[00:00:02.680] - Speaker 1
I don't know if you can hear in the background, but they have celebrate good times by Cooling the Gang. They're Cooling the Gang from back in the day. So this is a on-site special... It's actually a regular episode of Pickleball Therapy, the podcast that will give you a pickleball improvement. I'm your host, Tony Roy, here at the Major League Pickable event here in Dallas. We have a pretty packed week next week, so I'm recording the podcast a little bit earlier than normal this week. We have an action-packed podcast today. We're going to be covering some different topics that come from the pro environment, but really help you with your pickleball play and your pickleball ideas. There's a couple of things. One is an observation, one is a post by the best male player on the planet, Ben Jones. We're going to talk a little about the World Series, which is baseball, I know, but it applies to pickleball, as you'll see. And then at the end, I have a call to action for you because of some recent news that I learned about in my pickleball community, my local pick-up-ball community, that really struck a cord.

[00:01:02.800] - Speaker 1
And so I wanted to share with you a call to action for yourself that I'm going to try and do myself as well. As we dive into the podcast, if you have not yet checked out the Pickleball Therapy book, highly recommend you do. I think we're approaching somewhere around 300 or 400 players who have already had a chance to read the book. So hopefully you can get your own copy of it and start applying those principles in your own play. We're also going to have the print version will be available for the holidays. So if you want to give one to your friend or a loved one or something like that, that'll be available to you. And then we're looking into purchasing a bunch of them so that we can have some autographed ones if that's what you're interested in. So happy to do that for you. If you're interested in those, send us an email to support at betterpickleball.com and let us know what you're interested in. There'll probably be a minimum number, like 5 or 10 books. But anyway, that's an option. All right, let's dive into the meat of the podcast, how some of the podcast.

[00:02:03.840] - Speaker 1
The first thing I wanted to lead with is there was an article that Ben John put out, and I know probably 80% or 90% of you know Ben John is, but there may be some of you do not. Ben Jones is the best male player on the planet. He has been dominant in the sport for going on, I want to say five years now, something like that, might be six, but he's been the dominant force in the male game for a long time now. He's able to sustain a high level of play, and he's a really, really deep thinker about the sport of pickleball and how to navigate this sport to improve. And what he shared was this idea about learning being the key to your improvement. And as you know, if you're listening to the podcast or you're a new listener, you'll find out if you keep on listening to it. A lot of what we talk about here is about learning, right? It's about your pickleball journey and being a better pickleball player. And that involves learning in some form. So what Ben said, I think that was That's really interesting. There are two pieces that I want to focus on here and play with a little bit.

[00:03:04.180] - Speaker 1
One thing that he said was when he started playing, he said, basically, I, Ben, was confident that I could out learn anybody. What that means is he was willing to put in the study, put in the work, put in the time it took to become the best in the sport, which he has. And it was, he wasn't really throwing down a gauntlet for others. He was perhaps throwing down a gauntlet for himself to say, I'm going to out learn anybody else that wants to play this sport. And you can think about that for yourself in terms of your local play community, where you're at, which is why not out learn everybody? Set that as your goal. I'm going to out learn everybody. And it's a nice It's a nice goal, because it's healthy to learn, and it just it keeps you focused on what's going to really give you improvement in your play, which is to continue to learn, continue to grow as a player, and continue to develop your game. Now, the other part that he talked about that I wanted to lean in on here is this idea of copying others. Now, he approached it two different ways.

[00:04:07.560] - Speaker 1
One way he approached it was, he talked about how early in his career, he would look at other players and see what was effective and then copy some version of that. He actually said that he could pretty much track everything that he... Every shot that he has to its origin source. But there's a caveat here. There's maybe a word of warning here, which is that he... Now, given In his current base of play and his current understanding of the game, he's actually not... He's no longer just copying other players just because they have a good shot. And he gave two examples, which are his two current partners, Gabe Tardieu in the men's and Analee in the women's games. And he said, Gabe has certain shots, and I think he was referring to the under the net quick flick of the paddle, a very extreme roll volley at its very edge. And so that's a shot that Gabe has, and Ben thinks it's a nice shot and great shot, but it's not something he's going to start doing, it's just flicking the paddle around the way the game does. Analee also has some shots, some attack shots and concepts and things that are just things that Ben is not going to incorporate into his game.

[00:05:08.060] - Speaker 1
So what Ben has found, he's found this balance. He has learned so much of the game because he outlearnts everybody, that he's able to then decide which elements of the game he wants to bring into his play and which elements of the game, or which type style, which shots he wants to bring into his play, and then which shots, which styles he's going to leave on the table or leave for somebody else to do. So he's created his own identity as a player. The fundamental principle that Ben talked about that I think is really helpful for anybody listening to the podcast, any player listening to this podcast, is this concept of learning, of pickleball as a learning venture. And one of the things that we like to say in our coaching of a better pickleball is that this life, this learning journey in pickleball is lifelong. It's a beautiful thing about our sport. You can learn pickleball. You're never going to exhaust it. Never exhaust it. I don't care how much you study I've been doing this. I've been playing pickleball for going on 10 years, coaching for going on eight years. And I can tell you, I still learn.

[00:06:07.140] - Speaker 1
Even today, I was out there watching some play, and I'm seeing different concepts, different ways of approaching the game that these players are using. And so it makes me think about the game further. It pushes me further as a coach and further as a player. So it's a lifelong journey of learning. And that's a beautiful thing. Pickleball will always have something to give you. So that's the story about learning. The second pro area that I wanted to explore has to do with another pro player named Chr. Alshon. He's a very talented player. He's been playing for a few years now, and I've been watching his ascension through the pro ranks with interest because he's a very athletic and promising player. But one of the things that used to hold Christian back, at least from my perspective as a coach, was the mental side of his game. Again, very athletic, had a lot of shots, a lot of power, but could break down mentally sometimes in tough situations. And so it was really rewarding to see him play this last tournament, the PPA tournament before this one in Vegas, the Rate Cup, where he and Andre Diascu made it to the gold medal match, the final match against Ben Johns, who we just talked about, and Gabe Cardew, who else we just talked about.

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And they battled, him and Andre battled all the way to the end of the match. Those finals matches are five-game matches. So The match went five games, and the game five was decided by a 12, 10, just nail fighter at the end. During that fifth game, highest pressure situation, everything you can think about, Christian had a couple of situations that arose around the 8, 8, 8, 9, and further phase of that game that would have probably tanked him before, mentally tanked him before, and would frankly, mentally tank a lot of players out there. Things like a net cord and a missing a shot that was very routine in a different situation. Those two situations there, again, critical moments of a critical game and a critical match, are the things that way heavily, normally on the mental aspect of the mental side of our game and how we're interacting with the sport. But Christian was not fazed by those. Now, he and Andre ended up losing that fifth game, but it wasn't because he tanked mentally. It wasn't because he had a mental collapse, or he just lost it mentally because of those situations. And that's credit to Christian.

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And there's a couple of takeaways from here. One is, you can see the results of putting in the mental work. I don't have first-hand knowledge of what Christian has done to improve his mental strength, his mental fortitude. But I can tell you you can see it. It's evident. It's evident in in his behavior, especially in those moments. The other takeaway is that partner interaction is very important. We play a team sport. You're not on an Island out there, and he's partnered with Andre Diascu. Andre Diascu is one of the elder statesmen in the pro game. He's a young man for most of us, including myself. I believe he's 37 right now. But in the pro-rank, that's an older player. Most players in the pro-rank are 19, 20, 23, things like that. So Andre is an elder statesman, and he brings a very solid approach to the approach to the game, very stable approach to the game. And I think he's been a really good influence on Christian. And when those situations happen that are potentially derailing mentally, Andre is able to help Christian out in those situations, some words of encouragement, some positivity from the partner.

[00:09:56.840] - Speaker 1
And that's just such an important aspect of pick-up-all doubles. I think we lose sight of that sometimes, particularly if you're playing league play, competitive play, you play with a regular partner, having each other's back, knowing that there's no recrimination one way or the other, you miss and things like that is such a powerful part of this game. And the flip side is also true. When you have negative energy coming from your partner, intended or unintended, it can really drag down the play of the other player as well as the play of the overall team. So that's the second point I wanted to share with you. The third point I want to share with you from the pro-world of sports is not pickleball, it's from baseball. And it had to do with the World Series that just occurred between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Quick shout out to my friend Jim Ramsey, who's the analyst at the a PPA analyst, statistician, if you will. A really nice guy, came from baseball, did statistical studies in baseball, now doing them in pickleball. He and I had a conversation before the World Series. We were talking about pickleball, and I just asked him, What do you think about the World Series or the playoff?

[00:11:01.850] - Speaker 1
I should have said. During the playoff because I knew his baseball background. And he told me that he thought the Dodgers would probably win the whole thing because of how strong they were. And so shout out, he called it right. Numbers don't lie, as I should say. But what I wanted to talk about here in terms of the World Series and how we can learn from it relative to our games in pickleball is when you look at the outcome of the World Series, Before you look at the outcome, I should say, before you get to the outcome of the World Series, when you look at the games and when you look at the individual at bats, the pitches, the plays that happen, it's a back and forth. There's a lot of uncertainty as to what's going to happen. You'll have amazing catches by one team, and then an amazing play by the other team. You'll have amazing pitches. You'll You'll have bad pitches. There was one situation where a player was hit. This was in game six. I believe it was in the ninth any, but the Dodgers were up in that game. But the Dodgers pitcher hit the first batter for the Jays on the hand.

[00:12:15.590] - Speaker 1
I think it was on the hand. But it was a 0-2 pitch, meaning there was no balls, two strikes, and yet the pitcher hit the batter, which is crazy to think about, right? In that situation, you walk the first batter, we're up by two runs, but they still held on. In game seven, Toronto is up throughout the game, pretty much. Yeah, they're up throughout the game. They scored first, up throughout the game. And then the Dodgers hit a home run, tie it up, and then end up winning the game. So the way I think about that when I think about pickleball is when you're inside a pickleball game, pickleball is a series of a lot of rallies, and then you can go one step further than that in detail. It's a lot of shots. It's a lot of decisions. In that jumble of shots and rallies, you're going to have some amazing You're going to have some amazing shots, and you're going to have some dumb shots. You're going to have some silly mistakes, and you're going to have some amazing put aways. You're going to have some solid play and not solid play. The same is going to apply to your partner.

[00:13:27.360] - Speaker 1
The same is going to apply to your opponents. And it's basically this jumble of shots and decisions and events that happen during a pickle ball game that at some point we say, okay, you won or they won. And that's it. One team got to 11 before the other one. The same way that during the World Series, game seven went into extra innings, and it was an 11-inning game. But let's say baseball had decided that game sevens were going to be 15-inning games. Then that score wouldn't have been the final result necessarily. But we've decided they're going to be nine-inning games. The other thing is if you made it an eight-inning game, then Toronto would have won. But it's a nine-inning game. And so that means that the Dodgers were able to tie the game in the ninth. There's only three outs for the home team, just like for the away team. So it's like all the rules put together this game that's played called baseball, and we agree to these rules. And then at the end, once it all shakes out, you have a winner and you have a loser. Same thing in Pippaball. We agree to normally play 11-point games.

[00:14:31.000] - Speaker 1
If you get to 11 before I get to 11, you win. If I get to 11 before you get to 11, I win. If we're playing a 15-point game, that's a different scenario. In that situation, maybe the team to 11 doesn't win that game. The point is that you accept the structure that you've agreed to play by, then you understand that the makeup of that game is a series of... It's a jumbal of pieces that, in this case, shots and decisions and strategies and things like that, movement that at the end of this game, we'll decide who the winner and the loser are. And there's nothing more than that. It's just that. You can't really ascribe more meaning to the outcome of a game than just how that jumble of of back and forth went. Those are my three tips from the Pro Arena. Now, I'm going to share a call to action. It's a sad story, but I think there's a positive... The call to action, I believe, is a positive call to action. So that's why I wanted to share with you. So I heard news this past week that inside our local, in our local pickleball community, a member of the pickleball community is no longer with us, and it's by his own hand.

[00:15:43.700] - Speaker 1
Apparently, he was not doing well, and I hadn't seen him in a while, and we were friendly. We weren't best friends, anything like that. We had each other's phone numbers. We knew each other. We saw each other in pickleball circles. I hadn't spoken to him in a while. That's where the call to action comes out, because I feel that when I heard the news, I was saddened by it, of course, but I also asked myself, well, is there anything I could have done differently? And what occurs to me is maybe a message. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't help. I don't know, but I never sent it. So we'll never know. So my call to action is if you play in a group and say you haven't seen somebody for a minute, right? You've lost touch with someone who used to a regular part of your pickleball community, maybe take a minute this week and reach out to them. Just send them a message and say, Hey, how are you doing? I haven't seen you in a minute. How are you feeling? Never know how that's going to impact that person. I'm pretty sure it won't be a negative, so it won't be a bad thing to receive that.

[00:16:51.260] - Speaker 1
So it can only be a positive or neutral event for that person. I myself, I'm going to try and do that over the next week. Identify a couple of players who I haven't seen in a while, and just shoot them a message. Nothing heavy, nothing too crazy, but just checking in, see how you're doing. And maybe that'll help them in whatever situation they're in, if I haven't seen him in a while. So that's the call to action for you this week for the podcast. Sorry to end on a sad note, but these things happen. And I think, reminding ourselves of what we can do to maybe to positively influence the life of another is always a good thing. So if you if you have a minute to rate and review the podcast, that's always welcome. If you thought that anything in this podcast might help one of your friends, going into the CTA again here, share the podcast with them because if it was something that you thought helped you or you thought would help them, why not share it with them? Anyway, I hope you have a great week, and I will see you in the next episode of our podcast, which will be recorded, I'm thinking, in studio.

[00:18:03.110] - Speaker 1
See you well. Until next time.