[00:00:05.080] - Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. Hope you're having a great week. I'm excited about the subjects that we're going to talk about this week. We're actually going to cover three. I know we usually do one main one and sometimes a rift, but this week I want to talk about three different areas. There's some relation in the first two, and the last one is just something that I've been holding on to for a minute that I feel needs to come into the podcast to help you navigate some of the experiences that we have on the court and off the court, and I think you'll find it interesting. As we dive into the podcast, we are in the midst of our final preparations for our upcoming fall clinic. It's going to be a really, really awesome clinic, the way it's structured. Obviously, I have the inside baseball on it, and I can tell you that it is going to be game-changing for many of you, even if you're familiar with our teaching, familiar with our our philosophy about this game. I believe that the way that we're presenting this clinic, the way we're structuring it, the information you're going to receive, I think you're going to find it a very helpful clinic to attend.

[00:01:12.680] - Speaker 1
As I mentioned the last time, and I'll mention the end the next time, is the pick-up-ball system course opens up for our fall class. If this is your time to do that, this is an amazing time to be a part of that. The other thing I wanted to mention with you was we continue to work forward on the book. I We're still shooting for end of month, September 2025. If it's not September 30th, it'll be October seventh or something. It'll be very shortly thereafter. So we're in the final throws of it and just getting some pieces put together so that we can release the book in the soft launch. And hopefully by the next podcast, I'll have more information about... We're going to do a pre-order. If you want a pre-order, or if you want to secure your book and get an early copy of it, we'll do something for you and have an ability to do that. We'll talk about that in the next podcast. All right, let's talk about... There's a couple of concepts that interrelate here. I'll start with the easy one first, the easier one first. And then I'm going to share with you guys a personal struggle that I had today in my game that maybe help you see how I try and navigate this process.

[00:02:29.910] - Speaker 1
And I believe that what I came up with in my own navigating of the process surely helped me. I think it helped you, too. Plus, you get to see that even though I think about this a lot and I'm the host of the podcast, still a human being. I haven't been able to shake that limitation in my existence. I'm kidding, obviously, because I don't see it as a limitation, but it is something that you have to factor into how you behave and everything you do. Let's start with the easiest one first. I was watching some US Open. This is about a week or so ago, and I'm watching an early round match, and there's a younger player on the court. When I say younger, he's probably around 20-ish. They're in the four set. I think it was a pretty competitive match. And he misses a forehand. And as soon as he misses a forehand, it was a rally that they hit several balls, and he misses a forehand, then I see he just tosses the racket onto the court. And it was interesting to me because it's obviously this player is playing from a standpoint of, I guess he's not allowed to miss a shot ever because he missed up beforehand, so he decided he needed to throw his racket.

[00:03:48.300] - Speaker 1
And it got me thinking about how this idea of preparing yourself mentally so that you can avoid the the potential let down during game time when you invariably miss a shot, because as you know by now, you're going to miss shots. There's just no way about it. The key is to get yourself mentally ready for that reality before you step out on the court, before you go play. I think if you were speaking to this player that I mentioned, the one who threw his racket in the tennis game, before he went out on the court or just over a dinner or something, you'd be like, Hey, what do you think? Next time you play, do you think it might miss a shot? Even a forehand that you're pretty good at? I'm guessing that the player would say, Yeah, probably. Probably going to miss a shot. So if you go into it knowing that you're probably going to miss a shot, not just probably, you're 100% going to miss shots. Then perhaps when you do miss the shot, it doesn't come as such big shock to you that, Oh, my God, I missed a shot, and you don't have that negative reaction that comes along with it.

[00:05:05.700] - Speaker 1
And it also made me think of some of the greats, Federer, Jokowitch, Nadal, players like that. Do you think they miss shots? Of course, they did. Federer famously had, I believe it was a commencement speech at a graduation that he gave where he talked about how many shots he's missed, the percentages, and it's like 40 % or 48 or 50 %, something like that. I mean, it's a really big number. And that That's expected, right? That the rallies end with an error by him, not that he's missed 50 % of the shots, but that the rallies end by him missing a shot about 40 some, 50 % of the time. And so he's not going to be excited about missing, but it's just part of the deal, right? It's just part of what happens when you play a sport, tennis or pickleball. And so when you look at players like that, their behavior when they miss shots, next rally, next point, let's go. Let's just play again. No big deal. And when you watch players who have not maybe prepared mentally before they go out to the court and not worked on their mental game enough, when they miss a shot, it's like the end of the world.

[00:06:12.290] - Speaker 1
Throw a racket, smash racket, things like that. I mean, think of like Roger Federer smashing a racket. Unheard of. What are you talking about, right? Because he has a better understanding of the big picture of the sport of tennis. And for us, it's about having a bigger picture about the sport of pickleball and preparing before we step out on the court to understand that we are going to make mistakes when we play, so that when we invariably make those mistakes, we're not going to get as upset. And what I recommend here is, I want to say now it's been like six weeks or eight weeks back, we did an episode called the 85, 15 Rule, or might else be called the Oops Bucket. Go back and listen to that one. And then the key to that one is use that before you step out on the court. Get yourself ready for that Oups Bucket so that when you miss, you can just dump the miss into the Oups Bucket and move on. So that And it relates then to the second area that I wanted to talk about, which is a personal one to me that happened to me today.

[00:07:06.520] - Speaker 1
And what happened was, I'm not going to get into the details too much, not because I don't want to share them, just because they're not relevant now that I understand better how to frame it to my thinking. So what happened was we were playing as a closed open play. So it's a closed group, but it's open play within the group that we move around. So I get on one of the courts, and one of the players is hitting shots that... Listen, he's entitled to hit whatever shots he wants. I don't have any complaints about him hitting whatever shots he wants. But there were shots that basic... I guess I have to tell you some details. So basically, there were kick-out little serves that go out. They kick and they go wide. And there's nothing wrong with that serve. There's nothing wrong with hitting that shot. It's illegal, it's fine. But on these courts, there are these dividers between the courts, these little dividers that they've put out there. And so the serve basically goes into the dividers. So the only way to really retrieve the serve on one side or the other side is you basically have to run into something.

[00:08:06.600] - Speaker 1
You have to run into a divider or run into the bags that are next to the wall on the other side. I'm not interested in doing that. I'm not going I'm not going to risk my physical safety by going to chase a ball, plastic ball in a game, and then trip on the thing and whatever. So I was not... When you would hit the serve, I would just say, nice, here's the ball point, serve the other way, whatever. And I'm okay with that. I'm perfectly okay with that. But I was thinking afterward whether I behaved well otherwise, meaning because I became disinterested in the game itself, that game. The other games were fine, and we had nice competitive matches and all that. But I became disinterested in that game, and so I didn't really care. We've talked about agency on this podcast, exercising your agency. I exercised my agency to simply allow the game to complete itself, and then I was done playing in that game, and I'd move on to something else. I asked myself afterwards, I was like, Was I a little too petulent, like a child. I don't want to play anymore because whatever.

[00:09:20.240] - Speaker 1
Now, I will say this, I'm okay with the not returning the serves. I'm not second-guessing that part because, again, there's a safety issue there. And it got me thinking about something that I do when I play. I'm a very good baseline lopber, so I can baseline lop third shots all day long. And it's very effective. I win a lot of points doing it. And I do it occasionally. I do do it occasionally when I play in these groups, but I don't do it all the time. Now, if I was playing in a competitive match, I might do it more because the competitive... And when I say competitive, tournament, not just competitive, like I'm playing in my level, tournament or something like that, then maybe I might lob more because I know how effective it can be and disruptive to the opponents and things like that. But when I play, I actually pay attention to how often I lob in these groups because I know it is not a shot that is fun to play against. It changes things. I try and be mindful of how often I do it. Same Another thing, I try and be mindful about how often I initiate offensive body attacks, which is perfectly legal shot.

[00:10:36.900] - Speaker 1
Competitive play, maybe I'll do more of it in a tournament. And that's where you basically flick the ball into the player's body, either hits them or they defend it a little bit, and then you put the next one away. Super effective shot. You see the pros use it where they do the body flicks, and it's a perfectly fine shot to do, especially for the pros in tournaments. But I try not to do too much of that, either of at all, in rec play because of it's rec play. Anyway, so I'm not concerned about not going after the stories. I'm fine with that. But I wonder, did I go too far in just basically not being interested in the rest of the game? And here's what I came at. Maybe I was right. I was wrong about that. Maybe I was wrong about that. But I'm not framing it correctly. And here's maybe the powerful thing. Maybe not the powerful thing, I don't know anymore. But the idea that I what I said was, if I frame it differently, which I think is a healthier framing, then I think I'm fine with what happened, with the way I behaved.

[00:11:40.240] - Speaker 1
And the framing is asking the question along a wider band than, did I do everything perfectly? Because the question I was asking myself about my behavior, other than not returning the serve, was, did I do everything at the absolute perfect situation? Did I do everything perfectly otherwise? And that's where the answer is maybe, maybe not. It's gray, it's not clear whether I should have done things differently. But I don't think that's the right question. I think the right question is, did I behave in a manner that is acceptable within a band that is a little bit wider, or maybe a lot wider, than the perfect behavior band, which is very narrow? And that band allows for my humanity that I mentioned earlier, that I'm burdened with. I did get annoyed by the repeated use of that shot because I felt it undermined the spirit of the game they were trying to play in a rec play. I felt that it was needlessly dangerous to me and to my partner because the same serve was going both ways. I did get annoyed as a human. Anyway, so that may have contaminated or carried over to my other behavior.

[00:13:15.820] - Speaker 1
So the question is, not did I act perfectly within a very narrow band of perfection, to repeat that, but did I step out of line? I think that's a better question. Did I behave in a way that is unacceptable in terms of, was I rude to my opponent or my partner? Did I toss my paddle? The answer to those questions is no, I didn't do any of those things. And so I feel that when you frame the question, when you find the correct framing for it, then you can find the better answer for it. And I will tell you this, this is a very big picture item for me, and not just for a pickleball. This applies to me outside of pickleball as well and everything I've ever done. What I've often concluded is that sometimes when we find ourselves in a difficult mental situation, we're trying to figure things out. The difficulty that we face is because we're asking the wrong question. We haven't figured out the right way to frame out the question that will then give us an answer that is more in line with what we're trying to figure out. To be clear, I'm I'm not suggesting that we need to find a question that just happens to fit the narrative that we want.

[00:14:35.040] - Speaker 1
That's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying here is that we find a question that properly gets at what we want to know. For me today, what I wanted to know from myself myself is, was my behavior okay or not okay? Now, was it perfect? That's the difference. I think once I framed it out that way, was my behavior okay, Then I'm good. I was okay with my behavior, and everything is fine. If I had stepped out of line, if I had answered the question, Was my behavior okay? No, it was not okay, and here's why. Then I have further reflection to do, maybe apologies to issue, whatever. But again, I don't believe that that was the case today. I believe that I was within an acceptable range of behavior, and I did not step out of line. Anyway, just one way to think about it. I would also say, if you When you think about this way of thinking about how we react as humans to certain events in our lives, whether it's applicable or not, it's very similar to what happens, what we were just talking about, the idea that you're going to miss shots when you play.

[00:15:44.040] - Speaker 1
You're going to miss the perfect response to a situation very often during the day. You're going to say something that maybe wasn't exactly the best thing you could have said on reflection, or you're going to, whatever, respond to something that doesn't agree with you in a way that maybe you could have done differently and could have done it better, right? Or you're a perfect person. And so if you analyze yourself relative to perfection on your behavior, it's very similar to analyzing yourself relative to perfection in your game, that you got to hit every shot in the court and never miss a shot, which is ridiculous, frankly. So give yourself the same latitude attitude in your personal life and then how you behave. So that's my suggestion on that. All right, I'm going to give you one more quick story, and then we're at for today. This last one is more like a rift, I think. So this happened a couple of weeks ago, and I think it's really interesting. It did not happen on a pickleball court. It happened in a cafe, in a diner. But I think it helps us think through the cause of uncomfortable situations that arise sometimes in life, and that can happen on the pickleball court, so I wanted to share with you.

[00:17:10.180] - Speaker 1
So the story goes a little bit like this, or it doesn't go a little bit like this. It goes like this. So this is after a pickleball session. No, before a pickleball session. Before a pickleball session where I was going to go record. So I went to go grab lunch. There's a little cafe right next to the courts where I do the recording. And I had my legal pad. I'm writing notes, I got my music I'm gone. I ordered my lunch. I'm sitting there, I ordered coffee, and then my lunch. And I'm sitting there up at the counter. And there was an open chair to my left, and then to the left of that one, there was a gentleman who came in behind me, about my age, I would say, and had sat down. So I got my coffee. I'm talking to the waitress, having a conversation. They're literally right there. There's two waitresses right there. And then in the meantime, a lady comes and sits between me and the gentleman and orders a coffee and whatever. So they're just... She talked to the wait a second. I'm writing my things, whatever. So a few minutes go by, and the lady asked the guy to my left if he wouldn't mind moving to another spot, which is behind me.

[00:18:19.460] - Speaker 1
It's the other angle, but it was behind me because her boyfriend is coming, and so would he mind? So he says, Well, I've been sitting here for however long, and they haven't taken my order yet, and just leaves. So he leaves the place, he leaves the cafe. Now, the two waiters that are standing right in front of him on the other side of the counter because the cash register is there. And they're like, Oh. One asked, What happened? And he said, Nobody took care of him. And so he left. Now, the two waitresses, obviously, did not intend not to serve this person. And they were standing right there, and they were a little bothered by it, personally. They're like, Oh, we failed. But I'm going to suggest to you that it was the patron who failed. And if you hear me out, I think you might agree with me. So we have a situation where there's clearly been some an internal breakdown on the server side. Remember, there's two waitresses, right? So I think you're serving him. You think I'm serving him. Can happen, right? That's human. But a breakdown happened, right? They They clearly would rather have served him than not served him, so there was a mistake.

[00:19:34.600] - Speaker 1
And that led to the gentleman leaving. Now, how do we fix this? How do we maybe prevent this in the future? One way is this small diner could, I guess, bring in a hostess or an advanced computer system to track all the chairs and make sure that everybody has an assigned person and to double-check to make sure the assigned person got assigned. I mean, it's a nightmare. It's a absolute nightmare. Or We could solve it by the patron who's sitting there with no coffee in front of him, looking up and saying, I have to laugh now, but saying to the waitress, May I have a coffee? Or, No one has served me yet. Would you mind bringing me a coffee? Anything. I think about it, and again, it's a little bit comical, and I don't want to make light of it because I know this gentleman is trying to do the best he can through life, and that's all fine. But it just reminds me of when you talk to a child where you say, Use your words. Just use your words. I think about that there because I think there was an unfortunate... He's probably never come back to the diner ever in his life.

[00:20:46.440] - Speaker 1
He's probably upset at the diner. I don't know if he left a review or not, but he's pissed off. He thinks it's their fault, and he was mistreated, so he left. The waitresses, for the moment anyway, they probably don't think about it anymore, but in the moment, they felt bad about it. Like, Oh, my God, we let this gentleman down. And all of that, plus he would have gotten a great cup of coffee. They have really good coffee and food there. He would have enjoyed his diner experience by just saying, May I have a cup of coffee? And you solve the problem. And so when you're in a situation in pickleball or in life, where you're unclear, unsure, whatever, make it clear. Use your words. Ask, say. Don't assume, don't wait around, don't. Sometimes, it'll be a little uncomfortable. It'll be maybe a little weird. If you're at the courts and you're not sure whether they need a fourth, then you go say, Hey, do you need a fourth? They say, Our friend is in the bathroom coming back, or, No, we're fine. We're drilling, whatever. But you know what? Oftentimes, they'll say, You know what?

[00:21:46.900] - Speaker 1
Yeah, that'd be great. Let's play. And so now you made new friends, and it's much better when you use your words. So hopefully that helps you. I think it's a great way to exercise your agency and just go about life. All right, that's this week's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, if you have a minute to rate and review, I really appreciate it. I haven't had a chance to check lately to see how that's going in that world there, but hopefully, you all are in there every day, all the time, rating and reviewing. If you enjoyed the podcast, always consider sharing with your friends, because remember, if you enjoyed the podcast, they probably will, too. I didn't say this before, so I'm going to say it now. My name is Tony Roig. I'm the host of the podcast. I always forget to say that. I didn't forget this time, I said it at the end. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Have a great week, and I'll see you in the next episode of Pickleball Therapy. Be well.