Being on a quest to play tennis on every public court in Los Angeles requires strength and conditioning. I get that from my strength and conditioning sponsor, SixPax Gym.

I started working out at SixPax Gym in 2017 and from Day One I have felt The Love. I mean Gym Love. They accept me as I am while also keeping the faith in my fittest possible self. Siavash, Perry, Mark, Bill, Tracy, Errol, everybody I’ve ever trained with at SixPax is always positive, challenging me in a friendly and encouraging way to do a little better and even a little better than that. This is a practical, healthy kind of love.

Results? Well, I have played on over 80 different public tennis courts in LA County since starting my quest to play ’em all back in August of ’22. That’s pretty decent strength and conditioning right there.

I am also forever grateful to Siavish and the whole team at SixPax for seeing me through my moderate brain damage episode a couple three-four years back. I coulda shrunken into fragility but not on SixPax’s watch. Heck no, they sized me up and got me started right back up, banging an anvil on a mega-truck tire.

The SixPax workout used to leave me a puddle but now I’m always good for five more lunges, five more squats, five more skull crushers, five more everything.

Point being, here I am on the verge of being 62 years old and this is a typical week: I am planning to play an hour and a half or so of singles tennis today in Griffith Park, tomorrow in Topanga, Thursday in Calabasas.

It never even occurs to me to wonder if I’m physically up to it. Blessedly, there is no doubt. This takes not only strength and conditioning but also energy, determination, and confidence, in all of which I am supported mightily by SixPax, my gym that gives me something else that really matters: a place where I belong.