[00:00:05.020] - Tony Roig
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. My name is Tony Roig. I'm the host of this weekly podcast. It's a pleasure to be with you. This week we're going to cover a pretty dense topic, but I think it's a topic that merits some conversation because it'll help us with how we interpret information when we play and when our results come in. It's just another step in our learning process of how to think about our results and our performance when we play. And in the RIF, I'm going to share with you a story that happened today in a game this morning that I played that plays along with that, and it gives you basically a war story that applies to how we think about our performance when we play. As we dive into it, if you've listened to the podcast for any amount of time, you've probably heard me refer to the term therapist before. That is a term that applies to pickleball players who have committed to their growth in the sport, in the mental side of the sport, who listen to the podcast on a fairly regular basis, it doesn't have to be every single week, but on a fairly regular basis, and who try and help other players find their own path or find a way to move forward with the mental part of the game.

[00:01:17.340] - Tony Roig
And so we're going to be reaching out to you. If you're already a therapist, with some new get together and some ideas that we have. And if you're not yet a therapist and want to be a therapist, or want to know more about it, send me an email at tony@betterpickleball.com. Put therapist in the subject line, please. That'll help me hone in on what it's about. And then I will send you some additional information, or myself or the team, someone will send you some additional information about becoming a therapist, and then you can make an informed decision as to whether or not something you want to do. Actually, two other piece of housekeeping. One is that if you're listening to this podcast near its publication, We have our strategy clinic coming up next week. So if you want to check that out, you can go to betterpickleball.com and check that out. And then one other piece is that there's still a couple of spots left in our Tampa camp at the end of July, if you're interested in that. That's at betterpickleball.com as well. All right, let's talk about how we process information.

[00:02:21.380] - Tony Roig
The reason this subject came up in my mind as a good topic to discuss was I was having a conversation with my son, and if you I don't think I've mentioned this before. My son Andrew actually helps with the podcast, finalizing the podcast, getting it out and all like that. So he's probably listening to this right now and cringing a little bit, but that's life, working with your father, who's a podcaster, I guess. Anyway, so we were having a conversation at the end of the Tennis French Open, talking about results and a number of uneforced errors in a match and things like that. And it got me to thinking about how we think about what's normal or expected in a contest, in any sports contest, and in our framework is pickleball, our context is pickleball. And so I wanted to broach that subject here. We talked about it a few... It might have been a month or so ago where we talked about 85, 15, when you miss a shot. If you haven't heard that episode, I highly recommend you check it out. It'll really help you when you miss shots because it'll give you a better way of processing that.

[00:03:29.460] - Tony Roig
But it's also in our prepare to play guide, that concept. So if you haven't gotten that yet, you can go to betterpickleball.com I'll put a link in the show notes and you can get a copy of the guide. Anyway, so the idea that I want to talk about is Basically, how do we process the... How do we deal with the variability in outcomes when we play pickleball? And what I mean by that is, let's take an example of you're going to play Let's say your standard is to play, let's just use eight games, right? So a regular pickleball session for you is to play eight games. If you've listened to the podcast for any amount of time, then over time, we expect that to be a 50/50 proposition. 50/50 proposition is we're going to win four games, we're going to lose four games. But that's a big number. That's part of this deeper understanding of how the numbers work. The 50 % is over a lifetime. It has to be a large sample size. Within that sample size, in other words, within the specifics, we are going to have fluctuations in our results. Our results will range from losing every match I know it sounds terrible, but it'll happen.

[00:04:48.000] - Tony Roig
Losing every single game, I should say, and then to winning every single game. So you go from winning zero, losing eight, all the way to winning eight, losing using zero, and then every combination in between, seven and one, one and seven, six and two, five and three, four and four sometimes. And that's just normal. In other words, it's not necessarily what you want. I get that. It's not necessarily... I'm going to use the term expected here, and I think there's two different ways of thinking about it, right? Two different ways of using that word, I believe. One is, do I go into the games expecting to lose? I don't think that's positive while you're in the moment, while you're doing your thing. But when you're done with your session, you've played your eight games. If you go 0-8, and I say to you, so zero wins, eight losses, and I say to you, well, that's expected. And you respond by saying, no, I don't expect that. Then I would submit to you, you're not dealing in the real world. Because the real world is one in which in the course of your sessions, of your playing multiple sessions, you will, in fact, have sessions that are 0 and 8, just like you will have sessions that are 8 and 0.

[00:06:14.100] - Tony Roig
And there's really no difference between those two, even though it seems like they're usually different because one's 8 and 0 and one's 0 and 8. And the reason I say there's no difference is because when you think about these things, it's helpful to think about things along a bell curve in terms of statistics So literally, picture a bell in your mind. If you haven't studied this in a long time or never studied it in school, just imagine like a bell, and the bell has an edge on the left side, then it goes up to the natural bell shape, comes down, it has an edge on the right side. Your 8: 00 and 0: 00 and your 0: 00 and 8: 00 are on the extremes. Those are the least likely things to happen. It does not mean that they're not normal to happen, but they're the least likely ones They're going to happen. You're probably not going to spend your pickleball career playing a bunch of 8: 00 sessions and a bunch of 08: 00 sessions and then averaging 4: 00 and 4: 00. It's more likely that you're going to spend more time in the 5: 00 and 3: 00, 3: 00 and 5: 00, 6: 00 and 2: 00, 2: 00 and 6: 00.

[00:07:18.630] - Tony Roig
Those are going to be more common than the 8: 00, 08: 00, and also more common than the 7: 1, 1: 7, right? So that's the next one in. And then right in the middle of your Bell Curve is four and four. And so basically, you think about your... You can understand that those aren't going to be common, but that does not mean that they're not expected. And I think The reason this is important is because when it invariably happens to you that you lose all of your games in a session, you should not leave that session feeling bad about the session because you understand that it is expected. And this is where the term expected comes to help you now. I'm not going into the games expecting to lose all my games that day. I'm not beginning the day. But when I'm looking backward, when I'm looking in my rear view mirror, so to speak, to the day, I understand, as a reasonable, sentient human being with a mind, that an 0-8 day is not only possible, it's expected at some point. And so when I'm feeling upset about going 0 and 8, or going 1 and 7, or even 2 and 6, or any number, then I go, Okay, but I expect that.

[00:08:45.460] - Tony Roig
And I understand that that's part of the deal when I go out and play pickleball at level. And so we have this tool available to us whenever we have a session that our gut reaction, our instinctual reaction, is to feel bad about, because we lost more than we won. Because if you think about it, you never have a problem when you win more than you lose. When you go 8 and 0, that's divine justice. That's the way the world is supposed to be. It's supposed to be 8, 0 or 7 and 1, right? But it's never supposed to be 1 and 7. It's never supposed to be 0 and 8. And what's interesting is if you think it through, for you to go 8 and 0, chances are that somebody went 0 and 8 or 1 and 7 or something like that. So somebody else is on the other end of that stick when you're 8 and 0. Our 8: 0. And so understanding that it's part and parcel of the game that you love and the game that you play, I think, will help you help reduce some of the angst that can creep in whenever we have those sessions.

[00:09:43.770] - Tony Roig
So keep that in mind. And have that in your back pocket so when you invariably have those situations. And so now I want to talk about the Rif, and the Rif is a game that happened this morning where it was a really good game, at level. In a group. We were playing in a mixed group, mixing around. This was a really tough match. Tough game, I should say. And me and my partner were down 6-10. If you are coached by us at the Better Pickleball Team, then you know that one of the things that we preach on the mechanical pillar is never let the net beat you, clear the net, give yourself margins. At like eight, six them or something like that, I was all about skimming the net And sure enough, backhand and forehand dinks, both into the net. I'm just like, What is going on? So I was not happy with those shots, right? But I understood that there's still a game to play, right? And this is thinking about it within a game now. I understand that inside of a game, there are good moments, and there are moments that I wish were better.

[00:10:53.530] - Tony Roig
If I had everything perfect, then I would never make mistakes. But And understanding that there's going to be ups and downs, what you do is you just keep pushing forward. And so we sided them out at 10: 06. Then we served. I don't think we scored any points. They sided us out. We sided them out again. I believe that time we scored a couple of points, got it to eight. Then they sided us again, sided us out again. Then we sided them out again. And then we ended up winning 12: 10. I think we ran four points at that stage. And the key is, our Our opponents had some... Over the course of the game, they had some really spectacular shots. They had some bone-headed shots. We had some spectacular shots. We had some bone-headed shots. But if you understand that these ups and downs are perfectly natural, including not making good decisions on my dinks there where I was trying to do too much from bad situations, and just allowing the game to continue to flow, it gives you the best a chance to... Even if you don't win the game, sometimes you'll win the game.

[00:12:03.160] - Tony Roig
Sometimes I played another game that we just started off really rough. We were down like 5: 02, I think. They were serving and it was like misreturn, misfourth, a couple of miscommunications. It happens in rec play because you're moving with new players. They don't understand what you're going to do. You're not sure what they're going to do. So we're down 5: 0, and we ended up losing that game 12-10. And I think we had at least one game point at 10: 09. I think we got to 10: 09. But those games are exactly the same. One, we won 12: 10, one, we lost 12: 10. But they both had their ups and downs, their natural progressions. The key is just to stay in the moment as best you can. Stay in the next rally, stay in the next rally, drop the prior rally. I'll tell you that today, I also saw a couple of instances of carry-over, where a shot was missed and all of a sudden it was carrying over into the next shot and the next shot. So what's one mistake, which can happen, it's going to everybody, instead of one point, becomes three points or two points.

[00:13:03.260] - Tony Roig
So there's something else to think about that I saw today. But the message I want you to understand, big picture from what we talked about today is understanding the natural spread of results, big picture. So 0 and 8, 8 and 0, 7 and 1, 1 and 7. That's big picture about your session. And then within the game, understanding that within the game, there's also going to be the ups and downs. There's going to be the boneheaded shots you're going to hit and also select. There's going to be mechanical errors you're going to make, and there's also going to be that on the other side. And the better you're able to simply stay in the rally, stay in the next shot you have to hit, you give yourself the best chance of having the most success in that game, whether you win or lose that game. So that's this week's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. I know we went a little bit deep on the math and that, but I really do think that the better that we can process our information the better that we can understand the data that our brain is trying to process, the more empowered we are to positively engage with that information and not let it drag us down.

[00:14:17.360] - Tony Roig
If you enjoyed this week's podcast, please consider rating and reviewing it. I did not have time to check the reviews before recording this one this week. I will check it next week. I know we haven't had a few in a minute on Apple the last time I looked, so if you have a minute, again, appreciate it. It's not just... I like reading it, sure, I'm a human being, but it also helps us reach other players who, just like you, may benefit from this type of content but may not see it without the algorithm feeding it to them. And ratings and reviews are important in that regard. And as always, please consider sharing it with your friends because remember, if you enjoy the podcast, they probably will, too. I hope you have a great week, and I will see you next week on the next Pickleball Therapy. Be well.