For the first time in over 15+ years we will be hosting an ALL MILITARY RACQUETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP presented by Ektelon & dedicated specifically for military folks over the Veteran's Day weekend (November 14 - 16, 2008) With the support and backing of the Moral, Welfare & Recreation, and EKTELON, we will compete against other members of the armed forces in a racquetball tournament. Ektelon will be supporting this event with prizes & as the Official Ball using Premium Select. In addition, Ektelon is committed to full support of a number of exciting projects in conjunction with the military.

There will be plenty of play with Men's / Women's Singles and Double and Mixed Doubles, especially since we will be using the Round Robin / Pool Play format for all participants except in the OPEN and ELITE divisions. We have also made arrangements for lodging, where out of town players will be able to stay on base for no more than $30/night, unlike some other major tournaments where the lodging costs exceeds over $120 for a room. We really can't do anything about flight arrangements, but hopefully international players will be able to catch a MAC flight to the States, and then find a cheap flight to San Diego . Right now, all services really don't have funding to cover this event, but hopefully the costs / registration fees won't deter people from coming out and having a great time. I do highly recommend that you ask your command for NO COSTS / PERMISSIVE TAD orders, so you don't burn your leave time up for this event.

Additionally, we would be delighted to have any financial/product assistance you may feel like donating to support this effort to provide a healthy diversion for our men and women in uniform.

Please be on the look out for additional entry information in about 1-2 weeks. There will be online entry available for this event on R2 Sports.

We hope you will be able to join us for this is an event. If you are a military player or know any please let us know as we are starting a database to reach all players. If there is anything we can do to get your here, please let me know. LCDR Steven Harper (USN), out of San Diego , can be reached at:

cell: (757) 831-8458

e-mail: militaryrball@pacbell.net

Please do not hesitate to give us a call. Hope to see you in November!!

Dan Davis of Colorado has invented Wacquetball, a slower version of racquetball that uses a foam ball instead of the rubber version in racquetball.  It looks like seniors are getting into it, and women as well.  Maybe this is a good way to introduce them to the sport, or could this be a sport on it's own?  Is the game getting too fast?  I wonder what it would look like if some professionals tried it out.

Check out the video from 7 News of Denver.

Updated Mar 22nd:  Looks like the leagues have been reinstated.  The people have spoken!

Update Feb 25th: We have organized a petition that can be signed.  Please sign it and get your friends to sign it as well, we'll really only be voicing our concern as a group of members that currently have memberships and I think it will really help if it's done as a group, instead of a few phones calls here and there.

Yes, you read that correctly.  The nasty rumor has been spreading for about a week now and it's getting larger each day.  At first I thought it was just a rumor that someone had jokingly started, as in the past the LA Fitness chain has seemed only to want to support the sport of Racquetball through leagues and high money tournaments, but lately I've seen the trend.

In Portola Springs a brand new LA Fitness emerged without Racquetball courts.  This is extremely puzzling as two other clubs, one in Irvine and the other in Foothill Ranch are constantly booked at all peak hours.  A few more courts would have definitely alleviated the other two clubs and driven membership to it.  As such, without courts, I've never sat foot in the club and probably never will.

The most recent news is an email:

Subject: Complain about it - LA Fitness.

LA Fitness is canceling all future racquetball leagues (they describe it as "taking a break from leagues for now") and will end its Shoot Out calendar events as of June 2008. They are doing the same in Florida, New Jersey, Arizona and Texas. They are in the process of telling most of their club directors that if they will not agree to run Basketball leagues that their services are no longer needed.

The management indicates that they may (a weak may) return to leagues in the future but won't say when. I spoke to her for about 30 minutes yesterday. She won't say why they are canceling leagues. She indicates we still have the ability to reserve courts, play on our own among our selves, and that LA Fitness is concentrating on Basketball Leagues (yes, which does not compete against RB, but they don't care). Cannot understand why they are abandoning this money maker for LA Fitness. It does not make financial sense, and the bottom line is that they do not care (though they will not concede this point.)

Edited: To complain, sign the petition above. 

Others are drafting a few sample letters to circulate that I will likewise share, that each of you can revise to your own specific complaints. Circulate this to the vocal majority. It would assist if you supply me each with your email addresses/phone numbers and copies of your complaints so that we can track the quantity of complaints. Some are suggesting a joint complaint letter with the members names, email and member number. Working on that but individually we can voice our separate dissatisfaction for now.

 

While this letter says to complain, I agree that this is one option.  We're going to contact the management and see once and for all if there is truth to these rumors to put it to rest.  If they are true, we'll most likely quit our memberships and call for a boycott of LA Fitness from all racquetball players that we know.  There is no better way to get an organization to pay attention, than by taking from their bottom line.

In addition to the slap in the face to all loyal paying racquetball members, the above letter says that they will focus on basketball.  What the letter doesn't say, but the rumor does tell is that it's because Basketball is an Olympic sport.  While I see no reason not to support another sport that could bring well being into your life, I see absolutely no reason to get rid of another, Olympic or not.

I just watched Son take on the Gladiators in the remake of the 80's show American Gladiators.  The show was pretty entertaining for the most part, and seeing someone you know bashing being thrown down a foam mountain is pretty intense.   Son's competitor was in crazy shape though.  He was the fastest person through the Eliminator, with Son not far behind.  This is where I thought the show kinda stunk.  Even if Son beat one of the top 4 times, he still "lost" because the person he went up against beat him.  I just think this could be a point to where the contestants could compete against the top 4 and not each other - might have some surprising things happen if that were the case.

I thought it was a bit unfair because they also never had to directly compete.  It was always the Gladiators against the two contestants and if you look at the competition where you have to run through the Gladiators Son went through the first 2 way faster than his competitor but got stuck on the last two dudes and didn't even make it to the end.  Again on the pyramid, Son had a few shots but got trapped up because of his opponent. 

I'm making a few excuses but we wanted him to win :)

The show was pretty entertaining, but just seemed unfair to the contestants in certain ways.  Almost to a point to where it seemed almost lucky that a person won a competition, not because they had more skill or endurance.  After the show I wondered how some other racquetball players would have done.  Mainly was thinking Dan Obremski and Jack Huczek.  Would be interesting...

Felt great last night.  Second time playing with the 03 Copper racquet and I'm getting used to the weight.  It's been a loong time since Ektelon had the balls to not go lightweight.  Everyone seems to like the feather light racquets but overtime I believe they can kill your joints.

With the heavier racquet I don't have to swing so fast.  In Open level play that means even though my racquet is heavier, my racquet is faster because I can swing slower (F=ma).  This may seem like quite the opposite, but think about this, to swing the lighter racquet, I have to swing it faster to equal the same amount of power.  With the heavier one, I don't.  I can take shorter swings, don't have to swing as hard, and I'll have more control.

It takes a few matches to really get control of it though.  As soon as you figure out that you don't have to really smash the ball to get it going, everything start really rolling for me. 

If you have a big frame, are tall, and can lift 250 grams...try it out, just remember to relax your swing and don't try to swing as fast (takes practice).  If you demo it, you're going to be frustrated the first 10 games you play.  Give it a chance though and after game 10...

Racquetball doesn't have too many large scale events.  I'm really perplexed as to why, but I believe it mainly comes down to money.  The logistics involved with setting up a grand slam event is huge.  With Outdoor racquetball, I would think that it would be easier to squeeze into existing venues.

This past weekend there was a Venice beach event.  Ektelon and WOR put it on and and Shawn Royster at Royster productions videoed everything in High Definition with 10 camera's rolling.  To me this sounded like the first grand slam outdoor exhibition.  It seemed like the matches went well and the crowds were there and there was only one accident with Son Nyugen get a racquet to the face.  Son ended up with a few stiches but no worse for the wear so all in all a successful event...right?

While I'm glad everyone played well and Son's OK, I'm also really interested in the crowd. Whats the court look like? Where was it positioned? Were there bleachers? Where did people watch from? How close were you to the other event? Did they not care that you guys were doing something that potentially stole their viewers, or was it cohesive? Was the ball more visible through the HDTV content, with the built court? While everyone keeps calling it an event, I'd hope that someone else out there was treating it more of an experiment to see if it would be feasible to pull more of these events off in other high traffic locales.

My main points would be:

• Would having racquetball and another sport together increase both sport's attendance?
• Was the high traffic helpful in attracting people, and how long did those people stick around?
• Was anyone polled about anything? (Would you pay for a ticket to watch this? How interesting is the game to you? Would you like to learn the rules? Have you ever played?)

When Son got hurt 1/3 of the crowd was lost. Nothing against Son's injury, but did they just get bored with nothing going on? How much time elapsed? With 300 people watching, and losing 100 of them...that's huge. These types of things could happen in the future and there needs to be a plan (maybe another match going, or bring another match on, or maybe make the models dance around on trampolines).

We went up to Santa Barbara this weekend for a collegiate tournament that Jackie played in.  It was an indoor tournament, and I basically had fun with the kids while she got a few games in.

The facility was pretty sweet, it had two gigantic pools, soccer, football, and even archery.  I was thinking, I bet there are outdoor courts here too.  Being the busy Dad I was, I didn't go searching, but after getting back and looking at some aerial photos, it looks like I was a few yards away from one and didn't know it.

We were playing a the playground about 40 feet away from what I thought was a building, but never went to the other side of it.  It looks like there are court lines, but the other court has none.  It also looks like a window or something on the right court.  Anyone know for sure?

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=pr2mzc50c4t0&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=7994759&sp=Point.pr2n4h50c52n_Racquetball%20Courts%3F___&encType=1

I haven't played in awhile due to my shoulder killing me and my back hurting.  Not sure why everything is affecting me so, but I think a big portion of it is that I'm working longer hours and more intensely.  The repetitive stress to my ligaments and joints aggrevates any type of exercise after the fact.

Today I got on the court to see what the potential differences were between running on an elliptical and playing on the court.  Imagine my suprise when playing on the court felt better than running on an elliptical.  I thought that the elliptical would be a lower impact exercise and thus hurt less.  Maybe I was wrong?  I do want to try just swimming a few laps on the next workout session and compare that.  I also saw some dudes playing volleyball, so I might give that a whirl.  I think basketball is out, and I don't want bad knees and I really suck :)

Either way, it's looking up for playing racquetball again!

Very cool.  The Pan-Ams used to be the sports largest event.  Not in terms of racquetball people of course, but in terms of those not playing racquetball that attend the event.  To be re-inducted back into the Pan Am is a big step towards getting Racquetball out there.

Meet and play forums

Due to some injuries I sat out this year.  Jackie played a few matches, lost every match, but had fun, which is what it's all about.  The Men's pro was again the focus of the tournament, with the #1 indoor player Jack Huczek joining the fray.

The draws were pretty standard with no suprises.  Rocky, like last year, was looking especially sharp.  He is the new Brian Hawkes, and it's a shame that Hawkes won't get in there now to play.  He advanced through the tournament pretty easily to meet Jack in the finals.

The Jack Huczek and Greg Solis match was a little suprising as I thought that Greg would have beaten Jack.  Greg has way more experience outdoors, but he looked really nervous or overconfident or something...  Either way he played pretty badly, all the while Jack just kept the same heading of getting a few more points than the error prone Greg.

We were going to take off after that match, but then Jack and Rocky decided to play early.  Was a nice deal for me as there were no jumpies on Sunday for the kids (one of the jumpies had died, and the kids were trapped or something on Saturday) so it was hard to justify sitting around for 2 more hours watching them. 

Rocky played outstanding against Jack.  I wish he'd show the same amount of confidence and resolution in indoor.  His serves were masked extremely well, appearing just over the short line and within the wide serve line.  These prove especially difficult to retrieve, and Jack was having a really hard time doing that.  Outdoor singles gets very frustrating because if your serves aren't on, you're going to lose.  Jack early on showed some great gets but Rocky's outdoor experience would have Jack scrambling and then Rocky hitting excellent out the door shots.  I actually saw Jack "give up" on 2 shots.  He looked beaten later in the game, and Rocky just kept pounding away.

The crowd was also wanting Rocky to win badly.  I felt like shouting out some helpful hints for Jack but didn't think he'd listen, plus I'd be the only one cheering for Jack (Hey, I gotta live and play with these dudes the rest of the year :)).  The last match point was particularly uneventful as Rock pounded a head high serve, Jack returned and Rocky dinked it to the corner to finish it out.