Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Diary Of A Baller: Tyus "Kid Mamba" Battle (Edison, NJ) Entry #42


What’s up basketball world? It has been a long but very good week. As I told you last week, I finally graduated from 8th grade and I must say it feels really good to be able to sleep a little later and stay up a little bit longer. As you know basketball never stops for me therefore I’ve been working extra hard at getting better each day. A lot of my time has been spent lately in the gym trying to get my body bigger and stronger. The bigger part coming slowly but the stronger part is happening every day.

Monday, I woke about 10 AM had a bowl of cereal and chilled out watching television before I worked out at 2PM with my dad and brother, at the Club in Woodbridge. We focused a lot on my pull-up jumper for the first part of the workout, then for the next hour my dad had us really working on our left hand. My dad is on me a lot about using my left hand more. He said I have such a great left had I should be using it more to finish. So we worked on the floater, hook and the jump shot with the left hand. Afterwards dad and lifted weights for next 45 minutes while my brother watched us.

Tuesday, I could not wait to get to the gym but before I did that I had to clean the house with my brother. I hate to admit it but my brother did much more of the cleaning than me. All I mostly did was clean the basement which was a bit messy for sure. Dad came home after 5 and then we went straight to Saint Joes, Metuchen to get a team workout in. We started the workout by doing a few full-court drills and then we did some shooting and then we chose up teams. I played with the varsity which was cool and there were a few older kids or men who used to go to SJ but now they’re in college + they had Q also known as Quinton Decosey. Games were competitive and I played pretty well over all but feel I can do better as I get more comfortable.

Wednesday, I went to register at St. Joes and I also got a chance to pick my classes. For the world languages I really wanted to take French but it turned out that space was all full so I took Latin instead, which will be a whole new thing for me because I barely know how to say anything in Latin. For my electives I chose Algebra Workshop as my first, because math is not my strength like English is and I also chose Physical Education second. The other classes I chose were the usual subjects: Math, English, Science, Social Studies, and Religion. After the registration my dad and I went to the gym again to lift and got a little shooting workout in afterwards..

Friday I woke up at 7:30 to go to the gym. We first worked on moves to the basket which I really need to work on because I don’t think my handle has been as sharp as it was before. Then I got up shots and I finished up with ball handling. When I finished my workout I lifted for the last hour. After I left the gym I had to get home and get dressed to go to the mall with Matius, Nkechi, and Gabby who were a few kids that were in my graduating class. Usually walking around the mall isn’t my thing but, it wasn’t that bad since I was with a few friends.

Saturday my dad brought my little brother and I to the store to find some swimming trunks and a few shirts because I had a pool party at 4 at my friend Madison’s house. But before we went there we had a quick workout about 1 hour shooting, dribbling and lifting, I felt good because I earned my out and felt better about spending 4 hours at a party. When we were finally done we got ready and my dad dropped us off. I didn’t really swim a lot but, instead sat down and talked. The only reason I even got in the pool is because the girls were saying that it was warmer in the pool than outside of it, which was surprisingly true. I never knew swimming can be so tiring because as soon as I got picked up I was knocked out when I closed my eyes.

This is Tyus Battle signing off Peace!