Love, the Tennis Way, Kind of

I actually don't play tennis. I'm not even sure what love is in the tennis way. Is it when they're tied? or just when they're tied at 2? I don't know. I might look it up later, but that really has little to do with this post. It's about writing again--go figure.

But tennis does relate. Somehow. That is, I heard once that there's a point when someone's learning to play tennis that they progress most by playing with someone just a notch above or equal to their own abilities.

So a few friends were talking in the rat the other day, student lounge, after the President's address, and they were mentioning how they're teaching at university level with only Master's degrees, not PhDs and somehow feel under-qualified. But then I remembered some things I'd been thinking about on my walk earlier that day--kind of in response to a rant in my handwritten journal--about in class critiquing. By being asked to critique each other's writing in class, we're essentially being asked to teach without credentials, aren't we? Unless I'm doing it wrong. But I don't think so. How can you help someone improve without some knowledgeable instruction? Even positive feedback has to have some knowledge behind it, as well as some instruction. Keep this! That's command form.

So why are we asked to do this? Because you sometimes progress when you're just working with your peers--seeing the more limited good things they do rather than being overwhelmed by masterpieces and thinking it's never going to happen in your work. And also because we learn from each other's mistakes. Especially with innovation that leads in different ways, things that might have been considered bad a few years ago, sometimes you wonder why this rule that you don't particularly understand can't be broken. And then you see it in all its flawful glory in someone else's writing and you get it. Those are things that you can't learn from only studying masterful works. So, you've gotta love it--even if you don't know what tennis love is. Somehow, it still works.