It’s Healthy Aging Month, a time to remember that we are all aging and have a choice in how we approach it. I choose to embrace Thriving Mindfully as I AGE. Today that means I ACCEPT GRACE EVERY day at the ✨️ sparkling and sensational age of 61!!!!
How are you choosing to AGE? What healthy aging practices are you using?
Tennis is one of my healthy aging fitness practices. I started learning to play tennis with the support of a Howard student who played on the tennis team in October 2021. She gave me a few lessons.
In the Spring and Summer of 2022, she and a Hampton student gave me several lessons that prepared me for the DC Department of Parks and Recreation’s (DPR) tennis program. I continued to take DC DPR classes, work with a private coach, and play tennis with classmates and neighbors until I transitioned to classes at JTCC in College Park in November 2025. I also took some classes at the Rock Creek Tennis Center.
Since then, I have learned to maintain a beginner’s mind + open heart filled with a willingness to learn and make mistakes, appreciate and celebrate myself for showing up, play and have fun, strengthen my body with exercises that support my body, add more home practices, watch and enjoy tennis matches, meet new tennis friends of all ages, participate in tennis outings, adjust my expectations about my progress, release my self-criticism and the pressure I put on myself to overachieve, and practice patience with grace.
Photo: Morning subway ride to my tennis class at JTCC
Ananda Leeke 