The trip to Cebu, although a bit of a scramble to pull off at the last minute, turned out to be a great experience. The kids were all fantastic and got along/supported each other throughout the week.
We were training on the clay cts of CITCI for 5-6 hrs/day, focusing mostly on consistency, serving, mental approach, and LOTS of matchplay. The week culminated in a tournament against some of the local talent where the kids were able to display the results of all their hard work. They came through beautifully, demonstrating that they were practicing with purpose and paying attention during the week. In particular, one of the biggest take-aways, I think, was in court demeanor. Although difficult, but it was obvious they are learning to manage their emotions during their matches. They made us coaches proud and hope that they felt encouraged by their results on the court as well.
Aside from the tennis, we had many other memorable times together: we watched chickens, goats and cows along the road as well as young kids panhandling for pesos while negotiating our way through the traffic of Cebu; we ate Thai, Greek, Italian (lots of pasta), and TGIF at the mall (where our flamboyant server performed a wild body-shimmying dance after one of our dinners); we spent spare pesos at the arcade winning thousands of tickets; we watched a movie; we spent a morning with the special needs students at the school that OTR is sponsoring; and we got MOBBED at the tennis courts and in the mall during lunch, where the school girls practically swooned trying to get pictures taken with our “rock stars”! The kids had their very own “groupies” and handled the attention with cool flair.
I have a CD of photos I’ll get to you so you can see some of your stroke technique and can relive some of the memories of the trip. Hope to get player evaluations done as well.
