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Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. Is the podcast with you in mind. It's all about the mental part of pickleball, right? I am your host of this weekly podcast, Tony Roig. I hope you're having a great week.

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I had the opportunity last week of participating in some work with the MLP with Major League Pickleball. We're doing some collaborative work with them, helping them spread the word about their league and get players interested in the storylines of MLP this season, which are plenty. If you haven't checked them out, you can check them out this week. This weekend, when this episode drops, I'll be in Columbus, so you can check out that action on Friday and the weekend on Pickleball tv. If you're in the Columbus area, you can probably still get some tickets to go and check it out live.

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If you decide to go check out the MLP BP Academy. So better pickleball BP better be pickleball. B Academy at checkout will get you a discount and also lets them know that you heard from us, which is. Helps us. And then, you know, they're, they're, they're going to be traveling throughout the country, so if their schedule, you know, corresponds with where you're going to be or where you want to go, check them out.

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I mean, it's a lot of fun. The, it's a different, a different pace. It's just a different dynamic in that arena. They play as a team, which is very cool. There are some aspects of it that are perhaps not as clean, if you will, as a PPA event because some of these players haven't played with each other.

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So you get some like, middle coverage. No, no. What's going on? So, you know, if you want to think of like, what would pros look like if they went to open play and play with other pros? You get to see some of that at the mlp, but the team aspect of it is phenomenal.

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So again, highly recommend it. And, and you know, part of our podcast today, the rift today actually comes from the MLP and from, you know, watching the action there and seeing, you know, some of these issues that we deal with. Some of this, this, the, you know, the mental side of pickleball actually affects the pros as well. You know, it's not just amateur players who are affected by mental trip ups, mental, you know, things that happen to us. On the mental side, it is the, the pros as well, and it significantly impacts their game.

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But before we get into that, I want to get into a real big picture item that I think affects a lot of us as players, which is this idea of, of, you know, finding a secret, right? We all want to know. We're humans, right? We think, you know, we, it's just natural. That's why you see so many YouTube videos that say the secret to this, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to share something with you that's, you know, a little secret for you.

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And, you know, having that kind of thinking about pickleball or looking for that, and pickleball can end up holding you back. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to share a comment that's on our In2Pickle channel, the YouTube channel. And, and in case you don't know, pickleball therapy is part of a much bigger pickleball project. It's part of Better Pickleball, which is our, our parent company. And then we have a couple of YouTube channels, actually three YouTube channels if you count the one for pickleball therapy, as well as other types of coaching that we do inside our ecosystem.

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Which reminds me, if you haven't subscribed to our channel on YouTube and you're happy to be on YouTube, if you can look at pickleball therapy on there and just click subscribe, that helps us with the algorithm there to reach additional players. But basically I done a video on into pickle about five things to avoid for 50 plus players, right? So these are ideas that can help you if you're 50 plus, continue to be competitive and play better and things like that. So one of the comments and, and just to be clear, this is a public comment. That's why I don't mind reading it.

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You know, John, I believe is his name because of his, his user handle. But John posted this on the comments, so he's fine sharing it publicly. So I'm going to share it with you here. And I'm not trying to criticize John. I've already replied to him in the, in the comment chain.

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But, but I think it's indicative. His comment is indicative of how we think sometimes about the sport. And so I want to use that as an opportunity to explore this idea of, you know, what's the secret to pickleball so that we can, um, so we can collectively work on this project. That is, how do we get better at pickleball without losing our minds in the process. So, John, so the video was, was five tips, but it's five areas to like be, be.

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Be cognizant of right. For instance, like you know, you can add spins to your game if you want to, but you know, think about it before you do. And I show, I demonstrate in there some different dinks. So like a dink that doesn't have spin and a dink that has spin. And when you're 50, right, you know, it's not going to be as easy for your body to get down low to hit that, get under the ball to hit topspin.

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So I demonstrate that we talk about, you know, using the kitchen more, for instance, the non volley zone, more than perhaps you would if you were a younger player and just blasting the ball around, right? So especially if you're playing as younger players, how are you going to compete with a player, you know, who's 30 or 40 years younger than you and can hit the ball, you know, potentially harder and, and is fast, quicker and all those types of things. One thing is to use a higher IQ strategy, right, with more, more non volley zone using the, the court to your advantage. So basically those were the tips in there. And so this was John's comment, he said sorry, but none of these tips are specific to older players.

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Every quote tip unquote is general pickleball play that everyone, regardless of age should do. Don't hit. This is where I think John went a little bit overboard on his comment. But it's fine. He's entitled to express himself however he wants, just like I'm entitled to react to it the way I want.

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Don't hit open quote out balls. Duh. Use the kitchen. You think? Don't use a 5.0 pro level ready position.

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Brilliant. To tell you the truth, I was hoping for something better. And so here's the thing, right. And my response to John actually I guess I've been read it, my response to John was appreciate the feedback John. We all play the same game so 50 plus ideas are what to focus on.

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It is not like there's a shot that is exclusive 50 plus. One way to approach it is to think about the game in a way that works best for us of longer in the tooth, right? Trying to be, trying to be a little bit, you know, be a little lighter than John was perhaps in his, in his comment. But basically, you know, the, the, the thinking is that if that there, there you're going to come across a video that's going to have like the secret sauce, right? The, the magic formula.

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But listen, pickleball is pickleball. I know it sounds reductive and it's, you know, it's circular Right. To just say pickleball is pickleball, but it is, you know, whether, let's say you're a 2.5 player, a 3.0 player, a 3.5 player, 4.0 player, whatever level you are, you're playing the exact same game that the pros play. You're playing the exact same game that I play. We're playing the exact same game that a 20 year old plays.

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It's the same court, the same rules, the same basic ideas. The difference is where, where it gets interesting for us in our development as players is focusing on what makes the most sense for us right now. And so it's really a mindset and a focus and that's what I told John. Right. It's basically it's a mindset and focus and also how important is it to us?

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You know, if you were 25 years old and you played college tennis and you want to come into pickleball and just blast balls all over the place, then I guess, I mean that's, that's nothing wrong with that. Fine, you know, do it right because you have the skill set, the age, whatever, and you just, you can play that way for a while. Until later on maybe you figure you need to add the non volley zone because now you're facing other players like you that are there, have the same skill set than you do, plus the non volley zone, you're going to be in trouble. But if you're a, you know, 55, 60, 65 year old player and you're out there playing an open play with a bunch of 30 year olds, 40 year olds, 20 year olds, and you're just trying to, you know, go mano emano with that group. I don't know, I mean, that's probably not the best idea.

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Same thing with the ready position. You know, you can use, there's, there's nothing wrong with using the more pro level ready position. But the reality is when, when we get open age, you know, reflexes are a tad bit slower, right? So like, you know the time it's going to take me to recognize the ball coming, you know, towards my chest and be able to get the paddle to where I want to block and things like that is going to be a little bit slower. So maybe I err on the side of having the paddle a little bit higher than I would if I was 25 years old and it's the same thing.

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Meaning like they're both ready positions and they're both fine ready positions. But the decision I make is based on my Age. The, the thing that I want to, I really want to lean in on here is there's no like absolute magic ready position. There's no absolute magic shot. You know, even like you take like the third shot drop, you know, how do you drop it?

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Players drop it differently. Some players drop it higher arc, some players drop it lower. You know, the key I think, in terms of your growth as a player and your understanding of the game and just how you interact with the sport is the better you understand the, the variables, right, that go into your decision making and, and how they impact your shot. So I'm, I'll play with the third shot in a second. But, but the better that you understand how those things all work with each other, then the better able.

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You're. You can make decisions for yourself about how you want to approach it. So going back to the third shot drop, there are different philosophies on the third shot drop. What doesn't change, regardless of what your philosophy is, is that There's a roughly 34 inch, depending on where you're getting, right? Roughly 34 inch or so net that's blocking your way.

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So how do you want to deal with that? You know, do you want to try and go low and skim the net? Now? I'll tell you one thing. If I was a robot and I could, I could, you know, accurately hit my third over, you know, like quarter inch over the net every time I, I would do that, because that'd be awesome, right?

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Quarter inch over the net. Amazing. The best. And if I get the 8th inch over the net, I do that. But what do I know about myself?

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At least as far as I can tell, I'm not a robot and neither are you. And so we got to think like humans, basically. We got to accept that we have a margin for error. We have, there's more, there's more spread to our shot than, you know, warranted by a quarter inch over the net. So how do I, how high over the net should I aim?

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My third kind of depends on a few factors. It depends on my skill level. It depends on how close to the net I am, right? The farther back I am, the higher I'm going to hit it, because I have. It's farther away, it's more risk and I want to give myself more margin.

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The, you know, how, how well I'm playing that day. I, I'm. Sometimes I'm playing and I can, you know, I'm dialed in. I'm almost robot, right? And I can, I can hit my thirds.

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However, I want other days, you know, I hit a couple of thirds into the net and I say, well that's not fun, right? That ends the rally too soon. So what do I do then, right? I make an adjustment and that's just understanding the game. But the shot doesn't change.

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Meaning what I mean by the shot doesn't change. The details change. I get that. Right. But the shot itself doesn't change.

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The non volley zone is still seven foot. The net's still 34ft. I'm 34, 34 inches or so. You know, my paddle still my paddle. My body's still my body.

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And you know, the, the how I decide to interact with the shot is, is the beautiful part of the sport. It's what makes, allows all of us to play our own games. We don't all have to play like some cookie cutter, one, one size fits all. Also, you know, we avoid this idea of like trying to find a secret whatever it is. And if you're listening to this and you're a system, either a current or former system student of ours, you've been to one of our camps or you've, you've studied with us some, you know, this is exactly how we coach because this is the most meaningful way for you to grow as a player and also to interact with this beautiful sport.

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It's by your growth in your knowledge of the game and how the pieces all fit together. You know, we, we use, you know, when we're explaining it to, to players who don't really understand what we're talking about in terms of how we structure things. We use a puzzle box cover often as our, as our analogy slash metaphor, you know, and the idea is that, you know, pickleball has a bunch of pieces to it. Third shot, you know, volley, reset, block, volley, you know, return of serve, positioning on the court, angles, all those things are all pieces. And the better that you're able to understand not just the pieces, but how the pieces fit together with other pieces to make larger segments of the puzzle.

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So for instance, like you take your third shot, drop, you look at the mechanics of it has different sub pieces in there, right? And then from there you look at, for instance, Androgene trajectory is a, is a part of that. And then you look at strategically where you're going to hit it, how you're going to move all those pieces together, form, you know, serve, side play. You start building that and then you build your return side, then you build your non volley zone play and the different parts of the game. How do you Deal with lobs, how do you deal with bangers, right, all those different parts of pickleball.

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And at the end of the day, right, I mean, you know, in a perfect world, like in a, in a, in a world without time limits and, you know, and, and all that, I mean, in theory you could like learn the entire game of pickleball, all of it, you know, on a, on a puzzle box cover, and see the entire thing. But the reality is that for most of us, I, I say all of us, we're going to get to a point where like, you know, we're seeing a good amount of the puzzle, right? We see a lot of the puzzle, but there's still some pieces that, you know, we don't really, haven't really factored into the game because that's the nature of this beautiful sport. It always has something to teach us. But if you can walk away with one idea here, it's that don't look for the secret sauce, don't look for the magic bullet.

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If you will approach your pickleball as a slow and steady learning process for you, where you start to, you accumulate knowledge about this sport and you understand that at the end of the day, what's going to, what's going to make you a better player is going to be your ability to more consistently execute. What, at the end, I'm saying, at the end of the day, a lot I know, but what you're, you're able to more consistently execute, what are really at their core, fairly basic things, you know, and, and I, I, I recommend you watch the pros and watch the, how many times the pros hit very basic shots. Serve, return or serve, third shot, drop some of the volleys, some of, yes, you'll see an Ernie, you'll see, you know, crazy defense. Yes, you will see that. But look at like 70, 80% of the shots they hit.

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Look at their defensive shots are just setting their paddle right, just trying to get in a good position, set the paddle nice and relaxed, nothing fancy. Look at how many times they hit. They hit non fancy, quote unquote basic shots. They can just hit them again and again and again and again and again and more than we can, as well as the other elements of their game. But those basic shots are really the foundation of their play.

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Because if you think about it, let's give them all the fancy shots and take away the fundamentals, take away the foundational shots. And those players are not pros anymore. And the pros that win the most are the ones that have the best Foundational or fundamental shots. That's really the key to pickleball, not secret stuff. Fundamentals done better than you did yesterday.

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All right, so that's the main subject today. Let me dive into the riff as I do real quick. Side note here. I mentioned watching pros mlp. Great place to do that.

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So check that out. This story actually comes from the mlp and I'm watching two pro players and their names are not really relevant. So. Because they don't really add to the story, but basically two, two pro players and they're in a good fight. Now this is a.

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They're. They're the underdogs. The team I'm talking about here are the underdogs. But at that stage, I think the, the game was either 4, 4 or 5, 5. They're using traditional scoring now, so it's just the normal 211.

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So it's 4, 4, 5, 5. So nice, nice little game going on there, right? And then there's a serve and the player that the, the, the player I'm talking about, for some reason, it was really. It didn't call it out and then hit it and then missed the return. And then look to the ref and was like, sir was out and the ref was like, you didn't call it.

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Ball was dead when you hit the net and there was no attempt to call it. It wasn't like he, you know, he just. And it was his mistake. And that's. Listen, that's fine.

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The mistake isn't the problem. Mistake is fine. I mean, sort of sucks that it happened, but it's fine. The problem is how he reacted to it. All of a sudden he now is arrest fault.

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It wasn't his fault. It was rest fault. Ref did something wrong apparently or something. And, and I gotta tell you, from that point on, game was over. You know, one, you know, one difficult call or, you know, distracting situation or something and we're done.

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That. I mean, after that it was like a miss. They switched sides of six because it's one game to 11, so they switched sides of six and then it was another silly miss and it was just basically checked out at that stage. And so, you know, it reminded me of the fact that, that, you know, we're all human, obviously. I guess that should be the title of today's podcast.

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We're all human. But, you know, we're all human and so we're all going to be subject to potential distractions. The, the thing is, how do we, how do we react to those distractions when they occur and I think having preloading yourself with tools that will help you avoid the distractions. For instance, we have a whole episode about outballs. If I can find the episode before this one drops, I'll put it in the show notes for you.

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But there's a whole episode we did on outballs and how to deal with outball calls that you don't like, that you disagree with. You know, you can take the approach of, you know, that ball was, assuming they called it out and you think it was, and that ball was in, and so therefore I'm right, they're wrong, and all that probably going to end up distracting you. There's no real money in doing that. There's no benefit in doing that. You're going to end up picking a fight, which is not pleasant anyway.

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You know, creating discord and on a pickleball court with, I assume, most of your. Most of them, most of the time it's your friends for no gain. And risking this potential distraction, right now you've got the carryover about the call and now next three rallies, you're a mess. Instead, you go into the, into the game, preload it with your tools from listening to this podcast, right? Or studying the mental game and things like that.

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So you go in, preload it with these tools, and when something like that happens, no big deal, right? Because you know how to handle it, you just go, okay, you know, I hit the ball close to the line, they saw it out, not to be done. Let's move on, let's. And then your brain isn't preoccupied or like, you know, you're trying to think of the score was called wrong or something like that. It's just preoccupied your mind.

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And your mind is not then focused on pickleball, which is exactly what happened to this player and doing mlp. So be on the lookout for those distractions and if you are susceptible to them, tools to deal with distractions before you step out on the court. All right. I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. As always, if you have a minute to rate and review it, appreciate it.

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Several of you went into the several of you went into the Apple and reviewed it recently. Really appreciate that. In fact, there was one in there that I'll point out and I'll read a couple next episode. But there was one of them that talked about having Tony isms in your mind to help you. So that was awesome.

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I'm glad to give you some Tonyisms that you can that help you. And if it helps you along your way, that's awesome. That's what this podcast is almost all about. Because remember, this podcast is also about for me and my mental journey and my process. So quick shout out to everybody who said hello during the MLP this last week in Orlando.

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Really appreciate you coming up and saying hello. Plans are to be at the PPA event in Atlanta and so if you see me walking around, please do not hesitate to say hello to me. One last thing. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast and it helps you out, please share with your friends. Because if it helped you out, probably help them too.

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I hope you have a great week and I will see you in the next episode of Pickleball Therapy.