June 15, 2024 • 37 mins
Can you imagine transforming your pickleball game from a 3-5 to a 4-0 rating while having a blast? Join us for an engaging conversation with Graham Mann at Preston Playhouse, where we discuss their retro-themed facility that offers both competitive play and fun date nights. Our Operations Director, Sean Edwards, delves into his rich background in tennis and padel, highlighting the rise of the Dallas Flash team and their community's enthusiastic support. From thrilling events to the aspirations of their head pro, Tam, there's a lot to unpack on how this vibrant hub is shaking things up.
What are the secrets to running a top-notch pickleball facility? Our insights from the Twisted Pickle networking event reveal the crucial balance of pricing membership fees and diversifying programming to keep players engaged. We talk about unique events like glow-in-the-dark pickleball with DJs and the power of strategic partnerships with brands like EULA and Casamigos. We also offer tips on choosing the right pickleball paddles, emphasizing how equipment can significantly enhance your game. This segment is packed with valuable takeaways for anyone looking to elevate their pickleball experience.
Finally, we tackle common issues like cracked balls in colder temps and the challenges of promoting pickleball in a tennis-centric community. With insights from pros Zack Mroue and Trevor Vaccaro, we explore the benefits of an indoor facility and the exciting potential partnership with the Dallas Flash. We celebrate the passion of players who've fallen in love with pickleball, sharing heartwarming stories from our own journey during the pandemic to launching a clothing line. Tune in for a delightful blend of tips, stories, and the vibrant community spirit that makes pickleball so special.
Looking for a fitness app specifically designed for Pickleheads? Download the Aim7 app today. Use our url to get a 25% discount and try the app for a free trial before committing. https://www.aim7.com/?via=blazing-paddles
Special thanks to Crown Pickleball for their support and sponsorship! Don't waste money on balls that break, Crown pickleballs rarely crack, are more visible and have a higher spin rate than the competitors.
Use our link to receive a discount on your next purchase! https://crownpickleball.store/blazingpaddles
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's one of those things that you can only get so
far and then if you really wantto take your game to maybe like
a 3-5 or to a 4-0 player, it'sjust not going to fly.
You're going to have higherlevel players that are more
experienced, that arepositioning themselves better on
the court and, like the biggestthing I told all the ladies
tonight is like every time theywould hit a drive and their
opponent would deflect it rightback at them.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I was like can you not feel that all that power
you're putting and all thateffort you're putting into
driving the ball offensively is,within a second, turning into
your own defense.
Hello Picklers.
Episode 12, part two.
As Blazing Paddles marchesforward, we talked to Lisa and
Renee about TCD and theirinvolvement in the community.
Well, they were out at thePreston Playhouse and now we get
to talk to the people who runPreston Playhouse.
Karen's going to first introduceus to Sean Edwards, operations
Director there.
(00:49):
Sean's going to tell us aboutthe facility, what it offers,
how it was created, a little bitof his own background, and then
we're going to talk to two ofthe actual teaching
professionals, and this isTrevor Vaccaro, zach Marui.
They are pickleball pros.
They were out there asinstructors and talking a little
bit about their competitivespirit and how much farther they
still want to develop their owngames.
So saddle up, put your ears on,you'll be glad you did.
(01:12):
Also, as a side note, theDallas Flash will be holding
exhibitions at Preston Playhousethroughout the year.
Pay attention to that, becausethose are must-see events.
So saddle up, put your ears on.
I'm glad you did.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Graham Mann here at Preston Playhouse.
How long has this place beenopen?
We did our grand opening onApril 3rd.
It's about a month and a halfnow.
Yeah, not too long.
This place is like a Gen Xplayground it is yeah, it's a
little bit of retro and funkyand that's just kind of the vibe
we were going for.
We didn't want to be just thetraditional like, too industrial
with it.
I think pickleball's got, youknow, more creative creativity
behind it.
(01:50):
Now, with a lot of brands and alot of players want to do just
different and not just oh, I'mhere only to grind pickleball, I
want to have a fun, vibrantexperience.
That's kind of what we're allabout here.
This place screams date nighttoo.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I mean, you can come out here and just have a blast.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Date nights have changed.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah, I have some ranch waters and play Pac-Man
and play pickleball and yeah,that's all you can ask for.
So now, as far as your playingexperience.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
What is your rating?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I'm still coming up.
I'm trying to get on the courtsas much.
You know I've played moretennis.
That's my background.
And then Padel I startedplaying once.
We brought in Padel at T-Bar Mback in 2017.
So that was my focus.
So really now I'm kind ofleaning on our head pro Tam to
teach me a little bit, and he'sa great teacher to have.
He just made it to the secondround there in Atlanta, lost to
the two seed, which is a prettygood accomplishment comparing
(02:37):
how they played against him.
So, yeah, he's a legit.
Like you know, he couldprobably stop teaching here and
go play pro, trying to get himto slow his role a little bit,
um, but also encourage at thesame time, because he's capable.
You know he can hang with Augieand you know JW Johnson and
some of those guys like he can,he can compete with them.
It's just he's you know he's abusy guy.
(02:58):
So you mentioned Augie and JWand Georgia.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And that's the flag right.
And what's the fourth?
It's Hurricane.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Hurricane Tyra Black.
Yeah, they have a really goodteam.
Dallas lucked out to get thatsquad for here.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
We're excited to back them.
It's so new to us.
Everything seemed to be PPA forthe longest time, and then the
MLP just kind of emerged latelast year and we actually went
to the pep rally.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Oh wow, and we actually went to the pep rally,
oh wow.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Yeah, that was super fun.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Great team.
Last year they had a great team.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
yeah, I haven't seen one of the MLP events other than
on TV Right?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
yeah, I mentioned earlier, we did an exhibition
here just a couple weeks ago forthe Flash and it was the first
of their thing.
They have a new GM, ed Chow,who's great.
He's really trying to getmomentum behind it and get
exposure to the team, just ingeneral, and it was one of those
things where we didn't knowwhat to expect.
You know we've done.
You know I've ran the ATP eventthat we did at T-Bar M the last
(03:53):
10 years of it, so I'm used tobig crowds and big players.
Nisha Corey is near those guysplaying there, so I didn't know
what to expect with a propickleball event, especially on
short notice.
I think they did like a week ofif a week even I'm not sure if
it was that long of promotionabout the event being here at
Preston Playhouse and we had aline out the door.
You know, an hour before theevent People drove from Arkansas
(04:15):
to see these guys play.
They actually have a betterfollowing than I would ever
expected to come that far to be.
Just hey, we're here to playwith these guys and watch them
and see their level.
Because it was cool, we did a45-minute exhibition and then
switched up and we had each oneof the pros on a court and they
got to play in with the peoplewho showed up.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
So really cool experience.
Oh, that's super cool.
So you say, tam can hang outwith them.
You're holding him back, man.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Well, I guess I need to get a couple more pickleball
pros here, so I don't have tosay hey, Tam, I need you to do
this event and this event.
No, I'm not going to try tohold him back.
I want him to play.
He'll play the next one comingup down at Oasis.
We'll get a chance to see himagain.
I'm sure once the final ratingscome out he'll be a top 100 on
the men's doubles for PPA, basedon how they did.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
What's the surface here?
What's the place?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
so it's you know it's pretty similar to how we would
do an outdoor court, you know,for the outdoor pickleball, same
surface as that.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, I mean it looks it looks great, it looks clean
and you have padel here, whichis the first time I've actually
ever seen a padel court in inperson.
It looks crazy, it's a growingsport.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
It was something that we uh got in on early.
We saw the rise in europe.
Where it was just exploding, itwas it's still kind of like the
pickleball of Europe, whereSweden, you know, if you look at
, like Spain and Argentina,where those are like the big two
hubs, it's that's all they do,like they don't build tennis
courts over there anymore, it'sall Padel.
You know, we wanted to kind ofdo that trick so we felt like
(05:36):
our membership at TVRM was moreaccustomed to that, just because
it had more of a tennis base.
It's the same tennis scoringand it's just more engaging.
As far as you know how you playat the net, thinking through the
geometry of playing off thewall, especially with serves,
it's kind of can be difficultfor beginners on if you get
punched in the wall.
You got to take a few stepsback and at an angle to be able
(05:56):
to scoop it off the wall.
Maybe twice that it hits offthe wall.
So yeah, it's like a, it's likea squash tennis mix type thing.
But yeah, I mean it's growing.
I think there's another facility, mckinney, that just opened a
couple courts and then I heard Ithink Brookhaven is going to do
some courts.
So, yeah, it's starting to growand I think the community is
starting to build up quite a bittoo, so we'll see more of it.
It's just still more moreexpensive, for sure, than
(06:17):
putting in pickleball courts.
I think it's 60 70 thousanddollars.
It's sort of like a minimum toput in a Padel core Barrier to
entry for a lot of clubs and alot of cities.
You know if they're wanting toadd it, but we're seeing it.
What's the wall made of?
So it's the one that we have nowand there'll be a new one that
will do this kind of like allglass all the way around, but
it's sort of just like a steel.
Yeah, so those back walls thatyou actually play off are just
(06:39):
glass.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Well, Well, that sounds scary.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
There's some videos out there of guys running
through the glass.
I mean it's pretty thick soit's hard to do, but it happens
occasionally.
I mean that is the slightdanger for sure with that sport
is you can just run into thewall sometimes if you don't
watch your footing.
But you know.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I'm afraid one night, in the middle of the night, I'm
going to stumble into thebathroom and go through my
shower door.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, so as far as the playhouse here, public who
want to come out and play, whatdo you do?
Do you pay just for totalaccess?
Do you have to reserve courts?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, so you can just come in as a drop-in if you
just want to play that day.
That will kind of give you theability to do a drop-in
membership if you want to justdo that membership.
So you can book 24 hours inadvance, a family, an annual um
and then same thing for padel.
(07:29):
Right now we do them separate.
There's not an all-inclusive,you're not limited.
Like you have the option to beable to play paddle if you're
not a paddle member.
It's just a higher rate, it'smore of a drop-in rate.
But yeah, that's kind of wherewe're at right now.
You know, we're just kind ofsee how you know people want to
play.
We're kind of learning a littlebit on um, on the group that's
going to come in here, who wesee coming in for, based on our
(07:50):
location, because sometimesthat's, you know, important you
may not get the same demo that'sin a different part of the city
or a different part of themetroplex.
Some areas like they want toplay at 6, 7 am and they just
want to you grind open, playstuff, and other ones are just
like hey, we want to do mixerfun play.
It's sort of top golfy and youknow you kind of have that too,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
We were at a networking event last night put
on by Twisted Pickle, and it wasthese different entrepreneurs,
I guess, people getting intopickleball industry, a lot of
facilities and a lot of the bigchallenges.
What's the secret code for themembership or the admission fee?
Don't charge too little.
Show value, but don't overprice.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, we've seen that in the market.
For sure.
Other facilities havedefinitely had that struggle
where here's all the unlimitedplay you want and then they hit
like a wall where it's like,okay, well, that doesn't work
after a certain point becausethen the new people can't get
courts.
Yeah, you definitely want toavoid and that's what we thought
through going into this as faras model of being able to gauge
(08:52):
it and say like, well, whatmakes sense, like when do people
really want to play, and beable to accommodate that and
give them the ability to play.
A lot because we want to dothat.
But I think programming isprobably the other big key to
that.
If you're doing tournaments,you're doing leagues, you're
doing open plays, you're doingexhibitions, mixers, what other
kind of fun things are you doing?
Are you doing glow-in-the-dark,Are you doing DJs?
That's all stuff that we dohere that I don't necessarily
(09:14):
see other places.
But I think for pickleball ingeneral, you'll see more of it.
I think there'll just be moreof those type of events and not
just like it's a tournament,come play pickle, and that's
kind of like the nuts and boltsof it I haven't done the.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Uh, what did you call it?
The glow in the dark?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
yeah, is that, it is, yeah yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's
a little trippy, but you knowit's.
It's entertaining for sure.
Yeah tried it with tennis andthat was scarier because it's
just a ball coming a lot faster.
But yeah, I mean it's a fun,just a different change of pace.
For like a friday, saturdaynight, like hey, let's go do
glow-in-the-dark pickle.
And we have great partners likeCasamigos, who usually likes to
(09:47):
help out and support and dostuff with us.
So I mean that was the otherkind of big thing with us is
like let's find partners thatmake sense for us.
Like obviously we're a Duperfacility, we're a EULA facility.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
No, really.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Yeah, and then like Casamigos and Mizzen, and Mane
is another one of our partners.
That's tequila, right Tequila.
Yeah, Isn't that Clooney's?
Speaker 5 (10:07):
tequila.
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
He sold it, but I think he still has, you know,
his side of it that doespromotions, but he's done well
on it.
It's a very popular one.
Ranchwaters and Margaritas arebig in Dallas.
We go through a lot of it.
Now, how get EULA as a sponsor?
(10:30):
We talked to them kind of whenwe first opened up the facility
and told us like, hey, here'swhat we're wanting to do, here's
kind of the number ofprogramming events we want to do
and here's the terms we want todo and here's the level of
players.
You know, the other thing forus that was really big was, you
know, having these better,higher level players play here
and train here and stuff likethat and working with the flash
and having those guys come inoccasionally and hopefully we
can work out a deal with themtoo to have them, you know, here
a little more often.
So, kind of giving them thatexplanation and say, hey, you
(10:50):
know how does that work?
Can we do something together?
And we said, yeah, let's do apartnership together.
As far as the facility, um, sothey're helping us a lot.
You know, we're bringing inmore stuff as we speak.
Now.
The nets we knew it's somethingwe would upgrade and they.
Yeah, they're working with uson that, so our nets should be
here next week.
That'll be the pro EULA nets.
Upgrading the nets, we'll havemore dividers than you know we
kind of have now, and thenobviously we'll be selling that
(11:12):
equipment, balls, all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Well, you're talking to two people who have EULA
paddles, so you're in the rightlane.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, they make good equipment.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Yeah, and one of our we're friends with the owners of
Pickle Roll and ULA is also asponsor partner.
I love their paddles.
I want to get the new Ben Johnsone, but I needed to wait until
the season is over, because youdon't want to switch paddles.
I don't think mid-season.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, you know, father's Day is coming up.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Father's Day is coming up, but I can't decide if
I want the 14-millimeter or the16-millimeter.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
What do you play with ?
I prefer the 16 just becausefor me, like as I'm starting out
, I'm finding that I like to putmy hand into singles a little
bit.
It just seems like it's morefitted for my game.
I play less traditional.
I play kind of like how Iplayed in tennis, where it's a
lot of slice and a lot of changeof pace, and that works a lot
better in singles and doubles.
And doubles you don't reallyhave the opportunity, I feel
(12:08):
like, to change pace enough.
You're just so into it so fast,you know up at the kitchen.
So for me I think a 16 ispretty good, but I can play
either.
I mean, either one feels prettygood.
You let's just feel better tome, for whatever reason too who
are the padeladel paddle makers?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Are they the same as Pickleball?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
No, I mean the main ones that we've seen in Niko's.
That's the other thing.
Like we're so lucky to have Tam, who's like incredible at
Pickle and now he's likebasically going to be a top 100
Pickleball player.
We have Niko Agritelli, who'sour Padel pro and he's the
number one player in the countryright now.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Oh, I met him so luckily and I mean, it must have
been close to when you opened,because it was early on in our
season and I remember that wehad bad weather and our captains
were able to work out a dealsomehow with your facility and
so we had one of our TCD matcheshere.
It was incredible.
We were like, wow, you know,we've got this indoor place and
that's where I met him and gotto see the Pedal for the first
time and yeah, yeah, so he playsbull paddle now, so that's who
(13:11):
his sponsor is.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
So we haven't officially went to one paddle
brand or the other.
It's like our facility,necessarily, but we definitely
back bull paddle.
But there's several.
Starby is one of them.
You know, wilson.
There's several.
Starby is one of them, wilson.
There's some other ones thatare trying to get in the game,
that are newer, but most of themare still kind of based out of
Spain.
There's not a large US presence.
(13:35):
I know when we first brought inthe courts it was really hard to
get equipment.
You had to get it pretty muchfrom Spain because nobody's
selling it here in the US.
So that was one barrier that wehad when we started.
The sport is like well, wheredo we get equipment?
We had to start finding theseconnections that had connections
to spain.
But now there's more brandscoming up and I think we'll see
more of that as we go.
Same thing you know wilson waskind of slow and then they got
into paddle.
Same thing they're getting intopickle now, and now they're
(13:56):
starting to improve those andtake it, you know, a little bit
more seriously oh geez, thispaddle thing.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
I mean, we're thousands of dollars into
paddles at this point and itdoesn't seem like it that's
gonna slow down anytime soon,because as soon as something
comes out, that's great.
I'm like you want a new one Iwant a new one, and you know
they're improving them so muchthat I can feel the difference
right, right away.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Oh yeah, with the newer technology yeah,
everybody's trying to keep upwith each other.
Um, and if you're not playingthis, rack this paddle and you
see somebody else playing it andthey're playing really well.
You're like well, then I needthat, otherwise I'm at a
disadvantage competitively.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Sometimes, though, it's the Indian, not the Bowen
era.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yes, that's true, and I can find that with me.
Same thing with drivers andgolf.
Like I can have the best youknow, tailor-made or tight list,
but I'm still going to slice it, so it's not going to make a
difference.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I've got this beautiful new club and I'm going
to go out and shoot 95.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I love seeing it, it's more men than women that,
after a bad shot, look at theirpaddle.
Have you noticed that I was?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
just doing it earlier .
Yeah, I grabbed a demo that Ihadn't played with before and I
was like, nah, this doesn't feelright.
But it probably had nothing todo with why I was just dumping
them in the net.
It was mostly skill thatfactored into that, or lack of,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, we have like 50 ladies out here doing this boot
camp, is that?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
right, yeah, I think yeah, 50 today.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Cool, we're keeping our eyes, and you know that's.
One thing about this game too,is every time you think you've
got your skill set, you realize,boy, I've got to work on this
part of my game.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Right, yeah, it doesn't take long to figure out
that you may be missingsomething when you play a little
bit up in competition level,like, oh, I don't, that's not
what I've got, you know, in myset of tricks yet.
And that's definitely.
You know, what we're hoping tokind of teach today is.
You know, we have ourinstructors today and they're
all kind of doing stations of,okay, let's work on serve and
(15:44):
you know it's placement, it's.
You know, are you doing atopspin serve?
Is it more of you know thetypical underhand?
Are you putting any spin on itat all, if you can?
And then stations where they'refocused more on strategy, of
just the play in general.
Or you know, there's anotherone of we're working on dinking
and just kind of getting ourfeel for that, and so, yeah,
it's good to have thesedifferent stations where people
can say, okay, I worked on this,this and this.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
All you know, just in a couple hours I love it, I
love it and um, I would now.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I wish I wasn't doing the podcast and I was actually
doing the boot camp well, thegood thing here is, you know,
tam does a lot of clinics whichare the same're open to the
public.
If they want to do a clinic theyjust kind of have to sign up
the day of, or 24 hours inadvance, and it's the same
opportunity.
Usually there's an hour onesfor kind of beginners that he's
more instructional on, and thenthere's the hour and a half
(16:31):
clinics that are more like we'llmove a little more fast-paced
but we'll have some focus on youknow, that day, like what do we
kind of want to focus on?
How do we plug into those?
So, yeah, if you go toPrestonPickleballcom and just
check to get a membership, onceyou have either a drop-in
membership which there's no duesinvolved in it, you just sign
up and then you pay based on youknow how much you play.
(16:51):
Just through that you can kindof go through.
Look at the events that are onthe schedule and that shows for
each week.
You know, know, all the clinicsthat we have available, and
pretty much all days, I think,except for sunday, we have
clinics, yeah, morning clinics,evening clinics.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
So yeah, we have a good variety this is something
that we definitely need to tapinto, john, because we we went
to one, no, two camps, two camps, yeah or uh.
So year into playing, playingall wrong, we finally went to a
camp and learned that there wasa kitchen and you have to ding
right, yeah and then um, andthen we went to another camp.
(17:25):
But other than that, like, we'vetaken lessons from, you know,
local pros, you know I'm luckyenough to have a friends that
are really good, that also havehelped um, but but I think a
clinic would be reallybeneficial at this it's a good
change of pace too from justlike oh, I either have to do a
lesson or I'm just kind of on myown to figure things out.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
This is less of a investment.
Basically, they say, like I'mgonna get some instructions an
hour and a half.
You know you're playing it withanother group, so it's still
social and you get to meet otherpeople that maybe you could
play with.
It's a good opportunity.
You know we usually do a max ofeight people that we'll do for
a clinic I like that becausethat's more personal instruction
.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
You're not just a huge number.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah, so it's just $50 for the hour and a half.
So you know, based on going outand trying to get like a lesson
from somebody where now I mean,it's pretty much common to pay
the same as you would for tennisA hundred or a hundred plus for
an hour lesson.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
So that's a great deal.
All right, we're plugging in.
Well, sean, thank you so muchfor sitting down with us.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Appreciate it Excited to see how the rest of the day
goes.
Pickle on, thank you all Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know, guys, there's not much that's wrong
with pickleball, but there are afew things that can be annoying
, one of which is having ballsthat crack, and if you've been
out there lately, temperaturesdropping, balls are cracking
they're.
Also.
If you play indoors, or ifyou're playing when the
visibility is not great, thatball gets lost pretty easily in
your eyesight, and we know thatpeople are hitting it harder and
(18:47):
harder.
So you'd like something alittle bit higher visibility.
So we are here to announce ourpartnership with Crown
Pickleball.
In our show notes you'll have alink where you can get a
discount for your first set ofCrown Pickleballs.
I can tell you that they don'tcrack.
They beat the price point ofthe competitors and they beat
the quality of the competitors.
So as the temperature gets cold, get you some crowns, because
(19:10):
otherwise you're going to have alot of cracked balls, which is
great for my wife's crafts butnot so great for competitive
play.
Go to crownpickleballcom.
That's door.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
All right, all right.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Oh, you're doing the grape fest.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Yeah, I'm playing with a girl named Jazz Hearn.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I know Jazz.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Okay, wait.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
You need to get it closer so you can be in the
microphone.
Okay, all right, so I'm sittingdown here with Zach Moreau.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Marui.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Marui, I knew I'd get it wrong.
And Trevor Vaccaro.
Hi guys, I knew I'd get itwrong and Trevor Vaccaro.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Hi guys, how are?
Speaker 4 (19:43):
you.
You guys were the pros today atthis TCD boot camp, right?
How'd you get roped into thisjob?
Speaker 5 (19:50):
By Tam.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Get in closer.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah, so Tam was kind of the one that asked us to
help out.
We both work here at PrestonPlayhouse T-Bar M, so we kind of
just got roped into doing it.
So it was fun.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Now do you guys both regularly play here?
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah.
So we I mean he got brought on.
He just finished his collegiatetennis career playing at Dallas
Baptist.
I have a tennis background.
I took tennis lessons at HighPoint growing up but kind of got
sucked into club volleyball andclub soccer for most of my
childhood, started playingpickleball within the last year.
It was something I knew I wouldpick up pretty quickly with the
foundation that I had.
(20:28):
And since I got brought on toT-Bar it was just kind of good
timing of the fact that I wasalready starting to play a lot
of tournaments myself.
And you know, with pickleballrapidly growing the way it is
with T-Bar M, our members are sodiehard loyal to tennis that
it's kind of been a struggle forus to get pickleball to take
off here.
So when I got brought on board,you know I was really excited
to be able to help grow thecommunity here.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, came over to the right side.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I got the light man Pickleball.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
There you go and Trevor, what about you?
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Yeah, I mean I just finished playing college tennis
and I mean I've been playingpickleball since, yeah, 2017 or
so, so I've been playing forquite a while over in Southlake
and yeah, I mean I love it and Ibring out a bunch of people out
here and play.
I mean we're just trying tolike, grow, grow this place and
anyway we can.
Yeah, we had an open play likea month ago and probably had
(21:21):
over 200 people here from allover the complex or Metroplex,
so it was fun.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
It's great to have an indoor facility.
When, I mean, like I said, wecame here, I was introduced to
the place with my TCD leaguewhen we had bad weather and I
was like this is a beautifulalternative to because we see
the weather in Texas is terrible, especially with summer coming
up, because we just see theweather in Texas is just
terrible.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Especially with summer coming up.
You know, I think, out of a lotof the indoor pickleball
facilities around, I really dothink that we have one of the
bigger and better facilities tooffer.
And with that Texas heat rightaround the corner you know not a
lot of people I'm an outdoorplayer.
One of my favorite things aboutthis place is just the fact
(22:02):
that we've kept the courtsurfaces to feel more like an
outdoor game, while still beingable to be indoors, protected
from the sun and with AC.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah Now, and I heard that the wait, a
flash, the flash came here.
Did you participate in that?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So I was actually working at T-Bar that night.
I wanted to be here so bad, butit was a really cool event we
did.
Yeah, I wanted to be here sobad, but it was a really cool
event we did.
Yeah, dallas Flash ispotentially going to maybe make
Preston Playhouse their officialtraining facility and that
would be really cool.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Nice.
Now, how do you think you guysdo against the pros that?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
would be fun.
You know we get to play againstTam a decent amount and it's
humbling, to say the least, yeah, but it's fun.
I mean.
That's thebling to say theleast, yeah, but it's fun.
I mean that's the best way tolearn about the game is?
You know?
I know for me, when I go play,I want to be the worst one on
the court at all times.
That's the best way to getbetter and to learn the game
from higher-level players.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
That's smart, that's smart.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
Tam definitely brings like a good amount of people
out here too.
I mean some of the people he'she's brought out their top 40 in
the world at pickleball.
Riley Newman, yeah, they playout here once a week maybe.
So I mean they, they love they,they love this place.
So it's, it's nice Gosh.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
I only wish I could learn from people like that.
Trevor knows Tim right paddleclub.
The South Lake mayor pickleball.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
The social mayor of South Lake.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Social mayor yeah, how did you guys meet?
Speaker 5 (23:27):
So Tim and I met.
We were at the South LakeComplex and he was just playing
a game over there and theyneeded a fourth and I kind of
just hopped in and startedplaying.
And then from then on, I meanTim and I, we play every other
day together over in South Lake.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
You're making him better, aren't you?
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Yeah, I'm trying.
I love that guy, so it's fun.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Oh, that's great.
That's great.
All right, so tell me abouttoday the boot camp.
What did you guys work on?
What stations did you have?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So my station was focused on transition and
positioning on the court.
So what I was having the ladiesdo is kind of play through
scrimmage points but with afocal point around hitting your
third shot, drop or driving towhichever opponent isn't
actually closed up on thatkitchen, just kind of getting
them comfortable with moving upthe court, resetting balls,
(24:14):
getting in those dinking rallies.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
What's one of the biggest pointers that people
need to know in that transitionzone to be able to execute.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I mean, I know, the biggest thing for me, even as I
was getting better, wasespecially people that have a
tennis background, that comefrom a power game, and we want
to drive every single ball thatwe can.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I have some of the girls on my team.
I start laughing becausethey're at the back.
They bang.
They take a few steps, theybang, they take a few more steps
, they bang.
All of a sudden I'm doubledover laughing because, I'm like,
can you hit it any harder?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, it's just.
You know, it's one of thosethings that, yeah, I was the
stereotypical banger player whenI started and it was funny to
me how quickly my mindsetchanged, because when I would
play with someone who refused tohit a drop shot or reset or try
to get into a dinking rally, Iwas like I could feel the
position that they were puttingme in and I, it's just, it's one
of those things that you canonly get so far and then, if you
really want to take your gameto maybe like a 3-5 or to a 4-0
(25:13):
player, it's just not gonna fly.
You're gonna have higher levelplayers that are more
experienced, that arepositioning themselves better on
the court and, like, thebiggest thing I told all the
ladies tonight is like everytime they would hit a drive and
their opponent would deflect itright back at them.
I was like, can you not feelthat all that power you're
putting and all that effortyou're putting into driving the
ball offensively is, within asecond, turning into your own
(25:35):
defense?
And I was like, and that's howyou have to think about it,
you're putting your yourself andyour partner in a crappy
position to work your way up andactually get that point.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Yeah that's kind of how, like I kind of first played
tennis or played pickleball too.
Like I was like yourstereotypical banger player,
just coming from tennis and Ithought I could just out rally
and just I don't know, hit theball harder than them.
And then I eventually playedsome people that they loved it.
I mean, they just stood thereat the net and they just blocked
the balls back super easily andthen I realized that that's not
(26:10):
how you play pickleball andyou've got to work on dinking
and dropping and all this otherstuff, so you can't exactly hit
through people in pickleball.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Yes, yes, I ended up getting dragged into a foursome
while we were waiting for ourcourt at Southlake Pickleball
Complex the other day.
The guy that I was partneredwith is a total tennis and he
just knew it pickleball the game.
It was so unnerving to me I didnot enjoy myself.
(26:39):
Because he didn't know what wasgoing to happen, right he's
slamming the ball and into thenet, Not not even worried about
where I'm at, not watching myshot at all, putting himself and
I was like this is crazy, itdid.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
It's difficult to play with.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
It's so hard when you've and I used to play like
that, but it's so hard to gofrom where we're at now, cause
we're, we're I mean not nowherenear you guys.
All right, we're just nowgetting our because it's a mixed
bag in in in the leaguesbecause we're in that tweener
where a lot of them are stillbanging and yet you know.
But then you got some teamsthat are doing, you know,
(27:12):
evolving like they should, butnothing like this, like that was
, like this guy's new and that'sall he's doing is he's playing
tennis on a pickleball courtI've played against some people
too that like that, like refuseto like move up to the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
It's like they just want to sit on the back line and
just rip forehands back andforth across the goal and it's
like, all right, we can do this.
I was like we're probably notgoing to get anywhere, but we
can hit there and rally.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
So, Trevor, what stations were you working on?
Speaker 5 (27:38):
yeah.
So I was on the courts, kind ofjust focusing on, uh, dinking.
Uh definitely wasn't the lady'sfavorite court, um, but it was
just kind of like a more patientdrill and just kind of barely
hitting the ball over.
And then, uh, yeah, we kind ofjust worked on consistency to
start out with cross court downthe line and then, uh, yeah, we
(27:59):
kind of got into some points, sokind of finding that high ball
and putting it away.
So I kind of just told theladies to really stay on that
line and not be pushed back andnot take a step back or two, but
to like hold the line and ifyou have to reach for a volley,
you reach for a volley and putit away.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So that's kind of what we're going over over there
, speeding up when you can,taking the ball out of the air
when you can as well.
I think that's a really bigdeal at the higher levels.
Um, just giving your opponent alittle bit less time to read
what you're doing with the ballright, it's getting harder and
harder to read what you're doingwith the ball, with the little
trick more and more deception.
Yes, what?
Speaker 4 (28:41):
is that like I think you're doing one thing and you
do a totally different otherthing and the paddle technology
is helping with that too, I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I mean I don't know if you heard about yola's gen 3
paddles I just yesterday theygot called back for us.
They did the gen 3 paddles theyjust got oh no, I almost bought
one.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, I'm holding off .
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I was really excited about the release with the new
Propulsion Core technology.
Yeah, and just yesterday I waswatching the Atlanta the big
Atlanta opening and they did arecall.
Doesn't mean we can't play withit, though Right At a casual
level there's no rules againstit for us, but someone like
myself who is playingtournaments around locally, it's
(29:19):
just not something I even wantto waste my time using.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Are you?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
guys playing tournaments it's just not
something I even want to wastemy time using.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Are you guys playing tournaments?
Speaker 5 (29:23):
yeah, I have a little fun tournament tomorrow with a
girl named Jazz Hearn out ofGrapevine yeah, she's in the
Southlake Battle Club she playswith Tim too, and Derek, derek,
the frogman he's got that littlefrogman.
Derek is awesome.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Yeah, he was a strong tennis player.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
Yeah, I think he played Abilene Christian back in
the day.
But yeah, we're playingtournaments, tam, he actually
just got back from playing thePPA Atlanta Open.
So that pro tournament.
He won his first round and thenlost to the two-seed in a third
set.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
So Tam is very good yeah, I mean we're gonna have
him on the podcast okay, righton, yeah, we exchanged numbers
okay, because he had to go.
He couldn't stay, so he was thethird guy doing the damn okay
sweet yeah yeah, yeah sofavorite shot in pickleball
we'll go with you trevor, you gofirst.
I know your answer what do you?
Okay, what do you think allanswer.
(30:23):
Okay, what do you think that is?
What do you think it is?
Zach?
Speaker 5 (30:25):
Your backhand flick.
It is the backhand flick.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
The backhand flick.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Yeah, just kind of sitting up at the net and just
top spin roll hard volley typedeal.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
I gotta learn it.
I mean, I'm kind of gettingthere, but it's like I don't
know.
Do you have to strengthen yourform?
It's like I don't know, do youhave to strengthen?
Speaker 5 (30:41):
your form.
It's just like relaxing thewrist, I guess, and just letting
it fly.
I don't know.
It helps that he's like what?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
6'3", 2.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
6'2", something like that he's such an advantage.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, he's tall, he's got a long reach so he can
really get down there and reachin the kitchen.
And that's what I was touchingon earlier is teaching people to
play those balls out of the airwhen they can, and a lot of
people just don't even reallyposition themselves correctly.
It's like a lot of standingstraight up at the kitchen and
that was something that I had ahorrible habit with just from
open play, and it's like you canget away with some things, open
(31:12):
play at a lower level, but Iwas relying on my reaction time
and when I started playing inmore competitive environments
and playing higher-level players, I to like really make a
conscious note to be down in astance and ready for those balls
in the kitchen to get in thosefast hand battle exchanges I can
relate with you advantage onheight.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
I mean because you know a lot of it is hitting at
your opponent's feet.
I can't sometimes see theirfeet.
Yeah, I'm only 5'4, I'm like,and I'm current, like you said,
you in an athletic position, soI'm losing even more height
there.
I don't have those advantages,so my game is a little bit
different.
I say live for another point.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
So I'm the one that goes for the balls that no one
goes for and gets them back.
So my husband's had to learn toadjust with me, like the moving
back Covering the court.
What would you say if I gotpulled out wide for a ball?
Where would you put yourself?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
If you're on the right side getting pushed out
like on a cross-court, dinkyou're saying, yeah, I would
shift over a couple steps intothe middle of the court to take
that middle-driven ball or thathard cross.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Right, would you step back a little bit?
Yeah, ball, or that hard cross,right, would you step back a
cup a little bit?
Yeah, see, that's the part thatI was telling him.
Uh, john, that I was likeyou've got to move backwards
because, that's going to giveyou more time, because it's like
if they're tennis and they'vegot good angles, it gives you a
couple more second or splitseconds or whatever, to get that
ball on either side, becausethey could.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
They could angle it on either there's only one
person with you really need tobe in almost like a string
tandem with your partner as faras the way you're shifting
across the court to cover.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, and I'm going to ask you, but I forgot to ask
you what's your favorite shot.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I have a volleyball background, so anything that
gets put up in the air is like adream for me to just volley.
I have learned the hard waythat 100% power is not a
necessity in pickleball, withhow small the court is.
You're so smart, so that issomething that I've been
actively trying to practice moreself control on, but because of
(33:13):
my volleyball background I dohave a good understanding of how
to flick my wrist to takeangles, so I'm not just trying
to power through people.
I always definitely look for myhard cross angles and for me
it'd be an overhand volley forsure.
Yeah, okay, I also love my dropshots and transitioning and,
like the player that I have, Ireally enjoy hitting my drop
(33:35):
shots too.
That's probably the mostsatisfying shot to hit, like
just in the sense that if you'rein like the middle of a rally,
like you're always going to havethose points where you put away
an overhand or rip a volleyright, but working your way back
up to the kitchen by hittingdrop shots and like just being
smooth like butter on those,that's probably the most
satisfying feeling I love thatbecause I've said that to a lot
(33:57):
of people who are trying totransition.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
You know, they got so much joy out of the power put
away and now you just have toretrain your brain to go.
Okay, I just hit a smart shot.
I am so proud of myself forthat smart shot.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
It's like work smarter, not harder.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Exactly, and it's taken a long time to get that
concept down for sure, for sure.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
That's definitely like a big key is not like
powering through it, but justkind of working the angles.
I don't, yeah, I never hit theoverhead like 100, I just angle
it off left and right andplacement overpower.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, well, for sure, that's right.
I think, again, it's easiersaid than done.
I know I tend to try to.
I get excited and I want topower shots and I want to look
like I'm, like I'm him on thecourt.
But you could really playpickleball with like almost 75,
80% power and really justfocusing on placing your shots
right and you'll create a lotmore opportunities for yourself
(34:55):
and probably make a lot lesserrors in the long run.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
A hundred percent what's on your mind.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
You got something.
No, no, I mean I, I agree withwhat he's saying.
I, no, no, I mean I agree withwhat he's saying.
I mean, yeah, just you know.
I also love that you can justplay pickleball like just with
anyone.
You know, it can be 10 yearsold, it could be 80 years old.
I mean you're still playing thesame game.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I mean you're playing with Jazz Hearn, she's what.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Exactly, I think, like 16, 17.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
So and I play with Tim.
He's like 55 or something, so Ilove.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
I love that you can.
Yeah, maybe fit I don't knowsomewhere in there, but uh, I
just love that you can play withanyone.
I mean, we're all on the court,I'm 24 and we're just all like
same level, so it, that's likethe part.
I love tennis.
It's not exactly the same way.
You know, you get a couple likea 10 year old, you get an
80-year-old or a 70-year-old orsomething, and it's not fun.
(35:42):
You're chasing balls and it'stoo big.
But pickleball is fun.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I mean, it's a great sport to be able to pick up
casually and take it to acompetitive level, if that's
what you desire.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
Yeah, I was helping out these people yesterday in an
event and these two people havenever played before and they
off the court and they're like Iam literally gonna play this
every day.
And they went and bought.
They told me like today theybought like paddles and they're
like diving in.
So I thought that was awesomethat's awesome, that we're the
same.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
I mean, we got into it during the pandemic and just
like now we have a podcast andwe've got a clothing line and we
we've got you know, I mean it'sjust like all in pickleball.
I just knew it from the minutethe bug yes.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
The pickle bug yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
It's going to be a lifelong thing, Even if I ended
up in a wheelchair.
You can play in a wheelchair,you know.
So anyway.
Well, guys, thanks for joiningme.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I appreciate it, Thank you so much for having us
on.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Of course, of course.
Well, it was great getting toknow you and keep making fun.
All right, thank you Bye.
It's one of those things that you can only get so
far and then if you really wantto take your game to maybe like
a 3-5 or to a 4-0 player, it'sjust not going to fly.
You're going to have higherlevel players that are more
experienced, that arepositioning themselves better on
the court and, like the biggestthing I told all the ladies
tonight is like every time theywould hit a drive and their
opponent would deflect it rightback at them.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I was like can you not feel that all that power
you're putting and all thateffort you're putting into
driving the ball offensively is,within a second, turning into
your own defense.
Hello Picklers.
Episode 12, part two.
As Blazing Paddles marchesforward, we talked to Lisa and
Renee about TCD and theirinvolvement in the community.
Well, they were out at thePreston Playhouse and now we get
to talk to the people who runPreston Playhouse.
Karen's going to first introduceus to Sean Edwards, operations
Director there.
(00:49):
Sean's going to tell us aboutthe facility, what it offers,
how it was created, a little bitof his own background, and then
we're going to talk to two ofthe actual teaching
professionals, and this isTrevor Vaccaro, zach Marui.
They are pickleball pros.
They were out there asinstructors and talking a little
bit about their competitivespirit and how much farther they
still want to develop their owngames.
So saddle up, put your ears on,you'll be glad you did.
(01:12):
Also, as a side note, theDallas Flash will be holding
exhibitions at Preston Playhousethroughout the year.
Pay attention to that, becausethose are must-see events.
So saddle up, put your ears on.
I'm glad you did.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Graham Mann here at Preston Playhouse.
How long has this place beenopen?
We did our grand opening onApril 3rd.
It's about a month and a halfnow.
Yeah, not too long.
This place is like a Gen Xplayground it is yeah, it's a
little bit of retro and funkyand that's just kind of the vibe
we were going for.
We didn't want to be just thetraditional like, too industrial
with it.
I think pickleball's got, youknow, more creative creativity
behind it.
(01:50):
Now, with a lot of brands and alot of players want to do just
different and not just oh, I'mhere only to grind pickleball, I
want to have a fun, vibrantexperience.
That's kind of what we're allabout here.
This place screams date nighttoo.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I mean, you can come out here and just have a blast.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Date nights have changed.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yeah, I have some ranch waters and play Pac-Man
and play pickleball and yeah,that's all you can ask for.
So now, as far as your playingexperience.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
What is your rating?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I'm still coming up.
I'm trying to get on the courtsas much.
You know I've played moretennis.
That's my background.
And then Padel I startedplaying once.
We brought in Padel at T-Bar Mback in 2017.
So that was my focus.
So really now I'm kind ofleaning on our head pro Tam to
teach me a little bit, and he'sa great teacher to have.
He just made it to the secondround there in Atlanta, lost to
the two seed, which is a prettygood accomplishment comparing
(02:37):
how they played against him.
So, yeah, he's a legit.
Like you know, he couldprobably stop teaching here and
go play pro, trying to get himto slow his role a little bit,
um, but also encourage at thesame time, because he's capable.
You know he can hang with Augieand you know JW Johnson and
some of those guys like he can,he can compete with them.
It's just he's you know he's abusy guy.
(02:58):
So you mentioned Augie and JWand Georgia.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And that's the flag right.
And what's the fourth?
It's Hurricane.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Hurricane Tyra Black.
Yeah, they have a really goodteam.
Dallas lucked out to get thatsquad for here.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
We're excited to back them.
It's so new to us.
Everything seemed to be PPA forthe longest time, and then the
MLP just kind of emerged latelast year and we actually went
to the pep rally.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Oh wow, and we actually went to the pep rally,
oh wow.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Yeah, that was super fun.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Great team.
Last year they had a great team.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
yeah, I haven't seen one of the MLP events other than
on TV Right?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
yeah, I mentioned earlier, we did an exhibition
here just a couple weeks ago forthe Flash and it was the first
of their thing.
They have a new GM, ed Chow,who's great.
He's really trying to getmomentum behind it and get
exposure to the team, just ingeneral, and it was one of those
things where we didn't knowwhat to expect.
You know we've done.
You know I've ran the ATP eventthat we did at T-Bar M the last
(03:53):
10 years of it, so I'm used tobig crowds and big players.
Nisha Corey is near those guysplaying there, so I didn't know
what to expect with a propickleball event, especially on
short notice.
I think they did like a week ofif a week even I'm not sure if
it was that long of promotionabout the event being here at
Preston Playhouse and we had aline out the door.
You know, an hour before theevent People drove from Arkansas
(04:15):
to see these guys play.
They actually have a betterfollowing than I would ever
expected to come that far to be.
Just hey, we're here to playwith these guys and watch them
and see their level.
Because it was cool, we did a45-minute exhibition and then
switched up and we had each oneof the pros on a court and they
got to play in with the peoplewho showed up.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
So really cool experience.
Oh, that's super cool.
So you say, tam can hang outwith them.
You're holding him back, man.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Well, I guess I need to get a couple more pickleball
pros here, so I don't have tosay hey, Tam, I need you to do
this event and this event.
No, I'm not going to try tohold him back.
I want him to play.
He'll play the next one comingup down at Oasis.
We'll get a chance to see himagain.
I'm sure once the final ratingscome out he'll be a top 100 on
the men's doubles for PPA, basedon how they did.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
What's the surface here?
What's the place?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
so it's you know it's pretty similar to how we would
do an outdoor court, you know,for the outdoor pickleball, same
surface as that.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, I mean it looks it looks great, it looks clean
and you have padel here, whichis the first time I've actually
ever seen a padel court in inperson.
It looks crazy, it's a growingsport.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
It was something that we uh got in on early.
We saw the rise in europe.
Where it was just exploding, itwas it's still kind of like the
pickleball of Europe, whereSweden, you know, if you look at
, like Spain and Argentina,where those are like the big two
hubs, it's that's all they do,like they don't build tennis
courts over there anymore, it'sall Padel.
You know, we wanted to kind ofdo that trick so we felt like
(05:36):
our membership at TVRM was moreaccustomed to that, just because
it had more of a tennis base.
It's the same tennis scoringand it's just more engaging.
As far as you know how you playat the net, thinking through the
geometry of playing off thewall, especially with serves,
it's kind of can be difficultfor beginners on if you get
punched in the wall.
You got to take a few stepsback and at an angle to be able
(05:56):
to scoop it off the wall.
Maybe twice that it hits offthe wall.
So yeah, it's like a, it's likea squash tennis mix type thing.
But yeah, I mean it's growing.
I think there's another facility, mckinney, that just opened a
couple courts and then I heard Ithink Brookhaven is going to do
some courts.
So, yeah, it's starting to growand I think the community is
starting to build up quite a bittoo, so we'll see more of it.
It's just still more moreexpensive, for sure, than
(06:17):
putting in pickleball courts.
I think it's 60 70 thousanddollars.
It's sort of like a minimum toput in a Padel core Barrier to
entry for a lot of clubs and alot of cities.
You know if they're wanting toadd it, but we're seeing it.
What's the wall made of?
So it's the one that we have nowand there'll be a new one that
will do this kind of like allglass all the way around, but
it's sort of just like a steel.
Yeah, so those back walls thatyou actually play off are just
(06:39):
glass.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Well, Well, that sounds scary.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
There's some videos out there of guys running
through the glass.
I mean it's pretty thick soit's hard to do, but it happens
occasionally.
I mean that is the slightdanger for sure with that sport
is you can just run into thewall sometimes if you don't
watch your footing.
But you know.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I'm afraid one night, in the middle of the night, I'm
going to stumble into thebathroom and go through my
shower door.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, so as far as the playhouse here, public who
want to come out and play, whatdo you do?
Do you pay just for totalaccess?
Do you have to reserve courts?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, so you can just come in as a drop-in if you
just want to play that day.
That will kind of give you theability to do a drop-in
membership if you want to justdo that membership.
So you can book 24 hours inadvance, a family, an annual um
and then same thing for padel.
(07:29):
Right now we do them separate.
There's not an all-inclusive,you're not limited.
Like you have the option to beable to play paddle if you're
not a paddle member.
It's just a higher rate, it'smore of a drop-in rate.
But yeah, that's kind of wherewe're at right now.
You know, we're just kind ofsee how you know people want to
play.
We're kind of learning a littlebit on um, on the group that's
going to come in here, who wesee coming in for, based on our
(07:50):
location, because sometimesthat's, you know, important you
may not get the same demo that'sin a different part of the city
or a different part of themetroplex.
Some areas like they want toplay at 6, 7 am and they just
want to you grind open, playstuff, and other ones are just
like hey, we want to do mixerfun play.
It's sort of top golfy and youknow you kind of have that too,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
We were at a networking event last night put
on by Twisted Pickle, and it wasthese different entrepreneurs,
I guess, people getting intopickleball industry, a lot of
facilities and a lot of the bigchallenges.
What's the secret code for themembership or the admission fee?
Don't charge too little.
Show value, but don't overprice.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, we've seen that in the market.
For sure.
Other facilities havedefinitely had that struggle
where here's all the unlimitedplay you want and then they hit
like a wall where it's like,okay, well, that doesn't work
after a certain point becausethen the new people can't get
courts.
Yeah, you definitely want toavoid and that's what we thought
through going into this as faras model of being able to gauge
(08:52):
it and say like, well, whatmakes sense, like when do people
really want to play, and beable to accommodate that and
give them the ability to play.
A lot because we want to dothat.
But I think programming isprobably the other big key to
that.
If you're doing tournaments,you're doing leagues, you're
doing open plays, you're doingexhibitions, mixers, what other
kind of fun things are you doing?
Are you doing glow-in-the-dark,Are you doing DJs?
That's all stuff that we dohere that I don't necessarily
(09:14):
see other places.
But I think for pickleball ingeneral, you'll see more of it.
I think there'll just be moreof those type of events and not
just like it's a tournament,come play pickle, and that's
kind of like the nuts and boltsof it I haven't done the.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Uh, what did you call it?
The glow in the dark?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
yeah, is that, it is, yeah yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's
a little trippy, but you knowit's.
It's entertaining for sure.
Yeah tried it with tennis andthat was scarier because it's
just a ball coming a lot faster.
But yeah, I mean it's a fun,just a different change of pace.
For like a friday, saturdaynight, like hey, let's go do
glow-in-the-dark pickle.
And we have great partners likeCasamigos, who usually likes to
(09:47):
help out and support and dostuff with us.
So I mean that was the otherkind of big thing with us is
like let's find partners thatmake sense for us.
Like obviously we're a Duperfacility, we're a EULA facility.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
No, really.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Yeah, and then like Casamigos and Mizzen, and Mane
is another one of our partners.
That's tequila, right Tequila.
Yeah, Isn't that Clooney's?
Speaker 5 (10:07):
tequila.
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
He sold it, but I think he still has, you know,
his side of it that doespromotions, but he's done well
on it.
It's a very popular one.
Ranchwaters and Margaritas arebig in Dallas.
We go through a lot of it.
Now, how get EULA as a sponsor?
(10:30):
We talked to them kind of whenwe first opened up the facility
and told us like, hey, here'swhat we're wanting to do, here's
kind of the number ofprogramming events we want to do
and here's the terms we want todo and here's the level of
players.
You know, the other thing forus that was really big was, you
know, having these better,higher level players play here
and train here and stuff likethat and working with the flash
and having those guys come inoccasionally and hopefully we
can work out a deal with themtoo to have them, you know, here
a little more often.
So, kind of giving them thatexplanation and say, hey, you
(10:50):
know how does that work?
Can we do something together?
And we said, yeah, let's do apartnership together.
As far as the facility, um, sothey're helping us a lot.
You know, we're bringing inmore stuff as we speak.
Now.
The nets we knew it's somethingwe would upgrade and they.
Yeah, they're working with uson that, so our nets should be
here next week.
That'll be the pro EULA nets.
Upgrading the nets, we'll havemore dividers than you know we
kind of have now, and thenobviously we'll be selling that
(11:12):
equipment, balls, all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Well, you're talking to two people who have EULA
paddles, so you're in the rightlane.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, yeah, they make good equipment.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Yeah, and one of our we're friends with the owners of
Pickle Roll and ULA is also asponsor partner.
I love their paddles.
I want to get the new Ben Johnsone, but I needed to wait until
the season is over, because youdon't want to switch paddles.
I don't think mid-season.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, you know, father's Day is coming up.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Father's Day is coming up, but I can't decide if
I want the 14-millimeter or the16-millimeter.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
What do you play with ?
I prefer the 16 just becausefor me, like as I'm starting out
, I'm finding that I like to putmy hand into singles a little
bit.
It just seems like it's morefitted for my game.
I play less traditional.
I play kind of like how Iplayed in tennis, where it's a
lot of slice and a lot of changeof pace, and that works a lot
better in singles and doubles.
And doubles you don't reallyhave the opportunity, I feel
(12:08):
like, to change pace enough.
You're just so into it so fast,you know up at the kitchen.
So for me I think a 16 ispretty good, but I can play
either.
I mean, either one feels prettygood.
You let's just feel better tome, for whatever reason too who
are the padeladel paddle makers?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Are they the same as Pickleball?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
No, I mean the main ones that we've seen in Niko's.
That's the other thing.
Like we're so lucky to have Tam, who's like incredible at
Pickle and now he's likebasically going to be a top 100
Pickleball player.
We have Niko Agritelli, who'sour Padel pro and he's the
number one player in the countryright now.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Oh, I met him so luckily and I mean, it must have
been close to when you opened,because it was early on in our
season and I remember that wehad bad weather and our captains
were able to work out a dealsomehow with your facility and
so we had one of our TCD matcheshere.
It was incredible.
We were like, wow, you know,we've got this indoor place and
that's where I met him and gotto see the Pedal for the first
time and yeah, yeah, so he playsbull paddle now, so that's who
(13:11):
his sponsor is.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
So we haven't officially went to one paddle
brand or the other.
It's like our facility,necessarily, but we definitely
back bull paddle.
But there's several.
Starby is one of them.
You know, wilson.
There's several.
Starby is one of them, wilson.
There's some other ones thatare trying to get in the game,
that are newer, but most of themare still kind of based out of
Spain.
There's not a large US presence.
(13:35):
I know when we first brought inthe courts it was really hard to
get equipment.
You had to get it pretty muchfrom Spain because nobody's
selling it here in the US.
So that was one barrier that wehad when we started.
The sport is like well, wheredo we get equipment?
We had to start finding theseconnections that had connections
to spain.
But now there's more brandscoming up and I think we'll see
more of that as we go.
Same thing you know wilson waskind of slow and then they got
into paddle.
Same thing they're getting intopickle now, and now they're
(13:56):
starting to improve those andtake it, you know, a little bit
more seriously oh geez, thispaddle thing.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
I mean, we're thousands of dollars into
paddles at this point and itdoesn't seem like it that's
gonna slow down anytime soon,because as soon as something
comes out, that's great.
I'm like you want a new one Iwant a new one, and you know
they're improving them so muchthat I can feel the difference
right, right away.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Oh yeah, with the newer technology yeah,
everybody's trying to keep upwith each other.
Um, and if you're not playingthis, rack this paddle and you
see somebody else playing it andthey're playing really well.
You're like well, then I needthat, otherwise I'm at a
disadvantage competitively.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Sometimes, though, it's the Indian, not the Bowen
era.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yes, that's true, and I can find that with me.
Same thing with drivers andgolf.
Like I can have the best youknow, tailor-made or tight list,
but I'm still going to slice it, so it's not going to make a
difference.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I've got this beautiful new club and I'm going
to go out and shoot 95.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
I love seeing it, it's more men than women that,
after a bad shot, look at theirpaddle.
Have you noticed that I was?
Speaker 3 (14:56):
just doing it earlier .
Yeah, I grabbed a demo that Ihadn't played with before and I
was like, nah, this doesn't feelright.
But it probably had nothing todo with why I was just dumping
them in the net.
It was mostly skill thatfactored into that, or lack of,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, we have like 50 ladies out here doing this boot
camp, is that?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
right, yeah, I think yeah, 50 today.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Cool, we're keeping our eyes, and you know that's.
One thing about this game too,is every time you think you've
got your skill set, you realize,boy, I've got to work on this
part of my game.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Right, yeah, it doesn't take long to figure out
that you may be missingsomething when you play a little
bit up in competition level,like, oh, I don't, that's not
what I've got, you know, in myset of tricks yet.
And that's definitely.
You know, what we're hoping tokind of teach today is.
You know, we have ourinstructors today and they're
all kind of doing stations of,okay, let's work on serve and
(15:44):
you know it's placement, it's.
You know, are you doing atopspin serve?
Is it more of you know thetypical underhand?
Are you putting any spin on itat all, if you can?
And then stations where they'refocused more on strategy, of
just the play in general.
Or you know, there's anotherone of we're working on dinking
and just kind of getting ourfeel for that, and so, yeah,
it's good to have thesedifferent stations where people
can say, okay, I worked on this,this and this.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
All you know, just in a couple hours I love it, I
love it and um, I would now.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I wish I wasn't doing the podcast and I was actually
doing the boot camp well, thegood thing here is, you know,
tam does a lot of clinics whichare the same're open to the
public.
If they want to do a clinic theyjust kind of have to sign up
the day of, or 24 hours inadvance, and it's the same
opportunity.
Usually there's an hour onesfor kind of beginners that he's
more instructional on, and thenthere's the hour and a half
(16:31):
clinics that are more like we'llmove a little more fast-paced
but we'll have some focus on youknow, that day, like what do we
kind of want to focus on?
How do we plug into those?
So, yeah, if you go toPrestonPickleballcom and just
check to get a membership, onceyou have either a drop-in
membership which there's no duesinvolved in it, you just sign
up and then you pay based on youknow how much you play.
(16:51):
Just through that you can kindof go through.
Look at the events that are onthe schedule and that shows for
each week.
You know, know, all the clinicsthat we have available, and
pretty much all days, I think,except for sunday, we have
clinics, yeah, morning clinics,evening clinics.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
So yeah, we have a good variety this is something
that we definitely need to tapinto, john, because we we went
to one, no, two camps, two camps, yeah or uh.
So year into playing, playingall wrong, we finally went to a
camp and learned that there wasa kitchen and you have to ding
right, yeah and then um, andthen we went to another camp.
(17:25):
But other than that, like, we'vetaken lessons from, you know,
local pros, you know I'm luckyenough to have a friends that
are really good, that also havehelped um, but but I think a
clinic would be reallybeneficial at this it's a good
change of pace too from justlike oh, I either have to do a
lesson or I'm just kind of on myown to figure things out.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
This is less of a investment.
Basically, they say, like I'mgonna get some instructions an
hour and a half.
You know you're playing it withanother group, so it's still
social and you get to meet otherpeople that maybe you could
play with.
It's a good opportunity.
You know we usually do a max ofeight people that we'll do for
a clinic I like that becausethat's more personal instruction
.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
You're not just a huge number.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah, so it's just $50 for the hour and a half.
So you know, based on going outand trying to get like a lesson
from somebody where now I mean,it's pretty much common to pay
the same as you would for tennisA hundred or a hundred plus for
an hour lesson.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
So that's a great deal.
All right, we're plugging in.
Well, sean, thank you so muchfor sitting down with us.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Appreciate it Excited to see how the rest of the day
goes.
Pickle on, thank you all Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know, guys, there's not much that's wrong
with pickleball, but there are afew things that can be annoying
, one of which is having ballsthat crack, and if you've been
out there lately, temperaturesdropping, balls are cracking
they're.
Also.
If you play indoors, or ifyou're playing when the
visibility is not great, thatball gets lost pretty easily in
your eyesight, and we know thatpeople are hitting it harder and
(18:47):
harder.
So you'd like something alittle bit higher visibility.
So we are here to announce ourpartnership with Crown
Pickleball.
In our show notes you'll have alink where you can get a
discount for your first set ofCrown Pickleballs.
I can tell you that they don'tcrack.
They beat the price point ofthe competitors and they beat
the quality of the competitors.
So as the temperature gets cold, get you some crowns, because
(19:10):
otherwise you're going to have alot of cracked balls, which is
great for my wife's crafts butnot so great for competitive
play.
Go to crownpickleballcom.
That's door.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
All right, all right.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Oh, you're doing the grape fest.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Yeah, I'm playing with a girl named Jazz Hearn.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I know Jazz.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Okay, wait.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
You need to get it closer so you can be in the
microphone.
Okay, all right, so I'm sittingdown here with Zach Moreau.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Marui.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Marui, I knew I'd get it wrong.
And Trevor Vaccaro.
Hi guys, I knew I'd get itwrong and Trevor Vaccaro.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Hi guys, how are?
Speaker 4 (19:43):
you.
You guys were the pros today atthis TCD boot camp, right?
How'd you get roped into thisjob?
Speaker 5 (19:50):
By Tam.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Get in closer.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah, so Tam was kind of the one that asked us to
help out.
We both work here at PrestonPlayhouse T-Bar M, so we kind of
just got roped into doing it.
So it was fun.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Now do you guys both regularly play here?
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah.
So we I mean he got brought on.
He just finished his collegiatetennis career playing at Dallas
Baptist.
I have a tennis background.
I took tennis lessons at HighPoint growing up but kind of got
sucked into club volleyball andclub soccer for most of my
childhood, started playingpickleball within the last year.
It was something I knew I wouldpick up pretty quickly with the
foundation that I had.
(20:28):
And since I got brought on toT-Bar it was just kind of good
timing of the fact that I wasalready starting to play a lot
of tournaments myself.
And you know, with pickleballrapidly growing the way it is
with T-Bar M, our members are sodiehard loyal to tennis that
it's kind of been a struggle forus to get pickleball to take
off here.
So when I got brought on board,you know I was really excited
to be able to help grow thecommunity here.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, came over to the right side.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I got the light man Pickleball.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
There you go and Trevor, what about you?
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Yeah, I mean I just finished playing college tennis
and I mean I've been playingpickleball since, yeah, 2017 or
so, so I've been playing forquite a while over in Southlake
and yeah, I mean I love it and Ibring out a bunch of people out
here and play.
I mean we're just trying tolike, grow, grow this place and
anyway we can.
Yeah, we had an open play likea month ago and probably had
(21:21):
over 200 people here from allover the complex or Metroplex,
so it was fun.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
It's great to have an indoor facility.
When, I mean, like I said, wecame here, I was introduced to
the place with my TCD leaguewhen we had bad weather and I
was like this is a beautifulalternative to because we see
the weather in Texas is terrible, especially with summer coming
up, because we just see theweather in Texas is just
terrible.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Especially with summer coming up.
You know, I think, out of a lotof the indoor pickleball
facilities around, I really dothink that we have one of the
bigger and better facilities tooffer.
And with that Texas heat rightaround the corner you know not a
lot of people I'm an outdoorplayer.
One of my favorite things aboutthis place is just the fact
(22:02):
that we've kept the courtsurfaces to feel more like an
outdoor game, while still beingable to be indoors, protected
from the sun and with AC.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah Now, and I heard that the wait, a
flash, the flash came here.
Did you participate in that?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
So I was actually working at T-Bar that night.
I wanted to be here so bad, butit was a really cool event we
did.
Yeah, I wanted to be here sobad, but it was a really cool
event we did.
Yeah, dallas Flash ispotentially going to maybe make
Preston Playhouse their officialtraining facility and that
would be really cool.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Nice.
Now, how do you think you guysdo against the pros that?
Speaker 1 (22:34):
would be fun.
You know we get to play againstTam a decent amount and it's
humbling, to say the least, yeah, but it's fun.
I mean.
That's thebling to say theleast, yeah, but it's fun.
I mean that's the best way tolearn about the game is?
You know?
I know for me, when I go play,I want to be the worst one on
the court at all times.
That's the best way to getbetter and to learn the game
from higher-level players.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
That's smart, that's smart.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
Tam definitely brings like a good amount of people
out here too.
I mean some of the people he'she's brought out their top 40 in
the world at pickleball.
Riley Newman, yeah, they playout here once a week maybe.
So I mean they, they love they,they love this place.
So it's, it's nice Gosh.
Speaker 4 (23:12):
I only wish I could learn from people like that.
Trevor knows Tim right paddleclub.
The South Lake mayor pickleball.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
The social mayor of South Lake.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Social mayor yeah, how did you guys meet?
Speaker 5 (23:27):
So Tim and I met.
We were at the South LakeComplex and he was just playing
a game over there and theyneeded a fourth and I kind of
just hopped in and startedplaying.
And then from then on, I meanTim and I, we play every other
day together over in South Lake.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
You're making him better, aren't you?
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Yeah, I'm trying.
I love that guy, so it's fun.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Oh, that's great.
That's great.
All right, so tell me abouttoday the boot camp.
What did you guys work on?
What stations did you have?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
So my station was focused on transition and
positioning on the court.
So what I was having the ladiesdo is kind of play through
scrimmage points but with afocal point around hitting your
third shot, drop or driving towhichever opponent isn't
actually closed up on thatkitchen, just kind of getting
them comfortable with moving upthe court, resetting balls,
(24:14):
getting in those dinking rallies.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
What's one of the biggest pointers that people
need to know in that transitionzone to be able to execute.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I mean, I know, the biggest thing for me, even as I
was getting better, wasespecially people that have a
tennis background, that comefrom a power game, and we want
to drive every single ball thatwe can.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I have some of the girls on my team.
I start laughing becausethey're at the back.
They bang.
They take a few steps, theybang, they take a few more steps
, they bang.
All of a sudden I'm doubledover laughing because, I'm like,
can you hit it any harder?
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, it's just.
You know, it's one of thosethings that, yeah, I was the
stereotypical banger player whenI started and it was funny to
me how quickly my mindsetchanged, because when I would
play with someone who refused tohit a drop shot or reset or try
to get into a dinking rally, Iwas like I could feel the
position that they were puttingme in and I, it's just, it's one
of those things that you canonly get so far and then, if you
really want to take your gameto maybe like a 3-5 or to a 4-0
(25:13):
player, it's just not gonna fly.
You're gonna have higher levelplayers that are more
experienced, that arepositioning themselves better on
the court and, like, thebiggest thing I told all the
ladies tonight is like everytime they would hit a drive and
their opponent would deflect itright back at them.
I was like, can you not feelthat all that power you're
putting and all that effortyou're putting into driving the
ball offensively is, within asecond, turning into your own
(25:35):
defense?
And I was like, and that's howyou have to think about it,
you're putting your yourself andyour partner in a crappy
position to work your way up andactually get that point.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Yeah that's kind of how, like I kind of first played
tennis or played pickleball too.
Like I was like yourstereotypical banger player,
just coming from tennis and Ithought I could just out rally
and just I don't know, hit theball harder than them.
And then I eventually playedsome people that they loved it.
I mean, they just stood thereat the net and they just blocked
the balls back super easily andthen I realized that that's not
(26:10):
how you play pickleball andyou've got to work on dinking
and dropping and all this otherstuff, so you can't exactly hit
through people in pickleball.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Yes, yes, I ended up getting dragged into a foursome
while we were waiting for ourcourt at Southlake Pickleball
Complex the other day.
The guy that I was partneredwith is a total tennis and he
just knew it pickleball the game.
It was so unnerving to me I didnot enjoy myself.
(26:39):
Because he didn't know what wasgoing to happen, right he's
slamming the ball and into thenet, Not not even worried about
where I'm at, not watching myshot at all, putting himself and
I was like this is crazy, itdid.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
It's difficult to play with.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
It's so hard when you've and I used to play like
that, but it's so hard to gofrom where we're at now, cause
we're, we're I mean not nowherenear you guys.
All right, we're just nowgetting our because it's a mixed
bag in in in the leaguesbecause we're in that tweener
where a lot of them are stillbanging and yet you know.
But then you got some teamsthat are doing, you know,
(27:12):
evolving like they should, butnothing like this, like that was
, like this guy's new and that'sall he's doing is he's playing
tennis on a pickleball courtI've played against some people
too that like that, like refuseto like move up to the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
It's like they just want to sit on the back line and
just rip forehands back andforth across the goal and it's
like, all right, we can do this.
I was like we're probably notgoing to get anywhere, but we
can hit there and rally.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
So, Trevor, what stations were you working on?
Speaker 5 (27:38):
yeah.
So I was on the courts, kind ofjust focusing on, uh, dinking.
Uh definitely wasn't the lady'sfavorite court, um, but it was
just kind of like a more patientdrill and just kind of barely
hitting the ball over.
And then, uh, yeah, we kind ofjust worked on consistency to
start out with cross court downthe line and then, uh, yeah, we
(27:59):
kind of got into some points, sokind of finding that high ball
and putting it away.
So I kind of just told theladies to really stay on that
line and not be pushed back andnot take a step back or two, but
to like hold the line and ifyou have to reach for a volley,
you reach for a volley and putit away.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
So that's kind of what we're going over over there
, speeding up when you can,taking the ball out of the air
when you can as well.
I think that's a really bigdeal at the higher levels.
Um, just giving your opponent alittle bit less time to read
what you're doing with the ballright, it's getting harder and
harder to read what you're doingwith the ball, with the little
trick more and more deception.
Yes, what?
Speaker 4 (28:41):
is that like I think you're doing one thing and you
do a totally different otherthing and the paddle technology
is helping with that too, I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
I mean I don't know if you heard about yola's gen 3
paddles I just yesterday theygot called back for us.
They did the gen 3 paddles theyjust got oh no, I almost bought
one.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, I'm holding off .
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I was really excited about the release with the new
Propulsion Core technology.
Yeah, and just yesterday I waswatching the Atlanta the big
Atlanta opening and they did arecall.
Doesn't mean we can't play withit, though Right At a casual
level there's no rules againstit for us, but someone like
myself who is playingtournaments around locally, it's
(29:19):
just not something I even wantto waste my time using.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Are you?
Speaker 1 (29:21):
guys playing tournaments it's just not
something I even want to wastemy time using.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Are you guys playing tournaments?
Speaker 5 (29:23):
yeah, I have a little fun tournament tomorrow with a
girl named Jazz Hearn out ofGrapevine yeah, she's in the
Southlake Battle Club she playswith Tim too, and Derek, derek,
the frogman he's got that littlefrogman.
Derek is awesome.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
Yeah, he was a strong tennis player.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
Yeah, I think he played Abilene Christian back in
the day.
But yeah, we're playingtournaments, tam, he actually
just got back from playing thePPA Atlanta Open.
So that pro tournament.
He won his first round and thenlost to the two-seed in a third
set.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
So Tam is very good yeah, I mean we're gonna have
him on the podcast okay, righton, yeah, we exchanged numbers
okay, because he had to go.
He couldn't stay, so he was thethird guy doing the damn okay
sweet yeah yeah, yeah sofavorite shot in pickleball
we'll go with you trevor, you gofirst.
I know your answer what do you?
Okay, what do you think allanswer.
(30:23):
Okay, what do you think that is?
What do you think it is?
Zach?
Speaker 5 (30:25):
Your backhand flick.
It is the backhand flick.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
The backhand flick.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Yeah, just kind of sitting up at the net and just
top spin roll hard volley typedeal.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
I gotta learn it.
I mean, I'm kind of gettingthere, but it's like I don't
know.
Do you have to strengthen yourform?
It's like I don't know, do youhave to strengthen?
Speaker 5 (30:41):
your form.
It's just like relaxing thewrist, I guess, and just letting
it fly.
I don't know.
It helps that he's like what?
Speaker 1 (30:47):
6'3", 2.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
6'2", something like that he's such an advantage.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, he's tall, he's got a long reach so he can
really get down there and reachin the kitchen.
And that's what I was touchingon earlier is teaching people to
play those balls out of the airwhen they can, and a lot of
people just don't even reallyposition themselves correctly.
It's like a lot of standingstraight up at the kitchen and
that was something that I had ahorrible habit with just from
open play, and it's like you canget away with some things, open
(31:12):
play at a lower level, but Iwas relying on my reaction time
and when I started playing inmore competitive environments
and playing higher-level players, I to like really make a
conscious note to be down in astance and ready for those balls
in the kitchen to get in thosefast hand battle exchanges I can
relate with you advantage onheight.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
I mean because you know a lot of it is hitting at
your opponent's feet.
I can't sometimes see theirfeet.
Yeah, I'm only 5'4, I'm like,and I'm current, like you said,
you in an athletic position, soI'm losing even more height
there.
I don't have those advantages,so my game is a little bit
different.
I say live for another point.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
So I'm the one that goes for the balls that no one
goes for and gets them back.
So my husband's had to learn toadjust with me, like the moving
back Covering the court.
What would you say if I gotpulled out wide for a ball?
Where would you put yourself?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
If you're on the right side getting pushed out
like on a cross-court, dinkyou're saying, yeah, I would
shift over a couple steps intothe middle of the court to take
that middle-driven ball or thathard cross.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
Right, would you step back a little bit?
Yeah, ball, or that hard cross,right, would you step back a
cup a little bit?
Yeah, see, that's the part thatI was telling him.
Uh, john, that I was likeyou've got to move backwards
because, that's going to giveyou more time, because it's like
if they're tennis and they'vegot good angles, it gives you a
couple more second or splitseconds or whatever, to get that
ball on either side, becausethey could.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
They could angle it on either there's only one
person with you really need tobe in almost like a string
tandem with your partner as faras the way you're shifting
across the court to cover.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, and I'm going to ask you, but I forgot to ask
you what's your favorite shot.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I have a volleyball background, so anything that
gets put up in the air is like adream for me to just volley.
I have learned the hard waythat 100% power is not a
necessity in pickleball, withhow small the court is.
You're so smart, so that issomething that I've been
actively trying to practice moreself control on, but because of
(33:13):
my volleyball background I dohave a good understanding of how
to flick my wrist to takeangles, so I'm not just trying
to power through people.
I always definitely look for myhard cross angles and for me
it'd be an overhand volley forsure.
Yeah, okay, I also love my dropshots and transitioning and,
like the player that I have, Ireally enjoy hitting my drop
(33:35):
shots too.
That's probably the mostsatisfying shot to hit, like
just in the sense that if you'rein like the middle of a rally,
like you're always going to havethose points where you put away
an overhand or rip a volleyright, but working your way back
up to the kitchen by hittingdrop shots and like just being
smooth like butter on those,that's probably the most
satisfying feeling I love thatbecause I've said that to a lot
(33:57):
of people who are trying totransition.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
You know, they got so much joy out of the power put
away and now you just have toretrain your brain to go.
Okay, I just hit a smart shot.
I am so proud of myself forthat smart shot.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
It's like work smarter, not harder.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Exactly, and it's taken a long time to get that
concept down for sure, for sure.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
That's definitely like a big key is not like
powering through it, but justkind of working the angles.
I don't, yeah, I never hit theoverhead like 100, I just angle
it off left and right andplacement overpower.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yeah, well, for sure, that's right.
I think, again, it's easiersaid than done.
I know I tend to try to.
I get excited and I want topower shots and I want to look
like I'm, like I'm him on thecourt.
But you could really playpickleball with like almost 75,
80% power and really justfocusing on placing your shots
right and you'll create a lotmore opportunities for yourself
(34:55):
and probably make a lot lesserrors in the long run.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
A hundred percent what's on your mind.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
You got something.
No, no, I mean I, I agree withwhat he's saying.
I, no, no, I mean I agree withwhat he's saying.
I mean, yeah, just you know.
I also love that you can justplay pickleball like just with
anyone.
You know, it can be 10 yearsold, it could be 80 years old.
I mean you're still playing thesame game.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I mean you're playing with Jazz Hearn, she's what.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
Exactly, I think, like 16, 17.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
So and I play with Tim.
He's like 55 or something, so Ilove.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
I love that you can.
Yeah, maybe fit I don't knowsomewhere in there, but uh, I
just love that you can play withanyone.
I mean, we're all on the court,I'm 24 and we're just all like
same level, so it, that's likethe part.
I love tennis.
It's not exactly the same way.
You know, you get a couple likea 10 year old, you get an
80-year-old or a 70-year-old orsomething, and it's not fun.
(35:42):
You're chasing balls and it'stoo big.
But pickleball is fun.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I mean, it's a great sport to be able to pick up
casually and take it to acompetitive level, if that's
what you desire.
Speaker 5 (35:55):
Yeah, I was helping out these people yesterday in an
event and these two people havenever played before and they
off the court and they're like Iam literally gonna play this
every day.
And they went and bought.
They told me like today theybought like paddles and they're
like diving in.
So I thought that was awesomethat's awesome, that we're the
same.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
I mean, we got into it during the pandemic and just
like now we have a podcast andwe've got a clothing line and we
we've got you know, I mean it'sjust like all in pickleball.
I just knew it from the minutethe bug yes.
Speaker 5 (36:27):
The pickle bug yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
It's going to be a lifelong thing, Even if I ended
up in a wheelchair.
You can play in a wheelchair,you know.
So anyway.
Well, guys, thanks for joiningme.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I appreciate it, Thank you so much for having us
on.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
Of course, of course.
Well, it was great getting toknow you and keep making fun.
All right, thank you Bye.
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