Looking back on my 2019

Last day of 2019!!

How do you recall your 2019 ? Next year will be a huge year for us Japanese as we are holding the Olympic Games in Tokyo !

For me, this year had been a positive year overall.
I would sum up my 2019 in two words; “change” and “growth”.

I am going to reflect on my 2019 and share with you some significant changes I had this year.

Mental support

In the beginning of the year, I started dating my current girlfriend who is my soul mate as well as my “mental support”.

Because of her, I had been able to become more mature and mentally stronger than before, and able to realize what I had to change in my personality to be a better man.

I am always truly great full for her being on my side and supporting me even though the long distance gets in the way.

However, with her the long distance magically becomes such a trivial matter that I no longer need to worry about.

Without her, I couldn’t have had those amazing trips to Italy, Granada and Hiroshima.

Changing our coach

At the beginning of March, we put an end to the contract we had with our private coach.

I had been training privately with my brother, a private coach, and a fitness coach for two years, however we were not content with the repetition of the same mundane routine, which also started to deteriorate the relationship between us.

Since we were not improving as much as we wanted to, and our relationships and motivation for tennis were at stake, the only solution was to completely change the environment.

However the decision wasn’t so easy to make since we had been training with him for 3 years, and two years everyday so it felt like he was a member of our family.

After we fired him, we did everything we could to start chasing our dream once again with a fresh start and mindset.

We hit with friends, played tournaments, trained together, and sometimes joined the local competition group to practice.

Surprisingly, the feud between me and my brother vanished and we were training so much better than before.

Joining GRTennis

When we were searching for the best environment to train in, my friend as well as a professional stringer Xavier Colo introduces me to a person called Pere Riba.

Colo is one of the best stringers in Europe and all the professional players who trains in Barcelona goes to his shop to get his rackets strung and customized.

Pere Riba is a ex-professional tennis player whose career ATP high ranking was 65, and he even beat Nishikori a few years ago.

His academy is a small group which consists of professional tennis players with as high as ATP top 50 down to top few hundreds, and some junior players.

I sometimes get to hit with those professional players as well. The coaches are decent and really cares about us unlike in the other bigger academies in Barcelona.

The environment was what I had longed for and I am really happy that I had the opportunity to get to know this team.

We started training with them from May.

Growing with GRTennis

It’s been half a year since I started training with GRTennis.

I am satisfied with how much I have improved during these 6 months.

We worked a lot on changing techniques on my forehand and how I use my body.

I finally understand that moving legs with intensity gives you consistency and better feeling with the ball!!

I played a lot of tournaments as well and worked on playing better in match situations.

I lost more matches than I won, and even though I lost, I played the best match in the last tournament against a Spanish no.200.

That match gave me confidence and I felt like everything I had been working on connected.

One of my goals of 2019 was to play a match that will give me confidence, and I achieved it.

Spanish

Although I have been living in Spain for more than 4 years now, I had only been speaking in English with my friends and coaches.

However since I started training with GRTennis, I am only using Spanish to communicate with coaches and players.

In addition, I have been studying with textbooks on my own.

My Spanish also has improved a lot indeed.

Instagram

From May this year, I started building up my Instagram page to become an “influencer”.

Also I started to write blogs in Japanese and English to help my followers understand who I am and my backgrounds.

Thankfully my tennis/fitness videos were featured by some famous Instagram pages and my followers have increased from 500 to over 2,000 as of now.

In the End

From 2020, I will start fresh again with a new mindset and mentality to keep pursuing my dream.

Please take care of your selves everyone and have a wonderful 2020!!

You only live once ! Live your life with no regrets !