Serve by Design

It’s baseball season for our three Hartman grandsons! We moved beyond practices this week to actual games. It has been fun for Mimi and Poppi to throw the lawn chairs into the car and head out to the ballparks in Athens and Williamsville to watch them. Danny, our fifth grader, has been playing for three years now and is the most experienced. He made us proud during his game by making two great catches defensively and laying down a ground ball on the third-base line for a single and an RBI. Charlie, third grade, has only played one official game and that was last season just before his family went to New Mexico for vacation. He is showing great promise during practices this season and is very eager to build upon last summer’s brief experience. He did a nice job of hitting a strong single during the game this week that resulted in a much-needed RBI for his team. "Awww! I don't got it!!" The youngest brother in the trio is Dawson Michael who is just wrapping up his kinderg...

During the summer games of the 2021 Olympics from Tokyo, we heard a lot about a condition some athletes deal with that is appropriately designated as the "twisties" or being "lost in space." There are an incredible number of rolls, spins and twists that precision divers undertake jumping off the platforms in the aquatic competitions. Equally skilled and gifted women gymnasts also execute these in their routines on the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and in the floor exercises. I can certainly understand how they could lose their sense of spatial orientation and put themselves in considerable danger of serious injury during entry into the water or by a missed landing on a hard surface. Image Credit: flickr.com Sports' specialists across the spectrum, including basketball players and golfers, say that the ability to keep the mind and body in sync is crucial to success. They speak of "muscle memory" and the ability to instantly recall skills and maneuver...