With this month’s back-to-school theme, I wanted to put myself in a slightly uncomfortable position. Not because school itself is uncomfortable, but because learning is. I wanted to relearn things, challenge my limits, and expand my worldview—a constant undercurrent in how I navigate life.
I decided to relearn tennis.
Equipped with a $40 Target racket and a pleated tennis skort, I pushed myself to retrieve techniques I had left at the court over a decade ago. Growing up, tennis was simply a vehicle to socialize. It was where all my friends hung out, except they played every evening and I couldn’t. When my parents signed me up for morning sessions—the only time they could drop me off—my middle school social life felt like an absolute disaster.
I quit tennis shortly after, convincing myself it was never my thing. Yet the foundational mechanics stayed somewhere beneath the surface. Years later, as tennis aesthetic surged back into cultural focus and of course Ralph Lauren had just dropped their impeccable tennis collection, I felt pulled back toward the court.
When I picked up a racquet after ten years, it felt less like a decade had passed and more like I had simply missed a couple of classes. Everything returned in flashes. Wanting to reacquaint myself before walking into a formal session, I went to a local court on a quiet Tuesday morning. I started rallying by myself—backhand, forehand, and the gruesome warm-up drills I thought I had forgotten.
By Thursday evening, I was in Brooklyn, spending two focused hours on court with one other player. I was fascinated by the mechanics of the human body and how stubbornly our muscles retain past discipline. We might consciously forget, but our motor memory holds on far longer than we credit it for. While repetition remains the key to mastery, accessing a dormant skill after ten years was an unexpected revelation.
Motor learning proves that what you build never fully disappears. When life pulls you away from a craft, you can step back in knowing you are never starting from absolute zero. That realization gives you the permission to revisit old pursuits—whether from school, college, or an early career—with quiet confidence.
Learning remains uncomfortable because it demands vulnerability. True muscle memory only sharpens when you step up to the line repeatedly. Take a step toward a craft or interest that has remained quiet inside you for too long. Re-ignite it: do it once, twice, and then a hundred times over.
For me, that discipline starts on the tennis court. And fittingly enough, curating the wardrobe for it carries its own effortless muscle memory.
Remember, You’re Très Cher (:
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