Is there any greater good to be done while in quarantine than to do absolutely nothing?* (*ok, so almost nothing, and please don’t judge us for also practicing before we started self-isolating).
Jonathan “Healthy” Hannon and I broke the Guinness World Records Title for “Most tennis balls caught in a basket on the back in one minute” while self-isolating. The previous record was 66 and we got 85. That’s with a 79% catch rate after 108 balls were thrown in 1 minute. I’m even more impressed because Jonathan was throwing with both his right and his left hands.
During the video intro, he unexpectedly lost his voice (I literally had no idea he wasn’t going to talk for the intro video until we started and he started holding up cards. I didn’t know what they said until I editing the video).
We had practiced this one a few months ago when his wife bought a basket that just so happened to meet all the Guinness specifications. This, after making fun of us for even trying the record. I have a hard time trying to believe the backpack laundry basket she wanted to buy happened to meet all the Guinness specifications so perfectly by coincidence.
At any rate, he threw 108 balls, I was allowed to move side to side and up and down and duck, so long as I only faced toward him, didn’t kneel, and my feet never crossed the 3-meter line. I’d say 60% of the credit goes to him and his super-accurate throws, 30% of the credit goes to me for moving into position to catch just-off throws in the backpack even though I couldn’t see it, and 5%+ goes to each of our wives for putting up with this (or is it 50%+?).
Stay safe everyone!
(Also, during the COVID-19 Quarantine, Guinness has made rule modifications to allow for record verification with less witnesses provided more video evidence is provided and the stopwatches are captured on camera. With so much less to do, I may have to try a few more of these).
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