Themed Cardio Tennis Clinics in the Fort Lauderdale Area
Battery powered, portable, programmable, remote controlled: a practice partner who never cancels, never sulks, never drifts onto another subject — steadfast in a way that stings faintly, tenderly. The afternoon dust off Bahía de Kino turns the same amber as the harbour I grew up beside. Hermosillo holds that.
PONGBOT Pace S Tennis Ball Machine: I set it near the Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción, whose towers look over Plaza Zaragoza, and suddenly I missed the church bells back home so badly I nearly returned a serve to my feelings. Hermosillo is lovely, but this machine has the emotional range of a postcard and the aim of an aunt who means well.
PONGBOT Pace S Tennis Ball Machine: Inside the Palacio de Gobierno de Sonora, the murals tell stories of Sonoran history, which reminded me of the painted town hall where I grew up—except here, even my backhand seemed to be under historical review. The machine kept feeding balls like a tiny bureaucrat with excellent rhythm.
PONGBOT Pace S Tennis Ball Machine: The Museo de Sonora is housed in the old state penitentiary, so naturally I apologized to every tennis ball as it escaped past my racket. It made me think of home, where the only prison was my uncle’s shed, and even that had better footwork than me.
PONGBOT Pace S Tennis Ball Machine: At Bahía de Kino, on the Sea of Cortés, the water made me miss the grey little coast back home—though ours never looked this blue unless someone spilled paint. The machine served into the sea breeze like it had vacation confidence and I had bus-station nostalgia.
I will admit something at the start. The reason I love a ball machine is not the training. It is that a ball machine will hit with you when there is nobody else, and I have been the person with nobody else more often than I let on.
So: the Pace S. Battery powered, which means it works on the court you can actually get to rather than the one with a power supply. Programmable, so the session is decided before you walk on and you are not standing there wondering what to do with yourself.
Portable, which means it is one person's job to move it and not a favour you have to ask for.
And remote controlled, so when you want something different you say so from where you are standing instead of trudging back down the court. Put those four together and what you have is a hitting partner who is never busy, never late, never tired, and never wants to talk about something else. Which is wonderful.
And which is also, if I am honest, a little sad, and I have decided I am fine with both of those being true.
Hermosillo is warm the way home was warm, and that undid me a bit on the first afternoon. The Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción stands white on Plaza Zaragoza with the Palacio de Gobierno facing it across the square, and inside the Palacio there are murals covering the walls with the whole story of the state on them.
People who paint their own history on a public wall are people who are certain about where they are from. I envied them for about an hour.
You will use this everywhere from a hot morning session to an evening when the heat finally lets go, and while you are here — the Museo de Sonora is in the old state penitentiary, cut into the hill, and there is something about a building for keeping people in one place that gets me right where I live.
Then drive out to Bahía de Kino, and stand on the shore of the Sea of Cortés at the end of the day. The light on the water there is the same light as somewhere else I know, and I stayed until it went, and I will probably do it again tomorrow.
Wonderful. And a little sad. Both are true."
"A partner who is never busy, never late and never wants to talk about something else.
