Archive for June, 2023

First time back on court

It has been four weeks since I stepped on to a court. Although the pain I suffered was all too fresh, but the joy of playing tennis is overwhelming. 好了伤疤忘了痛 The injuries come with it, requires compromise. Finding that perfect balance is the key.

No matter how much warm up prior to and stretch after the game, injury seems unavoidable. Now I do jacuzzi/spa before the game too. Hope this helps.

The 4 weeks layoff is very apparent: I feel tired after an hour hitting. I didn’t even try to serve.

The down side of playing on the har tru (sandy) is we’ll have to swipe the court afterward.

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Swim with both arms


Happy to be able to use my arms in the pool -:)

It rained like crazy in the night. Lightning and thundering during the night. I hesitated whether to swim … But I felt good and was eager to use my arms again. Timing isn’t good tho -:)

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NP, and bridge scoring

No trump is the 5th suit -:) in bridge, valued above  ♠️♥️♦️♣️. Playing NT requires a little skill because there isn’t a trump suit. If a lowly 2♣️ is led and others don’t have ♣️, no matter how high the card is played, the lowest 2♣️ wins the trick.

  • How to score rubber: one of the team to win two games which means 200 points (contract points) that records below the line.
  • winning bid’s points – contract points – record below the line, overtricks are above the line, which doesn’t count toward rubber.

This above hand, I opened with 1N – even I’ve a void which isn’t too good in NT bidding.

Me NT, pass, my partner 2♥️, pass; I rebid at 4♥️. My right led with A♠️ which we ruffed with 3♥️. We made the game, winning 10 tricks.

One of the aspect of the game is keeping the score. To make a game means to get 100 pts

  • 3NT 40 for the 1st trick + 30 each for the 2nd/3rd
  • 4 ♠ ♥️majors 4 tricks × 30 points per trick
  • 5 ♦️♣  minors 5 tricks × 20 points per trick

Contract points:

Overtrick points

Slam bonus

  • a slam 12 tricks, earns a bonus of 500 points if not vulnerable and 750 points if vulnerable;
  • a grand slam, all 13 tricks, earns a bonus of 1000 points if not vulnerable and 1500 points if vulnerable.

Penalty points

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Two doubles in a hand

Double is one of bidding tools used in bridge, which means you dare your opponent if you don’t think s/he can fulfill the bid or the contract.

If they make their bid (# of tricks unaffected) they’ll score additional points.
If they fail to make the contract, their opponents will award extra points.

This hand, the player to my right opened with 1 ❤️, I doubled; to my left 1 ♠️, my partner doubled. 2 ❤️ was played. I led with 2♣️. They made two. 😂 They were too nice to tell me what my penalty was.

Here is the takeout double, one of the conventional tools.

This hand with 15 pts plus the ♣️ singleton: pass, me 1 ❤️, pass, 2 ❤️ from my partner. Looking at my ♦️ and especially ♠️, I didn’t go to 4 but we ended up making four.

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Legs only

Without the second arm to use, I’ve been practicing dolphin kicks lately. Today I tried front crawl and free without arms. It’s an interesting discovery. In the 22 yards pool

~ 19 front crawl kicks
~ 31 dolphin kicks
~ 100 free kicks

I did many laps, so the figures should be reliable -:)

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Fire ants – they bite

Oh my goodness, the fragile and delicate little ants can bite!

My arm was resting on the edge of the jacuzzi on Tuesday and suddenly felt a pitch. I looked over and saw a tiny fire ant running away. At first I didn’t think of it much but soon it became a small itchy lump. On Friday, a tiny white formed on the lump where it’s still itchy.

Oh well, learnt one more thing!

An update: 6.20 a week later, still itchy and the lump is still there.

Some advices from friends:

  • buy skin so soft insect repellent..its oily but works!
  • Red ant bites HURT for awhile!
  • I put fresh lemon on mine, and it helped a little
  • The small black ants are vicious. I use campho phenique on the bites.
  • Always good idea to apply insect repellent. If bitten Benadryl and hydrocortisone cream. Cold packs help too.

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A diamond ♦️ night

Last week, my hands were mostly hearts, and tonight are mostly diamond ♦️.

One lesson that engraved in my mind tonight is 13 points for bidding are really important.

For example this hand: my partner and I both passed the initially round but when our opponent to my right bid 1♦️, I followed with 1❤️ and the hand ended up with 3❤️.  Although we’ve 9 ❤️ (J 10 7 4 3 and my partner has ❤️K 9 8 6) but we don’t have ❤️A & Q, actually we don’t have a single A – there goes 4 tricks. My lacking void or singleton put us in debt further.

整晚的♦️
这手 3❤️ … 输的没有然后了

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The first kick w/ fins

How’s my kick?

Learning to swim fly has always been my dream, since Matt Biondi. The opportunity is now that my right arm is in pain from tennis. 😂 practicing dolphin kick becomes my only option.

It’s first time I use the fins – hand me down from my kid: they always tangled up 😆, bumping each other.

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A night of hearts ❤️


Tonight is the heart night: I’ve so many good hands with hearts. No slams tho lol …

One hand I played diamonds and could have been a slam. Then I got lazy, instead playing ♦️9, I casually put out 6 which was closer to me. Yup, I lost the trick to ♦️7.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 😊 整晚都是❤️ 一手接一手的

This hand I’ve a singleton, was pretty happy but it was the trump suit 😂. I led ♠️ A K, then ♣️3 the third round. My left followed with ♣️A … We won the hand, hands down.

这手有个单张 高兴😊 … 然后 就没有然后了 – 人家的王牌🃏 😂

俺出的 ♠️ A K, 第三轮是♣️3 , 左手跟了♣️A … we won the hand, hands down [呲牙]

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Dolphin kick

I started to practice dolphin kick recently – my big dream is to swim the fly – the butterfly. For 22 yard pool, I can do in one breath, from 28 to 33 kicks each time.

For some reason, I couldn’t utilize the fins – they always got in my way.

  1. DK 101 and your hamstrings. And really using your hips on the kick. You’ll be able to get back to the up kick which is the more powerful part of the kick. Now again the best sewers in the world.
  2. blue – and the down kick uses the back of your body your lower back glutes and hamstrings. Most people who struggle with dolphin kick need to either increase the speed of the down kick.
  3. Chloe Sutton’s 6 min demo in 2018

Here’s an interesting kicks stats

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