For example, concentrate on getting more spin on your forehand.  Do not worry about hitting it in, after all, that is not the goal you’ve set in this example.  Do that relentlessly and over the months you will see it improve slowly in your matches and eventually, the ball will start falling in with more spin.  Remember, you cannot improve if you do not accept that initially you will be terrible at it.  Just keep going.  Keep track of how many balls you hit every month, and total that at the end of 2012.  You should have hit at least 6000 practice shots on that one shot and will hopefully see a difference.  If not, go see your pro and find out if you are practicing it correctly, then get back to work in 2013!

The Marina City Club Tennis Holiday Party was held on December 2nd in the Galaxy Room. Over fifty members attended this fun event. We traded tennis tales from the year gone by. Everyone enjoyed a wonderful buffet provided by the Restaurant and the room was beautiful. Throughout the month of November, Gene accepted award nominations in four categories. Many good candidates were nominated for all categories, but here are the victors:
Diane Nathan won the women’s “Are we talkin’ or playin’ award.
Alan Koshkin won the men’s “are we talkin’ or playin’ award.
Diane Lerner won the women’s Most Fashionable award.
Lamont Cosby won the men’s Most Fashionable award.
Barbara Osborn won the Sportsmanship award.
Vicki Miceli won the Most Improved award.
Congratulations to all our award winners and to everyone who participated in the wonderful sport of tennis at this amazing club. The Tennis Holiday Party and all our events are only successful because members of our club participate. So, make a New Year’s resolution to play more tennis and enter more of our club events! See you in 2012!

The famous sports psychologist, Dr. Allen Fox, gave a seminar and book signing for the tennis players of mcc on November 30, 2011 from 6-8pm in the Galaxy Room.  This event had great attendance with almost 40 people coming out to hear what Dr. Fox had to say about handling your emotions on the tennis court.  Dr. Fox signed copies of his latest book, Tennis: Winning the Mental Match.

Dr. Fox raised three primary concerns tennis players have from the mental side of tennis:  choking, anger, and tanking.

Anger turns out to be the easiest one to control.  A player must tell himself before he starts that nothing that happens on that court will make him angry, and he will usually succeed in controlling that emotion.

Choking is virtually incurable, but accepting that everyone, even the best players on earth, choke, makes it easier to accept in yourself.  Accepting that you are not a bad person because you choked will make you less likely to do so in the future, but will certainly not eliminate this common and persistent problem.  Also, realize that just because you choked once, does not mean that you will choke every time.  There will be more opportunities if you keep trying to win.

Finally, tanking, or giving up, is difficult to control.  Tanking relieves stress by taking you mentally out of the match, but a cost-benefit analysis reveals that rationally this is an unhealthy choice.  Once you realize that the benefits of trying outweigh the momentary relief of stress, the player may make the choice to “gut it out.”

Many more insights came from this talk and from reading Dr. Fox’s excellent book.  If you would like a copy, Gene has several copies left for sale at the tennis desk for $20 each.  They make great gifts to the tennis players in your life this holiday season!

Dinner at The Nest

November 11-13, 2011 marked another trip to the beautiful Shadow Mountain Resort in Palm Desert for the Marina City Club faithful. Friday was beautiful, with casual doubles played by members and the pro, Gene, in the late afternoon in balmy desert weather under clear skies. Saturday morning, the skies opened and kept the courts wet all day, preventing us from playing a much-anticipated match with Ironwood Country Club. Members went to movies, casinos, The Living Desert, and relaxed by shopping. Saturday night was a wonderful four-course dinner at The Nest, a desert hot-spot, with live music and dancing. Eighteen members attended the dinner and a wonderful time was had by all.
On Sunday morning, we played mixed doubles against Shadow Mountain and our team won all but on match. It was a beautiful day and everyone was thrilled to get some tennis in, before returning to Marina Del Rey that afternoon. Although the weather did not cooperate completely, we had another memorable trip to the desert with friends.

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns about Nike’s corporate responsibility practices with us. We appreciate the opportunity to share our approach with you.

We see corporate responsibility as a catalyst for growth and innovation. It is an integral part of how we aim to use the power of our brand, the energy and passion of our people, and the scale of our business to create meaningful change.

With the release of our last corporate responsibility report on May 31, 2007, we announced a series of business targets that more deeply integrate corporate responsibility goals into the company’s long-term growth and innovation business strategies. The targets set benchmarks to improve labor conditions in contract factories, create a climate stable company, drive sustainable product design and innovation, and unleash potential by giving youth greater access to the benefits of sport.

Our priority is helping the people who make our products by playing a role in bringing about positive change for workers within our own supply chain, and in the industry overall.

Nike-branded products are made by more than 800,000 workers in almost 700 contract factories in 52 countries around the world, from Indonesia to Canada, from Australia to the United States. When we look at our overall footprint in the world, the needs of those workers in our contract supply chain overshadow any other group.

We are continually evolving our approach – from establishing codes of conduct and establishing an internal team to enforce it, to working with independent organizations to monitor factories and engage with external stakeholders. What we’ve learned, after a decade, is that monitoring alone isn’t enough to solve the problems facing workers in our contract factories and in our industry in general.

Our focus now is getting to the root of recurring problems such as excessive overtime and worker’s right to freedom of association. Our goal is to create lasting change in Nike contract factories and in our industry.

We’re often asked about wages in contract factories and why we can’t pay more or disclose the wages workers are paid. We aggressively monitor compliance with our standard that workers be paid at least the minimum wage required by local law, and that workers are accurately paid the wages owed for the hours worked. In fiscal 2005 and 2006, we secured approximately $1 million in back wages for workers. We believe wages are best set by the market and by local public policy regarding wage minimums. Since we do not directly employ contract factory workers, we do not track wage data – such decisions are up to the factories.

Nike continues to be a leader in transparency and public reporting of supply chain issues and our efforts to improve conditions for workers. We were the first in our industry to publicly disclose our supply chain and regularly communicate with a diverse group of stakeholders on these issues. For further details on our Code of Conduct, overall approach to corporate responsibility and our business targets, we invite you to visit our website, http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/.

Sincerely,

Jeremy
Nike