The court shifted under my feet.
Back in March 2024, I spent about a week at a Hard Rock all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic, and I managed to get two dunk sessions in while I was there. I was a 5’10” 16-year-old chasing Windmills on a family vacation. What I came home with wasn’t a highlight reel. It was a lesson in how much your dunks depend on the ground you jump from.
A Week Away and Two Shots at the Rim
Whenever I travel, the first thing I do is look for a hoop. It’s the same instinct that led to one of the best dunk sessions of my life in Florida on another trip. This time the setup was a lot less friendly.
The resort had a court, which was all I needed. I told myself I’d get a couple of sessions in between everything else. I ended up with two, and they could not have been more different.
Session One Went Better Than It Should Have
My first session was the day after I arrived, on a Monday. I wasn’t expecting much that early into the trip, but it turned out to be a pretty good one. I hit two self-bounce Windmills and landed my first two-handed Dubble Up.
That Dubble Up was the highlight. It’s the kind of dunk I’d been working toward for a while, and getting it on a strange court a thousand miles from home felt like a win. Considering what I was jumping on, it was honestly one of the more satisfying sessions I’d had in a while.
The Court Fought Me the Whole Time
Here’s the part that made both sessions hard. The court was badly off-center. The rim wasn’t where my body expected it to be, and that wrecked my approach.
When you dunk, you build muscle memory around specific spots on the floor. For a lot of my dunks, I start from the same place every time. My steps, my gather, my takeoff, all of it is timed to that starting point. On this court I couldn’t even line up where I normally would, so my whole rhythm was off.
It got worse. The surface was tile sport court, and the tiles kept moving around while I ran. Every step felt a little unstable, like the floor was sliding out from under me as I tried to plant and jump. There’s no fixing your timing when you can’t trust the ground.
Session Two Fell Apart
My second session was that Saturday, and it was rough. I struggled the entire time. I couldn’t land a single Windmill, which is a dunk I’d normally have no trouble with. The more I missed, the more frustrated I got.
Eventually I gave up on the Windmill and dropped down to dunk on 8’6″ just to feel like I was hitting something. That’s a move I’ve leaned on before. There’s no shame in lowering the rim to keep your reps clean, the same way I learned to back off and start training smarter instead of forcing every rep. Some days the smart play is to stop fighting the conditions.
What a Bad Court Actually Teaches You
Looking back, that trip taught me more than a clean session ever could have. I learned exactly how much of my dunking lives in muscle memory and how fragile that is when the setup changes. Move the rim a few feet off-center, give me a floor that won’t stay still, and suddenly dunks I’ve hit hundreds of times feel brand new.
That’s worth knowing. It pushed me to think about how adaptable my approach really is instead of relying on one perfect starting spot. It also made me appreciate good conditions. After fighting a court that wouldn’t cooperate, a flat and centered floor like the one at the biggest dunk session I’ve ever been part of in Las Vegas is something I’ll never take for granted.
The biggest takeaway was simple. Reps still count, even bad ones. I didn’t have my best sessions in the Dominican Republic, but I got jumps in, I landed a new dunk, and I came home with a clearer sense of what I needed to work on. When I got back to the Minnesota gyms I usually train in, I had a real reason to value a flat, centered floor.
If you’re traveling and you find a hoop, use it. The conditions won’t always be perfect. Get the reps in anyway. You’ll learn something about your game that a familiar gym never would have shown you.
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