Players,
I am very happy to be presenting some new articles about our community. One written by Louis de Barraicua, a.k.a. Los Angeles Mayor and Optomystik. It’s a passion piece about the people who take our game to the next level: our mentors. And in this case it’s not about adjusting strokes or a comment about footwork, it’s more about mindset and how it applies to other aspects of your life. Read it here. Thank you, Louis!
The next article will be part of a series of questions posed to the Champions and Finalists of the 2nd Annual Street Paddle Singles Tournament last month. It was inspiring to see so many people playing and with so much intention. From sunrise to sunset! The level of experience may have been different between all the divisions but everyone brought their individual style and athleticism, they brought their friends and family for support and mostly, they brought their game!
This week we meet Sophia Khan and Lauren Hawthorne, who battled 9 other ladies of the A Division. Meet them now.
If you missed it, you can read the article about the champion of the Men’s Open Division, the amazing Avatar, who was interviewed by Daniel Wulff and myself. Read “On the Bench with Avatar.” We will meet two more players from other divisions – stay tuned!
Update on the Fences
We had a brief lull in our campaign but the city is back on with us for #PatchtheHoles. Thank you to many people who have already purchased patches. There are many left. You can still buy one at Streetpaddle.com
The city will be helping us to mount them in the coming weeks, hopefully in time for the next Street Paddle Doubles Tournament June 25-26th. These patches will stay up for a few months before the city will be replacing the fences with brand new, better than ever, fences and re-surfacing the courts. Timeline is still being discussed with the contracted company and Supervisor Sonya Young-Jimenez and Director Melody Valenzuela. They are also looking into brand new benches for the courts, bleachers, and trees. More details coming soon.
We had another AMAZING mixer at the Hotel Erwin rooftop, High, May 23rd. Check out the gallery. Street Paddle guys raffled off the 2nd Stand Up Paddle board donated by Tequila 512. We should have a day of paddle tennis followed by a beach Stand up Paddle – what do you think?
Let’s end with a shout out to all the players from Venice who traveled to St. Augustine, FL to play on the sand in that East Coast humidity! Calvin Page @calvinpage posted an almost hour by hour “story” of his time there. Perhaps we can ask a few players and the Tournament Director, Frank Morrison, to tell us about it in the coming weeks. Next year is the 50th anniversary of the tournament and we should ALL go! Daryl Lemon can help with condos but we should make it a special trip next year and represent VENICE.
Okay so find your partner for the next Dubs tourney and let’s practice! Until then,
See you on the Courts,
Christine
