A week in my (athletic) life: Sunday

I was up late Sat night with the Smiths playing poker and Saturday was a long day in general so I'm pretty beat. Not to mention that I am in fact sore from Saturday, but not too bad. Sunday is mostly a chill and recover day. But it's a nice day out, and I can't stay inside all day, so at about 5ish I get the itch. Before I leave I do a few ab/core exercises (bridge and side bridges) then grab the basketball, the soccer ball, cleats and hight tops and head to a park just a couple of minutes from my place.

One of the hoops is occupied by some kids playing but the other is open. On the agenda for today, I'm trying to extend my range a little to the 3 point line. My hoop game is somewhere between the 1 and the 2. Decent ball handling and passing skills but not really good enough to play the point, good jumper but not really enough range to play the 2. Quick enough to get to the hoop, but I didn't get beat up enough as a kid on the court to make me a strong finisher. I spend most of my time on the court coming off of picks and cuts looking for catch and shoot opportunities. My most comfortable shot is about a foot inside the 3pt line, and that's a terrible shot when you're playing 2s and 3s. So I'm working on extending my range by that crucial foot. I start by warming up a little, getting a consistent stroke. Then I work on shots from the 3, off the bounce, off the dribble, off the jab step and head fake. After a while the shot feels alright and I'm shooting it pretty well. As a side note, some people were having a picnic in the park and it just so happened that Steve Trundle and his family were there as they live down the street (Steve was the CTO at MSTR when I started working there, and we played on a couple MSTR hoop leagues back in the day).

When the people from the picnic clear out, the soccer field is free and I decide to switch gears. This is a miniature soccer field with really small goals good for little kids, but it actually suits me fine. Yes, because I'm really just a kid, but also because I'm trying to practice for my indoor league and these small goals are almost better then a regular outdoor ones. Added bonus is that the net it tight so that if I hit it right it bounces right back. I work on ball control with juggling, then shooting left and right footed, shooting after making a hard cut, juggling and shooting off the volley, and shooting off of a move (e.g. step over left, shoot right, vice versa). I try to work on what the french would call "une frappe seche", a dry hit. Meaning you want to pop the ball and hit it hard but not give it much spin. Standing 15-20ft out and trying to hit a 5ft goal forces me to keep the ball relatively low which is good for indoors.

All in all I was out there for an hour, hour and half and managed to work on a few things so I'm happy. Too bad I don't have a soccer game this week to see if it helped, but I am playing hoops tomorrow.