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Anyone here play squash?
The community here on Tildes is very small just like the Squash playing community. Wanted to see if there is any overlap. So anyway where are you from? How regularly do you play? What's you skill level? What's your main motivation behind playing squash? Favourite player?
I don't, but I do like that squash is both a sport, a vegetable and a way to die.
And a verb
Hey! Thanks for making me laugh :)
I hadn't heard of the sport until I went to college in New England and one of my friends played. Never played or watched the game myself but I now know it exists...
Makes sense, as it was mostly popularised in the US by colleges. It is gaining a lot of popularity in the US though as a lot of top professionals previously played in the US College Squash Association. Anyway, thanks for replying!
I used to play a bit when I was in high school, but then I moved to California for college. Squash doesn't seem to exist on the west coast.
Yeah for some reason squash seems to be centred around New York in the US. There is also squash in Rhodes Island, Boston and Philadelphia but barely any squash around the west coast. I wonder why though.
Is that similar to racquetball? I used to really enjoy handball, which is basically racquetball without the racquets. It was always a lot more running around, mostly because of shorter reach without a racquet, but also because of ball speed. Racquetball seems like it would require faster reflex though. I always had a blast with handball, but I definitely injured myself a lot. Totally been trying to get some friends to play with me again though.
Yeah it's quite similar to racquetball. Haha, I must be confused but isn't handball football with hands? Or is there another variation where you play in a room like squash/racquetball? Really interested to learn about it.
I actually didn't know there was a version of handball like what you're talking about. It's more of a team sport kind of thing? I've never been very good at team stuff. I like to keep the pain of my failures isolated to myself as much as possible, and playing in teams just makes everyone else suffer for my inadequacies.
The one we played was basically all the same rules as racquetball but without the racquets. We even got gym memberships specifically just to use the racquetball courts.
There are other types of courts used for handball though. We had ones like this in middle school and high school. And there was a similar, but simplified version for elementary kids that only had one wall, but I don't really remember the rules at all for that. I played the version with three walls a lot in middle and high school, and it was probably the only sport I actually enjoyed. It is possible to play with teams of two as well, despite what I said earlier about team playing.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll be able to every play it properly again. My hands are pretty thrashed from years of beating them up for work. I think the repetitive impact from playing might cause a lot more issues than it'd be worth. But that's a big reason I want to try out racquetball. I'm hoping it'll be a little less harsh.
This seems really interesting to me! I suppose you aren't allowed to hold the ball? I guess I'll have to look up the rules from somewhere as you've really piqued my interest in handball. I guess I'm going to try it in a squash court (it does have a back wall though and idk if that has any effect) with my squash friends and a tennis ball just for fun. Thanks for introducing me to something new! On the topic of your beat up hands now; aren't you allowed to wear gloves in handball? That would certainly help reduce the impact I imagine. Also racquetball (I haven't played it so I'm applying my squash experience here) shouldn't hurt your hands except for small calluses near the joint which connects your fingers to the palm. I still have very soft hands even after years of playing squash so I guess your hands would be safe in racquetball. Do play it though, don't let your dreams be dreams!
The back wall is perfect! Makes for a really fun dynamic (not to mention having to chase the ball down less on a fully enclosed court). I don't know squash rules, but I wonder if you could just use squash rules but without the the racquet.
I finally found the wikipedia article for it! Apparently it's "American Handball" to differentiate it from Olympic Handball. Too many kinds of handball. Jeez.
As for my hands, I'm pretty sure I have some kind of tendinitis. I've done construction for most of my life, and a lot of construction workers end up with bricks for hands. But I also work on a lot of fine-motor skill kind of stuff, so if I let my hands become bricks I'll end up losing that ability. I wore gloves when playing, and highly recommend them if you play it at all. My friends didn't use gloves but they're weirdos. Thanks for the suggestions! I'm looking forward to trying a few sessions with a racquet and I'll let you know how it goes. I'll also keep my eye out for a squash court. I'm in SoCal, so I don't think it's quite as popular around here as racquetball. But it's a big city, I'm sure it exists somewhere around here.
I used to play at U18 county level in the UK, I think my best ranking was no. 8 or so, but haven't been near a court in a lot of years. I'm not sure I could play these days with my old and knackered back.. It's easily my favourite racket sport, so much more tactical and faster than tennis..
Never really followed the sport, just played it. But I used to occasionally train with Paul Lord who was top-20 ranked in the world at the time. We shared a coach, his dad, Dave. Who was a heck of a dude. Worked us hard but we were the best team in the North West of England. I met a couple of Khans at the UK open once but I can't recall which ones. Jansher and Jahangir, I think. Shook hands, that sort of thing.
Wow. Hadn't thought about any of that for a long time. I miss squash. Maybe I'll ask my physio what she thinks of picking it up again.
Hey, must've been a good twenty years since you played then. You should try playing again. In a way squash is similar to learning to ride a bike. Once you develop a good technique (you obviously must have had it) it's hard to forget it. You obviously do lose form and fitness but I think if you take it slow you can definitely start playing again, casually anyway. Thanks for the anecdote btw. I hope you start playing again.
I play a lot of tennis. One year a bunch of my buddies and I decided to play all of the other racquet sports. Squash was fun! I'm okay at it because of experience with racquet sports, but the strategy is obviously really different from tennis.
In my experience tennis players suffer at squash mostly due to the difference in swing mechanics in the games. You really have to restrict your swing in squash due to the pace and the fact that both players occupy the same court.