Friday 23rd February
Time for another blog update to keep you all in the loop(!) with what's been happening lately. It's been pretty quiet of late, with just a couple of pennant matches to report on, and a tournament coming up next weekend in the country town of Esperance, about 870 kms away from my hometown of Perth, Western Australia.
Training
My training is continuing as per normal, although I'm neglecting my service practice and aerobics a little bit at the moment, since I'm currently working on completing a series of my own coaching DVDs. But I'm still keeping up the basics of my program.
I'm glad to say my weight has pretty much stabilized at about 90kg. I've been cutting out much of the junk food that had crept in over the last few months. Now it's time to take another look at what I'm eating and weed out the last bits of rubbish, focusing on good quality food only. Combine that with getting back onto my aerobics and I should start dropping fat again.
Mental
I'm continuing with my directive affirmations, although it is nearly time to take a break before starting a new cycle. I'm also still working on maintaining my focus during the whole rally, but this will be an ongoing process, not an instant fix.
Competition
As a mentioned above, the next major competition will be a country tournament, with only a few of the top Perth players attending (I'm not sure of how many and who yet). Craig Campbell will be going down, so there will still be some quality opposition though, especially the way Craig has been playing lately. I'll report my progress in future blog updates.
My weekly local pennant competition has been continuing, although I haven't played anyone in the last couple of weeks that can really push me hard. Due to the lack of depth in our competition, I can probably count on only a handful of really tough matches per pennant season. The rest of the matches I try to work on other aspects of my game, such as my mental programs, practicing new serves, my return of service and focusing during the whole point. That way I still get some benefit out of each match.
On the plus side, we do have some promising juniors coming through the ranks, so hopefully in a couple of years (or sooner!) there should be some new young blood pushing me and the other old bulls really hard.
