Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvements, the only podcast that's focused on your mind. My name is Tony Roig. I am your host of this weekly podcast. Pleasure to be with you.

This week's podcast, we're going to talk about using the force. We're going to do a little Star Warsy here. I think you're going to find it really interesting. It's a way of thinking about your interaction with the game, how you play the sport, using an area that you're probably not using enough right now, the force, if you will. And understanding that you have a lot more control over how you play the sport than perhaps you currently think that you do. By the end of this podcast, I believe you'll feel much differently about that. And then in the riff, I'm going to talk to you about, we're going to talk about your, how you interact with the sport and talk a little bit about gratitude and being thankful for those who allow us to participate in the sport, pickleball.

In preparation for this this podcast, right? The idea for this podcast, I should say, came out of a course that I was preparing for our, our new comprehensive course that we have coming out in about three weeks. And this was about error reduction, but it was a different approach to error reduction, a way to think about error reduction that's a little bit different. And so, throughout that, through that process, I had this idea about, you know, calling it the force and explaining it to you in this podcast so you can start to understand how you can use your mind to control how you play much better, very similar to the force in Star Wars. If you've never seen it before, don't worry, I'll explain it to you a little bit when we get started on that.

As we dive into the podcast, I mentioned the online course, which will be coming out. If you're interested in joining early access to that and becoming a founder, check your email. The Coaching Digest has a link that you can go check and see if you want to join. That founding community is closing soon. So if you're interested in that, now would be the time to do that.

Also, if you're interested in on-court training, right, that you're more interested in just like a camp or something like that, we still have spots available in our camps here in 2026 and the very beginning of 2027. The full calendar is at tonyroigpickleball.com/camps and I'll put a link down in the show notes.

All right. So what are we talking about here? Use the force. I must have lost my mind on this podcast, right? What am I talking about?

So, the force is, if you've seen Star Wars, the force is, um, there's this idea of like the, the, the dark force and the, and the light force, the Jedis and the, and the, the bad guys, I forget what they're called, but the, the Darth Vader group. And, so the premise is that the force is like this, basically like telekinesis. There's a little bit of telepathy. There's all these things that you can do with your mind, right? You have this power that you can use with your mind to influence things around you, right? And it's a very direct expression of that, right? Where you can like literally move like an object just with your mind. Telekinesis, right? Like that.

The interesting thing is that you can actually do that in pickleball, right? Now, it's not the sci-fi version of force where you can like move the ball with your mind directly, but you can move the ball with your mind indirectly. And this idea is actually really, really powerful to help you improve how you play.

The way you do it is think about, let's think of a shot and we're going to use a volley. Okay. And so we're going to use a a cookie or a floater, just a sitter ball, right? It's just floating there in space, waiting for you to hammer it home, right? And so you take your paddle, you bring it up, and we're going to put this down. Maybe it's like game point. It's super exciting. Everybody's watching, right? Every, everybody's stopped playing. They're watching your court and they're going to just celebrate this incredible shot of yours to win this game.

And what happens? Smack right into the net. You got to be kidding me, right?

So we missed our volley. Now, why did we miss the volley? Now, the natural response of a pickleball player, right, of any athlete, is to go to mechanics, right? I mishit the ball. The problem must be something with my mechanics. I did something wrong mechanically, meaning how I swung the paddle.

I'm going to suggest to you that more often than not, that error, that cookie or floater ball that you volleyed straight into the net, is actually not a mechanical error. It's a mental error.

And I'm not speaking here of like the traditional way that we think of the mental part of the game, which is I got to stay focused. I got to pay attention. I got to do these things. I'm not talking about that type of mental error. I'm talking about a mental error based on your decisions or lack thereof relative to the shot that you just hit.

I'm going to repeat that and then we're going to break it down a little bit. The mental part that I'm talking about here is about your decisions or lack thereof about the volley that you just hit.

So let's work through that a little bit so you can see how the problem that you're having with the shot is not probably mechanical, more likely than not, and where I would bet my money, it's mental. And the error itself is mental.

So the first question is, did you have a clear, did you make a clear decision? Did you have a clear idea of where you wanted the ball to clear the net by? So did you have a target or a space over the net for your shot before you hit the volley?

If the answer is no, or I'm not sure, then the mental error is not making a decision. The mental error that you made, right? And it's not a criticism. This is just pointing it out so you can figure out how to solve, right? But the error that you made, you didn't have a place where you were trying to hit the ball.

So if you did not have a clear idea where you wanted to hit the ball, you could not have intended the shot. In other words, you did not have, you no longer had an intentional shot. What you had was an unintentional shot. Like whatever happened happened, right? You're basically swinging the paddle forward through the ball. When the ball lands in the net, you can't really be upset about that. Because where were you sending it, right? If you didn't have a clear place that you were sending it, then it just went somewhere, right? And that's within the range of shots that was possible based on not making a decision.

So the first, the first thing that you want to tackle in terms of shots and improving your shots is a mental one. Make a decision as to where you want to aim your shot to go. In this case, specifically, over the net.

You can aim all parts of your shot. Left, right, up, down, where on the court. You can make decisions about the energy of your shot. We're not going to dive into those today because now we're, you know, those are other pieces that we, you know, you'd go into. What we're focused on today is just the very idea of the mental error. And then how do you solve it? By making a decision.

In this case, we hit the volley to the net. So the decision that we need to make has to do with the height of the shot over the net. And it's picking a spot over the net that gives us sufficient margin for error to make it less likely that our ball lands in the net.

So step number one, make a decision. Another way to think about it is be intentional with the shot that you're trying to hit.

Then number two is, once you've made the decision, and I kind of baked it into the first one, but pick a spot that gives you enough margin, right? So basically, you want to have enough cushion between where you're aiming the shot and the net to minimize the chance that it's going to go into the net. If you're trying to aim, you know, a quarter inch over the net, I will tell you, you're already baking the net into your shot. The shot is already, the net's already included within the range of possibilities of the shot that you selected.

Now, if you pick, say, five inches over the net, six inches over the net, we use like paddles, paddle width or paddle height. So minimum to me would be paddle width over the net. So if you pick paddle width over the net, that's probably going to be a pretty good cushion for you. You may hit the net once in a while still, but it's going to be much rarer. But at least you made a decision. Yes, I have a target over the net. And two, you made it with enough cushion, right?

And then the third one is, did you provide that information to your processing unit? Your processing unit is your brain. Did you clearly feed that information into your mind? All right? That's the force, right? See how the force is coming together now?

So did you make a decision on height over net? Did you pick one that gives you enough margin? And three, did you input that into your brain before you hit the volley?

If you didn't do any of those three, then the error that you made was a mental error. If you input, if you did all three and inputted it into your mind and still hit the net, then perhaps, if your margin was big enough, then perhaps it's a mechanical error and you can deal with that, right? You have an issue with your mechanics. Maybe your footwork. Maybe your swing, maybe your grip, something, you know?

But more often than not, the problem that we have with that shot that we missed, that volley that we miss, is a mental error because of either not making a decision, not picking a spot with enough margin, or not feeding it into our brain, right, before we hit the volley.

And if you follow what I said at the beginning about Star Wars, what we're doing now is, we're using the force, essentially, right? We're bringing our mind to bear on the shot that we want. Now, we're not directly sending the ball with our mind, but we are indirectly using our mind to then signal our body to hit the ball. So our body's the one sending the ball over the net with the information received from our mind. But if it doesn't have that connection, then who knows where the ball's going to go.

And if you want to fix it, start with the mind. That's the key, the key lesson here is that. And if you enjoy this type of thinking about pickleball and this type of process, happy to coach you. I mentioned earlier some options for you, but that's how, that's how I coach. That's how we coach here at TRP.

All right, let's dive into the riff.

Let's talk about your, um, let's talk about some gratitude, right? So let's talk about like, uh, I think it's interesting to think about points of interaction with the sport and, uh, and then how there's other folks around us, right, who are relevant to our journey.

Most of you listening interact with the sport as a player. I do too, right? We're all, you, I mean, I'd be surprised if you listen to this podcast and you're not a pickleball player. I know a few of you do. Hello, cousin. And my cousin listens to it pretty frequently. He hasn't played pickleball yet. He's just too busy with family and work. But most of you are pickleball players. So you interact with the sport of pickleball as a player, and that's great.

But a lot of you also have other interactions with the sport, potentially have other interactions with the sport. Some of you, you know, maybe volunteer, right? Some of you, um, you know, being a student of the game, I would say, is a different form of interaction. There are players, and I want to be clear, no criticism ever, of anybody who wants to interact with pickleball in whichever way they choose to. But usually the non-student players don't listen to this podcast. So there are players out there who just want to go out and hit the ball. I mean, again, perfectly fine. But you, you, if you're listening to this, you're probably not just a player. You're also a student of the game.

Some of you out there are probably fans of the pro game maybe, right? That's a way of interacting with our sport. You can do that independent of being a player. You might be an organizer, right, in your local area where you not just organize like big tournaments, but also like you're the one that texts four players to get out there on a Friday. That's super important to what we do, right? As a, as a sport. Tournament volunteer, referee. I mean, there's all sorts of ways of interacting with this sport.

I think it's important to keep that in mind as we move forward with our own journeys. And I'll give you an example. For me personally is, you know, I'm always very thankful to some local players here. I don't want to forget anybody. David, Paul, Tyson, Stephanie. I don't think I'm missing anybody. Am I missing somebody? Forgive me. It's been a long day of content creation. But those are folks locally who organize our play here locally, right? And so the fact that I get to play, right, whether it's a Wednesday morning group, whether it's on a Friday, whether it's, you know, on a Saturday sometimes, it's thanks to them, because they're the ones organizing the play. So I'm thankful to them, right?

I'm also always very conscientious of court development. I'm always very thankful to the facility, like, for instance, Pickle and Pint, which is a facility in Largo, Florida. They're super friendly to me. They let me do my videos there. They're very cooperative with all of my projects there. But how would I do that if they weren't willing to have courts and operate the courts and pay for the courts and all those types of things, right?

So, you know, I think it's good to take a moment and have gratitude, right, for those around us, to think about ourselves and our interaction with the sport, and also have gratitude for those that are around us that make it possible for us to play pickleball.

And last, you know, last week's podcast, and this is what triggered it for me. Last week's podcast, I thanked the founders, and I thank you again, right, in this podcast, for believing in the project and for coming forward. But I also want to thank you as a listener, right, to this podcast. I thank you for following the coaching. I thank you for being a part of the community in whatever capacity you want to be, whether it's a founder or not as a founder. I appreciate you.

Because what I understand, right, is that my coaching, my podcast, my efforts would be for naught, right? Would not be possible, were it not for players like you. Were not for players who listen to the podcast. Were not for players who watch the videos on YouTube. Were not for players who came into the course early and founded the community, right? All of these folks play a role in my ability to do what I love to do with pickleball, which is to coach. I like playing, but I love coaching.

So thank you very much for making this possible for me. And I'm also going to thank you on behalf of the team at Tony Roig Pickleball, the TRP team. You know, you know us. So thank you very much.

I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. As always, if you have a minute, rate and review it. Share it with your friends, because if you enjoyed the podcast, they probably will too. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you next time on Pickleball Therapy. Be well.