Secrets for Excelling in Tennis & Real Life

A self-taught player, M. Lev wrote Kung Fu Tennis during his years as a varsity team member at Swarthmore College, from age 17 to age 21. Responding to a dare that he could teach beginners to play tennis in less than half an hour, he developed a unique method linking tennis and the martial arts. Presented in ascending levels of insight and strategy from the White Belt through the Black Belt as in karate, these original lessons develop skills that predict success on the court, as well as in the classroom and the workplace. These simple yet profound lessons invite reading and re-reading, and inspire lifelong learning for anyone seeking to excel in tennis and real life.

When M. Lev became a professional player and coach after college, he used Kung Fu Tennis to teach people of all ages and skill levels. In the decades since then, he has taken pleasure in instructing and coaching hundreds of tennis enthusiasts, from recreational players to touring pros.

“Where there is no fun, there will be no joy. For joy itself is triumph. And learning, like breathing, is celebration.”

In his college years, M. Lev was introduced to the age-old tradition of parents leaving ethical wills. As with material possessions, parents have written these wills during their lifetimes to convey the ethical inheritance to their children after their deaths. These documents are about acquired wisdom, rather than accumulated wealth. They are about values lived and lessons learned, rather than net worth. Through this cross-generation communication, memory becomes legacy.

Realizing how much he would have cherished receiving such a gift from his own grandparents, Time-Capsule Messages are M. Lev’s priceless birthday presents From A Grandfather to His Grandchildren.

Since learning to read as a child, words have been personal playthings for M. Lev. He has enjoyed them with his eyes and with his ears. Before knowing what a synonym or homonym was, M. Lev felt that dictionary definitions didn’t adequately capture the special relationship between a word’s sound and its meaning. So he created his own private dictionary and called it “Heard Words.”

Over the course of his extensive professional travels as an adult, M. Lev paused to type ‘don’t forget this one!’ messages into his laptop and smartphone. This anthology is a collection of “oral and aural words” compiled over decades.

In choosing a title for this book, it occurred to M. Lev that his name lent itself to an inferred combination of insight and humor— M. Levity. These “notes to self” are intended to be read both with your eyes… and with your ears.

After his graduate studies, M. Lev conducted an independent research project, exploring studies in zoology and anthropology. As he took deep dives into the literature, he found fascinating parallels between the sexual evolution of all members of the animal kingdom, including human beings.

Cutting through the jungle of scientific jargon and scholarly footnotes, he organized his voluminous notes into short essays, written in plain English and highlighting selected findings. Sex & Love in the Human Animal is a collection of personal insights about the sexual behavior “of humans and other species in the wild and in our world.”

This humorous collection of plays on words provides satirical commentary on the intersection of politics and morality in 21st-century America.