Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
My name is Tony Roig.
I'm the host of this weekly podcast.
It's a pleasure to be with you.
This week we're going to cover a prettydense topic, but I think it's a topic that
merits some conversation because it'llhelp us with how we interpret information
when we play and when our results come in.
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It's just another step in our learningprocess of how to think about our
results and our performance when we play.
And in the RIF, I'm going to share withyou a story that happened today in a game
this morning that I playedthat plays along with that, and it gives
you basically a war story that applies tohow we think about our
performance when we play.
(00:47):
As we dive into it,if you've listened to the podcast for any
amount of time, you've probably heardme refer to the term therapist before.
That is a term that applies to pickleballplayers who have committed to their growth
in the sport, in the mental side of thesport, who listen to the podcast on a
fairly regular basis, it doesn't have tobe every single week, but on a fairly
regular basis, and who try and help otherplayers find their own path or find a way
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to move forward with themental part of the game.
And so we're going tobe reaching out to you.
If you're already a therapist, with somenew get together and
some ideas that we have.
And if you're not yet a therapist and wantto be a therapist, or want to know more
about it, send me an emailat tony@betterpickleball.
Com.Put therapist in the subject line, please.
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That'll help me honein on what it's about.
And then I will send you some additionalinformation, or myself or the team,
someone will send you some additionalinformation about
becoming a therapist, and then you canmake an informed decision as to whether
or not something you want to do.
Actually, two other piece of housekeeping.
One is that if you're listening to thispodcast near its publication, We have
(02:00):
our strategy clinic coming up next week.
So if you want to check that out,you can go to betterpickleball.
com and check that out.
And then one other piece is that there'sstill a couple of spots left in our
Tampa camp at the end of July,if you're interested in that.
That's at betterpickleball.com as well.
All right, let's talk abouthow we process information.
(02:21):
The reason this subject came up in my mindas a good topic to discuss was I was
having a conversation with my son, and ifyou I don't think I've
mentioned this before.
My son Andrew actually helps with thepodcast, finalizing the podcast,
getting it out and all like that.
So he's probably listening to this rightnow and cringing a little bit, but that's
life, working with your father,who's a podcaster, I guess.
(02:44):
Anyway, so we were having a conversationat the end of
the Tennis French Open, talking aboutresults and a number of uneforced
errors in a match and things like that.
And it got me to thinking about howwe think about what's normal or
expected in a contest, in any sportscontest, and in our framework is
(03:06):
pickleball, our context is pickleball.
And so I wanted tobroach that subject here.
We talked about it a few...
It might have been a month or so ago wherewe talked about 85, 15,
when you miss a shot.
If you haven't heard that episode,I highly recommend you check it out.
It'll really help you when you miss shotsbecause it'll give you a
(03:27):
better way of processing that.
But it's also in our prepareto play guide, that concept.
So if you haven't gotten that yet,you can go to betterpickleball.
com I'll put a link in the show notesand you can get a copy of the guide.
Anyway, so the idea thatI want to talk about is Basically,
how do we process the...
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How do we deal with the variabilityin outcomes when we play pickleball?
And what I mean by that is, let's take anexample of you're going to play
Let's say your standard is to play,let's just use eight games, right?
So a regular pickleball sessionfor you is to play eight games.
If you've listened to the podcast for anyamount of time, then over time, we
(04:11):
expect that to be a 50/50 proposition.
50/50 proposition is we're going to winfour games, we're going
to lose four games.But that's a big number.
That's part of this deeperunderstanding of how the numbers work.
The 50 % is over a lifetime.
It has to be a large sample size.
Within that sample size, in other words,within the specifics, we are going to have
(04:35):
fluctuations in our results.
Our results will range fromlosing every match I know it
sounds terrible, but it'll happen.
Losing every single game, I should say,and then to winning every single game.
So you go from winning zero, losing eight,all the way to winning eight, losing using
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zero, and then every combination inbetween, seven and one, one and seven, six
and two, five and three,four and four sometimes.
And that's just normal.
In other words, it's notnecessarily what you want.
I get that.
It's not necessarily...
I'm going to use the term expected here,and I think there's two different
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ways of thinking about it, right?
Two different ways ofusing that word, I believe.
One is, do I go into thegames expecting to lose?
I don't think that's positive while you'rein the moment, while
you're doing your thing.
But when you're done with your session,you've played your eight games.
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If you go 0-8, and I say to you, so zerowins, eight losses, and I say to you,
well, that's expected.
And you respond by saying,no, I don't expect that.
Then I would submit to you, you'renot dealing in the real world.
Because the real world is one in whichin the course of your sessions, of your
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playing multiple sessions,you will, in fact, have sessions that are
0 and 8, just like you willhave sessions that are 8 and 0.
And there's really no difference betweenthose two, even though it seems like
they're usually different becauseone's 8 and 0 and one's 0 and 8.
And the reason I say there's no differenceis because when you think about these
things, it's helpful to think aboutthings along a bell curve in terms of
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statistics So literally,picture a bell in your mind.
If you haven't studied this in a long timeor never studied it in school,
just imagine like a bell, and the bellhas an edge on the left side, then it goes
up to the natural bell shape, comesdown, it has an edge on the right side.
Your 8 (06:47):
00 and 0
Those are the leastlikely things to happen.
It does not mean that they're not normalto happen, but they're the least
likely ones They're going to happen.
You're probably not going to spend yourpickleball career playing
a bunch of 8 (07:06):
00 sessions and a bunch of
08
averaging 4 (07:09):
00 and 4
It's more likely that you're going tospend more time
in the 5 (07:13):
00 and 3
Those are going to be more common than the8: 00, 08: 00, and also more
common than the 7 (07:22):
1, 1
So that's the next one in.
And then right in the middle ofyour Bell Curve is four and four.
And so basically, you think about your...
You can understand that those aren't goingto be common, but that does not
mean that they're not expected.
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And I think The reason this is importantis because when it invariably happens to
you that you lose all of your games in asession, you should not leave that session
feeling bad about the session becauseyou understand that it is expected.
And this is where the termexpected comes to help you now.
(08:05):
I'm not going into the games expectingto lose all my games that day.
I'm not beginning the day.
But when I'm looking backward, when I'mlooking in my rear view mirror, so to
speak, to the day,I understand, as a reasonable,
sentient human being with a mind,that an 0-8 day is not only
(08:31):
possible, it's expected at some point.
And sowhen I'm feeling upset about going 0 and
8, or going 1 and 7, or even 2 and 6, orany number, then I go,
Okay, but I expect that.
And I understand that that's part of thedeal when I go out and
play pickleball at level.
And so we have this tool available to uswhenever we have a session that
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our gut reaction, our instinctualreaction, is to feel bad about,
because we lost more than we won.
Because if you think about it,you never have a problem when
you win more than you lose.
When you go 8 and 0,that's divine justice.
That's the way theworld is supposed to be.
It's supposed to be 8, 0or 7 and 1, right?
But it's never supposed to be 1 and 7.
(09:17):
It's never supposed to be 0 and 8.
And what's interesting is if you think itthrough, for you to go 8 and 0,
chances are that somebody went 0 and8 or 1 and 7 or something like that.
So somebody else is on the other endof that stick when you're 8 and 0.
Our 8 (09:30):
0.
And so understanding that it's part andparcel of the game that you love and the
game that you play, I think, will help youhelp reduce some of the angst that can
creep in whenever we have those sessions.
So keep that in mind.
And have that in your back pocket so whenyou invariably have those situations.
And so now I want to talk about the Rif,and the Rif is a game that happened this
(09:54):
morning where it was areally good game, at level.
In a group.
We were playing in a mixedgroup, mixing around.
This was a really tough match.
Tough game, I should say.
And me and my partner were down 6-10.
If youare coached by us at the Better Pickleball
(10:16):
Team, then you know that one of the thingsthat we preach on the mechanical pillar is
never let the net beat you, clearthe net, give yourself margins.
At like eight, six them or something likethat, I was all about skimming the net And
sure enough, backhand andforehand dinks, both into the net.
I'm just like, What is going on?
So I was not happy withthose shots, right?
(10:38):
But I understood thatthere's still a game to play, right?
And this is thinking aboutit within a game now.
I understand that inside of a game, thereare good moments, and there are
moments that I wish were better.
If I had everything perfect,then I would never make mistakes.
ButAnd understanding that there's going to be
(11:02):
ups and downs, what you do isyou just keep pushing forward.
And so we sided them out at 10 (11:06):
06.
Then we served.
I don't think we scored any points.
They sided us out.
We sided them out again.
I believe that time we scored acouple of points, got it to eight.
Then they sided us again,sided us out again.
Then we sided them out again.
And then we ended up winning 12 (11:22):
10.
I think we ran four points at that stage.
And the key is, ourOur opponents had some...
Over the course of the game,they had some really spectacular shots.
They had some bone-headed shots.
We had some spectacular shots.
We had some bone-headed shots.
But if you understand that these ups anddowns are perfectly natural, including
(11:46):
not making good decisions on my dinksthere where I was trying to do too much
from bad situations,and just allowing the game to continue to
flow, it gives you the best a chance to...
Even if you don't win the game,sometimes you'll win the game.
Sometimes I played another game thatwe just started off really rough.
We were down like 5 (12:06):
02, I think.
They were serving and it was likemisreturn, misfourth, a
couple of miscommunications.
It happens in rec play becauseyou're moving with new players.
They don't understandwhat you're going to do.
You're not sure what they're going to do.
So we're down 5 (12:19):
0, and we
ended up losing that game 12-10.
And I think we had at leastone game point at 10: 09.
I think we got to 10 (12:26):
09.
But those games are exactly the same.
One, we won 12 (12:30):
10, one, we lost 12
But they both had their ups anddowns, their natural progressions.
The key is just to stay inthe moment as best you can.
Stay in the next rally, stay in thenext rally, drop the prior rally.
I'll tell you that today, I also saw acouple of instances of carry-over, where a
(12:53):
shot was missed and all of a sudden it wascarrying over into the next
shot and the next shot.
So what's one mistake, which can happen,it's going to everybody, instead of one
point, becomes three points or two points.
So there's something else tothink about that I saw today.
But the message I want you to understand,big picture from what we talked about
today is understanding the naturalspread of results, big picture.
(13:20):
So 0 and 8, 8 and 0, 7 and 1, 1 and 7.
That's big picture about your session.
And then within the game, understandingthat within the game, there's also
going to be the ups and downs.
There's going to be the boneheaded shotsyou're going to hit and also select.
There's going to be mechanical errorsyou're going to make, and there's also
going to be that on the other side.
And the better you're able to simply stayin the rally, stay in the next
(13:43):
shot you have to hit, you give yourselfthe best chance of having the most success
in that game, whether youwin or lose that game.
So that's this week's podcast.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I know we went a little bit deep on themath and that, but I really do think that
the better that we can process ourinformation
the better that we can understandthe data that our brain is trying to
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process, the moreempowered we are to positively engage with
that information andnot let it drag us down.
If you enjoyed this week's podcast,please consider rating and reviewing it.
I did not have time to check the reviewsbefore recording this one this week.
(14:26):
I will check it next week.
I know we haven't had a few in a minute onApple the last time I looked, so if you
have a minute, again, appreciate it.
It's not just...
I like reading it, sure, I'm a humanbeing, but it also helps us reach other
players who, just like you, may benefitfrom this type of content but may not see
it without the algorithmfeeding it to them.
And ratings and reviews areimportant in that regard.
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And as always, please consider sharing itwith your friends because remember, if you
enjoy the podcast, theyprobably will, too.
I hope you have a great week, and I willsee you next week on the next
Pickleball Therapy.Be well.