[00:00:00.160] - Tony Roig
In this special episode of Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. This is a special treat for you and a special treat for me. I'm here in St. Louis at major League Pickleball and I'm going to introduce the gentleman sitting next to me in one second. But this gentleman actually is, is very instrumental in the beginning of my own journey as a, as a more aware mental athlete. Right. In the mental part of the game. I got exposed to Coach Peter's book kind of early on in my process here. Right. I played tennis for a long time, didn't know anything about this kind of stuff. Read Coach Peter's book. It revolutionized the way I think about it, really opened me up to new ways of thinking. I have the podcast putting out a book, all thanks to Coach Peter. And so, Coach Peter, it's such a pleasure to have you as part of the Pickleball therapy, like history and in this podcast in particular.

[00:00:53.620] - Dr. Peter Scales
Yeah. Great to be here again. I always enjoy it when we get together, Tony. So, so, yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:00:58.500] - Tony Roig
So I'm glad, I'm glad he. I'm glad Coach Peter got something out of it as well. So. And just a full introduction. Coach Peter Scales is a psychologist. He's also a coach, tennis coach, most mostly, and then also pickleball. Now doing some pickleball stuff. But his development of the framework of com Peter, learn, honor has, is just a really interesting way of approaching it. And coach, what we were talking about doing is maybe chatting about some concepts. We're here at Major League Pickleball again, so we're watching some pro action live. We see the ups and downs and, and, and we were talking about some observations you had yesterday. Why don't you tee us up and we'll just go from there.

[00:01:33.960] - Tony Roig
Sure. Yeah. It's great to be at an MLP event here in St. Louis. And yesterday there are a few things that I saw that, you know, a couple of them will be obvious to people. One of them may be a little surprising to think of as part of the mental game. First one was when we look at we have premier level and we have challenger level teams. I'm just looking at a challenger level match. Right. Las Vegas, they're the favorites. They're supposed to win the Challenger Division, move up to premier next year. They lost the first two games. They're in a hole to D.C. they had to come back, they had to win two more games, then they had to win a Dream Breaker. Okay. The only way you can do that is to have the mindset of one point at a time, you can't rush it. You have to have patience. That's mental. You have to be just absolutely solid, that, hey, this isn't over yet. They haven't won a third game. So, you know, most of us don't have to play best three out of five. But if you're down 7, 080 90, it still isn't over.

[00:02:39.030] - Dr. Peter Scales
It still isn't over. So as long as you think about one point at a time, you can make a comeback. So that, I mean, that's all a mental process.

[00:02:48.190] - Tony Roig
Yeah, it's interesting, Coach, how. And I had a similar observation yesterday in it was Brooklyn against Chicago Slice, and I think it was Chicago Slice serving up, serving 9, 10 down 9, 10. And the observation I made in the little short that I made was there's no three point shot. So going nine to 12 doesn't make any sense. Right? So it's basically right now it's, let's go nine to ten if you can. Right? And then from there then you can worry about 10 to 11 and then 11 to 12. But you know, yeah, the, the one step at a time or one moment or being in the moment. Right. Just focusing on the next rally, what you can control.

[00:03:20.280] - Dr. Peter Scales
Well, and, and the other part of that, Tony, is this isn't the time for fancy stuff, you know, fundamentals, just your basics. Get past the first four shots, get into the point, don't make a mistake on the return of serve, get the serve in deep, you know, play your basic fundamentals and just be solid, you know, and let's talk about that a.

[00:03:41.920] - Tony Roig
Second coach, because I've been, I've been talking to players about, you know, players want to focus when they're playing. I, I understand, I fully understand that, you know, and, and I'm going to tee it up and then you go, you run with it. But from my perspective, it's impossible to have full focus all the time. You basically, you, you've kind of like raised the bar however you want to think about. You just run out of energy however you want to look at it, but you can't do that. And so going to what you're saying now, because one of my conversations was again, I'm not saying like, don't be focused, but don't, don't kind of kill yourself with focus until this, this stage. In other words, the, the nine, ten, you know, I, I need this one. I, I really need this one. This is like legitimate. It's not, we're not at two, one Again, not, you don't throw points away. But I'm not at 2:1. I don't have to like hunker down at 2:1. I need to hunker down at 9, 10 or 10:9 or you know those critical moments in games that make the difference between the outcome and the outcomes.

[00:04:38.240] - Dr. Peter Scales
Well, and you can look at it that way. Another way to look at it is that there's two games going on. There's the game when the ball's actually in play and then there's the game between points, right? And so you can not lose focus but have a different focus in your between point routine. And that was kind of the second thing I observed yesterday. And you can see it with a lot of players. But I happen to be watching Anna Bright and their women's doubles match and going back to the wall and tapping with the paddle whether she won or lost, whether that team won or lost the point. And the relentless positivity with her partner in between points. Relentless positivity. It's a different focus. So you can actually relax the playing level focus, but you have to have the focus on the recovery positive or at least neutral reaction to the point just played. What are we going to do on the next point? Okay, we're back in it, let's go. And all within, you know, 10 seconds or so, right? So it's, you know, the focus. I agree with you. You can't possibly maintain 100% focus 100% of the time.

[00:05:48.800] - Dr. Peter Scales
So you've got to be clear about for you and singles and for you and your partner in doubles, when does it make the most strategic and practical sense, given your biomechanics, your psychology, to let go just a little bit.

[00:06:05.070] - Tony Roig
Let's, let's, let's keep on that for a second. I think that's, that's really interesting. The idea of basically switching focuses like almost like a light switch, right? Where I go like from play focus like on the ball to another sort of focus on my breathing or some other type of thing.

[00:06:19.270] - Dr. Peter Scales
Tapping a paddle, muscle relaxation now that.

[00:06:21.750] - Tony Roig
Kind of a thing. You know, I think this is where players, if you tell a player today, right, we're going to go work on your third shot drop for the next hour. Drilling they're like, they get that. They're like, yeah, let's go do that. But then when you say, you know, it's really helpful if you learn how to switch your focus from play focus to non play focus, let's go work that for 20 minutes. What are you talking about? I'LL just do it. And so let's talk about that a little bit. How you build that muscle. Right. The same way you would with a volley, a third shot, drop, or any, any physical part of the game.

[00:06:55.670] - Dr. Peter Scales
Exactly. I mean, it's rehearsal. I mean, you don't do it without rehearsal. And that's why practice is so important, because in practice, you do it intentionally and consciously so that when you're actually playing, it's all happening automatically. You're not thinking about it, you're feeling. And that includes the between the points. So I think that between the points routine is just one of the absolute most important things that we can do, particularly at the recreational level, because you're not playing as often and higher level as these people are. Right. You're not trained. So any little bit of training that you can do for yourself is going to really help you enjoy the game more and your partner and play better. Whether you win or lose, you're going to have more fun at it.

[00:07:47.800] - Tony Roig
Yeah, I love that. I'm going to make a suggestion to the listeners, and then you can add anything that I. If I mess something up, fix it. If you need to add something out to it. But I'm going to. I'm going to challenge the listeners right now. If you're listening to this podcast, this episode of podcast, and you're interested in this idea, why don't you take just one game? One game in the next week. Not, Not a session. I want to be clear. One game to 11. And say in this game to 11, I am going to work on what Coach Peter just described. I'm going to work on a technique, and it can be anything you want to do. Coach mentioned tapping the paddle on the, on the back of the fence. That works great. You can tap your hand on your paddle. Some players use like a, like a rubber band on their wrist or something, just to kind of reset. You can do the Leah Jansen where you tap your thighs in your shoulders. No judging here. Seriously. I mean, do whatever works for you as, as, as Coach Peter said. But again, try it one game and then see how that works.

[00:08:44.550] - Tony Roig
And then you'll have to do it again and again. But just do one game in the next week. That'd be my suggestion.

[00:08:48.070] - Dr. Peter Scales
Absolutely. And I'll add one thing to that, Tony. No matter what the point was, whether you played a great point or a bad point, you say, okay, okay. That doesn't mean I like what happened. It means I accept its history. We cannot change that. All we can change now is how are we going to approach the next point. So. Okay, that. That really helps create a distance between the point just played and the business at hand, which is getting ready for the next point.

[00:09:16.630] - Tony Roig
Right, Agreed. Unless you have a time machine.

[00:09:18.630] - Dr. Peter Scales
Can't do it.

[00:09:19.310] - Tony Roig
Can't do nothing about it anyway.

[00:09:20.430] - Dr. Peter Scales
So try and say okay in your next.

[00:09:22.930] - Tony Roig
There you go. That's another layer you can put on it. Right?

[00:09:25.090] - Dr. Peter Scales
Exactly.

[00:09:25.370] - Tony Roig
You can say, okay, tap the paddle. Things like that. Coach, I do want to. So this, this. This actually is something that. I don't know where coach stands on this. I'm really curious. We're gonna. We're gonna go. We're gonna go live and touch the third rail, maybe. Because I think it's worth the conversation. And what reminded me of it was you mentioned Anna Bright and Kay Fay, who play for the Dallas Flash. They are two of the most.

[00:09:45.090] - Dr. Peter Scales
St. Louis.

[00:09:46.290] - Tony Roig
I'm sorry, St. Anna Bray, not Dallas. Dallas is Georgia.

[00:09:48.690] - Dr. Peter Scales
We're in St. Louis. Tony, I gotta defend my turf.

[00:09:51.370] - Tony Roig
Absolutely correct.

[00:09:53.020] - Dr. Peter Scales
So.

[00:09:53.140] - Tony Roig
And it's kind of a funny thing because, like, I'll do these shorts for Major league pickleball. I am terrible with names. I keep on calling Tyra Black, Tyra Banks. And I did it yesterday talking to somebody and I'm just.

[00:10:03.020] - Dr. Peter Scales
I just.

[00:10:03.500] - Tony Roig
Anyway, but I just have to accept who I am and I'm fine with it. So, yes, from St. Louis and St. Louis shock and. But they're two of the most outwardly passionate players, right. They. They leave the emotions out there. Another one, another player that has a lot of that. That's doing that a lot right now. It's Federico Saxrude. And I'll give you my read and I'd love to hear your. Your thoughts on it. So my read on it or my. Not my read? My. My sense of it is that sometimes there's like a. Not Sometimes there's a red line, like a car. RPMs, right? And so there's a red line area. And what I see these players doing sometimes. And I really focus on Federico doing it because I've seen it impact his play is he will let out this huge roar, you know, face to the sky, arms to the air, just like. Like a lot of release. And then he'll miss a return of surf right then very next rally. And so maybe talk to us a little bit about that about. And however you want to approach it. Right. The idea of like redlining maybe or going too far in the.

[00:11:06.880] - Tony Roig
Yeah, we're going to go. Direction. So what are your thoughts there?

[00:11:10.720] - Dr. Peter Scales
You know, it's Complicated, and we're all different. And there are people who get motivated and it actually has a positive, you know, for them for a while. I'm not a fan of it. I'm not a fan of it. From a sports personship standpoint. Pickleball is a small court, and you're right in the face, pretty close to people. And so it seems gamey to me. I can see a. Come on, come on. You know, that's fine. But, you know, I love the quote, the legendary basketball coach Dean Smith from the University of North Carolina. His line was, a lion never roars after the kill.

[00:11:55.650] - Tony Roig
All right, that is. That's money right there. That's it. That's what the episode. We're going to keep talking, but that's what.

[00:12:00.850] - Dr. Peter Scales
So, I mean, pump yourself up, pump your partner up.

[00:12:03.970] - Tony Roig
Sure.

[00:12:04.690] - Dr. Peter Scales
But you don't need to be in the face, especially when you're playing social or recreational. You're not playing pro for money, you know, so I would agree with that coach.

[00:12:15.150] - Tony Roig
You just reminded me of something that I think it's worth talking about, even though I'm pivoting the sport. But I think the concept is so sound and it's so. It embodies, I believe, a big part of your philosophy about the sport that you developed. The complete, learn, honor. I don't know if you call it a trilogy. I'd like to think about trifecta, but, you know, the three principles. Right. And so I'm pretty sure that listeners will be familiar with these two names. So we just finished watching two great tennis finals. Right. With Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to spend time on the negative, you know, like the Sabalenka story. That's already kind of put under the bridge. But when you look at Carlos Alcaraz and Janik Senior, what I see are two athletes at the top of their games who are enjoying the relationship that they're building with each other.

[00:13:04.950] - Dr. Peter Scales
Yes.

[00:13:05.350] - Tony Roig
They're wholly respectful of each other.

[00:13:07.980] - Dr. Peter Scales
Yeah.

[00:13:08.180] - Tony Roig
You know, if you. If you win this time, I love you. I love the fact that you're. That you won and I. And. And also I'm gonna let you go in a second. But I also love the fact that they're like, that. He's pushing me.

[00:13:19.740] - Dr. Peter Scales
Yeah.

[00:13:20.140] - Tony Roig
Because he beat me. Now I gotta do something. And then the other one saying, oh, you beat me, I'm gonna do something. Talk about that a little bit. This idea of, like, the respect and.

[00:13:27.860] - Dr. Peter Scales
Everything that, that is exactly. You know, it's funny. I, I saved Carlos' comments to use of my tennis team coming up, girls season coming up, because he actually said he was grateful for the loss. I mean, he lost Wimbledon and he said he was grateful to sinner for delivering the loss. Because what you just said, it forces Carlos to look at his game get better. Get better. And to me, that's rooted in. They both love the game. They love the game more than how they're doing that, you know, so I, I love that, Tony. Yeah.

[00:14:07.920] - Tony Roig
And the other thing, Coach, that's interesting to me because I've been playing with this idea. You and I have talked about it, but this idea of like all we can do as athletes. I don't know why they're screaming back there, but there's apologies for those background noise, but that's real good. That's just the nature of where we're at right now. But the, the, this idea that all you can do as a player, right, as an athlete is, is to try your best to, to play your best or do your best to play your best. And so really what we're each trying to do is become the best versions of ourselves as pickleball players.

[00:14:41.090] - Dr. Peter Scales
Yeah.

[00:14:41.570] - Tony Roig
And so what you're seeing in the, in the sport of tennis, again, just. And it'll, it'll tie, which is this, you have two players in the, on the men's side who are pushing the sport to levels that has never seen before. Because when you listen to the, the announcers who listen, interviews with Nadal, people like, they're saying they're playing tennis at a, at a level that has never been seen before. And that's in part because each one is forcing the other one. That's right to continue to add to the game. So they're, they now get to play tennis in a way that no one has seen before. And so I would suggest you for your own personal journey. You know, these players behind us, these pro players, they understand the same thing. You know, they're going to get, you know, Ben Johnson gets beat. When he gets beat, he goes back to the drawing board. Annalee Waters gets, hates losing. But when she loses, you know what? Now she gets hungrier and keeps fighting because now she understands that there's a chance she's going to lose.

[00:15:28.360] - Dr. Peter Scales
That's right.

[00:15:28.800] - Tony Roig
Right. And that makes you the best version of yourself.

[00:15:31.360] - Dr. Peter Scales
So it's just something to embrace. And, you know, it's helpful because, I mean, there's some people listening here who are quite advanced, you know, Amateur players. I mean, you're playing at 4-550-level. You're not earning pro money, but you're at a, at a pretty high level. None of us is a master. I don't like that word. I like to say, you know, no one ever masters these games. Pickleball and tennis, no shot is ever exactly the same as another. They're never the same. It's always different. It's all jazz, so it's always creativity and improvisation. As you learn more and more, and as you learn more and more, there's more to learn. You understand that. And it should make you even more and more humble the better you get. And that's where you can really appreciate, again, maybe the beauty of the sport that you had when you originally got into it. And maybe you lost it a little because you started pursuing, you know, gold medals and stuff, which is fine to a point, but then re. Discover, recapture the original reason you fell in love with the sport, which is to play it and to play it at the highest level you can.

[00:16:45.300] - Dr. Peter Scales
And for that you've got to have people, opponents, who are going to push you to go beyond where you are right now. And so together you create something great. I can't create a great match with you if I'm whomping you 11 0. That's not a great match.

[00:17:01.300] - Tony Roig
Yeah, there's nothing to celebrate there. And one thing I would play on it. I really like the way you framed it. There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of the gold medal, but I mean, it's. The pursuit is the operative word there, right. The gold medal is a trinket. It's the pursuit of the. That's really the, the beauty. Right. Again, if the pursuit isn't meaningful, doesn't have substance to it, then the middle is irrelevant.

[00:17:23.720] - Dr. Peter Scales
That's right, yeah.

[00:17:25.360] - Tony Roig
Coach, here's the thing. So we're here at mlp. Coach is here with his lovely wife, good pickleball coach of the St. Louis area, Martha Robert. Find her. She's amazing. I'll put a link down in the show notes. If you're in this area, Coach, I'm going to give a quick plug here and then any last words you have. So if you want to learn more about Coach Peter's philosophy, his way of thinking about the sport, and it really will help you go deeper in your understanding, pick up the book. I'm not going to say it now. It's Compete, Learn, Honor is the main. I know the name of it, but it's. It's Compete, Learn, Honor is The real principle, it's going to be in the show notes. The book is written in. In short chapters, and coach and I have talked about this before. He did that intentionally so you can get through a chapter at a time and just kind of really digest it and not get bogged down. And coaches also prepared a playbook that's specific to pickleball. Both of those will be in the show notes, and I highly recommend them to you as resources for you.

[00:18:18.830] - Tony Roig
Coach, any last words for our players out there? Anybody listening that wants to continue to just understand their growth as players or human beings, however you want to approach it?

[00:18:27.630] - Dr. Peter Scales
Yeah, just. Just whether it's pickleball or tennis or any other sport, just kind of building on what we were just talking about. The most important thing for everybody to remember is you are not a better person if you win, and you are not a worse person if you lose. Winning and losing says nothing about yourself as a compassionate person. How generous you are, how friendly, your sense of humor, how loyal, you know, what a provider you are for your family and your community. It says nothing about your character. Right. Winning and losing is a byproduct of playing a sport you love. Focus on. You love playing the sport. Everything else will fall into place.

[00:19:08.710] - Tony Roig
I love that. Words of wisdom. We have the line and we have. Your character is not impugned because of results of a pickleball match. Coach, it's always great to see you. Appreciate your time sharing with us and we will see you all on the next episode of pickleball Therapy.