Golf (Again) - 4/22/16

In our ongoing attempt to get all of us together for events at the same time, and to add on to our previous outing, we headed out to a beautiful local golf course, Tierra Verde, to meet up with Coach Amy Fox.  Amy is a well known instructor and she was excited for the chance to work with us on this project.


Golf was held in the 1900 Olympic games for both men and women.  It held a men's event and team event in 1904, but was subsequently not played until the IOC voted in 2009 to reinstate it for the Rio games in 2016.


We met on a Friday morning at the clubhouse.  Coach Fox and a couple of her helpers greeted us with a Team USA banner and mini torch, then escorted us out to the driving range complete with Olympics music!

Team USA? With Coach Fox

We first stretched some while Coach Fox learned our assorted histories with the sport.  J had taken lessons when she was younger and still has her own set of clubs.  L2 and R both have very limited experience (if you want to call putt-putt "experience").  We then moved on to proper grip technique and the general motion of a follow-through.  I never realized the grip was an overlapping one, where your dominant hand covers the opposite hand's thumb on the club.  The follow through has your non-dominate hand cocked like you are ready to hit a nail with a hammer and elbow flexed to a 90 degree angle.  Once Coach liked what she saw, she gave us each an iron to practice swing at tees.  She set up three tees, a couple of inches apart from each other and we were to attempt to hit only the middle one.  After that, we actually added a ball.  There were surprisingly few complete misses!  Not surprisingly, a number of sharp slices...  We also tried our hand with some woods - very light for their size.

At the driving range

After we learned how to tee off, we headed over to a practice hole to work on putting.  I will say, there is much more to putting than I thought - including a form I had NOT been using all of these years in putt-putt!  We practiced short putting, with feet putter-head distance apart, medium putting in a slightly wider stance, then long putting with the widest stance.

Putting on the green

Finally, we played the par 3 hole.  We each teed off, then hit a middle shot to get onto the green, then putted.  We all did better than expected - 5 or 6 strokes.  Coach even added to our confidence with teaching us some etiquette and confirming we may actually be of some value on a "scramble" type tournament team.  We were each awarded our own gold medal from Coach!

L2 tees off

J chips it onto the green

R's first putt

We headed back to the clubhouse to wrap up.  We talked about Olympics golf and how disappointing it is that the world's best players aren't choosing to represent their countries at the upcoming Rio games.  The idea of giving amateurs the right to represent their country proudly was one we all agreed with.  It was a great beginner lesson and one that has us all planning to head out to a local par 3 course to see how we'd handle 9 holes...

Golf complete!

Basketball (Again) - 3/26/16

So some people in our group had already done basketball.  Twice.  The first time was just more of a pick-up game in a park and the second time was with a youth coach.  Both times, a couple of people weren't able to make it for one reason or another.  We decided we'd try once more, getting some instruction from a student from R's church, who holds basketball clinics for kids.


We met as his house one nice Saturday morning and got to work on warming up and stretching, then we went straight into some dribbling drills.  We made sure to work with both hands, both standing and sitting.  Then we moved on to some passing and shooting drills, just between two of us, no basket.  Next up was jump shots, then layups.  We wrapped up with a couple of games.  The first was where two people would shoot at the same time and the first to get a basket would knock out the other, only for the next person up to join in.  The second was everyone with their own ball in a small square.  We had to maintain a dribble and control of our own ball, while trying to knock the balls of the opponents out of the square.


We had a fun time and finally all got to work on basketball together.

J working on her jump shot

L2 hitting a layup

R and L1 looking to score first

Still not one picture with all of us - J had to leave early!  But basketball is complete!

Equestrian (Again) - 3/25/16

Earlier in our quest, we scheduled a few events when not all of us could go.  We've decided that a priority is now going to be to do the last of these events all together, as much as we possibly can.


In order to catch up R & L2 took a riding lesson to satisfy our equestrian events.  These are again something that would take much training (and cash!) to get far enough along in that we could actually do the "real" events.  Eventing and jumping trainers require riders be much more familiar with basics before allowing you to get some air on the horse.  Even dressage takes quite some time for horse and rider to "connect" and really show their stuff.


We at least got an intro to dressage from Julie at Trinity River Farms.  It was a beautiful Friday afternoon when Julie introduced us to our horses - Cool and Kodiak.  Both are trained in dressage so they had a good idea of what we were asking them to do even though we were newbies.  Cool is also a retired race horse who apparently takes retirement seriously...  The smaller Kodiak moved much quicker and even when Kodiak was in front of Cool in the ring, he still caught up!

RA on Kodiak

L on Cool

We worked on starting, stopping and turns - a basic first lesson.  The idea of dressage is for the rider to be as "quiet" as possible - very little movement of hands or feet.  The small pulls and nudges to communicate with the horse are critical for this event.  Turns are considered difficult because horses can't bend much in the middle, like a car.  So the smaller circle you can make, the better it shows off your ability.  We worked on tight circles where we keep the horse's rear legs as close to the center of the circle as possible, essentially "pivoting", and also on a larger walking circle.  We slalomed through cones that were set up, trying to keep the horses as close as possible to the cones without knocking them down.


Both of us had been on horses before - much longer ago for me.  I realized that this is really the only set of events that depends heavily on another living creature - and one that may not necessarily feel like being controlled.  It was a bit daunting once there and realizing that we were at the mercy of these gentle, but giant beasts!  Luckily, a simple introductory lesson was fine by them and I think they appreciated the attention they got before and after our ride with the brushing and chit-chat!


Another 3 events checked off for R and L2...  Though L2 is leaving this one open to possible future lessons!

Equestrian complete!