How (bad) Tennis helped my Riding (sort of)

Last week, a surprise visit to Ocala by a family friend, (There are, to my complete surprise, actual people that come to Ocala for a non-horsey vacation) led to my playing tennis at 8:30 in the morning on a cold and blustery day. Playing tennis reminded me of some of the qualities required for riding: the rhythm and harmony achieved in really great tennis, the effortless swing of the players, the combination of speed and accuracy necessary to be successful... were all things I did not come even close to achieving as I returned to tennis for the first time in about 10 to 15 years, after a tennis career that consisted of a 2 week stint of lessons at summer camp and an occasional session of hit the ball against the garage when there is nothing else to do.
In order to prevent people from inadvertently playing tennis with me, I made up a few signs you may be playing tennis with me:
1.If you have time to check your watch, go for a jog, get a water break and get back to the court before the ball makes it back across the net, you may be playing tennis with me. 
2.If you move to the neighbors court because that's where the ball goes most of the time, you may be playing tennis with me.
3. If you feel concerned for your life because a racket is flying across the court at rapid speed with no one holding on (oops....) you may be playing tennis with me.  
4. If your hear some one laughing hysterically, that would be my mom when she heard I was voluntarily going to play tennis at a country club in front of other people.
5. If you are wondering whether the bright red sketchers sneakers across from you are spewing shavings, you may be playing tennis with me.
However, despite being extremely bad, and eternally grateful there was no one playing nearby, I did learn a few things that I can apply to both disciplines
1. Loosen up! As I stood frozen to the middle of the court watching the ball come closer and closer and then go by I realized I had to relax and move in order to (sometimes) get the ball back across the net.  Just like in seeing a distance to a jump, sometimes you have to move up, sometimes you have to wait and sometimes you think "oh no there's nothing" (aka there's no way I'm hitting this ball) and your horse figures it out...except unfortunately for me, my tennis racquet never figured things out, but at one point it did try to escape when I may have loosened my grip just a little and it took the opportunity to fly into the middle of the court.  Word to tennis racquets: don't abandon an obvious beginner mid-game, stay with your player!
2. Practice makes perfect and also makes you a lot less sore. The first time you try a new sport or a new movement or a new level, things are not going to be perfect and days later it will still be painful to walk up the stairs. Instead, improvement takes time and concentrated effort. For me, I concentrated on holding onto the racquet and keeping my wrist straight and envisioning the ball sailing smoothly across the court.... Unfortunately, these positive thoughts didn't improve my actual hand eye coordination and I had to admit I can only handle one skill at a time. Thus I decided the most important skill was "make contact with the ball" which improved my tennis game greatly. (When you are at my level, the tennis version of amoeba, any improvement is great improvement)
3. Have fun. I am never going to be a tennis  pro, and even though I  am very very bad at tennis I still had fun.  It was pretty easy for me to have fun playing tennis, because I had no goals, no reason I had to get better (except out of compassion for the poor people who had to play with me) and felt no pressure or disappointment when I messed up. (I did secretly hope that I was an amazing, undiscovered tennis talent, but like my experience with watercolors, Scattergories, and bowling, hoping and being are verrrrrryyy different things) With riding I feel constantly pressured to do better and improve, but it's important to remember that one of the core reasons I ride and event is because it's fun.