach and Ali's desire/goal to beat his father at squash), that it will be a time when with each match father and son play it's squash imitating life as his son, as mine has, moved through the rites of passage to young adulthood.

To Be Fit For Squash or Squash To be Fit

2010-02-16T10:06:00.000-08:00

There's a saying in squash fit for squash or squash for fitness...I was reading Brett's MSRA blog about squash fitness and thought I'd write about the enormous difference in the two concepts. It is very difficult for someone not very fit to attain a level of play that will increase fitness. Most players play to their comfort zone. If you are 50 lbs overweight you can play squash 10 times a week and you probably won't get anymore fit or trim until you make other modications: diet and other fitness training. I was 50 lbs overweight and played lots of squash but it was always to the ability of someone 50 lbs overweight. I also did court sprints but again these were sprints of someone 50 lbs overweight. While I applauded my efforts, the results weren't that great. I tired easily, shy'ed away from longer rallies and played more in the back, since it's easier for someone not squash fit to cover the back of the court instead of the front. While I wasn't always overweight and used to play very fit and trim and strong, I didn't understand what was wrong.
It wasn't until my son, who endured the same problem throughout his junior development, became dedicated to fitness and diet off the court that he shed the pounds. And when he did his game leapt into high gear and changed how he played. While he was always smarter and better technically than anyone he played, he molded his game according to his fitness level. I followed suit, my biggest culprit was red wine, wow, did I love red wine, but I gave that up. I also went to a low carborhydrate diet: lean and green as we say. As I started loosing weight, I started doing strengthening exercises (push ups and dips and sit ups on the Swiss Ball), lots of start drills and some running. The running is difficult, because I'm on court training my son and coaching others and playing matches all in all 30-40 hours a week and it takes a toll on my knees, I prefer the old fashion stepper on high intensity or biking. For the first time in a long time I am starting to play the front court and sustaining rallies and getting that attacking style back. It is because I am more confident that I am fit to play this game with 20 shot or more rallies. It's hard to play back to back days of tough matches, that is my next goal. I should also add that I do a lot of stretching, as much as 45 minutes a day...this hopefully will ward off injuries. I will not step on the court and play a match unless I've thoroughly stretched and warmed up, this no doubt the result of a couple of tears in the knee and abductor in the past.
To become fit, and I don't mean at a touring professional level, and to derive the benefits of playing squash, get fit for squash. The difference in playing fit versus trying to get fit through squash is immense, the game is too hard as it is to play as if you're carrying around a knapsack filled with rocks...
Having said all that, there's nothing wrong with going out and playing and sustaining whatever fitness level you have -- it's better than not getting on that court. But when you wonder why you play and play and don't seem to get much fitter, think about are you in a comfort zone, do you play squash and burn 1,000 calories but then go off and have 3 beers and 3 slices of pizza afterwards? Get off the beer and pizza until you become fit and when you are fit and training and playing, hey 3 beers and 3 slices are nothing...check out what the pros in last month's TOC were eating in the food court of Grand Central...fit for squash.

Broken Racquets

2010-02-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

The broken racquets are beginning to pile up for my student, Haadi. He broke another Feather racquet this weekend out of frustration. Pretty durable racquet because he slammed it hard throughout the round robin before he really slammed it. He's 14, good, more a practice player right now, when he gets on the court with players who are older and not as good, he looses and becomes so frustrated. For some, the early lessons are how to win, for others, the early lessons are how to loose. Either extremes can mean so much and so many different things for a developing squash player, the junior who seems to win early on eventually will have to learn to loose,however, the early looser once tasting vicotry will have to keep winning in some kind of perspective. To me, the true test of one's character and heart is always how they respond after a loss as well as a victory. I remember years ago when I won my first tournament, it didn't mean much to me because I didn't like how I played in the finals, I dropped a game that I shouldn't have...I was out early Monday morning practicing the things I didn't do well in the final, but that's more about my odyssey through the squash realms. For Haadi, he wants a measure of success for his hard work, but squash is funny like that, sometimes you try so hard and it just doesn't come to you. You sort of have to let squash come to you, you can't force it, it is greater than you, it's a fickle god in some ways. Paul Zummo is another of my students, an investment banker, very tightly wound, very demanding of himself and supremely fit. At the 3.5 level he will get to everything or at least have a racquet on everything. He reminds me of myself at that level, supremely fit, and if I didn't have some kind of catharsis out on the court every time I played, it wasn't a good match. I was so fit, that in tournaments, if I faced a player that wasn't going to push me I was deeply disappointed, to the point of even letting myself get down in the game to feel the pressure of coming back and working really hard to out play my opponent. Sometimes this backfired and I found myself in really trouble and maybe spent by the fifth game. Paul wants to work, his body is conditioned that way, but not his head. He is easily frustrated and distracted if he cannot will the ball to do exactly what he wants it to do. Little does he realize, that it is only until you reach that pinnacle of squash Olympia, that you really master the ball, the four walls, the very air within. Watch Cameron Pilley in his recent Swedish Open quarterfinal match with Greg Gaultier set up and with supreme confidence hit a feather lite cross court backhand volley nick, he doesn't even move towards the T as he hits it so assured is he that he's hit a winner, and at a very tense moment in the match. Back to Haadi, at 14, life requires rewards and little successes to counter the insecurity associated with the rites of passage for a young teen. But the failures are equally as important as the successes, the fact that you can loose to a lesser player, break your racquet, and sulk in the corner, but then the next day be back on court says more to me than beating some older club players. As a coach I look for other things...will it matter 6 months from now that he lost to a wily 55 year old club player, no. Once he beats that wily player he will move on and the wily old player will still be doing what he's been doing for the last 10 years. But I look for things we do in practice taking form in these matches, I look for that better length on the cross courts -- because that's what we did in practice. Someone seemed to castigate me for allowing Haadi's behavior on the court, I shot back, I'm not his father, I'm his coach. As his father, I wouldn't allow him back on court for a month, as his coach, I have to work within the boundaries of that and bring him to a point where he measures his success by his play and poise. I admired Cameron Pilley's match with Gaultier, a contrast in two temperments. Gaultier, edgy, tempermental, angry, like Haadi slamming his racquet and then Pilley, poised, calm, playing in the biggest match of his career, he seemed a true champion, while Gaultier looked more like my student Haadi. When Haadi, finds his measure of success in how he meets the challenge of squash pressure, whether winning or loosing, he will find that Pilley kind of poise. Until then, he'll break racquets, flail at the squash court demons, but in all liklihood will succeed, as his coach, I tell him it's a hard game, it takes time to become good...Paul Zummo came back after a few days off this week in our club round robin and played his best squash ever, I could see the winning mattered, but what he was really happy about was his level of play...in his own way he was saying thanks for the help and support -- the best for a coach is seeing a player improve and be really happy about that improvement. I have to wait a bit for Haadi, no doubt he will have lots of squash success, the kind of success that comes in ways hard to measure, not always in the score, but in knowing you played simply a heck of a good game.

Hitting with our old (as in past) coach Edy Kapur

2010-02-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

My son and I went to Sports Club LA in NYC on the east side on Friday night to catch up with our old coach Edy (from 86th Street and Sports Club LA days)...It was really great to see him back on the court after a recent illness. I drilled with him for awhile, drilling him on a combination of on the ball and ghosting, gruelling drills, but I wanted to see what he thought of the drill sets. He worked up quite a sweat and was hitting the ball extremely well. It was great for me because, while these drills are good for all levels, the higher the level the more demanding on the feeder to hit good shots and not hit loose balls and certainly not tin the ball. I think he liked the drills and I didn't tin more than a couple in a 25 minute stint. Next he showed me a great drill of his own that I used on my students all weekend long where the feeder from either back on the forehand or backhand boasts the ball, the striker must boast the ball from the front of the court to the opposite side and strike a rail back to the feeder. This should be continuous and, according to Edy, it helps players build up strength in their quadreceps for lunging and getting lower to the ball. My students loved it and one of my more talented students, William Chu, immediately saw how he didn't have the proper distance to the ball to really strike a good rail. He started to get it and towards the end was hitting some nice rails.
My son then showed up and drilled a bit more with Edy before they played a match. My son hasn't beaten Edy and both players were a bit rusty from lack of match play. But it kicked into high gear midway through the first game when there were some really nice rallies. Edy has such a great back court game, especially on the forehand, where he takes the ball so early and puts a nice pace onto some very tight shots. I especially love his half vollies and sometimes vollies from near around his foot. I noticed that Edy has developed some front court game as well, hitting some backhand drops from the backcourt that hadd my son scurrying to cover them, which he didn't (need to fix that). In the third game as they were tied 1-1, my son went up 8-3 after a long rally. Edy seemed on the verge of just stepping over the edge into defeat, but man, this guy is ferocious, a perfect gentleman off the court, but a fierce competitor on the court. You could sense my son was about to pull away and then you could see my son let up and Edy caught his second wind and clawed back to even the score at 8-8. Just a gutsy game. Edy then went to the slower pace and started throwing in some reverses and volley drops and kept the ball coming from different angles on the court. Imagine your a hitter and you've been facing a fastball for 7 innings and then in the 8th inning you face a big curve or changeup, it throws you off. My son started tinning, his rhythm was now off. Edy came back and took the third game. The fourth game was almost a forgone conclusion, my son tinned about 9 of the points...good match for a bit, but my son just lost focus when he should have picked up the pace and gone in for the kill. This week will be better, I think, because both have something to prove, one that it wasn't a fluke he won the other player that it was a fluke. Some disagreement over some calls, particularly one where my son played a forehand drop from the service box, there was contact, and Edy called for a let. I was refereeing and said no let, the play was in front not to the side, so there was no block. Edy had played my son and not the ball -- interesting that some club members were watching and all agreed it was a let...but none of them could explain why it was a let, just simply the contact seemed to be enough for them.
It was great to hit on those courts, really nice floors, my knees and legs felt great. The LA Fitness courts have no padding under the floors so they are very hard floors where your knees and back take some punishment.
BTW my son's game, while riddled with tins, was really nice, he was cutting the ball off, moving it around and when he is sharp he will be tough to beat. He has worked hard on this complete game, front, mid and back court. His volleying off the backhand while a bit eradict during the match isn't in practice, he's added this to his game. Plus, a little head fake let Edy searching in the whitewall abyss for that ball.

Coach's Pet

2010-02-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

I try to write as much as I can about the students I coach in squash. Since I've taken on a technology project in the city, I've had to cut back a bit on my coaching hours. Regrettfully, because at our club we have a dedicated, albeit small, following of squashers and I never like to turn anyone down for a lesson or just a hit. My days are a bit brutal now and start at 5:30 a.m. with my son and training partner...we go hard for 2-3 hours, I then rush off to the City for my technology project and return home around 6:30 pm for a quick bite to eat, a change of clothes, and then off to the squash club to coach. I keep it to only 2-3 lessons.
Okay, so we all have demanding schedules and this isn't what this post is about. It is about when a student shows up for a lesson ready to work and to improve and push hard through the lesson. There's nothing worse than getting on the court with a student who is really not all that into the lesson, it's a downer, because every coach should take pride in their work and accomplishments and it takes two to make a student succeed. But that's part of the challenge, to motivate, to push your student into wanting to succeed.
My most favorite student these days is Margaret, the 30 something year old and former captain of the Princeton squash team. I've written about her before and thought I would just write a bit of an update. She is the one whom I've called a combination of Grace Kelly and a Pit Bull. I look so forward to her lesson because she is so motivated to succeed, she has quite a nice game as it is and she could probably just settle for playing points and improving a bit here and there, but she doesn't, she strives in our lessons to take it to another level. She is very intuitve on the court which means when you show her something and work on something she gets in in a short period of time, so for me as her coach, I often see instant results. I have other talented students who are very capable of taking their games to a much higher level, but they haven't reached her mind set, I watch her when we work on something, sometimes she gets frustrated, sometimes takes a bit of time off in concentration and focus, but when you tell her hey work harder, focus, get to that ball, better length...she snaps to it...the best part of it is she projects this attitude that tells me she's on court with a purpose -- to get better. She came on the court last night and seemed a bit annoyed because her sets of star drills on the other court (while I was finishing up with Matt and his evolving backhand...) was interupted by players who wanted the court. I could only smile because she had done sets of these the other night and was a bit sore when doing them...coach's pet, no doubt. But should she read this, she'll know that she's only as good as her last session that is my constant reminder to her and my other students.

Don't Sell Squash's Soul to the Devil(s)

2010-02-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Why are there so many out there who feel that squash, this great game of ours, needs any validation from selection committees, squash organizations, television/mass media or corporations? Does squash really need to be in the Olympics? What would it matter? Is it a better way to market the sport? And to what end? Is the appeal for more players or spectators or money, ah, that all pervasive motivator --money! Is the idea to profit more from this sport? This sport is difficult and if money isn't the motivator now, what is it, dedication, devotion, pursuit of excellence -- not bad qualities, actually qualities you can't put a price on. I suspect money is at the root of those wanting this Olympic or any other validation. This is not a sport that has been contaminated by television dollars or mass marketing. I am reminded of Kahn's book "The Boys of Summer" about the old Brooklyn Dodgers, a time before television dollars changed that once great sport into a morass of corruption and greed. You could run into the players at a local deli and talk to them or on a subway on their way to a game. These players were part of the community of "Baseball" not segregated by huge amounts of money they nowadays make. I think if those who want profits and dollars from squash succeed I for one will someday be writing here about how incredible it was that you could once go up to and talk to the Ashour's, Jahangir Khan, James Wilstrop and Nick Matthew...ask them about squash, how to hit the "Mizuki", or seek out Peter Nicol and have a chat about his academy. "Money is the root of all evil", and I for one hope that I never see this great sport of ours march to the almighty dollar. These players who grow up playing this sport at the highest levels, don't do this out of desire for money or fame and material success, they are the truest athletes harkening back to a time, like Kahn describes, when players seemed to simply play the game for the love of it, as cliched and naive as that might sound. To all those who want to cash in on this sport of squash, be careful what you wish for, you just might be selling the soul and essence of this game to a committee of devils.

The best player on the planet....was tired!

2010-01-28T17:33:00.000-08:00

What a match! One of the best I've seen in so long...Wilstrop, sorry my son, I never thought he was at this level, kryptonite, you have believed in Wilstrop for the past 4 years, he did things like I haven't seen since Brett Martin...he really schooled the best player on the planet...strange, the opportunity was there, if Ramy came back, he could have been there in the Jansher periphery. What a match and I watched it on SquashTV...I paid the year subscription.

I emailed Hisham Ashour in the middle of the match, I asked him what he saw, he said he saw a very tired player, a very tired Ramy...interesting, I never would have seen that.

Ramy has a weakness...

2010-01-28T17:07:00.000-08:00

It showed in the Mathew match...when he goes to the front on the forehand side he can't pick up the hold from the front by his opponent. Young Nicol had the same weakness...see the Brett Martin vs. Nicol match he beats Nicol often on this...Mathew beat Ramy on this and Wilstrop has capitalized on this.

Page 6 -- "Keep Eye on Ball" Easdon's Squash Documentary -- Tournament of Champions 2010 Final Day

2010-01-28T14:23:00.000-08:00

Page 6 -- Keep Eye on the Ball Documentary -- Tournament of Champions Final Day...
Media were invited to a private viewing of the Josh Easdon documentary on Hashim Kahn. It was really tough at times to sit through this. I think its intention was to show how squash bridged the gap between two distinctly different cultures at a time when there was great prejudice towards peoples from India/Pakistan by Great Britain. British Colonialism at its best. Not sure that is all that successful in the documentary, it's probably a documentary in and of itself. The world at the time, Europe in particular, was reeling from devastating impact of the War and I don't think a player from Pakistan winning the British Open really meant all that much at the time. I think the film is disjointed in that it wants to portray Hashim as a rags to riches story (through squash) along side this small squash player that in his own way was a political force, a David and Goliath story -- the latter probably not all that significant. To the world, it probably meant so little, to Hashim and Pakistan it meant a great deal, that is good and it is moving the tribute to that. Was Hashim an ambassador for squash or Pakistan or both, probably a great ambassador for squash. He lived for so long away from Pakistan but his accomplishment meant something to his country -- I was in India during the Beijing Olympics when India won its first gold medal. India was euphoric Probably the best part was that Hashim was able to see the world and play the best players.
But much of the film reminds me of a very well done home movie, or the kind of video you do for a family wedding. The film just falls flat, you will watch it, won't walk out, be polite and sit through it in the same way you would your hosts video of a vacation or family reunion.
The film does have it's moments, especially the early part in Pakistan and the courts where Hashim learned to play (courts like that) and the re-enaction of young Hashim and the club pro days was nicely done as well.
Many of the interviews repeat the same things over...noticeably missing was Jahangir, Jahnsher (not related) and Roshan (brother-in-law), who I believe was still alive at the time (he passed away a couple of years back). It does touch a bit on suggestion of bad feeling between Roshan and Hashim, Roshan, himself is a remarkable story of survival and danger at a time during the partition, when it was very dangerous for a Muslim to be in India. This was sort of glossed over, I once asked Hashim what he thought of Jahangir's game, he replied, just like his father, a retriever...
He is a gentle, peaceful man, wonderful charismatic man...but I wonder what the film was trying to accomplish. A documentary? Yes, but it is more just a video celebrating Hashim's life and many of the people whose hearts he's touched in his travels.
If you have a chance to see this, separate the Man from the Documentary, the Man, Hashim is wonderful to watch and listen to, but the Documentary is not so wonderful..
The historical stuff in the beginning, origins in squash, for the squash enthusiast, is very nice, and it is a bit obvious the sudden switch to Hashim's birthplace, what Easdon is trying to suggest -- a sport of privilege against the backdrop of a most unlikely place to produce a squash champion.
I think the highlight is at the end of the film, this wonderful bit, when Hashim is sitting in this big leather chair and simply says "I just loved the game" and he smiles, laughs a bit, that's all, that's all it was, it wasn't any of the other things brought into the film.

Page 6 Part Two -- TOC Tournament of Champions 2010

2010-01-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

I have been a bit of a cheat the last couple of days, I've been watching the matches on SquashTV -- I can tell anyone, this is great stuff, I am signing up for the unlimited year round coverage....$80.00 and you are right there around the world. The video and coverage is phenomenal, I became so used to the other site over the years, but this one is leagues above that one.
Tonight, I came down from the Graybar building to see the semifinals (Darwish vs. Wilstrop and Ramy Ashour vs. Nick Mathew). I'm on a contract in that building and it coincided with this great tournament, how great is that?
First of all Shawn and Fram sitting side by side looked like a divorced couple having to sit together to watch one of their children play...no love loss there, I should have photo'd that...anyone who knows them and their history will understand what I mean. Squash should transcend all of that bickering, etc.
I was sitting right near the backhand front corner my favorite perch in the tournament. Can't understand why everyone wants to watch the player's backs? Explain that, the best view is seeing them from the front, the free seats should be the 400.00 seats or at least the side wall...look into the eyes of Ramy, that "cobra" shot, his eyes are like a cobra.
Darwish in the first match in the warmup looked tight, every time he went to the front he seemed to tin the ball. Anyone at any level who has played tournaments, knows that the warmup is so important, you can gauge your opponent before the match even starts. Sure enough, Darwish looked tight throughout the match and tin'd so many balls I think in Hashim Kahn's detention class he would have had to wirte 500 times "no tin ball..."
Wilstrop attacked the front court with such deft of touch, it was something. Here, I feel stupid, and I take my hat off to my son, he said two years ago that Wilstrop is devestating to the front of the court, I sort of dismissed that. I witnessed a surgeon perform open heart surgery on a patient while riding the IRT train. Enough said. I thought the court was cold, it was chilly, and maybe it was like the British courts, how it changed the pace and the ball, I couldn't tell.
Darwish sat dejectedly after the match in the shadows under the stands wondering how glory slipped away, perhaps an all Egyptian final? His wife, sorry, I'm too tired to look her up but she's a highly ranked player, seemed to assuage his defeat but backed off. I went up to him to ask for some comments, he was alone, within himself, "10 minutes" he said. I never went back.
I was really pressed for time and had my son cover my lessons, perhaps tonight, Nick Mathew would send a message to Ramy that he is the Number 1 player in the world. Nick had everything to proove, Ramy, what did he have to prove, he's number 1? Certainly not, take that from him.
I have to say I have seem some incredible players over the years, probably more than Fram G. has, including Jahsher, Jahangir, Ditmar, and the list goes on. Any you know what, Ramy does things, I don't even know what he's doing. I needed Hisham to explain it, I am looking forward to hearing the commentary on the squashTV replay. It seemed Nick Mathew came out in the third game a bit distracted, I wondered if he had tightened up, he played so brilliantly in the first two games, he might have been up 2-0, but was at 1-1. By the way, I wonder about some of those calls, a rolling nick as a Let in the fourth game? When will they put 1 ref in back and 1 ref each side of the front court?
Nick was smoked in the third game, I was wondering lost his concentration, or was he hurting or worried about his bakc, he came out in the fourth game doing some stretches, tell tale sign of tightness. He stopped attacking the front and re-dropping, he went to the lob, an easier shot on the back. Like I said I don't know anything about the post match interview, so did he tighten up?
He seemed to play the match out, just wasn't his night. He has to prove he is really number 1, he's the challenger, he will have to take it from Ramy. But right now, Ramy is simply the best player on the planet, at least tonight, let's see after tomorrow night.
I spoke to Ramy's coach, "he has both the talent and the heart", he emphasized the "heart", that is what makes a champion, I think is what he was saying.
John Nimick, slick, still using the street squash kids to mop up the floors and clean the glass, but without their Urban Squash emblems...okay that might work, but it leads me to believe something else is going on there, a bit amateur to have a 13 year old girl wipe the floor and close the door -- I noticed no one checked to make sure the door latched close. And what was with the floor tonight, scary slip by Wilstrop, we're talking about a player who can really hurt himself. For god's sake, Mt. Olympus, was never known to be a slippery peak, nor should that floor within the grand pantheon of squash.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know -- Sightings of Past Pros at the TOC

2010-01-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

I am really interested whether anyone has sighted any past greats in the attendance at this years Tournament of Champion. I often scan the crowds. I was thinking of players from any era, whether from hardball or softball, North America, Europe, Far East, Australia, etc. I thought about Stu Goldstein, the great North American hardball player, Anders Wahlstadt, former world ranked #17 who was the best in the US for a while, any others? Do any of them come to the TOC -- Rodney Martin supposedly is around in NY, Brooklyn did he come to watch any of this great squash. What about Frank Sauterwaite, another great hard baller and brilliant author of Angles and Nicks (something like that)...Of course Nicol and Power and I saw Richard Chin, former top 100 player. A couple of years ago, Jahangir Kahn was in attendence, that was quite treat and was able to talk to him...If you've seen anyone, any of the retired touring pros, please let us know. Inquiring minds want to know.

Page 6 -- Cavalier View of Sportsmanship -- of the Tournament of Champions 2010 Day 6

2010-01-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

Ron Beck's past editorial/opinion (I missed it last year, but it's back on the current squastalk.com home page), comparing the unsportsman-like conduct of Cleveland Cavalier's Lebron James against the Orlando Magic in last May's Game 6 loss in the playoffs to the sportsmanship exhibited in Squash, has prompted an examination of this element of squash so many seem to hold so dear. Watching these matches at the TOC these past few days, where good sportsmanship is exhibited in almost in every match, I realized Beck's comparison is too simplistic for such a complexity of issues. First and probably foremost, the stakes in NBA Basketball are much different than in squash, where players earn millions of dollars in salaries, bonus', and endorsements. At best, the top 10 squash players make a fraction of that. The millions of fans and would-be players who buy millions of dollars of Lebron James merchandize aren't interested in his sportsmanship, they're interested in his game and that he and his team wins. And basketball, like squash, is a product and it reflects those who watch it, play it, and live it. Sportsmanship learned from a role model in some suburban town is great, it's an easy lesson, but sportsmanship learned often on the streets, in playground pickup games, is a hard sell -- survival of the fittest, and sportsmanship is the least of a players concern when the money to be made is more than any of our squash sportsman combined will see in their lifetime. I don't want to get into the soci-economic implications of this, because it's way to complex for me to attempt, but there's a lot going on than simply that LeBron is a bad sport. Squash doesn't reflect life much except maybe the lives of a very small, often privileged group of people who lead very sheltered lives. Basketball reflects real life, and while I don't condone that bad sport conduct, it is what it is -- a product of the people who play it and the people who watch it. I would like to see how Peter Nicol and Jonathan Power played each other if at stake were piles of money and how they would play if they went to bed often times hungry and that squash was there only way out of significant economic challenges -- that is if their squash game was their only ticket out of hell. And in that hell who might their role models be, their fathers, their playground coaches? And I could just imagine the squash referees, if it seems players behavior is bad now, imagine a bad call is the difference in, what, say a half of a million dollars in prize money, such as that call that foot fault against Serena Williams at the U.S. Open this past year cost her. Oh, and if I were Beck, I'd be more concerned about updating his piece with the recent Wizard's Gilbert Arena's gun incident than LeBron's innocuous behavior because that's more a question of life and death rather than just being a bad sport.

Hisham Ashour and The Cantos of Squash

2010-01-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

In the professional squash world, there are so many players who exhibit such skill and brilliance, that it's almost taken for granted. I've often tried to articulate what is it about this game that has fostered such a passion in me, I haven't ever found someone who could. My son and I often just look at each other and just shake our heads, just this morning, he asked me, "what is it about this game that I love so much and can't live without it?" This was at 5:30 a.m. (almost each and every morning and nights too). I never have an answer for that question . Maybe, there is no answer for why we develop and sustain such passions...or maybe only few of us can answer that.

Everything seems to tie together in some strange way. I was reading Ezra Pound's Canto XXXVI on the subway ride into work this morning and I thought it's about these kinds of questions. I then met up later in the day with Hisham Ashour (world ranked #24), the older brother of Ramy Ashour (world ranked #1), for an interview and article on his squash game. I had met him a couple of times in the past and certainly watched him play at the TOC in the past. I always thought this guy is more talented than his brother, he is easily a top 10 player. He wasn't particularly fit, at that top 10 level when we saw him in the past, but his racquets and his shots were just extraordinary.

We sat down in the coffee shop of the Grand Hyatt and I had a number of questions to ask him, like a good journalist would. Shawn, the editor of SquashZag, was with us and we started talking about Hisham and his game. He is fit, fit like he's never been. He always had a bit of a gut, but that is a thing of the past. No other sport, I think, highlights a player's fitness, or lack of it, than squash. These squash players sometimes compete at a gruelling level and pace for over an hour, sort of like triple overtime in basketball, 21 innings in baseball, double triathalons.

Why, of all the players in this tournament, did I feel compelled to interview and talk to this player? The answer came within 5 minutes of speaking with Hisham. I understood why. This is not only a special player with such squash gifts that my son and I marvelled at way back, but this is a remarkable human being with equally great gifts in the way he interacts with people and his knowledge of this game. I watched him a couple of days ago at the tournament while he was watching his brother play his match, people just gravitate towards him, and he has that gift for making anyone he meets feel comfortable and want to think and talk about squash. While he admits, this can be a distraction from his game, it is who he is, he loves people.

He's a celebrity in Egypt, has done commercials, but his charisma is born out of what appears to be just loving what he does, and when he talked about squash on TV, it wasn't that old song and dance about generating money or exposure for the sport and its players but exposing more people to the game and getting them to play this game. There are some stars who just care about themselves, he remarked.

He admittedly is his brother's life coach, "Ramy was born to play squash, that's what he knows, and better than anyone, he can't teach or explain what he does he just does it." Hisham, however, can explain not only what his brother does, but even his own crazy shot he hits, I think he called it the Mizuki, which I caught my son practicing or trying to hit a while back in imitation of Hisham. He explained this complicated trick shot and made it seem so simple, he hit six of them against White in a match last year. That is a great gift of his to make a shot like that seem so simple, to make this sport seem so simple, that anyone, if they just could see it like he does, would want to play it. And he will teach and talk about squash to anyone, he sometimes watches the professional matches from different angles outside the glass court and pretends he doesn't know the game, and expresses excitement at a rally or a nick or some imposssible angle, you can almost believe him that he is seeing the game for the first time. He has that power, that presence and when he speaks about squash, the game of squash, it is brilliant and insightful.

He talked about his evolving game, how he was brought up being taught kill the ball into the nick, don't hit rails and sustain the rallies, "go for the kill shot". He emphasized he is going to a new racquet, it's going to change his game, he needs to play the ball differently. When asked about Ramy and his game, he said no one will ever do what Ramy does, he and only Ramy will ever do that, that is the essence of Ramy's greatness, he's changed the game and changed it in a way that only Ramy can do. Greatness as in Jansher Kahn? "No", he said, Jahnsher had gifts that were far beyond anyone, "he seemed to walk through this game".

Hisham seems so confident now that he is fit, his fitness can sustain where he wants to take his game, he wants to play those 70 minute matches, because he can...since last spring he rattled off players he nearly beat in long matches but lost to, top ten players, whom he once couldn't really hang with in the longer points. While loosing to Kareem Darwish, his countryman, in 3 games the other day at the TOC, he felt when he came off the court for the first time that he can beat Darwish and should have beaten him.

Five years ago, he would play his brother Ramy, he would play all his super shots, and Ramy would take those shots and upgrade them to "perfection". He is not stating this because Ramy is his brother, he is simply stating it as an indication of just how gifted Ramy is. He shared something insightful about his brother, and said while sometimes Ramy waves his racquet around and tins the ball, within a short time those tins are upgraded to "perfection".

None, other than my son and Jim Masland, could I spend hours talking about squash with, except I now would include Hisham. I had to return to my "real" job, so I didn't have the hours and Hisham was on his way to a photo shoot with Rob White for SquashZag. And how does this tie into that Canto XXXVI? As complex as that poet and poem is, it's simply about how an artist has the ability to take something so abstract, like a feeling of passion, or strength, or even light itself, and put it into a worldy perspective. Hisham, like Pound, is an artist, he can take the abstract essence of squash and his love of it and explain it in a myriad of different ways, in as many angles as there are on that court and in this game, and it makes sense. While I read so many squash books by former players, I hope someday he writes his own book about squash and the game, and if I might suggest, he calls it "The Cantos of Squash".

Jonathan Power and Rocky Marciano

2010-01-26T11:43:00.000-08:00

I ran into Jonathan Power at the Grand Hyatt lobby while waiting to do another interview during the TOC Squash tournament at Grand Central Station. I didn't recognize him, but Shawn from SquashZag pointed him out. I started talking to JP and told him he was one of my son's favorite players, that my son studies his instructional videos, and contends he is one of the greatest players ever (my son's squash IQ is through the roof). I have a past blog posting listing the top 10 greatest players I ever saw and JP isn't on it....I apologized to JP for that. I asked JP if he missed competing at that high level and he said emphatically, "NO". Was it the training, the regiment, the grind, I asked. I don't remember his answer, because I remembered suddenly, that when he retired, he retired number 1 in the world. I said to him you retired at number 1..."that's right!", he said. I thought to myself, that's right, how many players in any sport, in any sport's history, can say that when they left the game, they left the game on top, number 1, the best for that time? Not many, I thought of Rocky Marciano, while he died tragically, he is most remembered because when he left the sport he was the heavyweight champion of the world. Would Muhammed Ali have been truly the greatest ever if he had retired after he beat Leon Spinks in their championship rematch? I have a lasting image of Ali being pummelled towards the end of his career. So, JP is really special, and while I'm no squash historian, I wonder just how many great squash players retired at number 1 in the world? Not even god of squash, Jahnsher Khan, did that, I'm almost certain.
True to my word, I did say I might someday change that top 10 list of greatest squash players I've seen -- and that's what I just did.

Bad Knee, Back, Hip or Even One Leg...

2010-01-24T14:19:00.000-08:00

When I was in India I was injured and couldn't play squash for 3 months. It was absolute torture, I had a slight tear and opted not to have surgery and instead let it heal on itself. During that time I used to take my racket and squash ball and go into the high rise apartment garage stalls, which were like miniature squash courts with white plastered walls and smooth floors. I would spend a long time stationary just hitting the ball back to myself. I had to travel 2 hours in heavy Indian traffic to go to real courts, so injured as I was, this was better.

I remember thinking at the time that just hitting the ball, feeling it come off the racket and hearing the ball strike the front garage wall that wonderful sound so familiar was comforting. It mattered I couldn't really move and I was very careful not to, but it was then that I realized if I ever got back to playing healthy, I will always have to have that wall, ball and racket -- even if I could move an inch.

I recently took on a former division 1 soccer player who wanted to learn how to play squash. 50 plus year old Richard Packer from Long Island, was not in the best shape, but what made matters worse he had had knee replacement surgery which had limited his motion of his knee. So what was I going to do with this man who simply wanted to learn to play this great game of squash?

I took him onto the court and talked a bit with him about squash and asked him some more questions about his knee, his mobility, and I was frank with him and told him the physical demands of the game are great...but I stopped myself, and thought back to India, and remembered how I had no mobility but how much enjoyment I derived from just striking the ball in the garage. I told Richard based on what he told me we would tailor the lessons around technique and a certain radius of movement and reach.

We started hitting back and forth to each other and I was astonished at his hands, he exhibited a very good feel for the ball and his eye and hand coordination were superb. We adjusted his grip and racket preparation and stance when striking the ball and he started hitting the ball pretty well. He had played tennis so there was lots of tennis in his strokes, no big deal, easy to fix over time. The lessons went by and his strokes off the feeds became better and better but I was faced with the dilemma of how to keep him interested. Let's change the court a bit, the way the more serious players sometimes play the short game as well as the long game to practice movement, angles and touch. The short game was suited very well to Richard, simple enough, the ball must land in front of the half court line (in front of the service box) and above the service line (mid line on the front wall). You cannot win off the serve. We played some very good points, but what this session was was abstract of what the game is really like in full court. You must control the center, clear, and hit tight shots. What we started doing was playing long rallies, which Richard loved, because he worked up quite a sweat and he started getting a feel for the essence of the game, cut off the angles, hit the ball where your opponent isn't and clear for your opponent. At the end of the session we both felt pretty good and it reminded me of match play. I then told him that he should play people that way, get good at this method, and start bringing people on court. I explained it's a standard drill but when he gets really good at it many better players will like to hit with him because we all do this kind of game to sharpen our footwork and rackets skills.

So now when I ask people who say they used to play squash but stopped because of bad knees or bad backs or any kind of disability, I can tell them about Richard and encourage them to go out and get on that court and play this game in whatever way you can -- next, I'll have Richard hit anywhere on the front wall while I still have to hit above the service line. I'll have to work a lot harder, but I'm sure watching coach retrieve the drops as well as the rails and crosses and reverses will delight this student who now has bit of this game.

Page Six of the Tournament of Champions 2010 -- Day 2

2010-01-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

After a late night of TOC and writing and some early morning lessons and training...okay, took a wonderful nap and missed the afternoon session. But the evening session was great, the best night of the year in the US squash world.

First off John Nimick is a class act, the tournament director has stopped using urban squash kids to mop up the floors and clean the glass, or at least from what I've seen. The referees seem to be doing quite a nice job. Last year I wrote an email to John Nimick about the use of urban squash kids, most of who are minorities, that it promotes stereotyping.
The tournament this year has an energy that is incredible, I've been coming here for most of the last 13 years, and there is just something great going on...Beth Rasin, I watched her in action, she juggles about 10 things all at once, never dropping a thing.

Back to squash, Shaun Lereaux, who lost to Wilstrop in the first round, interesting perspective on the qualifier or the "David" facing a "Goliath". "You don't go on the court thinking you are going to lose, but you go on the court maybe thinking you can hang with a top 10 player..." -- for a game that is. So what does he take away from the experience, maybe the next time hanging with a top 10 player for a game and a half. The life of the qualifier, hard life, "financially very hard." Peter Barker, how many years before he broke into the top 10? The love of this game...

Dunlop balls, lots of talk about this lately. Per a source close to the ball, so to speak, the white ball the pros use is a spongier (if that's a word) ball than the black ones used. College, WISPA, PSA long term contracts to play with these balls, 5 years I think. This is one area not to copy the pros, it's a lock, so for all the rest who play with this ball and are wondering did they change it, it's inferior, simple as that. The Pinto of squash balls...

Mike Westin, head Pro at CityView squash and former touring professional is starting an elite development for younger players there with Touring Professional and great top 10/11 Wael Hindi. Mike is a really knowledgeable guy, great perspective on the Australian Institute of Sports and their squash development, they've had their day is what I've gathered. Mike is from New Zealand, would that have anything to do with his perspective?

Speaking of which, at the bar, met the best squash reporter on the planet Fran G. from squashsite.com, she is something...a French Woman without a glass of wine...but she had the quote of the day from Shabana or someone, concerning all the Egyptians, "their time has come..." but in the same breath..."what factory are they all from...shut down that factory!" The Australians, the Pakistans, now the Egyptians, they seem to have all had their time, the one constant though are those amazing Brits, will the Americans have their time? Not any time soon, 20 year old Nicolas Mueller, qualifier, dispatched US #1 Illingsworth methodically. And he beat Chris Gordon in the qualifying round 2 as well. I asked him what was his strategy going in, he said Julian was a bit injured but he knew he was weak in the forehand court so he attacked him there...interesting, Mueller said while, like most players, he plays 75% of his shots to his opponents backhand, he played a lot more to the forehand. And what does Illingsworth do with his neck and upper body when covering the forehand drop. Mueller received a call from his mother, congratulating him, but the call Tuesday, no doubt will be her condolences after he faces Ramy Ashour #1 in the world -- a learning experience, I think he said.

Back to Fran G. of squashsite.com -- great bits on Frenchman Gaultier her country's best player, and in my mind the real number 1 player in the world. At 11 years old he was doing 73 consecutive figure 8's...go to totalsquash.com and check out Mark Chaloner doing 93, but Mark is not 11 and last I checked a top 100 pro. Fran G. had some great comments on Gaultier, he is "like a sponge, he picks up so much from the best players." My son joined this conversation and talked about how Gaultier picked up from Lincou the head fake out of the front and in a 2003 match totally faked Nicol out. Fran G. responded with now he has absorbed a lot of Shabana...

Edy Kapur, head Pro at Sports Club/LA in the city, is on the mend -- great seeing him about after a lengthy illness, he's one of our favorites. Rackets vs. Footwork vs. match play...both Gordon and Illingsworth don't have top 20 footwork, I said, they have great rackets and they have played lots of matches from the time they were young, to fix technical flaws at this stage really tough, big step back to do this. We've had this argument about my son an aspiring pro, my son has the footwork of Ramy and great rackets, he's a thing of beauty to watch, but he doesn't have the matches, he's a bit lazy, he doesn't have the edge...just watch Palmer before a match and during a match, the edge, mentally and experience. A long rode ahead in the match play, but it's all forward, no stepping back if my son wants it.

Hisham Ashour will do an interview and photo shoot with squashzag (squashzag.com) he is lean and mean and as stated earlier a great player. Boswell, sorry I missed your match, was taking that much needed nap, but like the post man, neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor flood (something like that...it's engraved on the old 8 th Ave. and 33rd street Post Office in the City) will keep me from watching you play Nick Mathew -- tough call, you are both my two favorite players, and Boswell, a New Zealand qualifier, Shua, came up to me about my blog posting top 10 players I've seen of all time, of which you are there -- he complimented me on your inclusion on that list.

Okay lights out, but this note I made, don't confuse sportsmanship with complacency, will get to that when I've figured out what I meant. Might be something to ask Malcom Wilstrop about, he's been around the tournament, which reminds me, his book, Play to Win Squash, is a must read -- at the very least he can autograph it for me.

Page Six of the Tournament of Champions 2010 -- Day 1

2010-01-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

As I walk around the tournament and talk to people, friends, players, and yes, even referees, it's quite amazing the tidbits you pick up.e

Okay, first one was during the Azzis and Shabanna match. Game 1 game ball Shabanna is awarded a stroke off a beautiful drop to the backhand side, Shabanna is clearly too far back to retrieve it and runs into Azziz, requesting a let. He is awarded a stroke! Bad call. What was interesting is the referees for that match were being assessed by one of the highest ranking referees in the world, only 8 hold that distinction. I went up to him and asked him about the call, he replied, a mistake, no question about it, a let, Shabanna was too far back. Too bad, he said because it came at a critical point in a tight game of the match.

Palmer remembers loosing to Olli Tuominen a couple of years back, my son and I were at that match, it was boring, Palmer was dominant; we left after the second game (I'm forever reminded about this) we found out later Olli beat Palmer in 5. It was remarked that Palmer doesn't like much playing Olli, no worries, Adrian Waller, 76 ranked in the world upset Olli in 5. I snuck away from the office and was there to see another match but running behind schedule I watched the first couple of games of the Waller match. This 20 year old is good, really good, I thought he was a bit awkward in his footwork, he's tall and big, but he has exceptional rackets. Okay, he faces Palmer next, who beat a youngster, rather dispatched him in 3 games...Palmer mentioned before his match to me "you have to watch these kids."

Lee Beachhill was about, will try and talk to him, what a great player and former number one, he seemed to be about with his game face on.

Back to David Palmer, a close associate of his, whom I spoke to said he will be retiring after this years Commonwealth games. I tell all of you, David Palmer is in my top 5 as one of the greatest players I've ever seen play, see him play before he retires. This guy is really a special player.

Okay, back to Shabanna and Azziz, they were warming up the ball and after a few hits threw it back and took another one. My son, the astute student of the game, and recovering from the flu which forced him out of the amateur draw this weekend, dragged himself out of bed to watch his idol, Palmer play. After Palmer's match, my son stopped him and had a lengthy chat. They talked about the white ball the players play with. Palmer went into great explanation about how the white ball is really supposed to be like the black double yellow dot but really isn't, it's very inconsistent these batches of balls. He cited Shabanna as throwing the ball out because it was probably too fast. God I love this game, the details of which are pure genius. And when will they use that great Feather ball as the official ball, if Feather still makes it -- the best ball ever made.

One other Palmer bit, I said to him after his match with the youngster Francomb , that I thought this kid was a great player, he said "yeah, he seemed to have a bit of trouble with the glass court..." to which I replied, "I think you just wore him down."

Missing from this year's tournament Anjema, Isklander, Grant, Pilley, and of course Lincou. I expect two of these mentioned to come back and make it through to the semis next year.

This tournament is really the real Christmas.

Where was the towel when Francomb slipped, it took too long to fetch one. Who was that referee, off duty, cleaning the court glass? "Hey, Just helping out, " replied Wayne.

The other Ashour, Hisham, to me and my son the more talented of the two brothers, when asked when he was going to break top 10, finally -- replied he recently took his brother, of course the number one player in the world to 5 games...okay, forget the Sprite commercials I told him, as a flock of 11 year girls hounded him for his autograph, it won't matter years from now but your squash will. Did I sound a bit like pater?

LA Fitness Squashers in the MSRA Squash Grand Open 2010

2010-01-21T14:14:00.000-08:00

Update:

I was able to see Haadi's match, he faced a number 1 seed and played very well. He kept his cool and tried to work his opponent in the back, when he did he controlled the game. He was hurt in the front court ot covering it very well. The Yale Club courts are the exact opposite of LA Fitness, slow front wall and fast and lively floors. Ashish, who recently played in a league match there remarked that all his kills on LA Fitness floors came up on the Yale courts: "what the @$#@ was that all about", he was heard to remark.

Quote of the day came from Haadi, while watching Shabana in the pro draw punish Aziss along with myself and my son and , Ashish turned to Haadi and said, "You could learn alot from these guys." To which Haadi responded smartly, "so could you!."

Paul Zummo played a gritty match and lost in 5 games. He was down 2-0, when he started making his comback. Any one who has played Paul knows he never quits, while he lost in 5 in his first tournament, he showed great mental toughness and literally got a racket on almost every ball. He rushed a lot of his shots, but for younger players, take a page from Paul's book, never quit, he almost pulled it out.

John Gross also went to 5 games after being down the first two games. I didn't see the match, but this is great for John. Like Paul, when you drill and practice and take lessons, soon those 5 game matches go your way. Hang in their John...

Kyle withdrew from the tournament, he had been sick all week. But he was watchig the pros, what I love about him is he talks shop with all the pros. He will be back training and promise to be ready for the up coming Men's Under 23 championships.

Pooya texted me to say he lost, didn't see his match, but great to have him playing and healthy again.

Margaret plays tomorrow morning.

Vidant had to withdraw because of a school committment, but I'm attaching the link to his drum session on Youtube for a school musical...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gybEjo_Z86k

The following LA Fitness squash players will be competing in the Grand Open Squash Torunament January 22-24, 2010. This is a great showing and all of them are my students. Remember, as Hashim Kahn says, 'keep eye on ball and no tin...' something like that. Good luck!

Vidant -- Junior Boys U11
Pooya -- Men's 4.0
Paul Zummo -- Men's 3.0
Margaret Higgins -- Women's 5.0
Haadi -- Men's 3.5
John Gross -- Men's 3.5

Kyle -- Men's 5.5

I really wish I could join all of you as a participant, but will look forward to training and hopefully competing in the Nationals in April and the Hyder Cup in May. I will be around the various clubs all weekend hoping to catch some of your matches. Email me results, observations, concerns, achievements so I can put them here.

Sorry I wasn't able to update this in a timely manner, but now that the dust has settled I think the consensus among all the players, most of who, this is their first tournament, is that competing is a lot different than club playing.

I am really happy that all the players for the most part were able to participate in this incredible weekend including the amateur alongside the professional draw. I think a lot of the LA Fitness squashers were just awed by the pros, I myself, watch them on PSA Live and have seen this tournament for about 10 years, and I am so awed by these matches.

I hope everyone took away a list (large or small) of what to work on before the next tournament, and don't get discouraged, it's a process and I can tell you when you put into what it takes to win a tournament, when you do finall win one, or make it to the finals, it makes it all worthwhile.

You've all responded well to the idea of a weekly round robin of play to which we'll keep bringing in players you don't normally play so you get used to all sorts of styles and play. This is great and your enthusiasm is contagious. Next on the horizon are the Nationals in April, maybe another tuneup before then but I encourage you all to play in this it is a great event and this years it's about 1.5 hours away.

Men Who Walk In the Shadows Of Gods

2010-01-14T20:33:00.000-08:00

Squash has produced some amazing prodigies. Three whom I've seen play are Jahangir Khan, Jansher Khan and Ramy Ashour. These are in the pantheon of squash gods, there probably will be none who can equal what they've done. That is until the next god of squash comes along. But what about all those other great players. I'm not even talking about these guys but those players who in the entire world are 300, 200, 100 and even 50 ranked? John White was once ranked 300 and something.

The top 15 players seem to play each other all the time. Has that the way it's always been, do we judge squash excellence on the play of those players? I think not. I think back years ago to when I saw Chris Stevens play, I would watch him play Anders Wahlstedt at Park Place Squash. Chris was ranked in the 80's, which I think was his best ranking. I loved to watch him play, he moved like a gazelle and played Anders well, himself a top 20 player. But if you watched these two play, it was absolute lyricism. I can still see young Chris push Anders around that beautiful court at Park Place, I am reminded of how Anders, a TOC qualifier, lost to Chris Ditmar in 20 minutes 0, 1, 0. Men among the gods. But did that make Anders any less a player? Absolutely not.

We are a bit spoiled by the availability of matches on the internet or DVD, I think, and mesmerized by this top 20 ranking and tournamet draws. There are so many great players out there who will never walk with the gods, let alone crawl with them. But they are amazing to watch! I feel lucky to have seen Chris Stevens play, I feel lucky to have seen Brad Hindle play, Chris Gordon, Julian Illingsworth (when he wasn't ranked top 50), Graham Basset, and a host of others within the top 300 players of the world. How many among us can say we are among the top 300 out of tens of thousands of players? Certainly not I.

I remind myself and my son all the time that you cannot measure your squash game against the likes of Ramy, Jahangir, or Jansher, if you do you simply will stop aspiring to play professionally. But John White, who was once ranked somewhere in the 300's eventually became number 1, yes, he walked in the sun with the gods! Will Graham Bassett become number 1 in the world, highly doubtful, but I've seen him play, it is beautiful squash. I was at the match when Jullian Illingsworth beat Ollie Thuommen and he seemed to be godlike that night and as an American beat the highest ranked player ever. But then I watched him play Ramy, and you know what, he played a bit like me.

That is the beauty of squash, if you love this game, no matter who plays it, a great rail is a great rail. I am on the court with a 3.5 player who hits short crosses over and over, but then suddely, with a bit of god at his side, he will hit the most beautiful cross court. A cross court that maybe Ramy can hit with a racquet without strings and Illingsworth hit a 100 times in his sleep, but nonetheless it's a beautiful cross court -- one out of 10,000.

I used to think Graham Ryding was a boring player, so mediocre. I only saw him play Jonathan Powers, who seemed to toy with him. But then my son showed me some of Graham's matches with other players. This is a player who was once, I think top 15, and what a player. While he walked in the shadows of one of those gods, outside those shadows, he was ever so close to being great...we should all be so lucky or really so gifted.

Rebecca Macree Where Are You?

2010-01-10T15:55:00.000-08:00

About 15 years ago I saw you, Rebecca Macree play Cassie Jackman at the US Open at Brown University. I think it was Cassie Jackman, does not matter, I was watching you. You had such a beautiful game , but what I loved most about you was your court presence. You challenged everything, referees, the ball, your opponent, the four white walls. Whether or not you could hear a stick of dynamite go off in the next court (anyone who knows you knows you are deaf) didn't matter, you were simply amazing to watch.

Ten years later I sat next to you at the TOC and we struck up a conversation. I noticed most about you was your exquisite eyes, these calico green eyes. It was exhausting talking to you because you read lips and I had to emphasize my pronunciation. I had had a deaf friend in college, so incredibly intgelligent, that after talking with him I had a headache and my jaws just screamed. It was the same thing. I loved talking to you and listening to all your recollections about squash. It was your last tournament and you were retiring.

I was too shy to ask you out but after we parted I spent months trying to contact you. I wasn't very successful. You were excited about leaving the tour and perhaps finding a life partner and starting a family and having a "normal" life. That was so charming to me because it seemed what you were doing in squash was more normal than anything you could possibly do. But I was at the time an overweight corporate type who loves squash probably more than anything. Rebecca, if you are reading, I'm fit and lean and mean. But forget that, what spawned this post was an article I read about the top 10 women squash players of the decade. You weren't on the list! If it were a popularity contest I could understand it, few liked playing you and probably many more didn't like refereeing your matches. But that edginess in your game was what made you stand out, you were in a world of your own, and when I watched you play, they, those on the outside, the hearing just didn't get it. I thank my brilliant deaf friend Steven from years back who taught me some things that allowed me to understand you a bit.

I was at that Atkinson match in the quarters of the 2005 TOC (your last major tournament before retiring), she was the world number 1, you looked awful early on but then you seemed to hit your stride and took her to 5 games. You lost, you retired, but I was so happy to have seen you go out at your best, a fighter, elegant but yet such a scrapper.

You belong on that list not because of any physical challenge, but because you had and probably still do such a beautiful game. I hope you found that happiness you left squash for, if you haven't, well I'm here in New York and will be for awhile:)

Challenging the Gifted Squasher

2010-01-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

I first saw Vidant hitting with his dad one day and it took all of 10 seconds to see this 11 year old had something special. He was hitting the ball as if his arm was a slingshot, but this ever so slight, thin young man from Bombay, had some of it right and was crushing the ball for decent length. I thought to myself, this kid could be really good.

I spoke to his dad, Ashok, a urologist, who, in watching him play, exhibited great hands and deft touch when striking the ball -- no doubt a surgeon's hands.

Vidant proved a challenge, because he already had some success in the way he hit the ball, but his technique was wrong, and I was concerned with how he might eventually hurt his shoulder or elbow. He had come from CityView Squash and they are pretty good there, but he was doing things only partly right. He brought his racquet back, but not back enough, and then turned his torso and with a slingshot motion spun around to crush a backhand cross court.

We spent months on feeds and playing points and the improvement was slight. I couldn't get him to adopt a technique that would get him to control the ball and retrieve the ball better. He was still hitting comfortably everything in front of him, but struggled with balls he had to cut off or play out of the back.

What's most interesting to me about coaching is the challenge of really reaching your student on a level that they buy into. The smarter the pupil (and I don't mean book smart), the harder it is to reach them at that level where they will really improve. Vidant was attracted to some of the fun stuff in squash, the trickery, behind the back shots, reverses, nicks, etc. but wasn't all that interested in the fundamentals. How do you get an 11 year old who likes all that flashy stuff to understand that it takes years of what amounts to drudgery in drills and thousands of basic shots before you can successfully do that stuff. Did Michael Jordan start dunking his first year in high school? Probably not, but what he did do was begin a path to understand and perfect the very fundamentals of basketball -- not all that different from squash: balance, distance, focus, speed, stamina, technique.

I started trying to provide some targets for Vidant and to challenge him subtly with suggestions and comments, that while encouraging him, suggested he might be struggling with other things, like better length, changing the pace, and covering the back court. It wasn't until recently that I finally found the angle I had been looking for. We were working on his better shot, the forehand, and I had been spending the past 4 sessions on hitting for length, taking pace off and retrieiving and cutting the ball off out of the corners. Other, less talented students, had by now picked this up, but he hadn't.

In this past session, we again faced this hurdle, he just wasn't buying into it. What I did was say to him that if this is too difficult let's practice something else. I used my other really talented student as an example and said, "Haadi had trouble with this as well...it took him awhile to get it." That wasn't true, Haadi had actually picked it up pretty quickly. What transpired in the next half hour was eye opening. Vidant started moving to the ball, cutting off the angles, and striking the best forehands of any of my students, including Haadi. The balls were A level length and tight to the wall. I started moving him deeper in the court and he was having trouble striking the ball but I could see he was looking to me to help him figure out how to fix that. I suggested he fix the angle of his approach to the ball and also wait for the ball to come out a bit if it came off the back wall. His footwork was the best, his preparation excellent and he started hitting some tough shots.

I was absolutely ecstatic at what he had done at the end of the session, and was so proud of him. As a coach, the obvious reward is helping a student achieve a goal, however big or small. But what was best about this was I found a way to reach him on a level that seemed to tell him, he can trust me to make him a better player. I learned from this as well, because I'm often not the most patient coach (my son can readily attest to that), and I expect a lot from those who have a gift for this game, but from Vidant, so incredibly talented, I learned that a coach has to prove himself to the student. He seemed to challenge and test me as if to say, prove to me you know how to coach me...

But you're only as good as your last success, we will see how it goes as we start preparing him for tournament play in the coming months. Bring on the backhand, time to fix that too.

The Sun on the Court

2010-01-10T07:32:00.000-08:00

for KDG

When the ball strikes the wall

and then bounces to the floor

and you lift your racquet high

to meet an apex of angles --

within these white walls

just then that Delphic priest

with oracle and time

creates the perfect fortune.

Do Not Go Gently Into Those Squash Age Groups

2010-01-07T10:03:00.000-08:00

I was recently reading Geoff Hunt's book, "Geoff Hunt On Squash", which is such an intelligent account of both squash technique and playing. There are so many good points Hunt makes about squash playing, but one that stuck out is the reference to players who become older, still adept on the court, but noticeably slower. Where does this present a problem? It presents a problem when the older player has to clear for a much younger and quicker player. Contact is often made or subtle blocking, the older and perhaps slower player, maybe once a 6.0 player or national champion , is clever enough to block his opponent ever so slightly -- certainly enough to upset the rhythm of the game.
I am an older player and I play my 6.0 level 19 year old son frequently. He blasted me about 3 months ago in a match telling me I am too slow to clear for him. I was like, ok, and continued on. It bothered me what he said and I thought he was upset because I somehow managed to disrupt his play to and from the ball -- no doubt enough to prevent him from taking the ball early, cutting the ball off and putting more pressure on me.
It wasn't until I read this in Hunt's book did I really understand my son's complaint. But let me take this further back a bit to a couple of tournaments where my son had to play Will Carlin, former national amateur champion, a great player, now older and I'm sure a step slower. In the first match with Carlin, my son was so frustrated with Carlin's slowness to clear and the bumping to and from the ball, that he lost. A much younger and better player lost to an older and slower player.
They met again in last year's Hyder Cup and again the same outcome. My son was really upset and I told him it's the nature of the game it happens, it's tournament toughness, etc.
I have since realized how wrong I was. The rule is very clear and my son pointed it out in a match with me this past fall stating it doesn't matter how I, his opponent, needs time to clear, I must clear and provide that clear path to the ball. Once I realized that I have to clear quickly for my quicker and younger opponent, I started working on footwork and movement drills. And trying to clear quickly and not on my time. I did notice that when I'm tired in the match or sore or not loose, there tends to be contact. But my son challenged me as if to say, if I want to play a match with him, move quicker, clear for him, and stop playing like an old man...or else!
Or else, what? Play in the age groups, he said. It was like he struck me in my squash heart with a dagger. The age groups, he's saying I'm too old and slow.
I've been working the last couple of months to increase my quickness and stamina. I'm slowly getting there, I can see I clear out of the corners better, moreso in the back than in the front. My son still plays some matches with me, but we also drill...I refuse to concede I'm ready for the age groups, but I'll leave that up to time and his judgement. He knows I'm working like crazy to avoid the age group -- Dylan Thomas said, "do not go gently into that good night", he might have well have said do not go gently to the squash age groups.
I advised my son recently that should he play Will Carlin again, he might simply remind Mr. Carlin that there are appropriate age groups for players who are now slower and can't really in the best spirit of squash clear a path for the younger, quicker players.
Inevitably, just like the "night" Thomas alluded to, the age groups are a reality. But I will not go "gently" there, but will only go when I've done just about everything I can do to clear a path to the ball for my quicker opponent -- and it's still not quick enough.

Is Squash Really Supposed to be Fun?

2010-01-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

I was reading a coaching and referee book, "Squash Coaching and Refereeing" by R. B. Hawkey, former softball professional in the 1980's. He was head of developing coaching standards and certifications for the Squash and Racquets Association (SRA). It's very interesting, but what caused me to really pause and think was this statement he made. He asked what is the role of a coach, he said, invariably coaches and would-be coaches answer to make a player better. To which he responded, that the real purpose is to make squash fun, especially for juniors. This lead me to start thinking about fun and squash, something I never really thought aboutbefore.

Generally speaking, what is fun? Is it something you do that brings you happiness? Is it something you do that you love and in loving what you do you have fun? Does having fun mean you don't take it so seriously? Is fun the ultimate goal in pursuing something so difficult as squash?

Aside from coaching squash privately, I also test software. I have been doing this for so long I can nearly do it in my sleep, not that I ever sleep while testing software and looking for defects. I love testing software and finding bugs, it can be so much fun, but it can also have its share of drudgery involved with waiting for software releases, following poor procedures, meetings and reviews, appeasing software developer's egos, and reporting findings endless to management. When I am having fun simply testing, I often remark that I'd do this for free. When you are so good at something and have worked so hard at reaching a certain level, I guess, yes it's fun.

But as I continue along this reasoning, if you were to ask me, is testing fun, I would flat out say no. For the 100 hours I might spend on testing or preparig to test, maybe a few hours are what I call fun. For the most part it is tedious, detailed work, involving a lot of time going through hundreds of routine scripts with the same results for each iteration of testing. Boredom is often a huge challenge. But I'm a senior tester, actually, a testing architect, so I design the test approach but rarely execute those tedious, time consuming, repetitive tests. Do I make testing fun for those junior testers who have to execute them, no, it's simply not fun, I could make a party of it or try to inspire interest through all sorts of ways, but it's business, you have to put in your dues before you get to that advanced level when, yes, it becomes fun sometimes -- even if for some fleeting moments.

Back to squash. When I'm moving and playing well it's fun...meaning when I can play the game against an opponent as if it appears I can do it in my sleep, then it is incredibly fun. But those times are so few and far between, just as when I am having fun testing software. What I spend most of my time in playing squash is trying to get better, drilling, learning, getting fit, none of which I would put in the category of fun. But I do it, because when I play like there's no tomorrow and every shot and movemet is fluid and in my eyes only (probably) I'm moving with the grace and execution of a professional player, I think to myself, I could do this forever, it is so much fun.

But then there are those days I get up where I can barely move, every muscle and joint hurts, and I want just to stay in bed. Squash and training is a chore, it isn't fun, I don't hate it, I still love it but it's just not really fun at that point. But because the game has teased me with those moments of excellence and happiness (and yes lots of fun) I will myself to the gym for training and playing and practicing -- thanks sometimes to Advil.

When I started out playing this game I loved it the moment I hit my first ball...by the time I hit my one thousandth ball I knew I wanted to get better. I fell in love with this game, I can honestly say, and had in my head I'd do anything to get better, to beat my "B" level friend, Supriya Mehta, who introduced me to this game and made it look so easy playing against me. It was fun for him to get me chasing the ball and getting me so frustrated and no doubt it was funfor him because he could do this in his dreams, in his sleep, without strings without even the four walls. I envied him that he could do this with such ease. I eventually moved away and couldn't play Supriya much, we kept in touch and always talked about squash. I spent a lot of time working with a coachat a club in New York City determined to get better, I also became very fit for playing. So when I was up in Boston where Supriya was, I told him we'd have to play.

We went to play at MIT or Harvard, couldn't really remember. I was much better and had closed the gap in skill between us. We played some match, he beat me, but it wasn't fun for him. He remarked he thought he'd be sick -- I ran him about forcing him to shoot for nicks, which, on that day seem to be working. I didn't have fun doing this to him, because I didn't beat him! I went back to New York and hit the courts with my coach almost immediately, I told him about the match and he immediately went to work on how to cover shots from a shooter -- just hit your own shots better. Easier said than done and it wasn't much fun spending the next years doing that.

While I've been writing this, I realized the amount of time I actually had fun playing squash was miniscule compared to the effort and time put in to becoming a better player. But I wouldn't change anything in how I did this because for those miniscule times I did have fun when it all came together I would do it over in a heartbeat. No doubt I'm either driven by this passion for the game or a bit insanity or maybe just both. I wonder when I first stepped on the court and hit those first squash balls did I come off the court thinking this is fun? I don't remember. Squash, like life, I guess, has it's share of fun, but I don't think you start out by thinking it's going to be fun. You have your moments of fun, but they are at a premium -- work hard, play hard, you will be all the better as a player and a person for it.

As a coach, when I take on a new player, whether adult or junior, I ask them what their aspirations are. Most say to get better, occasionally, someone will say just to hit around and have fun. I usually tell them they don't need a coach for that, they can do that right off. I also tell them when you ceases having fun and want to get better and play this game like it was meant to be played come back and I'll do whatever it takes (and it will be hard work and often boring) to get good and have a shot, ever so few as they might be, when you play out of your mind and it's really fun.

Simply for the Love of Squash

2009-12-27T18:39:00.000-08:00

I really need to stop reading Squash News. It really makes me feel sorry for all of those who listen to its CEO and his knee-jerk reaction in response to what ails US squash. His latest is a column on the positive signs of Women's Squash in the US. said CEO is a great marketer, his columns read like a quarterly corporate report. I grant him that, but all you need to do is play in tournaments and realize that he is, maybe like George Bush did when telling the American public we weren't in a recession, just telling his board and shareholders what will get them through the moment. Adult women's squash is an abysmal failure, just look at the turnout for the major tournaments. Women consistently play in men's draws, which is troublesome to me because if women are allowed in those draws, then it's not a man's draw but a mixed draw.

I have complained when I have had to pay a 95.00 dollar entry fee to play a young female junior player old enough to be my daughter. Sorry, I don't like playing teenage girls or for that matter an ocassional adult woman in tournaments. But that really isn't what this is about.

I have a student I coach, Margaret, who is an ex collegiate player and now mother of three. She is coming back to the game after about 15 years. She played since she was 9 years old and was coached by a legend in women's squash who recently passed away. Margaret hasn't kept up with how the game has evolved. She is probably typical of most women players, compete in the juniors, get into college, play in college and then launch a career and family and stop playing squash. She is really good and works so hard in our sessions, I push her very hard, because squash is hard it demands a lot from any who play it.

I question the premise for anyone who thinks squash is a vehicle to something better that isn't about squash. Squash to me is like Ancient Greek Poetry, which I studied throughout college and still do. It takes a lot of work and study and dedication to read it, in the end few will care that you read it except me, the reader, who has reaped the most amazing benefits of reading a language and literature that is the penultimate of our Western Civilization . Squash is the same to me as that Greek Poetry -- it's the penultimate sport, there is no fanfare, no exposure, it is so hard and difficult to do, but if you play it and get good at it is the most amazing experience. I can only equate it with reciting lines of Homer's Odyssey in Ancient Greek with striking continuously tight rail after tight rail. Both took so much dedication and hard work, but ultimately who cares, some might ask where did it get me?...to a college scholarship, a better job? No they just fueled this incredible passion for this game as well as for that poetry.

I would like to say I do either of these callings for simply the love of doing them, I spent 12 years studying Greek and Latin and 30 years playing squash and I have never derived anything from them other than the love of doing them and trying to do them better with the passing of time.

I have sat through enough junior tournaments and listened to parents talk incessantly about their children playing squash and being recruited and playing in college. I am sure Klipstein ecstatically is rolling his eyes in his corporate head and thinking all sorts of success, but in reality, it is a quick reward for what is ultimately a pathetic failure.

Do those players who option for playing college squash and spend their entire junior careers working towards that ever think about or dream of playing this game professionally? I doubt it. When I was 13 I didn't dream of playing college baseball I dreamed of sharing the field with all the great players of the day. How many women squash players dream of playing like David, the Grihnam sisters, or ever understand the most amazing accomplishments of squash's greatest woman player, Heather Mckay? But they do, I'm sure, dream of knowing what getting into an Ivy League school seems to mean.

You can probably meet this dilemma at a crossroads of men's collegiate squash as well...is it no wonder that we have never placed a US born squash player in the upper echelons of squash, woman's or man's?

I once sat with a gentleman who had a highly ranked girl's junior player and he was talking to me about the potential for her receiving a scholarship, I watched her play, and just thought a perfect college squash player, basic tactics, will play the boring game of college squash and probably never pick up a racquet after turning 24. He watched my son play and said wow who is recruiting him for college and I responded by saying he doesn't want to play collegiate squash he wants to play professionally. He looked at me like I just said something really nasty and said, why would my son want to do that there's no money in it, he should use it for college. I responded there are just some things you simply do for the love of it. Enough said, he never spoke to me again.

So I am so happy that my student, Margaret, started playing again, not because she aspires to great things in squash, playing professionally, but simply because squash rekindled something in her -- I'm glad to support her, maybe make her a better player and to once again play this game simply for the love of it -- I might encourage her to join the USSRA to play in some women's tournaments and play her best squash. She won't be some percentage statistic for squash CEOs to present to squash board members or shareholders -- not yet at least.

Odysseus and his Return to the Wide Court

2009-12-24T08:39:00.000-08:00

From the master himself, he aptly quoted Caeser: "Venni, Vidi, Vinci..." as he twisted me on the court like a pretzel and poked his way to defeating my son in 3 hotly contested games. Jim Masland, our long time squash guru and friend, visited us recently from California without a racquet, but with his squash shoes and no socks. Not having seen the inside of an international court in a year. He was much fitter than I last saw him and before we headed to the club I handed him Wilkinson's most brilliant book "How to Win at Squash" as a gift for the holiday's and a Feather 2125 Cyclone to use -- and a pair of socks as well!

Upon Jim's arrival, he hardly had time to put his stuff down then we headed for the courts. I hadn't seen him in over a year and at that time I was injured and couldn't get on the court with him. Last June I was away on business but my son played and trained with him while he was passing through which set up this week's highly anticipated match between them.

My son had been training hard but not playing many matches at a high level. Jim had been playing on the old narrow American courts at UCLA while teaching English Literature and doing a bit of coaching. It seems each of their disadvantages would cancel each other's out.

We were on the courts at LA Fitness and hitting around before the next day's match. They warmed up and Jim seemed befuddled on the court, the ball whizzing by him. Anyone who has played on the old narrow court for awhile knows when you first get back to the international court it is like another planet, or maybe like looking into space. It takes awhile to adjust and and get your bearings -- they drilled and played some long ball. The first deep shot Jim shanked and checked his racquet to make sure it had strings, I must confess I thought, the master is getting old he may have lost a bit.

A 40 year old player, however great, is much different than a great 20 year old player. The pace and the power in their games are different, the reflexes too. While the 20 year old can run and bait an older player into playing that fast paced game, the older wiser player no doubt will attempt to slow it down. While I was thinking this, it occurred to me the master might be disguising himself, much like Odysseus did when returning home disguised as a simple beggar to a house of hostile young warriors. Was he maybe baiting my son into thinking he was slower and lacked the killer instinct he displayed in some of their past matches. He was sore, and he had trouble with the pace and the court. I didn't get on the court with him since I had numerous lessons, which he observed, and of course offered some helpful pointers -- he extended his approval for my coaching methods, which was very important to me as I always strive to get the master's approval.

We spent the evening talking about squash and watching a DVD of Ikskander and Ashour in a match from two years ago. It's great to watch these matches with Jim because he can provide some really astute observations. Ah, I thought, his brilliance is he is at once a student and a teacher.

The day of the match arrived. We headed back to the courts and my son and Jim stretched and warmed up. My son ran a mile and Jim went on the Elliptical. One of my students remarked to me how good could a squash player could Jim be with a beer gut. A slight over exaggeration but yes, Jim has a bit of a gut, but his legs and upper body are strong and he has a solid well balanced squash player's gait and center of gravity. My son is the perfect specimen of a squash player around 6 feet tall, long legs, strong upper body and moves around the court like a gazelle with grace and balance.

We had invited members of the LA Fitness squash community to come watch. I would referee the match. Jim was introduced to all our fellow squash players and he greeted them in his usual friendly manner -- he always seems so at ease around any level of squash player. Both my son and Jim got on court and began warming up. I watched Jim for signs of that wily warrior disguised behind the old beggar. Instantly, Jim cracked a cross court off of my son's cross court warm up shot. And then another and another, down the rail, cross nick, the racquet was like a wand. His backhand is so good -- he takes his racquet back and follows through and with perfect precision makes contact at just the right point. My son seemed a bit tight, I play him and train with him so much I knew his legs hadn't loosened up, best that he gets them going early since Jim looks on his game, so I thought.

On the forehand side Jim really started hitting his stride moving about, taking the ball early, volley dropping. He had his game face on, this wasn't my son he was playing but some opponent that was challenging his squash realm. He was a warrior now. He plays the front well, but he isn't as accomplished there because of a long ago hamstring and knee injury. If you can hit great length, you're more selective in the front patiently waiting for the best opportunity to apply pressure in the front court. My son's front court game has come a long way, he is really strong in the front and I knew he would be attacking the front against Jim forcing him to cover the front as much as possible.

The match started and the points in the first game were beautiful. Both players flowed effortlessly around the court. Jim's movement was so efficient, but a bit flat footed, so my son really took it to him and it was clear his strategy was to make Jim run. The points were long both players feeling each other out, but Jim was being outplayed by a younger and faster player. My son built a solid lead and seemed to take control of the game at 6-3. But then, as it often happens, the player up in the game gets a bit over anxious and wants to close the game out early. Jim was clearly huffing not from a lack of fitness, but from the pace. He argued a few calls, there were some lets, wily that he is, he was trying to disrupt the rhythm of the game. He also started throwing a bit of junk, the old hardball reverse in the front and the Philadelphia Boast, and then really slowing the ball down. I watched how my son reacted and he pressed harder and I could see his cross courts weren't as good ow and Jim stepped in and took them but changed the pace of the ball. He started to take control the first storm weathered. At 6-7 Jim served up this high lob serve that seemed to hang in the air for 5 minutes and my son hit a loose cross and Jim placed a beautiful forehand straight volley drop into the nick.

They went back and forth and Jim had a couple of game balls but my son hung in there and at 11-10 Jim serving, they had a long point and then Jim did the unthinkable, he hit a reverse cross into the backhand (an old hardball shot) that caught my son flatfooted -- he had no chance to retrieve. It was Odysseus, the wily old warrior, seizing game 1.

The second game was Jim's. He ran my son around and my son tinned quite a few. Jim used his pretzel game to create havoc. My son was valiant in his efforts but slow to adjust to Jim's strategy. I thought my son the better player, but as often is the case, the better player doesn't always win.

I tried to offer encouragement and advice to my son between the second and third games, an old habit of mine from my son's junior playing days, and he brushed me off. Okay, he was coming up with his own strategy and he doesn't need me.

The third game was all out war. My son began retrieving better and moving Jim to the front. The game was very tight, Midway through the game it seemed Jim was thinking okay, maybe give my son this game and come back in the fourth game. Dangerous. Jim began slicing and dicing and redirecting the ball off his hold, but my son hung in there, countered well cutting the ball off. He seemed to frustrate Jim with a drop to the backhand front wall from behind the service box. I thought, if my son takes this game he will win because it would have taken too much out of Jim. Jim must have picked up my thoughts because I saw how he wanted to finish it there and he pressed hard and started taking the ball early. It was fast and furious a game which brought out the best in each player.

In the end, Jim won the third game in a tiebreaker and the match. It was not my son's best play, but it was a lesson only playing a match like that can teach -- beware of warriors disguised in beggar clothes! Jim discussed the match and his strategy and it was right on. I was proud of him for some reason maybe because I felt guilty about doubting him the previous night. As we left the courts for dinner, he said he learned some things watching my son's footwork and movement and I responded he taught us some things as well -- at once both student and teacher, warrior and wiseman.

Junior Progess...Haadi and his evolving game

2009-12-20T19:08:00.000-08:00

He's noyouw 14 and 25 lbs lighter since I wrote about him in September. He's a perfectionist, not always good in squash, and tempermental, and his mind is well beyond his physical capabilities. He shows me things on the court that are at once brilliant and at once retarded. When he finds that middle ground and evens out he will be a force to be reckoned with.

I recently watched him play a match which he was losing. He was sapping the wall with his racquet, mumbling to himself, and his slumped shoulders and overall body language suggested he was losing not to his opponent but to himself. Yes, I realized, he was better than his opponent and should beat him but he was really battling and playing himself, an opponent you can really never beat. People come up to me all the time and compliment me on how I have brought him along but the suggest ways to fix his temperment. I nod and say his temperment has cost him a lot of racquets and there's not much I can do about that.

When he is doing well he listens to me when doing badly he will basically tell me @$@$ off! That is okay, because I know where he is coming from, he is coming from a place where he knows the absolute joys of that tight rail and the utter misery of the loose shot. He is a practice player right now and his success is measured in the quality of his shots, not in the results of the point.

To me, he is already showing signs of a great player. He might not win and make lots of mistakes, but he does things that show me a really high IQ on the court. He is determined to split step on the court during the match, he wills this large frame to split his step and bound toward the ball. While he is perhaps late on the ball, I marvel at the thought of when he is 20 lbs lighter and doing this and exploding to the ball. He has this innate desire to take the ball earlier and pressure his opponent. I see it, I see what he's trying to do and love it. Unfortunately and frustrating for him is his body and skill level won't support that yet.

Haadi will go through a lot of changes in squash, lose a lot of matches, but when he starts winning he will win like a champion, a champion who has known what it is to lose, what it is to be hindered by certain things, he will know what it is to strive to be better, strive to win, to reach every ball. He will someday soon become a player who doesn't critisize himself and evaluate his every shot, he will judge himself at the end of each match and not at the end of each stroke...we will bring him to this point, train him, teach him, and give him the tools to take squash to whatever levels his talent and desire take him -- it may cost some racquets and lots of embarassment and lectures too, but this junior is gifted and someday I hope to watch him play a match where I won't know the score and I won't know whether he is winning or losing.

No Squash Player Left Behind -- Hardball to Softball

2009-12-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

I used to think it was a liability that I started out in hardball during the boom of the 70's. But I was fortunate that I ended up working with an MIT programmer who first turned me on to softball. This must have been 1980 and we played it on the narrow hardball courts at MIT. I can still remember the first time I hit that softball and exclaimed this is squash! I was much younger and the slower ball and the more demanding physical aspects of speed and endurance immediately appealed to me. I never picked up a hardball again. When I moved from Boston to New York in the early '80's, I played at the Manhattan Squash Club in the Grace building and learned the rudiments of the softball game from Gul Khan, the pro there. I continued to play sporadically into the late 1980's, but work was too demanding and starting a family, etc. all familiar stumbling blocks to dedicated squash players, prevailed. When I ballooned to 45 lbs over weight and burdened with so much stress from working long hours in technology in the Wall Street area, it was then that I found Park Place Squash, located in the dungeons of a basement opened and run by Lionel Hope (RIP) just off of Church street near the World Trade Center. It had one of the first international softball courts, Lionel would say, it was where the first softball court was constructed in the US. I have heard otherwise...

The best softball players in the city played there, there were 4 hardball courts and 1 1nternational court. I worked 3 blocks away so I was able to steal away at lunch and play on the international court. I'd played the hardball court if necessary, but I loved the international court. I worked like a demon, running and training to play the softball game. It took about 8 -10 months to really get fit again. I played 7 times a week, sometimes twice a day. I was now going through a messy divorce and coupled with demanding work, it was the only place on earth I felt whole and complete. I remember stopping in between points with my friend and partner in squash Stephen Aronoff (he stopped playing) and just thinking that other than holding my children in my arms or reading them to sleep at night, there was no place on earth where I'd rather have been than that squash court. I must have pinched myself (is this like heaven) as much as I cursed myself (is this like hell), but it all seemed to even out.

I can still hear the softball off the old British style court at Park Place come off the wall, like music, the sound was pure poetry. I can still see Anders Wahlstadt and Chris Stevens playing, simply awed by their level of play. The hardball courts remained mostly empty. I had started playing with a heavy wooden racquet and held out as long as I could with the wooden racquet, in fact I used to buy 20 of them at a time from a sporting goods place on Nassau Street. I went through them in a matter of months. Eventually I switched to the graphite ones, first Dunlop, then Black Knight, and eventually Head.

I played squash in the old style of the wooden racquet whereby you had to hold the butt of your racquet near your ear and come down and through the ball. I learned softball technique. Afterall, I never picked up a hardball again once I played softball. It was the only way to generate some racquet head speed and put some pace on the ball. But softball was the faster game in theory because the ball died and you needed to be faster and quicker to the ball. Hardball required not as much speed of foot because the court was smaller and the ball came out more to the middle. The stroke had to be more compact, more efficient and quicker to play the fast moving hardball.

The two games remained distinctly different until the racquet technology changed. Once the racquet became lighter and the sweet spot bigger, softballers really put some pace on the ball. Not only did the game require faster movement and footwork, but the pace of the ball was really fast. But then the hardball game became really troubled, because on the narrow court players could literally get to everything...the game became boring, the exciting winners and nicks or crushing the low hard cross for a winner wasn't a winner anymore. The ball stood up and the game wasn't that much different than a racquet ball flying all over the place. Imagine if a racquetball court had a tin and you couldn't hit the ceiling, it would essentially be hardball squash in the 90's.

Anyways, it wasn't until I read Frank Sautterwait's autobiography and his chapter on the softball game from a professional hardball player's perspective did I finally understand how hardball players were able to so convincingly switch to the softball game with the new racquet technology. I'm thinking of those great Canadians Power and Waite and maybe even Stevens too. When I met Jim Masland he had only been two years into his softball career when I met him in North Carolina, having played hardball most of his life. The hardball stroke was perfect for the new racquet and the faster speed and pace of the softball. The old softball stroke was inefficient for the new racquet technology and pace of the softball game...and those softball players who overlapped into the new racquet age and the leap in evolution in the softball game, changed their strokes...they needed to, and when the glass court was introduced along with new racquet technology, the softball player needed a quicker, hardball like stroke! To me that is when hardball died.

I don't expect I'm saying anything new, but this always interested me how a sport that was booming in the 70's and 80's just died. It's like a lot of things in America, new technology, replaces old technology and workers get displaced...new technology spawns new participants or compels those to convert to the new and reinvent themselves. Those that don't are left behind, this is America, always reinventing itself. I always read James Zug history of squash as a sort of eulogy for the hardball game in America.

The softball game grew to combine the quickness and fast paced ball with the athleticism and strategy and depth of the old softball game. It's like chess on the clock vs. chess off the clock. The game has changed, it is the best game in the world...and in all of this, I spent thousands of hours and dollars to convert my game into the newer game as it was starting to be played in the early to mid 90's. I am glad I did, and my body and god willing, I will continue to incorporate new techniques into my game like the open stance backhand (which took me two years to build into my muscle memory ) or the dying length rail or the drop with minimal slice. It is this innate fear that this ever evolving game will someday leave me behind that I push myself to the point of keeping up with whatever changes in technology, technique, or training -- lest I remain like those few hardballers that cling to the distant past of a game that has long since died.

Spooked by the Squash Ghost and the Footworker

2009-12-16T18:32:00.000-08:00

I have trained and drilled what seems forever, with a variety of different coaches and players. While I teach more than I play these days, I incorporate a lot of ghost drills into my sessions. But having had the experience of ghosting countless star drills and movement drills, I've come to the conclusion that they are only meaningful when combined with actually striking the ball.

I used to hit the forehand rail and ghost the backhand rail and maybe ghost a front cross court off a boast and then play the actuall volley, but what I never did and what I think was missing in these drills was a combination -- as complex as you like depending on your level -- of ghosting and striking the ball.

These drills can be moderate to very brutal depending on the player's fitness and skill and of course desire to get better. It's a system worked through with collaboration between coach and player that enables any level player to work on fitness, movement, court mechanics and good shots. I like to use these drills for those players wanting to extend themselves a little or a lot beyond their comfort zone...you need a coach who understands the player's level and can construct patterns along with appropriate length and width to coincide with that player's level.

There's no point hitting tight rails of dying length to a B level player since that isn't something they will likely encounter at their level, but it is appropriate to let's say ghost a boast from the backhand and hit a volley about a foot off the side wall for the player to volley...once you observe that player can consistantly hit that volley at a B level you start adjusting position and angle of the volley feed to enable the player to start hitting off the volley shots in that A realm. This can often lead to some early raggedness in the drills, but if the player is keen, the coach, player and drill tend to clean up the loose ends.

I am a proponent of combining multiple ghosts with on the ball hitting. Ghosting alone addresses footwork and racquet preparation only, but when you combine striking the ball you are covering a complete gamut of movement, preparation and ball handling. One thing I found in video examples of ghosting was a glaring mistake, by even higher level players, when ghosting out of the front they simply don't look behind them to simulate picking up the ball in the back to where they just hit it. What's the point if you don't follow the imaginary line pf the ball with your eyes? However, if you have a coach who is holding the ball and instructs you to pick it up immediately and you see the ball and watch him strike it, you are really incorporating some reality of match play.

I have been doing these drills with my aspiring pro son and believe that it is the most challenging drilling he can do. I used to do drills with him without ghosting combination and I wasn't able to push him mostly because I didn't have the skills to feed him at that low pro level. There was too much pressure on me and my feeds weren't tight enough in many of those continuous striking drills. With the ghosting combinations I have time to place my feeds tight and with good length or deftly place the front court volley drops or attacking boasts. The results are quite amazing.

And the absolute beauty of these drills, okay I admit it, they are much easier on the coach who has been on the court for 7 hours straight. If the player works hard at their level and wants to improve to a higher level, whether it be better fitness, tighter shots or better technique, they will accomplish that. During the drills the player can see immediately, without a lot of convincing from the coach what they need to work on -- the drill sort of speaks back to them.

I looked at the Footworker video which is a computer generated movement drill (check out their website footworker.ca) that serves the purpose of practicing footwork and movement drills. This is good and for fitness, you probably can't beat it. But footwork and ball striking aren't mutually exclusive. You always play and practice to your ability without having that coach's set of eyes telling you that your lifting your head to soon off your ghosting rail to the front or bending too much at the waste on d not your knees, what is the point of practicing what's wrong with what you're doing over and over again -- are you perfecting bad technique and movement?

A coach is critical to observation, maybe not if you are a top 50 ranked pro, but for the rest of the squash mortals you need someone to observe and with a critical eye observe your movement and ball striking and to construct drills according to your level and ability.

I was close to purchasing the Footworker and using it on court to simulate movement in an A level match and then I had this flash of my son's expression as he saw me doing the movements -- as if to say, hey, you aren't getting low enough to the ball, your presence on the T is too jumpy (watch the video the player demonstrating this is like a jack rabbit on the T! Also watch how when he moves out of the front court his eyes are fixed often on the front wall), or you are lifting your head to early when striking the ball. I later thought about this tool and realized if they could put a camera in it to film your movements for later review or immediate replay feedback, that would be extremely helpful and make the tool all the more valuable. You could record the session and upload it to your computer to watch or forward it to your coach for review and analysis.

I decided not to purchase this item and will continue with my methods, refining them, pushing my students, myself, and my son, hopefully, to new and greater levels.

Nick Mattew Number 1?

2009-12-14T20:00:00.000-08:00

Five years ago I saw Nick Matthew play and I told my son he will someday be the number 1 player in the world. If I were to ever construct a game and player for myself this would be the player. His forehand volley drop is absolutely devasting. I love watchig him play Ramy and cutting off those cross courts and hitting those punishing drop volleys to the forehand.
It seemed like he would never finish a match I was watching -- a couple of times he retired injured. But then I saw him beat Willstrop a couple of years ago and had the opportunity to go up to him and tell him he was absolutely my favorite player and what a great match he played.

I remember at that same tournament talking to a local knucklehead pro who said to me Matthew doesn't "do enough with the ball." That really annoyed me and I told him he was ridiculous trying to remind him of that incredible forehand volley drop.

Okay, how many of us tried copying that Dave Pearson like backhand of his? I think that knucklehead pro went to Pearson's camp and came back with an abortion of that stroke.

Anyways, Matthew as of this writing is at number 4 in the world! This is great news and I truly believe if he remains injury free he will eventually hit number 1. The path through that is not through any Egyptians as he has shown, but most likely through Gaultier. I think Gaultier is the uncrowned number 1 in the world and I hope Matthews proves me wrong. France and England always a fierce competition.

I talked to someone who watched Matthews come up in the juniors. The thing he said that struck him most was his tenacity at wanting to win every point and at whatever cost. He never gave up on any points -- something you can't teach or coa

Maybe by March, number 1, Mr. Matthew?

As an addendum, since this was written Ashour and Matthew battled it out in Saudi Arabia recently in what was reported to be an incredible match. I can't wait to see a replay of this. At staked was the number 1 ranking...Mr. Matthew is ever so close, but what is even better is the Matthew - Ashour matches are shaping up to be a great rivalry. Anytime an opponent elevates another player's level of play, and intensity, makes for some great squash.

How to Resuscitate a Dying Squash Club

2009-11-30T11:09:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has been around squash for awhile and has belonged to numerous clubs can recognize when a squash club is slowly dying. There are no new members, the courts are readily available during prime time, the cost of court time and lessons go up to offset the declining revenue. Many of the good players are the first to leave and join another club and the exodus begins.
When my son and I returned home from a long stint in India, we were eager to get back to playing and training at our La Fitness squash home in Great Neck, New York. It had become over the years our temple of squash, we loved it especially since we didn't have to go into the City all the time and pay for parking, membership and court time. When we were in India, it was so difficult to pay and play (see my posting on squash in Bangalore, India). So we were back. We spent early mornings training and drilling and evenings playing matches. I was in really good shape and had dropped around 50 lbs and my son was very fit and had taken his game to a new level. All the while we were playing and training, we saw very few players. The La Fitnesse in Great Neck is an airplane hangar-like factlity with 40,000 members. It has two international squash courts. Squash isn't popular on Long Island, mostly LaCrosse and baseball and basketball are the staple sports. The club also has a pretty active racquetball community. I am constantly chasing racquetball players soccer, volley-ball, tennis and hand-ball players off these courts. I've been even known to tell those who threaten to damage the courts by hitting soccer balls into the tin that if need be I will defend the court with my life. They mostly look at me like I'm insane maybe mutter some expletive and leave.
Anyways, in a facility like that space is at a premium so I always feared that they would eventually take the courts and use them for something else.
There's a point to this so bear with me. Five years ago when I was doing some coaching, mostly for free, I wanted some limited A players to play with. Many of the players were old and over weight and didn't care about drilling, training, or elevating their game. But then I found Chuck, a very athletic law student who really loved the game. He had horrible technique, but I saw something in him and was certain within a year I could coach him to a limited A level. We would drill and play games and he was very coachable, just absorbing everything I would show him. After about three months of playing 3 times a week he really started improving and giving me a good match. We had long rallies, contentious competitve play, and both of us left the courts feeling we had played quite a match. I was also coaching my son at the time whom I consistently beat to his immense frustration. Witin six months Chuck and my son started beating me. While I should have been pissed I was absolutely delighted. I had taken two players and elevated their games to a new level. As it turned out, the first time my son beat me in a five set marathon, I never have beaten him again. As for Chuck, he took his new A level game to D. C. where he works as a tax lawyer. I hope many players in that area are reaping the benefits of his game and talent.
I then spent about a year coaching about 7 players each 3 times a week, this was before India. I had one really talented woman player, Elaine, who was very gifted. But then I had to take a project in India and was gone for quite sometime. When I left, those courts were often booked full the weekends and most evenings.
When we eventually returned from India it was to empty courts again. We were barely off the plane when we headed over to LA Fitnesse, we were really home. It was great since we didn't have to worry about booking courts and extended play and training time. We used to joke how the courts were like our own private ones.
But then the empty courts started to bother me again. Empty courts. You can't have empty squash courts! That fear of loosing them crept back into my head. I then started emailing players telling them we were back and offering clinics very cheaply. Two and three person clinics. I started emailing players for matches, I started matching people up, the courts slowly came to life again. There was a semblance of life again in that squash community, players who hadn't played because they couldn't finnd matches started returning. I was fortunate because I worked from home so my schedule was very flexible. Anyone who stopped to watch me and my son play, people who never played, were interested. I put together a ladder with my email address, I tried to get on court with as many potential and existing players as possible. I held early a.m. sessions, evening sessions. Those who showed promised I offered to coach individually. It was then that I discovered Hadii, the thirteen year old Pakistani youth about 40 lbs overweight. I offered to coach him, his brother, cousin and father for a nominal fee. Within five minutes I knew Hadii had a gift, his footwork and racquet skills were far beyond a novice. I began working with him and his cousin Adam also with great promise. But Haddii quickly separated from the pack and I separately started coaching him individuall. I offered him four lessons for the price of two. I started picking up a number of other students while charging them very reasonable rates It's been about five months now and most of my really dedicated students are moving into the solid C realmI have since started coaching a few of the more advanced players for free. One in particular, George Ferrer, is 41 years old and 45 pounds overweight. He has such skill despite the weight and lack of formal training and coaching. Watch for my blog positing on him we are on a six month program to drop his weight and move him into that A level area. He is keen on this.
Needless to say, it was the most amazing thing one Saturday when about fifteen players showed up wanting to play and were complaining about the lack of court time. I could only smile, it couldn't have been a better day -- probably because I had my courts booked in advance!
We have a thriving squash community with new players joining all the time. I have about 5 juniors and 10 adults I coach...many more in the wings. I look forward to the next six months when we have 30 juniors and fifty more squash players. Am I in heaven? "The courts are booked tonight, would you like to schedule another day..."

Does Changing Racquets Make a Difference?

2009-11-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

My son is aq 6.0-6.5 player and aspiring professional squash player. Both he and I have been wedded to Dunlop racquets for years. I haven't been able to give up my Hotmelt Pro since the first time I picked it up. It was and still remains
one of the best racquet ever made. Incidently, Dunlop doesn't make it anymore, so eventually they'll all but disappear. My son is always looking for the latest and greatest and moved onto the Dunlop Aero Gel Pro long ago. I stayed with the Hot Melt Pro. He was about ready to switch to the later version of the Dunlop Aero Gel when I had him try and completely different racquet. I was coaching and pushing with my students the feather 2125 Cyclone. I suggested to my son he try it out, he was reluctant since he was always a Dunlop player. It took him breaking all the strings in his racquet and forgetting to get them strung (actually I was supposed to do it but oh well sort of forgot) to get him out of necessity to use the Cyclone 2125.
It took him all of about 45 minutes to really get used to the racquet, the balance, the lighter weight. I could see he liked it. He thought at first it was a bit stiff in the middle. I told him stick with it because his racquet speed and quickness was noticeably better.
By the third time out with it, the racquet changed his way of playing. He began taking the ball earlier as well as holding it -- both types of shots snapping the ball with increased pace (due to his quicker racquet head speed). I couldn't believe it how much of a difference switching the racquet made. Maybe, just maybe, it's time for a change for me as well. When you're young you change clothes, girlfriends, and yes, racquets too...while I'm not apt to change my girlfriends, I am eyeing that Feather Cyclone and thinking how my game would improve. At this stage, anything that can improve my play is worth a try...

The Conversion of a Racketballer to a Squash Player

2009-09-27T16:41:00.001-07:00

What is it about racquetball players who take up squash and basically don't seem to understand they are often dangerous to play. I recently watched a high level racquetball game and it was only then that I understood why. While most squash players as they get better begin to hit more and more of their shots out of the back and start understanding the concepts of clearing for their opponents, racquetball players don't have to contend with that since many shots I saw were round shots, for example, where the player has to turn around and hit the ball coming out of the back on the backhand side with his forehand. There's not the same continuous movement in racquetball so the players can pretty much stay in the center of the court and hit their shots, the ball bounces so much that inevitably the player doesn't have to move all that much. In squash the movement to and from the ball is continuous both in the front of the court and the back. respecting your opponent's path to the ball is critical in avoiding lots of contact and providing fair play. Simply put, you cannot block or hinder your opponents path to the ball -- the rule is quite clear about this. I've noticed racquetball players don't grasp this and have a tendency not to clear for their opponent. Or, they clear too slowly, which is against the rule because , again, you have to provide a path to the ball and your opponent doesn't have to wait for you to clear. I don't like getting on the court with ex-racquetball players because the also hang back towards the back, a typica stance in racquetball as opposed to move up. This creates or has a tendency to create too much contact and clearing is very difficult. These racketballers are the true dashers and bashers in squash. Some pick up the game pretty quickly and become students of what is a profoundly more challenging game than racquetball. Others play some version of racquetball/squash which is an ugly game to a decent squash player.

First and foremost, few can play A level squash without extensive coaching. Most squash players should always strive for A level squash because that is when the game is played at its finest. If you are 15 and a decent squash player, sure, you can aspire further than the A level, maybe pro, maybe top 100 who knows. But those players who don't really want to learn and understand this game, ie. get to the A level, they will linger in the lower levels of squash and never experience the 20 and 30 shot rallies A level players consistently experience. The will never know the sheer joy of playing all four corners of the court in one rally, cutting the ball off on the forehand rail and going cross court only to cover your opponents volley drop and extending yourself to throw up a lob and have an exchange of forhand rails tight to the wall, before your opponent hits a dying rail and you throw up a boast and your opponent fakes cross court and places a beautiful drop that bounces once and then hugs the side wall.

Instead, the players who never strive to achieve this, and I've noticed this especially with racquetball players are mired in hitting hard and loose balls with no concern for length or hitting a tight rail. They rarely work the point and look for the kill every opportunity. There's always the danger of their big back swings clocking you in the head or facel. So the racquetball players come to squash, even the really good ones. and try to muscle the ball past there opponent, they hit the ball hard and it invariably comes out to the center or off the back wall. This presents a problem for the striker, because his clearing collides with his shot, so he doesn't clear and stands while the ball flies past -- we talked about the difficulty this presents.

So what's really my point? I am confident that I can step on a racquetball court and play pretty easily without any coaching or much instruction. I am not confident a racquetball player can do that in squash. If you want to play squash at a high level to really appreciate it as more than running about and working a good sweat, take lessons, study and learn the game. Imagine a check player applying the same principles to chess? My advice learn the moves, the rules, right way to play -- squash players welcome heartily players from badminton, tennis and yes, even racquetball players who want to learn and play this key. Come to it with some sense of wanting to learn to well well, play right and play fair -- then play to win!

The racquetball stroke is big, there's lots of room on the racquetball court, unlike the squash court where the stroke must be compact and efficient. Getting on the court with these players makes me really nervous. I often feel the wind from there racquets so close to my face, especially on their follow throughs.

I for the most part won't get on the court with them to play, it's just too dangerous. And if they want lessons, they usually don't want to know a bout technique, just how to dig that dying ball out of the corners. They don't recognize the 10 things you have to learn and build upon before you know how to cut off the dying rail out of the back or how to retrieve the tight shot and rail it consitantly back. They want immediate results, the game to come to them which we all know squash never comes to anyone you have to go to it on your hands and knees stooped with hard work and long hours of practice.

I guess it's like a checker player wanting to master chess in a few sessions...it just won't happen, think of what a chess master has gone through to take his opponent in three or four moves, it's not much different than what that A level squash player has done to volley drop off his opponents cross court to nick the ball. I admire the racquet ball players challenge and desire to play squash, but it's a much more complicated game, squash is, it takes years of patience and dedication and instruction to do what seems easy to those A level players -- yes, digging the ball out of the back at the A level is routine, that's the bread and butter of the game, once you routinely cover the back of the court then the fun really begins, covering the more complext and difficult task of playing the ball out of the front court.

Urban Squash and Rabbit Proof Fences

2009-09-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

I recently watched this brilliant Australian film about Aborigines and the attempts in the early part of the last century to irradicate the aboriginal culture by forcing inter-marrige with whites over continuous generation. After all by the time you make it to the 4th generation of inter-marriage those offspring are only 5% Aborigine and 95% white European. Eugenics is nothing new, attempts like this to eliminate all vestiges of color and promote what is white is right permeates the white European traditions from hundreds of years ago.
So why do I bring this up? I have long been bothered by the urban squash programs that have sprung up all over te country. Essentially, you go into inner cities, select the best and the brightest and through squash and education, preferably in suburban boarding schools, you open a whole new world of opportunity to these inner city children. After watching that Australian movie, it put my dislikie for the premise of these urban squash programs into better perspective. Basically, let's take the best from the ghetto, put them in predominatly white boarding schools, and take the "ghetto" out of them. What about all the others that don't qualify for these programs? Do they have the opportunity just to play squash? Do they have the opportunity to simply because they might love the game learn to play and have that opportunity? I have never been one to use something so close to truth and beauty, like the game of squash is, and use it for any purpose other than to play and love this game and dedicate yourself to being the best player you can. The USSRA (United States Squash and Racquets Association) has hung its future on urban squash and college squash. Here we are in the US, one of the greatest countries in the history of humankind and we have, according to a recent article in Squash News 3, yes 3 full time touring professionals. I always admired Chris Gordon for not going the college squash route, his dedication and hard work has allowed him to reach a level few US players have. But why haven't we been able to produce a top ten world ranked player? What is the difference between Chris Gordon and James Wilstrop or Nick Mathew? Talent, skill? How different were their early squash development? Therein, lies possibly the answer, squash development isn't controlled by one governing body in England, like it is here in the US.
I don't pretend to have the answer, but as long as we view squash as something it can do for us in terms of promoting missionary work in the inner cities or a way in to college, we will never stand the chance of attracting great athletes into this sport. Why should grade point average be coupled with squash potential? Why should a stellar athlete not be exposed to this great game because they won't fit into the mold of a boarding school scholar/athlete? Again, how many of those young inner city children not accepted into the urban squash programs could be potential top 20 or tope 10 world rank players? To many here in the US, the answer probably is (and I do encounter this often when people ask why my son doesn't play college squash -- I simply tell them he wants to play professionally) "who cares there's no money in it? Why not use it to get in to a good college?"
We have no system of promoting squash at a grass roots level, the way baseball, football and basketball are. I for one would rather see squash as part of the PAL (Police Athletic League) open to all then continually promoted in what has now become the eliticism of the urban squash programs. It's time to promote squash and open it up to anyone who wants to achieve whatever level their dedication, passion and god-given ability has provided them. Squash for the sake of squash, nothing more, nothing less. I'm not accusing anyone of overt eugenics, but of certainly promoting at a different level the same elitist premise that has always plagued the US squash community -- still either boarding school or the ivy league.

Our Favorite Fan

2009-09-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

My son and I have been playing squash every early morning for a number of years. It is to put it politely all out war. The competition is fierce, arguments often break out, and to the casual onlooker you would think its trench warfare. But it's all contained within the class backed court enclosure. We also train together and will do endless rotating rails and boast drives, believe it or not, equally competitive. I'm often the walking wounded because it takes its toll.

Three years ago, in the midst of one of our morning battles, I looked through the glass backed court which overlooks this airplane hanger like gym floor and noticed this elderly man, very fit, with thick leather gloves sitting on the sit up bench. He was smiling and seemed quite amused by our play. I was a bit annoyed with the old guy because I thought to myself "you get out here old man and see how it feels to be run around by some kid until you're ready to collapse". But I was again focusing on the game and went back to the court battle. When we came off the court the old man was gone.

Next morning, again the old man was watching us play, again the same smile. That day I wasn't playing all that well and was REALLY annoyed with his smile. I decided to take a break between games and walk off the court and get a drink. My son always made a point between games to continue hitting the ball, I always thought, to show me the game we just played didn't phase him at all -- which it didn't of course. I followed suit and didn't want him to know I needed water, to sit for a minute, and to catch my breath. But that day I went out to get a drink and nodded to the old guy and he smiled and said "you're giving it a good try, he's just younger and quicker." While I was taking my drink at the water fountain, I thought, that's a really nice thing to say. Yeah, he's right, I'm giving it my all -- hey, if I were just 20 years younger.

I introduced myself and my son to the old man. His name was Arti Locker. Over the course of the next few years we came to know Arti and his lovely wife Lola. Each morning they came to watch us, they always put their bets on my son to beat me. I didn't mind; fans are fans. Arti played handball on the streets of Queens and Brooklyn and kept playing into his adult years. He found squash and handball had some similarities. Arti would train in the gym by pulling heavy weights with chains wrapped around his shoulders. He was a storm trooper during WWII and you could tell he was strongand very fit.

My son and I grew to really like this old guy with the sly sense of humor. We always listened to his stories and I used to love getting him talking about terroism. He was so indignant that these terrorist could do what they do -- it wronged his sense of justice and manner that they were cowards. Most of his comrades died in the war during combat and he always felt it was a miracle he lived. This is, in Artis mind, how wars should be fought -- not as terrorists but as soldiers.

This past spring we knew Arti was ill but then he told us he was diagnosed with cancer in his sinus regions. He had surgery but the cancer was malignant. The diagnoses was grim, when he told me I just didn't know what to say. We saw more of Lola in those days than Arti. She kept us up-to-date about his illness. Finally, I think the reality set in he was terminal and she said they gave him a few months to live.

When he passed away recently I was very sad, I missed him. I had only known him a short time but he was someone I just really liked. And he was a squash fan too. I had a dream recently that he was thin and ill but sitting in his usual spot on the sit up bench, just smiling like he did. His smile seemed to say more than it used to, this time he was saying, "it's all okay."

I don't see Lola much, she and Arti were married for so many years, the adjustment to life without him must be hard. I send her emails to check up on her since I rarely see her at the Gym. I hope Arti is playing handball again or even catching some squash matches as well. In the end, as it turns out, it was I who became a fan of his.

Matt's Evolving Backhand -- Update!

2009-09-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

When I first saw Matt Levine on the court I thought coaching him could be a real challenge. He is very athletic but had some of the worst squash technique I had seen. No fault of Matt's, as I later learned in talking with him that he never had a lesson. I suggested we get on the court. For some reason, there was something in Matt's movement and hands, even though disguised by so many challenging flaws, that made me want to coach this guy. One big advantage Matt had was he hadn't been playing long enough for all the bad technique to embed themselves in his muscle memory. That can be really hard for a coach to correct things that have become so embedded in a long time player.

I told Matt to first decide what he wants to get out of this. I asked him to set his goals and expectations. His immediate response was to beat Russ, his playing partner, and a student of my son's. I thought to myselt, this could be interesting. I outlined for him a 3 month game plan whereupon we would establish a basic foundation for future improvement and advancement. I almost guaranteed him that he would be beating Russ soundly by then.

We went to work 1-3 times a week. What I first noticed about Matt was how coachable he was. He's very smart and really liked all of the technical approach to the game. He was extremely interested in the cause and effect of squash, for example, I told him that he might hit a decent rail with bad raquets and footwork when the ball is in front of him, but with what he's doing when the game starts moving behind him he won't be able to compete. For most, this is hard to grasp. There are some very decent players who completely breakdown when they have to routinely retrieve the ball out of the back corners. You can see these players all the time they will try and cut everything off and prefer to hit a very bad volley or weak return rather than let a decent rail or cross court past them to play out of the back. Matt picked this up right away as I slowly moved the ball just behind the service box back line on the forehand. He started to spray the ball and the qulaity of his shots deteriorated rapidly. He saw this right away and wanted to know what to do about it. The perfect student -- how does he fix what's wrong. We adjusted his grip on the forehand from a continental to where the "V" of the grip was turned clockwise. He had a tencency to open wide his swing and to slap the ball. He broke his wrist which caused his raquet to drop. We spent about a month on this technique and then started incorporating foot work as well. We worked exclusively on hitting the ball when it's bouncing before the front line of the service box. We focused his feet on lowering his heels more since he tended to almost move on the upper ball of his feet, like he was tip toeing. We focused on distance between the ball and him. We also started doing lunges on the court with straight back, eyes fixed ahead -- he needed more strength in his quadriceps and better balance when bending at the knees. Most critical was to get him strong enough to bend at the knees and drive the ball rather than bending at the waist which kills the back and caused the player hit off balance. Again, the balance is for a better shot but also for recovering back to the "T" from the shot you just hit -- there to prepare to retrieve your opponent's next shot.

Today, for the first time I was able to start hitting balls that bounced past the front service box line. Matt's rails are B level now and he consistantly hits the same rail from the feed over and over. It's now part of his practice muscle memory and getting to the much anticipated playing muscle memory. We will work on cleaning up some residual problems but he's now ready to start cutting the ball off and will soon be retrieving out of the corners. I'll report on his progress in a couple of weeks and see where he is. Great job, Matt, your forehand looks really good.

Matt Levine has come a long way since I last wrote this. The other day I had him on the court and began teaching him how to hit half volleys. he was in the good T position and I was in the front court. To his forehand I hit backhand cross courts that at first bounced off the side wall, simulating short cross court shots. I told him I wanted him to volley every shot I hit like this and then boast it back to me, whereupon, I would drop to myself and repeat the sequence. I moved the ball up and down the court as far back as the back of the service box. I wanted him to get a feel for the ball coming off the sidewall and the distance he needed to maintain to strike and volley the ball well. It was ragged at first but thenb he started to stay off the side wall. For weeks he had been working on lunging and sprinting and building leg strength. It was now paying off. He was starting to move away from the wall and use the lunge to measure and close the distance. He started hitting crisp rails back to himself and I watched with a bit of amazement how deft he was at this. I started sending balls back his way that required him to hit straight volleys or let them bounce to get him to make decisions on which balls to half volley and which ones not to.
Then I started to really get down to business. The shot we all dreaded at the C and B levels was that deep cross court that dies in the corner and forced us to back wall the ball or hit a boast, we marvelled at others who could hit a rail off that shot. I told Matt he now had to change his angle on the ball and approach the ball a bit differently. My great friend and coach Jim Masland always told mean quick feet and slow racquet. there's no better advice when teaching this shot. I watched Matt hurl himself at the ball and like a blind man stabbing his cane in the air.
Whiff. Each time I would show him where he needed to make the adjustment. Don't commit to cutting the ball off and then folliwng behing the ball: Death Valley. don't charge the ball and get to close. Move along the neutral area just outside the service box and folliwng the ball until it hits the side wall: demonstrating to him that the ball doesn't hit the side wall and then drop to the floor. The ball comes off the wall and it is there he needs to gauge and strike the ball. It took about a half hour but he started hitting these shots. then he started hitting them with good length. Occassionally, I would hit the shot that is most difficult that has such a trajectory and soft touch that it hits deep off the side wall and drops and dies. I showed him this is where his lunge, deep lunge, very low to the ball was required. He needed to hit this shot sometimes off his shoestrings. Okay, we accomplished quite a bit and called it a day, played some points and hit the water cooler. Let's see how Matt does in the coming weeks on that difficult volley.

Matt has been working to strengthen his legs by doing lots of lunges and using weights in his lunging. The results have been good he is now strong enough to cut the ball off in the back corners and is learning to attack the ball WITH HIS FEET, he is so much more low to the ball and exudes a great deal of confidence. We're working on staying away from the side wall and lunging more so he can clear better and not create these let or sroke situations from being too close to the side wall.

He's coming along quite nicely.