Roger Federer and discipline

Yesterday I saw one of the most over-hyped tennis match between John Isner and the player I admire the most, on par with Ivan Lendl, Roger Federer. This guy Isner comes with his 6'9" size and the only thing he does is serve. What irritated me the most is in his post match press conference he says, after the first set Federer lifted his game. Excuse me. I felt very insulted. Isner didn't even attempt a few shots yesterday, with a sense of arrogance, at least in my opinion, and after he got the first set in tie break he had the audacity to comment that Federer lifted his game.

The thing i admire the most about Roger is the kind of goals he seem to set during the course of the match. Imagine in the kind of situation that he was yesterday, he decided not to make any errors (unforced errors) and he precisely did that for the 2nd and 3rd set. I can write many posts on just his discipline. I was really pained to watch him play Rafa at French Open this year because he was making all kinds errors on his fore hand. Anyway, another of his amazing quality is his ability to move on.

I really want to meet him and sit down and talk to him.

I just love this guy and of course his tennis.

August 28th

The Pleasure of finding things out

I happened to chance upon this classic Feynman documentary made by BBC in 1981. It is a five part program. I am providing link to each of them below.

• Part 1
  
  
• Part 2
  
  
• Part 3
  
  
• Part 4
  
  
• Part 5
  
  

Sachin Tendulkar

I think Sachin just played his last test innings at Lord's cricket ground. It is a sad thing that he might retire without having scored a century on this ground. Not that people who have scored a century here have all been greats. It is something that adds to your resume, so to speak.

I think he might also retire without ever having won a cricket world cup. I really feel sad for him.

At the same time, I feel that he should retire sooner. Today he should have stayed. Both the innings he was lbw. I didn't see the match, I wonder whether he tried playing across the line.

ghuffa huffe

It was sometime in '83 or '84 during which period i was in 5th or 6th standard. The movie had been released in Apsara theater in Vellore. Ravi and Ram had seen the movie. Reji Paul had seen it twice (his father is a trained Karate expert). Santhu of course had seen the movie, as did so many others. In school I couldn't participate in any discussions of how great the training was and how we all could become defenders.

Finally appa let me and my brothers to go and watch the movie. There was a huge rush for the movie. And finally I too had seen it. I remember practicing the water carrying training, with out the knife, of course. It was really painful to keep the fingers bent at their tip like they do in these kung-fu movies. The sounds of 'ghuffa huffe' used to fill the house. It was supposedly practice.

This past weekend, I purchased my first DVD in life, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Gordon Liu who plays San Ta in this movie was Pai Mei in Kill Bill. I learnt that QT is a big fan of Gordon Liu and he wanted him badly in the Kill Bill movies. I am a big fan of Quentin Tarantino.

I also came to know another link between myself and the 36th. One of producers Run Run Shaw, of the Shaw Brothers, sponsors a lecture series at Stony Brook University where I did my Ph.D.

This DVD is going to be one of my prized possessions.