Creative Writing - Describe Object - Tennis Racket - 20 Min Timed - Like Strawberry Exercise

  Written 11 Mar 21 - Transcribed 15 Mar 21

This exercise is to choose an object that may find it’s way into my final project and do an in-depth look at the fine details of that object like we did with the strawberry exercise. This is a 20-minute X writing.

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My tennis racket. My weapon of choice.

I sometimes think of my tennis racket as the sword of an ancient Warrior, Gladiator, or Viking. 

I think of King Arthur, one of my childhood heroes.  His famous sword with special powers was called, "Excalibur.” 

After recently watching "Vikings” on Netflix, I'm pretty sure I remember that Ragnar, or one of his descendants, had a famous sword with a famous name and near-magical powers and reputation. 

An angel gave Charlemagne his famous and mystical sword, “Durandal.”  It’s was considered the sharpest sword in all existence.  Charlemagne later gave Durandal to his Paladin, Roland.  You may have heard of the epic poem, “The Song of Roland.” That’s this Roland.  And Durandal plays a prominent role in the poem, too.

I’m thinking if these heroic warriors name their weapons of choice, should I, as a wanna be Tennis Warrior, too?  “Dexalabur?”  “Dexandal?”  

Anything to get an edge in a tennis match. Right?

My current racket is a Gamma Big Bubba. The Gamma logo is confusing as hell. It's one of those things where the "G" is not obvious. The colors are black and white. I like black and white. Simple. Old. Steady. Strong. No Frills. The way I like to play my matches.

The handle, or grip, is covered in leather. Real cowhide leather.

There are loads of synthetic wraps available. I used to use them all the time. I’ve experimented with most of them at one time or another.  

I recently decided to try going "old school” and give leather a try. I am ecstatic that I did that. I love it.

The leather grip wraps around the handle in an overlapping spiral. The overlapping causes ridges you can feel. 

The handle is eight-sided. The eight sides are critical when you play tennis. You have to get your hands and fingers in exactly the right spots on the beveled sides or your shots go astray. Your sword fails you. The enemy kills you without mercy.

The butt cap on my racket is black with the funny "G" logo on it. 

After wrapping the handle with my leather grip, I secured it at the throat of the racquet (that's where the handle flares out to start forming the racket head) with a piece of tape. That little piece of tape is packaged with the leather grip. Handy. Right?

My leather grips and the tapes provided both include the “Head" logo on them. Naturally. Nothing in tennis comes without the manufacturer's logo.

The handle then flares out to form the throat of the racquet and continues to flare out further and around to form the head.

The head is roughly an oval. The racket strings are the part of the head designed to strike the ball.  The strings crisscross vertically between the top and bottom of the head of the racquet and horizontally from side to side. 

There’s a "dampener" at the bottom of the string bed.  This one came with the racket.  It has the “G” logo on it.  

This dampener is a rubber disc about the diameter of a quarter. Maybe a little bigger. And just thick enough to be wider than the strings. The dampener has a groove around its entire circumference. You put it between the two middle vertical strings and below the lowest horizontal string on the racket. That's the string closest to the throat and handle. It’s held in place by slipping those three strings into the groove in the circumference of the dampener.

The dampener changes the sound of the collision of the strings and the tennis ball.  "Muffles" is a good word for it. That’s a side effect, not the purpose.  

The theoretical purpose of the dampener is to absorb some of the vibrations of the racket as it strikes the ball.  There’s controversy about whether dampeners actually do much in that respect.  

One of the things I notice about all tennis rackets is the juxtaposition and contrast of shapes. The octagon as a handle. The smooth round edges of the throat and racket head. The smooth, flowing lines of the whole thing. And then the perfectly straight, geometric lines of the strings crisscrossing with great precision. They form perfect, sharp-edged squares and rectangles across the face of the racket. Across the head.

The tennis game itself is the same as my racket.

You need many angles like the handle to play great tennis.  You need to be smooth and flow like the throat and head frame. You need to be strong, flexible, and resilient like the strings. You'll have to rebound like the strings.  And, you're going to have to be absolutely as precise as the layout of the strings in the string bed. 

And, it’s not just tennis.  Isn't all of life the same way too? 

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Whew - that turned out to be quite long.  This one will need a ton of editing if I use it for anything.  Although it was a 20 minute timed writing.  So maybe these 788 Words (I checked) are about right for that long.  Also, I clearly got off the track of straight description with King Arthur, etc.  And explanations of what things are for, etc., too.