Young, Dumb and Willing to Run

Decided to do some cross training by playing a round of squash with my old friend Wai Keat at my alma mater - Bukit Bintang Boys' School. Managed to locate my squash racquet after some rummaging in the apartment, packed up and jumped in my Satria that I haven't driven for two weeks.

Coming back to BB always makes me reference my student days when I used to spend hours playing squash in these courts. Feel the vigour of youth! Found Wai Keat in one of the courts and started the whacking some balls. Felt good and strong but my alignment was pretty off, sending balls spraying in every direction. The idea with squash is you are supposed to hit the ball straight along the wall to the back corners and then run back to cover to middle of the court, alignment is everything cos if you are a little bit off, your ball will ricohet off the side wall and float out to the middle of the court where your opponent will happily play a drop shot and you will start scrambling.

As we started I was still feeling around for my game and stuck to the basics, everything to the back, nothing fancy. In squash there are tons of shots known to Malaysian squashers as char koay teow where you avoid hitting the ball early and fake one way then at the last minute flick it with your wrist for a lob, boast, drop, or drive to wrong foot your opponent. Its almost malandragey in the body expression and cunningness. So like the cagey veteran I am, I avoided char koay teow for the first three sets until I got my bearings, sticking to the basics. After I got my groove, I started experimenting with my old arsenal of favorite shots.

Squash is a bit like life, you can't run full tilt for every ball and you can go around smacking everything. Sometimes you give him the point cos he hit a damn good shot. Sometimes you touch, lob, flick, just to keep the ball in play so you can continue the fight. But you always need to watch the ball and your opponent. Capoeira has actually helped my squash game. Think I'm actually better now than when I was training 3 hours a day 4 times a week in school. May have had more energy back in the day but I choose being a cagey veteran any day over my old headless chicken style.

Also quite fun to talk pseudo business scenarios with Wai Keat in between points.