[00:00:04.940] - Tony Toig
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement with a focus on the pickleball mind. I'm the host of your weekly podcast, Tony Roig. It's a pleasure to be with you this week. This week, we're going to cover a topic that I think you find really interesting. It has to do with having a tethered or untethered approach to your pickleball journey. I think you'll see by the end that having a tethered approach is much more productive as well as fulfilling way of engaging with the sport. And it also avoids some of the common pitfalls that we see players fall into frequently. And the idea for this week's podcast came from some comments that were to a video on the In2Pickle YouTube channel that I had done a video on rushing and how it affects your play. There's some exchange of comments in there by players, and it made me really think about why are players having difficulty with these concepts in terms of being able to navigate them productively. That's where I came up with this idea of Tethered Untethered, which I think you really enjoy, and it'll help you It'll help you process...

[00:01:17.920] - Tony Toig
It'll help you not just process information, it'll help you do that, but it'll also help you navigate, if you will, your path as you work on your pickleball self, pickleball game. So we'll get into that. As we dive into it, a couple of housekeeping notes. I've been getting some questions about the paddle I use. I've been using the PaddleTec 14. 3 millimeter paddle for a little bit of time now. I think it's an amazing paddle all the way around. I was using the ALW-C 14. 3 millimeter. I think it's an amazing paddle for pretty much any player can use that paddle. I have gravitated towards the GTO-C, same 14. 3 basic paddle, just a different shape. I just like the way that it swings better. I came from tennis, and so it just swings more like a tennis bracket to me, which I appreciate, even though I'm playing pickleball now, pretty much 99. 9 % of the time. But I just like the way that it swings. I like the way it engages with the ball. If you're interested in checking out that paddle, we do have a relationship with PadlTech. We'll put a link in the show notes.

[00:02:26.800] - Tony Toig
You can also go to betterpickleball. Com. You can either Buy it directly from PadelTech or through Pickable Central. If you want to get the customer service at Pickable Central, both links will give you a discount through our affiliate relationship with both of those entities. You get a discount, we get some credit because we sent you, and it helps everybody. It doesn't affect your price. If you can do that, that'd be fantastic. If you're interested in that paddle, I cannot recommend it enough to you. If you're not sure which shape, the LWC is still a fantastic paddle to go with. The other point of housekeeping is that we have now had well over players who have purchased the Pickleball Therapy book. So thank you very much for doing that. It really helps promote the book with other players, reach other players. It also lets us know that we're connecting with you, so we really appreciate that. We'll probably be asking you guys who have purchased an early copy of the book to help us out when it goes on Amazon to put some reviews on there in the next few weeks. So I'll let you know about that as soon as that occurs.

[00:03:29.560] - Tony Toig
And Again, really appreciate you doing that. If you haven't gotten a copy of the book yet, you can. It's betterpickleball.com. Get your early copy of the book. All right, let me dive into this tethering concept, and let me set it up for you. I did a video about rushing and some of the errors that occur from rushing. One of the errors that was discussed, and there has to do with the return to serve, and it has to do with too much energy into the ball from running through the shot. Losing control of it, primarily energy, is the issue. It can have trajectory problems as well. If you're one of our students, you're probably familiar with energy and trajectory. If you're not one of our students, it basically just means too much power into the ball. Also, trajectory, how you control the direction of the shot. Anyway, so that was one of the errors that was discussed. There was a comment made, which was about a video that Zane Navertil, a pro player and fellow coach had done recently. So it says, They ain't just did a video on return of serves. That says the exact opposite.

[00:04:20.880] - Tony Toig
His method is to treat the return different from a drive and move forward through the ball with a shorter stroke, which puts you at the kitchen quicker. So which is a correct, better method? That question, fantastic question. Great question. Super. I understand that there may be a disagreement between these two ideas, which there is not, as I'll explain, but it sets up... It's a perfectly fine question to ask. The thing that The thing that got me thinking was a couple of comments to that comment, a couple of replies to that comment. One was, I would listen to the pros. I saw that Zane video, too, and my mixed partner insists that you should always never be moving while hitting your return, L-O-L. Also, this guy's technique isn't very good. I guess he's talking about me. His serve is all arm and also stands straight after dinking. His breakdown videos are good, though. So I guess my breakdown videos are good, but I was like, Do I hit the ball, which is... It is what it is. It's fine, but It shows a lack of depth, perhaps, and understanding. And then there's another one that this guy is mostly for the 50 plus crowd.

[00:05:22.680] - Tony Toig
Zane is not. And so I started thinking about what's limiting these players' understanding that these two concepts, the one that's explained in my video on rushing, which is a different idea, and Zane's video on getting to the line quicker, which is a different idea, on how those two ideas, those two approaches to the return, can coexist in the same universe without contradicting each other. And so I'm going to explain that to you, and then I'll explain why those two concepts can work together. And then I'll explain to you why I believe that the issue that these players are having is that they're following an untethered approach to their pickle ball, which is going to limit them and limit their understanding, and that if you have a tethered approach, it's much fuller. So first, let me explain to you why the two concepts can live together. What I'm dealing with is are errors on returns of serve when you're missing returns of serve long, when you don't have control over your shot. Oftentimes, that's because you're rushing through the ball. And if you just take a... It's a really quick set. You quickly set yourself. As you're hitting, you're going to have more control over your shot and make less mistakes.

[00:06:34.340] - Tony Toig
Now, what Zane is saying... Now, I got to be honest with you, I haven't seen the video, but I know enough about pickleball. I know enough about Zane as a player and as a coach. He's a very good player, very good coach, good thinker of the game. What he's talking about is if you basically hit as you're moving, so you don't get completely set like you would in a drive. That's what one of the players didn't really, I guess, grasp, is that when you're driving the ball, so you want to hit an all-out drive winner, whether it's singles or in doubles, you're getting set up for a big shot. Yeah, you want to be fully, fully set. There's gradations of set. So there's the fully, fully set, feet grounded, body turned, I'm just going to really wail on this ball. And then there's the, okay, micro-set while I'm hitting a return of serve. In theory, you could go all the way through just running through the ball. And if you have the control of a Zane Navertil, that's fine. Zane Navertil played a lot of tennis. I believe he played college tennis. He's an excellent athlete, great player.

[00:07:33.340] - Tony Toig
So, yeah, he can probably hit while doing a cartwheel, right? Most of us can't. And Zane would agree, I'm sure, that first order priority is get your return to serve in play. The next order priority would then be to get to the non-buy zone. There's a step in the middle about deep, but that's for another conversation, but get to the line. So if you have complete control over your returns of serve and you want to get a step on getting up to the line, yeah, sure. Then reduce the amount of your stop as you hit the ball. Now, I can tell you that most pro players, when you watch them hit returns of serve, they're set when they're hitting it. They get set, then they hit. It's a very quick set, but they're set. They're set, they hit, they move. When they're stacking, their return changes a little bit because now they have to go farther. So you'll see them, it's a much quicker stop, if you will. It's a very quick pause, hit, and then keep moving. Different different than when they're just having to move straight forward into the non-volley zone. But even the pros like to get set because set gives you a better, more consistent shot, more reliable shot.

[00:08:41.600] - Tony Toig
So these two concepts live together. They're not opposite. It's not that... If you're making mistakes with your return to serve, oftentimes it's because you're rushing. The solution is, get set while you're hitting the return to serve. Once you've mastered the shot to a level where you're never missing returns to serve, almost never, and you want to get a quicker jump on getting to the non-body zone line, sure. Then shortening the amount of your set or eliminating it if you want to go that far, will get you to the non-body zone line quicker. Those two concepts live together. Now, what makes it difficult for players like the ones who are in... Not the first question, or I think that was a fine question. I think they're two male players. Basically, the two guys that are just going back and forth on getting off topic about whether I stand up in my dink or how I serve and what's that got to do with this? And then the other one about like, Well, pros do it this way, do it that way. What's happening here is the approach is an untethered approach to pickleball. Untethered basically means there's no central theme, there's no anchor to which these players are tethered.

[00:09:55.460] - Tony Toig
And what happens is when you're untethered as a player, you end up I was thinking about a way of picturing it, right? And one way of picturing it is imagine that you're standing out in a Plaza, right? Back in the day, in the town square, if you will. And there's different fliers, different pieces of paper flying through the air. The wind is carrying fliers in different directions. And each one has a different pick-up all tip from a different player, different coach, different whatever. And they're just flying around, whatever the wind carries. And so you're just standing there and you're just like, whatever comes your way, you'll take. So the wind pushes one tip in your direction, you grab it, you're like, Okay, this is great. I'm going to do this. Or if it happens to swirl the other way and there's another tip, that's the one you're going to do. Or you have one in your hand, then you get another one, you're like, Now, okay, well, forget about the first one. I'm going to do the second one. It's very fluid and loosey-goosy. And this idea of these flyers flying through the wind and just falling into your hand is exactly what's happening in social media to you right now.

[00:10:58.140] - Tony Toig
It's exactly what's happening with YouTube, with Instagram, with Facebook, wherever you get TikTok, whatever, wherever you're getting your social media feed, if you will. That's exactly how that works. That is a world of wind blowing in different directions. You're getting a tip from here and a tip from there. I actually had a conversation with the team a few days ago. I don't really go into Instagram too much myself, but I happened to be in there because I needed to post something, and I just said, Let me scroll a little bit. So I scroll a little bit, and I don't I don't know how anybody who's on Instagram navigates that in terms of pickleball content. And listen, I'm chuckling not as a criticism of any content creators. Everybody's trying to do their best. That's all great. I just don't know how you do it as a player, right? As a player sitting there, there's content creators on there. I've never heard of before. It doesn't mean they might be the best thing since Slice Bread. I have no idea, but I don't know who they are. The tips are all over the place. You can find a tip for anything, again, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

[00:12:01.700] - Tony Toig
If you have an untethered interaction with what's happening, I don't know how you navigate that. I honestly don't know how you can navigate that sea of information out there, the pamphlets flying through the air. I know I mixed the metaphor analogies there. But basically, just the things that are floating around, how you navigate it, I don't know. Now, a tethered approach is where you have an anchor. You have a thing that anchors your pickleball journey. It gives you direction. It gives you a sense of what's correct and incorrect based on this tethering to an anchor. And that way, when you get a thing that comes across your feet or somebody at the court says something to you that is the latest thing they've heard or whatever, you don't have to just follow it because you don't know better or because you're untethered. Not because you don't know better, it's just you're untethered. You're just whatever. Okay, great. I'll take it. And so then tethered allows you, again, more control over your journey. It gives you more direction along the way you're headed. It allows for a quicker improvement because you're not jumping all over the place.

[00:13:12.720] - Tony Toig
And it's actually more fulfilling because you're building. And we've used this before in our conversations, but it's this idea of you have a puzzle box cover. A puzzle box cover gives you a picture of the puzzle you're trying to build. Now, it doesn't mean that you can build it right away just because you saw the puzzle box cover. You still have to put all the pieces in order and organize them if you're building a puzzle. And the anchor or your tether to a cover gives you that sense of where you're going, sense of what it looks like, what's the picture look like as you work to build it. Whereas, again, a none-tether approach is there's pieces, and you don't know where they go. You'll get a tips video, and maybe it has you put the pieces You think it's having you put the pieces on the upper left corner, but they actually go in the lower right corner, so you're putting them in the wrong place. Similar to the conversation that we just had about this idea of getting set or not getting set when you're hitting returns of serve. If you don't understand how these different pieces, one is a purely mechanical piece on how to hit more reliable, consistent shots.

[00:14:23.800] - Tony Toig
Again, I'm pretty confident. I've spoken with Zane before. I've interviewed him a couple of times. We're cordial with each other. I actually got against him one time at the US Open and split. He's just all over the place too much. But he's an amazing player, and again, a great thinker of the game. But I'm confident that Zane would agree that the more controlled your body is while you're hitting, the higher the chances you're going to hit a successful shot. What he's doing is he's trading off a little bit of that for quicker time to the non- Volley zone line, which is a strategic issue. So he's trading off a little mechanics for strategic, which is fine. I'm not criticizing. I think it's a fine way of thinking about it. It just depends on where you as a player are in the game right now, which one of those makes you, which one you should lean towards. Anyway, but if you don't have a better understanding of the... If you don't have an understanding of a puzzle box cover, understanding how the game put together, you can't reconcile those two ideas and understand that they're fine together or that they live in the same universe.

[00:15:25.880] - Tony Toig
Anyway, so how do you tether? You can tether a couple of A couple of different ways. The long term tether is you understand the game. That's the long term tether. That's basically I know... I'm tethered. I'm so tethered in this game. It's just crazy. I feel crazy about it sometimes, but I am totally tethered in this game. That's why I don't have to watch Zane's video. I can tell you, I have enough information to know, okay, this is what Zane is getting at, and it makes sense in that context, and I have no problem with it. In that context, it's fine. Just like the video that I did on rushing makes sense in my context. And again, I'm confident that if I was having a conversation with Zane, we would see eye to eye on these two videos because he's tethered, too. He's tethered. He has a clear understanding of the game. I have a clear understanding of the game. So that's one way to tether. Now, I've been playing pickleball for 10 years. I've been coaching it for seven plus. I am a full-time student of the game. And I think about it very, logically, in a very progressive manner.

[00:16:35.020] - Tony Toig
I've developed a curriculum called the Pickable System, all these things. So with my coaches, a better pickle ball. Anyway, but I've been a part of that process. You respect the X, whatever, all these things. So that's one way to get tethered. The other way to get tethered is you find an anchor. And I just mentioned the pickleball system that we developed a better pickleball. That's a tether. That's an anchor that you can tether to. Because the pickleball system has what are the most important shots, why they're the most important shots, energy and trajectory that I mentioned earlier, all these concepts that are very foundational and very clear. And so you have a thing like the system, and you go, Okay, that's my anchor. You tether yourself to it. And now you're not just flying around in the wind with all these things coming at you, and you don't know what to take in and what not to take in. Another way to tether would be if you have a coach in your area who has a curriculum, has a philosophy, has a way of approaching the game that's big picture and not just hapazard, not just slap-dash.

[00:17:42.460] - Tony Toig
I'm not suggesting that all coaches are slap-dash or hapazard. Let me be clear about that. There are some very good coaches out there. If you happen to have one of those coaches and you can work with that coach, and that coach can be your anchor, that's perfectly fine. That's great. But that's the anchor that you're looking for. In order to tether yourself. There may also be other online materials that provide a tether. The ones that are an anchor, the ones that I've seen, no offense to them, they're fine, but they don't provide an anchor because they basically end up being like an organized YouTube, if you will. So like a behind the scenes YouTube, if you want to think about it that way. So they're basically like tips, videos that are just organized in a place. That's not going to be an anchor unless it has a framework or a unifying theory, if you will, of the game that you're learning throughout that process. That's how you anchor yourself long term, and that's how you anchor yourself short term by using the resource, like the pickable system. So they may exist out there. I'm just not familiar with those.

[00:18:45.780] - Tony Toig
The ones I'm familiar with do not have a curriculum that would allow you to anchor yourself there. If they exist, then you can use them. That's great. But that's how you tether yourself, right? Having some an anchor that gives you a unifying theory, a unifying idea this puzzle box cover that helps you visualize it. And then you use that to tether yourself to it and avoid the distractions that are not just out there, they're going to continue and they're going to increase as the sport continues to increase in popularity and growth. I fully expect more content creators to come into the space, and I don't begrudge them. I think it's great. I think for them, it's great. The difficulty it presents for you as a player is to navigate that. And tethering, I think, is a good way I love doing that. All right, let me dive into the RIF. The RIF is basically... I want to talk about the mental impact of... Or the impact of working on your mental game on your results. I have this last week, and I was watching the Las Vegas, I think it was the Rate Las Vegas Cup, the PPA event in Las Vegas.

[00:19:54.620] - Tony Toig
It was a fantastic event all the way around. The men's doubles final was absolutely out of control. It was two and a half hours of pickle ball, went five games. Game five was decided 12: 10. So you can't... I guess you could have gotten 13: 11 or 14: 12 or something like that, but it was like the I don't know if you watch baseball, but it's like the baseball game with the Blue Jays and the Dodgers that went into 18 innings and was one run in the end there. Same thing. It's like just this monster battle. And what stuck out to me was, the play was amazing. I did a video on... I'm recording a video today that's going to be on the IntiPickle channel this week or next week. You can check that out if you want to look at some of the strategic and mechanical parts. But from a mental aspect of it, these players just did not break down. The two that I want to focus on are... So Andre Dascu is 37. He's the elder statesman of the top players. He's not going to break down. He's a rock. Ben Jones on the other side of the court, same thing, rock.

[00:21:02.950] - Tony Toig
He's not going to break down. He's going to do this thing. So the two players that you're looking at, you're looking at Chr. Alshon, who's Andre's partner, and Gabe Tardieu, who is Ben's partner. Christian Alshon, fantastic athlete, amazing player. I got to tell you, I don't know the details of his maturation as a player, but I can tell you can see it in his demeanor, in his play. Hats off to him. He used to be a little bit of a mental case when he was out there. The old Chr. Alshon, I don't know if he navigates this game the way this Chr. Alshon did. So again, hats off. And you can see it. You can see it in his demeanor. You can see it in his play. His play did not lit up. And I'll tell you guys, one rally in particular that sticks, well, two, that I use in the video coming out in to Picle. One is at 8: 09 or something like that, he missed a routine dink, routine Clean little reset dink in the transition zone. No big deal for him. Makes it probably 95 % of the time, missed it.

[00:22:05.920] - Tony Toig
Critical moment. It's easy to get upset there, right? With yourself. He didn't. He went back. He spoke to André a second. I think that's also really important. André is helping Christian develop, which is really good. And he's very supportive. André has always been a very supportive partner. That's a really important part of the game as well. So Christian talks to André for a second. He He goes back, he towels off, which is a really good technique just to take a moment to yourself. And then he comes out, and he basically gets ready for the next rally, where he does a couple of jump things, whatever, just gets himself ready to go. The other one was even more dramatic, if you want to think about it that way. So Ben and Gabe were serving at 9: 10, game five, 9: 10. And Ben drives a ball at Christian on the third shot, third shot drive at Christian, and the ball clips the tape, pops up. Christian can't quite get a paddle on and misses it. So now it's 10: 10. It went from 9: 10 to 10: 10 off of a net tape shot, right? Again, what do players do often there?

[00:23:07.660] - Tony Toig
They get frustrated, they get upset, they get like, Woe is me, the universe is against me, ' whatever. Christian did not do that. He stayed in the game. They ended up losing the game 12: 10, but it wasn't because he had a mental... He checked out. It was just really good rallies, and the chips fell in, or the cookie crumbled away of Ben and Gabe in that particular moment. But it wasn't because of a mental breakdown, and that was phenomenal. And the other side of the court, you have Gabe Tardieu, who's 20 years old. And a couple of rallies that I'll mention to you. One was at around 8: 9 in game five. He had an ATP opportunity. He went for it, and he missed it. And I believe that actually gave a point. It might have been 8: 08, that might have been an 8, 9. I can't remember exactly what was a side out or a point, but still, it was a big moment, and he misses the ATP, and he was okay with it. He wasn't upset about it. And then the other one was even a bigger one, if you will, for them, which was there was a...

[00:24:03.440] - Tony Toig
Gabe had a ball that came through the middle, and it wasn't an easy put away shot, but at his level and his ability, it was his. It was there. He put the paddle on it. He attacked it with a two-ended backhand and ended up going into the net. Now, what's interesting about this one is you saw him, he looked up like, Oh, I missed it. And then he took his paddle and he put it on his head, tapping his head. And you know how sometimes players would do that, beating themselves up. But what was cool is you saw him catch himself. So he did that once, and then he stopped doing it, realizing, okay, got to get ready. Then he ran his hand through his hair, which at my level of hair, I'm like, oh, look at that hair he's running it through. And then he's ready to go. And so the ability to navigate high pressure situations from a mental standpoint, the The work you can put in, again, I want to focus on Chr. Alshon, who before did not have this mental fortitude. He's been working on it. Again, I don't know the details of what he's doing, but whatever he's doing, it's working great.

[00:25:10.280] - Tony Toig
You can see it in his demeanor and his play. Gabe Tardieu, young player at 20 years old, can navigate these. If these two players can navigate the highest stress situations of finals at a PPA in a 12: 10, finally, but just stressful situation, I'm pretty confident We can learn how to handle our rec games or open play or league, whatever we're doing. We can learn how to navigate that successfully. And if you navigate it successfully, putting some time in your mental game, you're going to reap the benefits, not just in how you feel, but also in how you play. I'm going to plug the book one more time here. A little log rolling. The book that we put out, we're really happy with that because it's a perspective book. It'll give you a better perspective. That'll avoid these spirals that can happen whenever we feel We'll start feeling bad about ourselves and our play out on the court. All right, that was a pretty jam-packed episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you enjoyed the podcast, even if you didn't enjoy it, rate and review it. Appreciate it. Put a rating in there. If I did a one-star job, give me a one-star.

[00:26:14.840] - Tony Toig
Whatever you want to do on the rating and the reviews, I accept it. I take all feedback. If you believe this podcast will help one of your friends, whether there... Maybe you have a friend out there who's untethered, just following the tip of the moment. Maybe the idea of being tethered versus untethered might be the message that lands and resonates and allows them to start anchoring their journey in a way that's more productive and more fulfilling because you have the fuller relationship with the sport. And that's it, again, for this week's podcast. I already told you to share it with your friends, so I don't think I have anything else to say today. So hope you have a great week, and I'll see you at the next episode of Pickleball Therapy. Oh, yeah, one more thing. So we're going to be at the Major League Pickleball and PPA, both in Dallas, these next two weekends coming up. So if you're in the area, please come say hello. Kylene will be there. I'll be there. I'll be sporting the orange caps, so it should be easy to identify. Please come, say hello. Let us take a picture with you.

[00:27:12.460] - Tony Toig
Let us know how you know us, things like that. We'll have a then. If not, I'll see you on the next episode of Pickleball Therapy. Be well.