Day 11 🌅🇺🇸

Before I get to today's day, here's another photo from yesterday evening, a beautiful sunset 😍🌇☺️.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm skipping Physical Conditioning today 😁😅, so my alarm only goes off at 7:15 ⏰😊.

I get ready comfortably, but I have plenty of time since I'm only meeting João at 8:00 am.

So I read a bit more 😊📖.

Here on campus, each athlete has their own ID:

This is a card that allows access to the halls and rooms and needs to be scanned when getting food. It can also be linked to an account, allowing you to pay like with a credit card at places like Smoothie King, as in some countries, you can't get a credit card if you're under 18 🔞.

When I got ready this morning, I had placed my ID next to the sink and then went back to bed to read. Emma, the girl from my room who plays golf, usually wakes up around 7:30 am.

And she did today too. At that time, I was already reading.

She leaves the room for breakfast around 7:45. When I want to leave around 7:50, I can't find my ID 😱. I searched through all my things and looked in the most nonsensical places.

And couldn't find it...

If you lose your ID, you can buy a new one for $20 😬.

After thoroughly searching and still not finding my ID, I decide to go downstairs and see if Emma is still at breakfast. Maybe she saw it.

Before I can't get back into the room anymore if I don't see Emma, I quickly grab $20 💸.

I then search the entire cafeteria for Emma.

And I'm going crazy until I see her sitting at the very last table I check 😅. I felt such relief in that moment ☺️😇.

She felt really sorry about it. But I completely understand. If I were distracted and saw an ID laying there, I would probably just grab it when leaving 😊😅.

Then I already met João and we went to the breakfast buffet together 😂.

I still had my mini rye roll from last night, which I had with scrambled egg whites and cream cheese 🧀🍳 😍.

After we finished eating, I made sure that João goes to Physical Conditioning today 🏃🏼.

It may sound silly since I'm not going myself, but he has only been there twice in the past 1 1/2 weeks and he also moved down a group in tennis last week.

He is now two groups below me and really wants to move up a group. He discussed this with his coach. The coach then said that if he sees him making an effort, it is very likely that he will move up.

But yesterday during Physical Conditioning, he was sitting with a smoothie and chips for breakfast because he missed the proper breakfast 😂, in front of the Smoothie King, when his coach passed by 😁😁😁. So I told him that it would be better if he goes there today 🙆🏼.

He understood that. So he went 😇.

When leaving the cafeteria, I still had the $20. And I actually wanted to buy something at the Bookstore here for a while, but I never did it because I was too lazy to get money from my locker 😂. I took the opportunity and finally got myself a souvenir from IMG 😊:

This is a 'Hydration-Bottle', which is really popular here! But they are also really cool 😍.

You can carry a lot of liters in it, and it stays cool like in a thermos 😊.

By the way, the bottle is bigger than my head with my neck 😂💁🏼.

You actually carry it around like a bag 😂👜.

I chose the bottle for $14.99, because most things in the shop here are overpriced - simple backpacks for $80, shorts for $40, and t-shirts for $50 😅 - and also I think it will last longer than a t-shirt that I might outgrow, shrink, or no longer look nice after 5 washes 🙆🏼.

After taking my nice bag 🛍 with the content and leftover money upstairs, I sat outside in the sun with a banana and my book 😊🍌🌞.

At just before 10:00, I walked to the courts 👣.

We started training about 15 minutes later today because some people from Physical Conditioning arrived late with the tram.

Today, the warm-up program was different and lasted much longer 😊.

Each of us had a partner, and my partner was a very nice Chinese girl named Julia 👯.

Since we have so many players, two teams warmed up on one court. We started with short balls down the line.

Then we moved on to angles on one side and then switched to the other side.

As the next exercise, we did down the line groundstrokes followed by crosscourt groundstrokes, and we switched sides again.

At the end of the warm-up, we played volleys back and forth with our partner 😺.

After that, we continued with a return exercise that I found really cool 😊.

Next up were serves, followed by a skill challenge. Like last week, today it was with serves 🎾. I made it to the second round again, but unfortunately, got eliminated. But it's better than nothing ☺️.

As a finale, we played a team up-and-down ping-pong tennis 😂.

My partner was Julia again, and we played against another team. The teams took turns hitting the ball, which the other team then had to return. If the ball went out, it was a point for the opponents.

Up and down means that after a certain time, the winner moves up a court and the loser moves down, so there are always new pairs playing together 😊.

Then it was time for lunch 🍽.

I will have a long lunch break today because Artem decided that our group will play the matches from 5:00-7:00, so that we have more courts available and can play singles. The mental coaching session will also be moved, it will take place from 4:00 to 5:00 😊.

I'm having lunch with Kelvin from Hong Kong, who is in my group 🍴.

After our meal, I meet João and the younger Brazilian who wants to share a room with him for pizza 🍕.

But they just finished, so we decide to go to Smoothie King. When we pass by the bakery or whatever it is in the Campus Center, João wants to get a piece of cake.

I think it's probably the biggest piece of cake I've ever seen 🍰😂.

In the picture, it doesn't look that big, but it's about the size of his hand. And his hand is easily 1 1/3 times the size of mine 😂.

You can see the cake better at the bottom center in the first and second picture from the counter 😅.

There are also other sweets and salads, sandwiches, or fruit salads:

I think they do billions of business there in one day 😅. And not just because a piece of cake costs $5 and a cappuccino costs $4.25, but because a lot of people get something sweet for breakfast or lunch there 🍰🍪🍩.

Afterwards, we went to Smoothie King.

João didn't finish the cake, but he still got himself a smoothie with strawberry, banana, and vanilla whey 🍓🍌 protein and a pretzel 😂.

Apparently, they don't have pretzels in Brazil 🙀🙆🏼.

His Brazilian friend got a smoothie with banana and mango.

Then we went back to the Campus Center 🚶🏾.

On the way, we stopped by the Performance Center:

They have the most modern fitness equipment there, really impressive 😊.

Today, they had regular matches, which I think had to be interrupted because of rain 🌧.

Just before 4:00, I went to the mental coaching session.

Today it was again with Coach Pat 😻. The man has so much knowledge 😊.

By the way, you can find these giant Prince rackets everywhere here. If I had more space, I would take one with me 😍😂.

We talked about 'Coach-Ability' today, which is basically the way you coach yourself. It included thoughts and the effort and willingness you bring 😊.

After each mental coaching session, I feel really inspired! I really enjoy it, and I notice that my game is much better after I've had mental coaching in the morning compared to before, because I'm working on what we discussed.

But I've also noticed these improvements not just from morning to afternoon, but also since I've been here! It feels like my whole head has been freed from aggression and things like that ☺️😇.

But in the middle of the session, the sirens went off 😟🚨.

So no matches outside for now 😧.

We were then escorted to the indoor courts by Campus Safety. Luckily, there was only one other group besides ours, so each group had 2 courts 😊.

But I was still really looking forward to it because this way, the coaches can pay even more attention to our technique ☺️.

After doing the usual forehand and backhand drill, we also did forehand and backhand volleys 😊.

Then we played a triple up-and-down game 😂. There were 5 teams with 3 players each, all standing on the court at the same time. However, one team always had to skip a turn.

We positioned ourselves so that one player stood on the left side, one on the right side, and one at the net. It was similar to volleyball. Then we played for a point, and after every point, the teams rotated among themselves. Each player had the opportunity to play each position several times during a game 😊.

If you scored a point from the volley position, you got 2 points. A game lasted until one of the 4 playing teams reached 11 points 😊. Then we moved up or down accordingly.

The game was really fun 😊.

Our matches were supposed to go until 7:00. But dinner is only until 7:30, so the organizers wanted us to stop playing at 6:15 to have enough time for everything, including dinner 🍽🌘.

We were supposed to be picked up by a bus 🚌, but we were back off Weather Safety 😊. So we were able to walk instead ☺️.

On the way, I met Natasha, and we had dinner together with two of the Brazilians 😋.

There were rye rolls again today. I also saved one for tomorrow morning 😛.

As I said before, the weather isn't really nice today... But that's okay, I've been lucky with everything anyway 😇.

Downstairs in the Ascender Hall, there's a DJ now who is playing inside because of the bad weather 🔊🌧.

I'm going to get ready and prepare for tomorrow, to fully enjoy the last day of tennis 😇.

By the way, I have to say that it's amazing here and I'm so incredibly glad that I have the opportunity to do this. But slowly, I'm also starting to look forward to going home because after some time, the amount of sports, the many people, the whole program, the heat, and everything else can be a bit overwhelming 😊.

But it's really wonderful here 😍 and I've enjoyed the time so far even more than I originally thought. I've learned so much already, not just in tennis, but also in dealing with people, speaking English, my overall fitness - both physically and mentally - and of course, living independently ☺️.

The IMG website has a nice quote that really applies here:

'We are one giant family on campus, regardless of background or culture. We are all there to support and encourage one another.'

And you can really feel it here. Really. I have never experienced anywhere else where it doesn't feel like people are judging you solely based on your appearance or overall external appearance.

Most of the people you meet here just accept you and don't judge you. You can see that on the relaxed atmosphere here and also on the fact that everyone just starts a conversation with you.

Maybe it's because all of us here have a kind of passion that connects us. But I also think that the freedom you have here contributes to it.

By freedom, I mean that you're actually only limited by a few rules here, and everything is seen as very relaxed. Discipline, like punctuality and things like that, is expected, but nobody is constantly next to you, reminding you of what you're not allowed to do. And I think that's one reason why things run so smoothly here. There are only very few cases where you see litter somewhere it shouldn't be or things like that.

And that's exactly where IMG is different from other schools because I think they have realized that it's much more effective to instill discipline in the students through their passion for sports than through prohibitions.

After all, who doesn't know that everything that is forbidden carries a certain attraction to break it, right? 💫....