[00:00:04.980] - Tony Roig
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. I hope you're having a great week. My name is Tony Roig. I'm the host of this podcast. As I say these words, I realized that I probably hadn't said that the last couple of weeks. It's an interesting part of any process, and I'll tie it into pickleball in one second. But we get used to certain ways of doing things on the pickleball court and behind the microphone, and it's easy to revert back to those ways of doing things, including right now, or not right now, but before where I was not mentioning my name at the beginning of the podcast. Just a friendly little quick reminder here of the process. If you're playing pickleball and trying to improve and you revert back to what you were doing before, perfectly understandable, right? That's expected. All right, in today's podcast, I'm going to be talking to you about this concept of do your best to play your best. Before we get into that, I have a couple of housekeeping items I want to share with you a personal story that happened to me yesterday, the day before, and it also has to do with the growth process.

[00:01:07.760] - Tony Roig
I think you'll find that helpful to your process if that's what you're doing right now, trying to grow as a pickleball player. And in the RIF, I'm going to share with you an email that I received from one of your fellow players, Samy. He was fine with me sharing his name and the email, so I'm going to share that with you in the RIF. As we dive into the podcast, a couple of housekeeping notes. One, if you happen to listen to the podcast on Apple, on the podcast on the Apple platform, if you would leave a review, that would be really helpful. We haven't had one in there for a while, and I think Apple is probably thinking that, Hey, nobody listens to the podcast anymore. Just kidding, because they see the downloads, but it'd be helpful to get a review on there just to let the system know as well as other players know about the podcast. And the review can be whatever you like. It doesn't have to be a good review. Just leave a review if you would. We have some camps coming up at We have camps coming up in Minneapolis.

[00:02:02.540] - Tony Roig
There's another place I can't remember right off top of my head. I know we have some in Tampa. So go to betterpickleball.com if you're looking for a camp and see the list of camps and find one that's right for you. If you are a former camper or former Pickleball System student, TPS student. We also have a graduate camp coming up in October in Tampa, which is basically the next stage of the process in your development. So check that out. And then also in September, if you're wondering, what's TPS? What's the system? In September, we're going to have a workshop where we're going to teach you some pickle and then give you the opportunity to join the next class of the Pickleball System, which opens in September, which launches in September. So be on the look out for that. If you're on our email list, you'll be notified of the pickleball system's next steps in your emails. All right, let me share with you a personal story that happened to me that I believe will help you with your processes in terms of your forward movement in your sport and in anything in life. So if you listen to the podcast for a while, you may know that I dabble in gardening.

[00:03:15.980] - Tony Roig
It's something that I stop and start and try and get involved in, but I'm making a concerted effort to build a garden bed, and I'm using a new approach that I haven't done before. I actually think it's relatively easier once you get to know how to do it, but basically it's like stacking four by four. It's like interlocking them, drill hole, drive some rebar through them. Good to go. It looks really nice and it's sturdy. I've been working on that, and I got my holes drilled, which was its own process. And then I had the wood stacked, then I'm driving the rebar, and I realized that I'm having a little bit of difficulty lining up the last hole, the bottom hole. Everything shifts a little bit as you're driving the rebar and things like that. So then I basically had to pull it apart. I hadn't driven the rebar all the way in because at least I didn't do that. I didn't drive the rebar all the way in, so I had them sticking out. I was able to shimmy it out and things like that. But through that process, I figured out a better way of coming at it from the front-end.

[00:04:19.040] - Tony Roig
I won't bore you with the details, but it's basically taking some steps in the middle that will allow me to then do it quicker the next time and more efficiently the next time. So I was thinking about that in terms of... Because I'm always thinking about pickleball whenever I'm doing stuff, a pickleball is always in the back of my mind. What happens is when we're trying to learn a new shot or develop a strategy, things like that, invariably what will happen is you'll head down a certain route. You'll start doing something this way. Then you'll perhaps have to take a step back for a second because, let's say, there's a shot that you need in order to build that strategy, or there's a concept that you didn't really understand that well that will help you with the strategy. I think we get a little bit down on ourselves, maybe even frustrated whenever we have to take those steps back to gain perspective on what's happening and then be able to take a step forward more productively. That's exactly what happened to me with this project. Not that I felt... I did feel for a moment, I was like, Oh, man, I got to pull these apart and then reassemble them.

[00:05:29.560] - Tony Roig
But you know what? It was, A, perfectly understandable because this is my first time building this type of garden bed, and so it's a new process for me. I'm learning as I go. And B, I see it clearer now in terms of what are the steps that are going to help me continue to do this in the future? Because my plan is to build further garden beds like this. So there's basically one, and it would be enough just to say, that makes sense, right? That you needed to take a step back because there was something along the that you couldn't foresee because you hadn't done it before until you get there. And now you're like, Oh, now I see. And then you take that step back, you see the... Because you have to. But the second benefit, the secondary benefit is, next time you go forward, you're more empowered. You have a better understanding of how everything fits together. And it's the same with pickable. Again, if you're working in an area, don't get frustrated. Try not to get down on yourself if you have to take a step back. And we're talking about that these days because we have a guide that we developed, which is a three, five must-have shot guide.

[00:06:38.520] - Tony Roig
And you're welcome to get a copy of it. I'll try and put a link somewhere in the show. I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to get a copy of that. But it leads into what we're going to be doing in our September conversation and then so on. But basically, and it also leads into the August clinic if you want to join us for that, because we're going to be talking about that more in-depth, the must-have shots. But what happens, the reason this is relevant to what we're talking about right now is, what will happen is this, right? So let's say you're a 4. 0 player, and I tell you, Here's a must-have shots for 3. 5 play. Naturally, you might think, Well, I don't need that because I'm 3. 5 already, so I don't need those shots. But the reality is that if you want to be... I'm sorry, you're already 4. 0. If you want to play 4. 0 and keep going above, you need all the shots from before, including the shots that a three, five needs. So it's not like, well, a 3. 5 needs those. Therefore, ergo, I don't need those because I'm not 3.

[00:07:38.020] - Tony Roig
5, I'm 3. 7 or 3. 8 or 4. 0. That is not correct. Now, if you have the shots, you have the shots, right? But you should at least check it to make sure that you have those shots, because this is an area where sometimes you may have to take a step back, because what will happen is you'll end up stuck if you're missing stuff that's in your rear view mirror. So hopefully, that helps you with your process and not getting bogged down with When you have to take steps back, because that's natural. All right, let's dive in to do your best to play your best. I'm going to read from the book here. Quick update on the book is that we are on track for a I think it's fall, technically. That might still be summer. No, it's fall. I think it's fall. Fall launch of it. The team, Jeff, Dave, Michelle, Penny, everybody's rolling in the direction, and we're going to get this thing done here. All right, so this is from a section. This is from part four, Our Place Within Pickleball. We've been talking about control and agency and basically control the controllables, essentially.

[00:08:45.320] - Tony Roig
It wraps up with this idea of do your best to play your best. I'm reading from the book now. This teaching point wraps up well as follows, do your best to play your best. The maxim has to your best, but each applies to a different aspect of your performance. Part one, do your best, is subjective. This part acknowledges our fallible human nature and includes this fallibility within the scope of what we are able to do that day. A side story here to explain where this part originates. One day, we're walking through a downtown area. I noticed a car that wasn't parked quite right. It was in a row of cars that were all parallel parked as you would expect, all neatly in a row, except for this one car. The car had been left at an angle to others. Its back-end protruded out into the narrow one-way road, making it difficult for cars to navigate past it. The driver was nowhere in sight, presumably at a nearby restaurant enjoying a meal. Two ways occurred to me to think of this driver. One way to think about it was What a jerk. The driver was rude and inconsidered of others.

[00:09:48.940] - Tony Roig
Or perhaps another way to come at the same situation, this parking job was the best that this fellow human being was able to do today. They did not mean any ill will towards others, and this is just the best they could do. You can see how the way we frame our thinking about the same parking deficiency elicits a different response. The first framing, what a jerk, leads to becoming upset and perhaps even an argument with a driver. The second framing, best they could do, leads to empathy and perhaps even an offer to help the driver park the car better. Why not apply the same framing to ourselves? Say you lose a game that you should, quote, Ever, close quote, lose. How should you react to it? Option one, you can fight yourself. Unacceptable, or I'm such a loser. Or option two, practice some self-empathy. I have a lot on my mind, or I did not sleep well last night. Note that these are not making excuses. Option two does not include saying, Must have been the wind, or those net shots were the reason. Option two is simply acknowledgement of the fallible nature of being human.

[00:11:01.060] - Tony Roig
Part two, play your best, is objective. How well can you reasonably expect yourself to perform in a game? Contrasting two different versions of you is the best way to see how the second part works. Version one of you has spent the last three three months, immersed in serious drilling and improvement. You've also been playing lots, each time with intentionality and purpose. Version two of you has been preoccupied... That's version one. Version two of you has been preoccupied the past three months with family and work. Zero your time drilling or practicing and only playing once or twice a week. And even then, you're just going for the social interaction and exercise more than focusing on your strategic development. You're now in a game. You're feeling like your shots are just not working the way you expect of yourself. If it's version one of you, then perhaps there's something to it. Maybe you need to get a little lower into your shots or focus your attention on the ball better. If it's version two of you, though, then perhaps your drop in play is just objectively okay. Why should you expect to perform at a level that is commensurate with your practice and play leading up to the game?

[00:12:05.200] - Tony Roig
Putting it together. Do your best is a subjective component that asks you to try your hardest while still accepting the normal ebbs and flows of being human. And two, play your best is the objective component that asks you to perform as well as you can, given the realistic bar that you can clear. Tying these concepts together, there's only one factor on the pick-able court that you can control, and that factor is you. There's also only one factor for whom the performance is important to you, and that factor is you as well. You are the factor A in your own ongoing pickleball experiment. That's explained before in the book, when you got the book. You can control your performance on any given day Only to the extent that you put forth your best effort, that's doing your best, and play the sport you love as well as you possibly can. That is playing your best. So in sum, do your best to play your So hopefully that helps you think a little bit differently about how you come at yourself, how you evaluate yourself. Every day you're going to come at it as a fallible human.

[00:13:11.860] - Tony Roig
You're going to try your best, do your best. And then even within that, you're going to play your best, given where you're at in the game right now, based on how long you've been playing, based on the amount of time you put into it, based on your understanding of the game. And you need to accept that objective reality of yourself. You put those two pieces together, the subjective and the objective, and that gives you what you can control. Anyway, so that's, I think, a powerful concept that is still fairly new to my way of thinking and my processes, in terms of as a mentor or teacher. And so that'll keep on getting refined as we move forward. Let me pull up Sammie's email now in the RIF, and I'm going to read it to you. The reason I'm sharing this with you, and I asked Sammie for permission to do this, is because it makes the case for mental process, or focus on mental process, I should say. Now, let me be clear. I'm not talking about the case for focus as a mental process. That's one way of using the term focus. I'm talking about focusing on mental process, where mental process becomes a serious objective in what you spend your time on relative to the sport of pickleball.

[00:14:23.390] - Tony Roig
And what I'm going to share with you is how how Sammie realized that the... Or how it clicked for him, and he said he had an epiphany, the importance of the mental side. And he already knew this, as you'll see from his email. But even though he knew it, he knew it in his other professional life as a doctor, hadn't really applied it to himself. And that's the trick for us, is to do these things for ourselves. So the subject line is epiphany. And then starts off, Tony, my serve depth is much more consistent now. As you know, I'm a retired anesthesiologist and used breathwork to calm the anxiety of patients before and sometimes after surgery, instead of drugging them with a drug on here that hard to read. As you also know, taking a deep breath in and a longer exhalation leads to engagement of the parasympathetic nervous system. Rest and digest, decrease heart rate, decrease muscle tension, increase oxygenation. The opposite of the sympathetic nervous system. Bight or flight, increase tension, increase muscle tightness, increase My heart rate, etc. My previous attempts at deeper serves led me to trying to increase the energy of the serve in order to get it deeper.

[00:15:39.060] - Tony Roig
Now, I take a deep breath prior to initiating the serve and serve during the exhalation, adding increased trajectory and, in all caps, decreased energy. The energy is surprisingly low compared to the depth of the serve. Profound. Best, Samy. The point of sharing that with you, again, is that it's a tangible understanding or tangible expression, I should say, of the interaction between your mind and how you perform on the court. And as we like to say on the podcast in our athletic pillar training at Better Pickleball, the athletic pillar is body and mind. And so the menthol part of pickle ball is going to allow you to feel better. And we can stop there. You're going to feel better. I don't have to more case, do I? But there's a bonus, right? The mental side of pickle ball or progressing on the mental side of pickleball, improving on your mental processes, will help you feel better and also play better, as you can see from Sammie's email. So Sammie, thanks a lot for sharing that with the group. If you're a pickleball therapist, be on the lookout. You should have received an email from us for an upcoming get together for the pickleball therapist.

[00:17:01.840] - Tony Roig
If you don't know what I'm talking about with pickleball therapists, but you'd be interested in becoming one. Basically, in a nutshell, you're going to work on yourself in the mental part of your processes relative to pickleball. And you're also going to be an ambassador, if you will, where you help others if you can. And helping them can just sharing the podcast with them. It's perfectly fine. But we're on the lookout for others who are maybe beating themselves up, having a hard time on the mental side of pickleball and just offering a friendly word, including simply saying, Hey, I got a podcast I listen to that might help you out. So if you're interested in that, send us an email. Go and send us a support at betterpickleball.com. My email is getting a little inundated these days, and I hate to miss out on those in case they come in. So usually, I have them come to me, but just send it to support at betterpickleball.com. That'll make it easier for us to track the inquiry and to get you the information in a timely manner. But again, if you're already a therapist, make sure you got an email.

[00:17:57.240] - Tony Roig
If you did not get an email and you're a therapist, then please email, also email support, and we'll get it to the right folks to make sure that you're notified of that meeting. All right, guys, that's this week's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, you have a minute to rate and review it, particularly on Apple, as I mentioned earlier. That would be much appreciated, and it can be any review. If it's nice, that's great. If it's not nice, that's great, too. I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you guys on the next episode of Pickleball Therapy. Be well.