I (heart) the summer. Reason #1: Ping Pong

Whether you call it ping pong or if you are really snooty and you call it table tennis, the game is the same. Ping pong is so deceptive. On the surface there seems to be nothing that should elicit the emotions that it does. It is a plastic ball hit on a table. Simple right?

Wrong!

Many a rainy day at the cabin have been filled with a post-nap ping pong game. It is the perfect predinner activity. It is athletic enough to feel like you did something but casual enough where crosstraining for it would seem truly foolish.

It also is summercentric. I have an ongoing tournament going with my cousin Benton Ward. For June, July, and August it is on like donkey kong. But if we meet during the winter, a little ping pong seems almost foolish. Like sledding in the summer.

It just seems stupid.

But when it is a rainy summer day, ping pong is the sport of princes and peons alike. The ball and the table are not elitest, inshapest, or sexist. Hence, the frustrating fact that my mom can still regularly beat us all like a drum.

Oh ping pong. How I am looking forward to being under your spell for the three months when I should probably be outside in Minnesota. Hitting a ball back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until I get in the "zone". Then its all over but the crying.

Here's a sweet video of two elite players facing each other in a friendly match on the blue rectangular battlefield in the middle of a packed gymnasium.

Robert Ward vs. Jackie Chan
Teacher Superstar Martial Arts Superstar

I gotta get me some of those sweet ping pong shorts!!
PS- Write in with what YOU (heart) about the summer!! Mr. Ward wants to here from you!