This collection explores competitive athletics, fitness, and healthy aging through the perspective of a lifelong athlete Richard Geib. Topics include tennis, swimming, strength training, endurance, injury recovery, mobility, nutrition, Tai Chi Chuan, and the discipline required to stay active and competitive as we grow older. The essays combine practical experience with reflections on resilience, performance, and lifelong physical health.
Dear Jim, Yesterday during one of our summer visits, I performed for you the initial Tai Chi form. You looked at me quizzically afterwards and asked, “What does this do for you?” I suspect you saw me perform a short set of semi-elegant movements, and then wondered how learning or practicing these added value to … Read more
A competitive 59-year-old tennis player reflects on recovery, aging, Tai Chi, and balancing intensity with restoration after hard competition.
Even when I was a little kid I was attracted to the martial arts. I first was able to sign up for a karate class at Newport Harbor High School when I was in fifth grade. My mother would drop my brother and me off there on Saturday mornings and come back an hour later. … Read more
I started swimming back around 2012 when I suffered a serious tennis injury. I had to find workouts off the court, and my tennis club had swimming pools. So I got into the pool and started swimming laps. My brother was a serious surfer when he was younger. And my sister was a varsity swimmer … Read more
A buddy of mine recently told me that a friend of his – a bit older than us, maybe in mid- to late 60s – claimed that the only real priority he has left is “to take care of his health and his friendships.” Wow. That really made me think. That statement has been on … Read more
I recently read that weight lifting in the gym is the hot new trend, and along with that the American consumer’s desire to eat more protein: this is health nowadays, or so the trend says. Weight beating exercise using barbells is in; cardio on the treadmill or out running is out. There is supposedly a … Read more
It is my quiet place. It is where I can be by myself, get my pulse rate up, and earn a light sweat. It is where I can get my hands and feet moving in unison with the yellow ball. It is the wall at Buena High School. I have been going there for some … Read more
I always thought he was sort of god-like. In my mind I saw big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton, and his pro volleyball player wife Gabrielle Reece, walking along the Hawaiian beach like Adonis and Aphrodite. Two almost perfect physical specimens – both graceful and beautiful, strong and vital. But they have been married for decades, and … Read more
“No, I’m not getting in the car with you. If you want to shoot me, go ahead. But I’m not getting in that car.” Everyone has – or should have – a line they won’t cross. For me it is this: I’m unwilling to allow my person to be transported by force to another location … Read more
This is the pile of laundry I leave after a hard session of competitive tennis. “Nuclear laundry,” I call it. I come home, get out of my sweat-drenched clothes, put them in the laundry hamper, and take a shower. I put on fresh clothes and am finally clean. But the workout clothes are just disgusting. … Read more
Some eighteen months ago someone stole my road bike out of my garage. My older daughter came in late at night and failed to close our garage door, and the next morning my road bike and my wife’s sewing machine were gone. I suspect opportunistic thieves (like the lowlife “porch pirates” who steal Amazon packages … Read more
In his biography Open the tennis champion Andre Agassi said the following, “A win doesn’t feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn’t last as long as the bad. Not even close.” This is a way of saying that we respond more powerfully to a negative stimuli than to a … Read more
Or, Time for a USTA Tennis Sabbatical? Almost exactly two years ago I received the totally unexpected news that I would be re-ranked as a 5.0 tennis player in USTA tennis leagues. My world was rocked. I never expected this. And I was looking at being removed from the tennis teams with my buddies that … Read more
I came across this giant sign along the walls of a martial arts dojang last spring, and I was so taken aback by it that I snapped this quick photo: I was impressed by the message on the sign, but I am not sure if the impression was positive or negative. Is iron clashing against … Read more
My father is elderly and in decline; my sister, brother, and I brace for difficult decisions going forward. Father Time is undefeated, and my everyone looks their mortality in the face, sooner or later. For my father, this will probably be sooner rather than later. We will do what we can to help him, and … Read more
I spend a lot of time looking at young people and sizing them up. My children and their friends, my students former and current – I get a good look at so many. And some of them struggle. Well, many of them struggle. Hell, all of them – all of us, young or not – … Read more
Every year for one day I allow a Marine Corps recruiter to come talk to my high school seniors. I debrief my students the very next day about the presentation. I say to them, “Everything that guy said yesterday is true, but you should also keep this in mind…” I explain to them the other … Read more
The Indian Wells Tennis tournament, sometimes called the “Fifth Slam,” sees the very highest professional tennis played anywhere, similar to Wimbledon or the US Open. But the “BNP Paribas Open,” as Indian Wells is formally called, is also a zoo: some 440,000 people attended this year, and the parking and crowds are off-putting. Indian Wells … Read more
So last week I lost a tough doubles tennis match in a super tiebreaker. My partner and I were the better team on paper, but that does not always matter in sports. On any certain day, the lower ranked team can win. It just didn’t seem like our day last week. Our shots were a … Read more
Remember this. You have been wont to use your mind to command your body to perform. As if your body were separate from your mind, and not part and parcel of it. Your mind in the driver’s seat has its advantages: you get a lot out of what God has given you in terms of … Read more
So yesterday at midnight EST, and 9:00 pm PST, the end of year USTA rankings for 2022 were released online. I had been waiting painfully for this moment of judgment, as I wrote about six weeks ago. The event one year ago when I got bumped up to 5.0 was still on my mind. All … Read more
Friday was Veterans Day. I had the day off so I drove 90 miles down to Orange County to see family and friends. Totally overwhelmed recently while coaching my daughters tennis team and teaching six classes, I had not been there since we returned from the Caribbean in mid-August. A visit was long overdue. So … Read more
At my brother’s urging, I have been watching the Netflix series Narcos. In my usual way, it has taken me some seven months to get through eight episodes. Why so slow? I am busy. My wife and daughters tend to monopolize the TV. I am too impatient to sit through extended video. Whatever. But I … Read more
In approximately seven weeks the United States Tennis Association will update its NTRP ratings for the next year. Much to my shock and chagrin, I was re-ranked at the 5.0 level last year on December 3, 2021. I managed to win my appeal eventually to move back to the 4.5 level, but I am a … Read more
Exercising in Extreme Heat to Put Steel in Your Spine It was approximately 105 degrees outside, according to my phone. This was the hottest ever recorded temperature in Camarillo for September 4th, according to news reports. I was there to play tennis on court one, which was supposedly some ten degrees or so hotter than … Read more
When you fail to do something you were supposed to do, it can nag at you. But the longer you put it off, the harder it can be to get around to doing. I have not been to the dentist for over a year, and I almost always make my every-six-month visit. But last year … Read more
Almost three years ago I spent much of my summer training my body and preparing my mind for the United States Tennis Association sectionals for Southern California in Costa Mesa, California. I dedicated myself to get ready for the big weekend starting on August 3, 2019. And then it arrived. I played two hard matches … Read more
I wrote recently about adversity in competitive sports. But I was really using sport as a metaphor to talk about dealing with adversity in life generally. In this essay I would like to add to last week’s post to flesh out a fuller picture of how I see it. For the vast majority of us … Read more
So I wrote late last fall about the impending darkness of winter, and my ability to get my workouts completed in the dark and the cold. Now we are on the other side: it is April and spring, and the sun is out for longer. Driving by the tennis courts last night and they were … Read more
In a corner of my garage I do tennis-specific workouts, and I have done these for years. I have on the walls some photographs of myself after after having won tournaments, or other such important competitive moments. More importantly, I have some quotes posted there that I have particularly important and which I constantly want … Read more