Title: Straight Rail Shots in Squash

General Information about Item:

• Magic (Homeopathic) Superstition, repetition
• Origin: Canada
• Informant: K.D.
• 10/25/2021

Informant Data:

• K.D. was born in Shanghai, China in the year 2001, but his family now lives in Canada. He is currently the captain of the club squash team at Dartmouth College. He is majoring in Economics and head President of Scholars of Finance and Board member of EMS. He and his family are all of Chinese descent.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: To win in squash, ball placement is much more important than strength and hitting the ball as hard as possible because sometimes harder shots can bounce higher and be easier to return. Practicing accurate shots is a highly repetitive process that teams use in practice and warmups to prepare for matches.

• Social Context: K.D. isolates himself when practicing this repetition to give himself full focus on the straight rail shots. By doing so, this creates a barrier against outside distractions and allows him to perfect his shot in time for the match. It was a warmup he learned from a previous coach who also does not know who originally started this warmup.

Item:

• K.D. must be the last player to leave the warmup before the match and only after he hits 5 straight rail shots in a row. Rail shots in squash are hitting the ball as close as possible to the side wall without having it bounce out to the middle of the court. These shots make it incredibly difficult to return the ball and K.D. claims this superstition helps prepare him to make a straight rail shot in the game. Also, being the only person left on the court, he isolates himself to give himself complete focus on his abilities and his own accuracy right before his match. He acquired this folklore superstition from a previous coach of his who claimed that repetition is very important and it helps mentally prepare players to make the perfect shot and score during the match.

Associated files/pictures:

Unfortunately K.D. sustained an eye injury and was unable to complete the superstition on film for the archive but below is a video of straight drive shots which are straight rail shots when hit along, almost touching, the wall. If the shots were closer to the wall, they would be said to be rail shots.

Transcript:

• “I must be the last person on the court for warmups. Then I can end with five straight rail shots. These shots are placed as close as possible to the wall which makes it extremely hard to return them. The placement on them are hard, but when done right can easily score you points or tire out the opponent. Before I get off the court, I do this until I get five good rail shots in a row which prepares me to execute these in the match.”

Informants Comments:

• Straight rail are some of the best shots in squash, if you were to improve on anything in squash, I would recommend the placement on these shots.

Collector’s Comments:

• Squash is a very unfamiliar sport to me but repetition is something I also do in hockey. Repetition and practice is what lets you improve on anything and it makes sense that squash would have the same practice with improvement.

Collector’s Name:

• Troy Burkhart
• Dartmouth College ’23
• Russian 13 Fall 2021
• Professors – Gronas, Apresyan

Tags:

• Squash
• Dartmouth
• Rail shots
• Repetition