October 3, 2025 • 21 mins
Ever missed a shot and immediately thought, “I just need to fix my stroke”? What if the real problem wasn’t your stroke at all, but something deeper—something hidden? In this episode, I share practical insights into diagnosing these hidden flaws so you can play with clarity and confidence.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/264-fix-your-latent-errors/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Hello
and Welcome to Pickleballtherapy, the podcast dedicated
to your pickleball improvement.You know that we focus on the
pickleball mind in this podcast.My name is Tony Roig. I am the
host of your podcast. It's apleasure to be with you this
week. Think you're really goingto like this week's topic. We're
going to talk about latentversus active errors, and it's
(00:23):
an interesting way of framingthe thought process around how
you go about fixing parts ofyour game that you want to fix
errors in this case, and how youthink about it. And it comes
from another content creatorsidea. You know, I I'm not just a
content creator myself, I alsoconsume content, and so in that
(00:43):
process, I come across theseideas, sometimes, like this one,
that I think you know, reallycan help us understand you. You
know, we can apply it topickleball and help us through
our processes before we diveinto the podcast. We are
currently we have a pre orderpage for the pickleball therapy
book that is ready to roll. Thereviews so far have been
(01:06):
awesome, which is cool, but Iguess maybe not surprising,
because it is a good book. Ithink I wrote it, so I guess I'm
biased, though, but it is good,and it has a lot of really good
information. And if you enjoythis podcast, you'll enjoy the
book. It's the book's actuallycalled pickleball therapy, the
book. So if you want to checkthat out, I'll put a link in the
show notes for that. All right,let's dive Oh, and I do have a
(01:26):
riff today. I have a rift todayabout protecting your journey,
which I think you'll enjoy. Andas you I think you know by now,
riffs are based on just thingsthat have happened, that I've
come across, that areinteresting and that I think can
help us also continue to buildour resilience in a world full
of inputs that sometimes arehelpful and sometimes not. Well,
(01:48):
one input that was helpful wasthis idea that I came across
about latent versus activeerror. So I'm going to set it up
for you, and then I'm going totalk about how it applies to
your pickleball, specifically inall three pillars of pickleball,
mechanical, strategic, athletic.We'll work on an example in each
and let me set it up to start,and then I'll read the
definitions of latent and activeerrors. So this is from a
(02:08):
content creator who I enjoywatching his ideas about how we
live as a society. That's anarea of life that is of interest
to me, how we interact with eachother, and how we can maybe
improve our improve how we dothat. And so he, his focus is on
urban, urban ideas, you know,not just urban, but also city
(02:30):
ideas, like, how do we livetogether? You know, things like,
you know, pedestrian walkways,you know, favoring cars over,
over pedestrians, things likethat. So in this particular
episode, he was talking about anaccident that had occurred in
his in his city where he lives,where a bike, or a young, a
(02:51):
young man on a bike hadn't beenhit by a car. And you know, he
talked about how the normalreaction to that in news
coverage would be to either talkabout the bike rider, so you
know, the biker wasn't payingattention, or was, you know,
swerved into the road, orsomething like that, the driver
of the car, perhaps, you know,where the driver of the car was
texting, or, you know, didn'tgive enough space to the bike,
(03:13):
or something like that, right?So the like, where do we assign
the blame for what happened? Andthe the assignation of the blame
is usually to the last eventthat occurred before the the
incident, which is current termthe active error. But really,
when you look at these types ofsituations, oftentimes you'll
(03:34):
find what's called a latenterror, which is really the thing
that should be fixed. And then,in the case of like traffic
accidents. You know, he wasactually while he was filming,
there was a fire truck pulled upbehind him, because there was
another biker that had got hit,like, while he's filming the
episode on the previous bikeaccident. And then he shows a
bunch of like, you know, debrisfrom prior car accidents that
(03:56):
are in the in that area. So it'sclear that that intersection has
some problem. What the problem?He didn't dive into the problem
because I was in the problembecause that wasn't the point of
the of the of the episode, butwas just to identify that
oftentimes, when you see, whenyou see a problem, like in this
case, a car hitting a bike,there may be some latent errors
that underlie that that arereally more at the root of the
(04:18):
problem. And if you want tosolve it, you look at the latent
error. So let me give you thedefinitions, and then we'll dive
into how this applies topickable so these are just from
the old the old Google searches.So active errors, immediate,
direct failures that occur atthe point of care and can
potentially lead to adverseevents, latent errors,
(04:40):
underlying weaknesses or flawsin the system that remain
undetected until they interactwith active errors, creating
conditions for accidents. So inthe back to the bike incident,
right, there certainly was somesort of an active error. Maybe
the could be something as simpleas the driver didn't see the
biker. In that zone and hit thebiker. It could be the biker
(05:02):
swerving in front of the car. Itcould be, you know, a myriad of
different active errors, butthere's, in this case, likely on
an underlying latent error thatcontributes to the the
fact that the active errorresults in an accident. If you
think about it a different way,you can think of like, in going
(05:24):
back to continuing the bikeexample, if you had a dedicated
bike lane that was, say, like,you know, five feet off of the
road, then what are the chancesthat a car is going to hit a
bike in that section of theroad? Probably almost none. So
you could have all the quote,unquote, active errors in the
world happening. You could havea biker that's just swerving all
over the place. You could evenhave a semi drunk driver driving
(05:45):
down the road, driver who'stexting, a driver who's
swerving. You know that you givethat five inch them, sorry, that
five foot buffer, right? Thatbecomes like a margin for error,
that then reduces the chancesthat any active errors are going
to lead to an ultimate accident.So applying that to pickleball,
let's apply it in the threepillars. Let's start with the
mechanical so let's say thatyou're having difficulty with
(06:08):
your block volley. Okay, and sothe active error that you think
happens when you get manged isthat you're, you know you're,
you're not seeing the ball, oryou're not you know, you're,
you're, you just missed theshot, things like that. But
let's also assume that in theend your game, you have a
problem with your foundation,and foundation is foot to court,
(06:28):
so that's how your body connectsto the how your body is set
while you're hitting the ball,which is absolutely critical to
your shots, and it particularlyshows up in things like a block
volley. You know, errors in yourfoundation will show up in a
block volley because you'removing your body, your paddle
ends up moving. You end upmissing the shot. In that
situation, you have a latenterror. The latent error is your
(06:50):
foundation. And if you want tofix your volleys, you're going
to want to fix your foundation.If you don't fix your
foundation, that latent error,then the chances of having
active errors and your volleysis going to be way higher than
if you fix the latent error. Andlet me just work this out a
little more. To be clear withyou, you're not going to
eliminate all active errors.You'll still make errors in your
(07:13):
shot. So the active part of, youknow, hitting the ball with your
paddle at the you know, at thetime that you have to during a
block of a bang, you'll stillhave errors in there, but your
errors will be less. Your activeerrors will be less because you
have addressed the latent error.If you don't address a latent
error, such as a foundationalproblem, then you're likely to
(07:34):
have more active errors as youplay. So that's how you start
thinking about like, can Iidentify the possibility of a
latent error in that, in in myshots. If I'm having, you know,
if I'm having, consistently,consistently having errors with
my shots. And I'll give you apersonal example for me, is I
know that I have, I sometimesrush out of my defensive shots.
(07:58):
So when I'm trying to reset,oftentimes I find myself coming
out of it too soon, like tryingto move to the next position too
soon. And so that ends up, endsup with an error. I end up with
an error in my reset. And but Iknow it right. I know that about
myself. And so when it happens,it's fairly, at least easy to
identify and then work towardscorrecting that. The next couple
(08:19):
of times that I do it by reallyforcing myself to stay put, if
you will, while I'm hitting theshot. That's an example of
understanding that I have alatent condition or latent
situation in my shot, which isthat foundational issue about
moving too soon that thenresults in an upward tick in my
active errors on those resets.So that's how those two work
together on the mechanical so ifyou're having mechanical
(08:41):
problems in your game, you know,spend some time with it and see
whether there's a latent errorin your in your mechanics that
might be causing the activeerrors to be more than they
should be. And if you're in theif you're a pickleball system
student, then you know, you knowthat we talk about energy and
trajectory and doing errordiagnostics. This is an area
(09:03):
that really that will shine foryou if you're going to look for
latent errors, because you'reable to work through your
different pieces of your shot.You're also able to work through
the parts about footwork,foundation and stroke mechanics
to say, Okay, where is thewhere's this problem that might
be underlying a lot of my shots,because if you fix that latent
(09:23):
error, you're going to make abig, big improvement in your
mechanics. Let's switch now tothe strategic pillar. So that's,
you know, the strategy of whatshot day, when, how to be on the
court and things like that. Ifyou're getting attacked early in
rallies, so you're gettingpeppered early on the return
side, and you're getting bangeda lot and getting, you know,
you're just under a lot ofduress, likely cause short
(09:46):
return of surf. So what willhappen in that situation? The
active error might be you missedthe volley right, going back to
the volley again here, but let'ssay you missed a volley, but you
didn't miss a volleymechanically, your mechanics are
pretty good, and everything elselike that. So. Yeah, you missed
the volley because of thepressure that you allowed to be
put on you and your team,because of the short return of
(10:07):
serve. So the latent error thereis the short return of serve.
And I cannot tell you how manyrallies I watch where I can
trace the latent error the theroot cause of the of the problem
to the short return of serve.That then led to the X or the Y
or the Z, led to the activeerror, the pop up, the missed
(10:28):
shot, the ultimate loss of therally by something else. But the
latent error is the missed isthe short return of serve. And
if you don't identify the latenterror in that situation, you
just end up, you're like chasingpots of gold at the end of the
rain, but you're chasingfantasies, right? You're trying
to fix problems that aren'treally there, because the error,
(10:49):
even though there is an activeerror, meaning like you missed a
volley, or you popped it up, orwhatever, the active error is
not what you need to fix. Whatyou need to fix there is the
latent error. So that's astrategic example. And then let
me give you a quick athleticexample, athletic pillar
example. So the example I woulduse there is a clouded mind. So
(11:10):
you miss a volley. Let's stickwith the volley, right? You miss
the volley. So the missing thevolley is the act of error. But
you miss the volley because yourmind is clouded, because you
were like, you're you're you'reyou're just obsessing about a
alcohol that you think waswrong. You're, you're, they
called out the score wrong. Soyou're thinking about that
(11:31):
whatever it is, whatever istaking up your bandwidth in your
mind is going to is interferingwith your ability to process the
ball traveling to you in thismoment, and the result then, is
a missed volley. The activeerror missing the volley. The
latent error is a cloudy mind.And if you have a clouded mind,
if you have a clouded mind,you're not going to play your
(11:54):
best. And if you're just tryingto, like, oh, I need to solve my
volleys. I need that's not theproblem, right? You're not
You're not addressing the rightproblem, which in this case
would be a clouded mind. Sothose are examples of how
understanding that firstunderstanding that there are,
there are such things as latenterrors, and that those latent
errors underlie, or underunderscore your play right
(12:19):
underscore is not the rightterm, they, they, they sit there
as you play. Basically theyexist as you play. I'll come up
with the under in a second, thethe underworld. But they,
basically they, they're in theirpresent while you're playing
these latent errors that theyexist so a cloud at mind, short
return of serve, foundationalproblem, if those exist in your
(12:41):
game, and you're missing volleysand all you're chasing is, well,
I need to get better at actuallyholding my paddle a certain way,
my ready position, or otherthings like that, you're not
going to be going to the sourceof the problem, which is a
latent error that is happeningin your play. And reading the
definition of latent, again, itis a underlying weakness or flaw
(13:02):
in the system. In this case, youwrite your your one of your
pillars that remain undetecteduntil they interact with active
errors, creating conditions foraccidents, right? So, in our in
our parlance, that is aundetected weakness, right?
Undetected situation going onthat doesn't appear to, you
know, be a thing until you havethe active error, right? So,
(13:26):
until you miss the volley, yourclouded mind isn't going to be a
problem, in quotes, right?Excuse me, until you miss a
volley, your foundationalproblem isn't. Your foundational
issues aren't going to be aquote, unquote problem. You
know, until you miss a volley,the short return to serve
doesn't seem like a big deal.But then when you miss the Bali,
then you're like, oh, there's anunderlying problem here that I
need to address if I do want to,in fact, improve my chances for
(13:49):
success and improve my play. Sogive that some thought, and your
in your three different pillars,mechanical, strategic and
athletic. And it's a it's areally powerful way to process
your your game, so that you cantease out these types of latent
errors. Which news flash aregoing to be present? News flash
for you and everybody elsethey're going to be present
(14:10):
everybody's game. You're goingto have some latent errors, and
if you can identify what thoseare, you'll make really big
improvements in your play. Andas always, you know if you're
coaching, if you're beingcoached by us, our processes
allow you to suss out thoselatent errors because of our
focus on the big picture ofpickleball. So yes, you work
through these big pictureconcepts, you will suss out
(14:33):
these latent errors will berevealed to you through your
work, and then you'll solvethem, and you'll play better.
All right, let me dive into theriff. Before I dive into the
riff, I wanted to let you knowthat we do have a
we have an affiliate code oraffiliate link. I should say,
(14:54):
with pickleball Central, thereare our equipment partners, and
if you're going. To buyequipment, paddles, balls,
anything that you need forpickleball. We recommend you
check pickleball Central. Theyhave the best customer service.
You know, they have a paddle 30day trial period. I mean, it's a
really, really good company towork with. They've been, they
(15:15):
are the largest retailer in ourspace, and they've been, so you
know, forever since, since I'vebeen around, and it's for a
reason. Plus, if you use ourlink, it lets them know that you
came from us, and it helps uscontinue to provide this kind of
programming to you. You can gostraight to better pickleball
comm. If you click on Resources,there's a link to pickleball
Central. If you use that link,then you get any applicable
(15:36):
discount. There are someproducts that have discounts. As
an example, the paddle that wethat, that I play with, that we
play with, the paddle tech, thethe new paddle tech, the LWC,
the Bantam a LWC, as well as thegtoc paddles, all those paddles
have a 10% discount of thatapplies automatically at
checkout if you use our link. Soappreciate you doing that if you
(15:59):
are purchasing pickleballequipment. All right, let's talk
about the riff. So the Rift,what I want to touch on in the
riff has to do with your journeyas a pickleball player. You can
use this in life, too, and itthe reason I wanted to talk
about it is I play the gamesuite at the New York Times. I
think it's a fun way to startthe day. It gets my brain going.
(16:22):
I do a few different things.Some would number, some with
shape, some with letters, right?Because it helps trigger
different parts of my brain. Iswhat I look at the world and But
in that process, you know, I, Iam subjected, and I know I'm
being a little little, maybe alittle extreme here, but I do
feel strongly about this type ofstuff. I think it's, it's that
(16:42):
important to talk about. But I'msubjected to, like,
conditioning, kind of messagingby the game program, things
like, you know, if you, if yousolve it in the thing in two or
something, you get like, amessage that says, Wow, you did
impressive. Or, if you, like,take Wordle for a second, if you
(17:05):
get to the if you, if it takesyou six tries, it's like,
literally, like, few like, A, P,H, E, W, like, whoo, wow. You
know, baby, you barely made it.If you do multiple days in a
row, you get a streak thing.Like, Oh, you're doing 78 day
streak. Keep going, that kind ofstuff. And I'm all in favor of,
like, accountability type ofstuff. And, you know, I know
(17:26):
that it has a can play apowerful role and like, so
you're trying to do, like, thegym or, you know, so having,
like, being accountable foryourself is good. But I also
think that there's a, you know,you got to live your life kind
of a vibe that we need torespect. And so, you know,
whenever I see whether it's appslike Duolingo or the New York
(17:47):
Times and like that have likethese like streak ideas, I think
that can create undue pressureon folks. So I think you need to
be, you know, aware of that andunderstand the psychology that
they're using. And they're usingvery powerful psychological
tools that are well researchedand very effective to get you to
behave a certain way, and ifyou're aware of them, right and
(18:10):
what they're doing, then you canchoose to engage with them or
choose to disengage your brainfrom them, more so than if
you're not aware of what they'reof the games that they're
playing. I guess pun intendedthere, but the you know, I just
think it's important for you tobe aware of these types of
things as you go through life,because otherwise you end up,
perhaps subconsciously, maybefeeling less than if you finish
(18:36):
a wordle in six because of themessage you get or feeling, I
would say, Not. Not justifiably,great if you solve it in one,
for instance, right? To me,solving a word all in one is
pointless because it's, there'sno it's just a guess, right? And
but you got a great like, Oh myGod, that's the most amazing
thing ever. You solved it inone, which doesn't make any
(18:57):
sense to me to send thatmessage, but you know, just be
aware of that. And you know, itextends out to other things,
like, you know, wins and lossesat pickleball and and other
inputs that you get as a humanbeing. But I just thought it was
important to just point that outand just be aware of those types
of the puppies are excited aboutsomething the you know, those
(19:17):
kinds of inputs that you'regoing to receive from time to
time, whether it's a game app orsomething else, and and be
protective of yourself and yourjourney and your mental health
by not allowing those types ofthings to have too big of a role
in your in how you feel aboutyourself. So So that's this
week's podcast. Hope you enjoyedthe podcast. I hope you get a
(19:39):
chance to if you're into it, topre order the our book. I think
you will enjoy the book a lot.And if you don't enjoy the book,
you can always send me. You sendme an email at Tony,
betterpickleball.com. Let meknow you didn't like the book,
and I will make sure that youget your money back for the
book, because it's, you know, wedo charge for the book because
we have expenses to pay, but youknow, we're. All about
(20:00):
delivering as much value, ifnot, oftentimes, a lot more than
than the dollar amount. So, youknow, you can always take a look
at the book without feelingthere's a risk. I think the
price is only like, I don'tknow, nine or 10 or 13 or
something like that, for preorder. So it's pretty, pretty
novel anyway, particularly forwhat you're getting. But anyway,
(20:22):
so take a look at that. I hopeyou get a chance to check that
out. And if you have a minute torate and review, I really
appreciate some of you haverated and reviewed the podcast
lately, and really appreciateyou doing that. It does make a
difference. I like reading them,tell you that much, but it also
makes a big difference in termsof other players being able to
access the podcast. And lastly,the most direct thing you can do
to help somebody else, if youknow that they're enjoying
(20:44):
pickleball or maybe not enjoypickleball so much as they
should be, but you think theycan enjoy it more by listening
to the podcast. Share it withyour friends, because if you
enjoyed the podcast, theyprobably will too. I hope you a
great week, and I will see youduring the next episode of
Pickleball therapy. Be well.You.
Hello
and Welcome to Pickleballtherapy, the podcast dedicated
to your pickleball improvement.You know that we focus on the
pickleball mind in this podcast.My name is Tony Roig. I am the
host of your podcast. It's apleasure to be with you this
week. Think you're really goingto like this week's topic. We're
going to talk about latentversus active errors, and it's
(00:23):
an interesting way of framingthe thought process around how
you go about fixing parts ofyour game that you want to fix
errors in this case, and how youthink about it. And it comes
from another content creatorsidea. You know, I I'm not just a
content creator myself, I alsoconsume content, and so in that
(00:43):
process, I come across theseideas, sometimes, like this one,
that I think you know, reallycan help us understand you. You
know, we can apply it topickleball and help us through
our processes before we diveinto the podcast. We are
currently we have a pre orderpage for the pickleball therapy
book that is ready to roll. Thereviews so far have been
(01:06):
awesome, which is cool, but Iguess maybe not surprising,
because it is a good book. Ithink I wrote it, so I guess I'm
biased, though, but it is good,and it has a lot of really good
information. And if you enjoythis podcast, you'll enjoy the
book. It's the book's actuallycalled pickleball therapy, the
book. So if you want to checkthat out, I'll put a link in the
show notes for that. All right,let's dive Oh, and I do have a
(01:26):
riff today. I have a rift todayabout protecting your journey,
which I think you'll enjoy. Andas you I think you know by now,
riffs are based on just thingsthat have happened, that I've
come across, that areinteresting and that I think can
help us also continue to buildour resilience in a world full
of inputs that sometimes arehelpful and sometimes not. Well,
(01:48):
one input that was helpful wasthis idea that I came across
about latent versus activeerror. So I'm going to set it up
for you, and then I'm going totalk about how it applies to
your pickleball, specifically inall three pillars of pickleball,
mechanical, strategic, athletic.We'll work on an example in each
and let me set it up to start,and then I'll read the
definitions of latent and activeerrors. So this is from a
(02:08):
content creator who I enjoywatching his ideas about how we
live as a society. That's anarea of life that is of interest
to me, how we interact with eachother, and how we can maybe
improve our improve how we dothat. And so he, his focus is on
urban, urban ideas, you know,not just urban, but also city
(02:30):
ideas, like, how do we livetogether? You know, things like,
you know, pedestrian walkways,you know, favoring cars over,
over pedestrians, things likethat. So in this particular
episode, he was talking about anaccident that had occurred in
his in his city where he lives,where a bike, or a young, a
(02:51):
young man on a bike hadn't beenhit by a car. And you know, he
talked about how the normalreaction to that in news
coverage would be to either talkabout the bike rider, so you
know, the biker wasn't payingattention, or was, you know,
swerved into the road, orsomething like that, the driver
of the car, perhaps, you know,where the driver of the car was
texting, or, you know, didn'tgive enough space to the bike,
(03:13):
or something like that, right?So the like, where do we assign
the blame for what happened? Andthe the assignation of the blame
is usually to the last eventthat occurred before the the
incident, which is current termthe active error. But really,
when you look at these types ofsituations, oftentimes you'll
(03:34):
find what's called a latenterror, which is really the thing
that should be fixed. And then,in the case of like traffic
accidents. You know, he wasactually while he was filming,
there was a fire truck pulled upbehind him, because there was
another biker that had got hit,like, while he's filming the
episode on the previous bikeaccident. And then he shows a
bunch of like, you know, debrisfrom prior car accidents that
(03:56):
are in the in that area. So it'sclear that that intersection has
some problem. What the problem?He didn't dive into the problem
because I was in the problembecause that wasn't the point of
the of the of the episode, butwas just to identify that
oftentimes, when you see, whenyou see a problem, like in this
case, a car hitting a bike,there may be some latent errors
that underlie that that arereally more at the root of the
(04:18):
problem. And if you want tosolve it, you look at the latent
error. So let me give you thedefinitions, and then we'll dive
into how this applies topickable so these are just from
the old the old Google searches.So active errors, immediate,
direct failures that occur atthe point of care and can
potentially lead to adverseevents, latent errors,
(04:40):
underlying weaknesses or flawsin the system that remain
undetected until they interactwith active errors, creating
conditions for accidents. So inthe back to the bike incident,
right, there certainly was somesort of an active error. Maybe
the could be something as simpleas the driver didn't see the
biker. In that zone and hit thebiker. It could be the biker
(05:02):
swerving in front of the car. Itcould be, you know, a myriad of
different active errors, butthere's, in this case, likely on
an underlying latent error thatcontributes to the the
fact that the active errorresults in an accident. If you
think about it a different way,you can think of like, in going
(05:24):
back to continuing the bikeexample, if you had a dedicated
bike lane that was, say, like,you know, five feet off of the
road, then what are the chancesthat a car is going to hit a
bike in that section of theroad? Probably almost none. So
you could have all the quote,unquote, active errors in the
world happening. You could havea biker that's just swerving all
over the place. You could evenhave a semi drunk driver driving
(05:45):
down the road, driver who'stexting, a driver who's
swerving. You know that you givethat five inch them, sorry, that
five foot buffer, right? Thatbecomes like a margin for error,
that then reduces the chancesthat any active errors are going
to lead to an ultimate accident.So applying that to pickleball,
let's apply it in the threepillars. Let's start with the
mechanical so let's say thatyou're having difficulty with
(06:08):
your block volley. Okay, and sothe active error that you think
happens when you get manged isthat you're, you know you're,
you're not seeing the ball, oryou're not you know, you're,
you're, you just missed theshot, things like that. But
let's also assume that in theend your game, you have a
problem with your foundation,and foundation is foot to court,
(06:28):
so that's how your body connectsto the how your body is set
while you're hitting the ball,which is absolutely critical to
your shots, and it particularlyshows up in things like a block
volley. You know, errors in yourfoundation will show up in a
block volley because you'removing your body, your paddle
ends up moving. You end upmissing the shot. In that
situation, you have a latenterror. The latent error is your
(06:50):
foundation. And if you want tofix your volleys, you're going
to want to fix your foundation.If you don't fix your
foundation, that latent error,then the chances of having
active errors and your volleysis going to be way higher than
if you fix the latent error. Andlet me just work this out a
little more. To be clear withyou, you're not going to
eliminate all active errors.You'll still make errors in your
(07:13):
shot. So the active part of, youknow, hitting the ball with your
paddle at the you know, at thetime that you have to during a
block of a bang, you'll stillhave errors in there, but your
errors will be less. Your activeerrors will be less because you
have addressed the latent error.If you don't address a latent
error, such as a foundationalproblem, then you're likely to
(07:34):
have more active errors as youplay. So that's how you start
thinking about like, can Iidentify the possibility of a
latent error in that, in in myshots. If I'm having, you know,
if I'm having, consistently,consistently having errors with
my shots. And I'll give you apersonal example for me, is I
know that I have, I sometimesrush out of my defensive shots.
(07:58):
So when I'm trying to reset,oftentimes I find myself coming
out of it too soon, like tryingto move to the next position too
soon. And so that ends up, endsup with an error. I end up with
an error in my reset. And but Iknow it right. I know that about
myself. And so when it happens,it's fairly, at least easy to
identify and then work towardscorrecting that. The next couple
(08:19):
of times that I do it by reallyforcing myself to stay put, if
you will, while I'm hitting theshot. That's an example of
understanding that I have alatent condition or latent
situation in my shot, which isthat foundational issue about
moving too soon that thenresults in an upward tick in my
active errors on those resets.So that's how those two work
together on the mechanical so ifyou're having mechanical
(08:41):
problems in your game, you know,spend some time with it and see
whether there's a latent errorin your in your mechanics that
might be causing the activeerrors to be more than they
should be. And if you're in theif you're a pickleball system
student, then you know, you knowthat we talk about energy and
trajectory and doing errordiagnostics. This is an area
(09:03):
that really that will shine foryou if you're going to look for
latent errors, because you'reable to work through your
different pieces of your shot.You're also able to work through
the parts about footwork,foundation and stroke mechanics
to say, Okay, where is thewhere's this problem that might
be underlying a lot of my shots,because if you fix that latent
(09:23):
error, you're going to make abig, big improvement in your
mechanics. Let's switch now tothe strategic pillar. So that's,
you know, the strategy of whatshot day, when, how to be on the
court and things like that. Ifyou're getting attacked early in
rallies, so you're gettingpeppered early on the return
side, and you're getting bangeda lot and getting, you know,
you're just under a lot ofduress, likely cause short
(09:46):
return of surf. So what willhappen in that situation? The
active error might be you missedthe volley right, going back to
the volley again here, but let'ssay you missed a volley, but you
didn't miss a volleymechanically, your mechanics are
pretty good, and everything elselike that. So. Yeah, you missed
the volley because of thepressure that you allowed to be
put on you and your team,because of the short return of
(10:07):
serve. So the latent error thereis the short return of serve.
And I cannot tell you how manyrallies I watch where I can
trace the latent error the theroot cause of the of the problem
to the short return of serve.That then led to the X or the Y
or the Z, led to the activeerror, the pop up, the missed
(10:28):
shot, the ultimate loss of therally by something else. But the
latent error is the missed isthe short return of serve. And
if you don't identify the latenterror in that situation, you
just end up, you're like chasingpots of gold at the end of the
rain, but you're chasingfantasies, right? You're trying
to fix problems that aren'treally there, because the error,
(10:49):
even though there is an activeerror, meaning like you missed a
volley, or you popped it up, orwhatever, the active error is
not what you need to fix. Whatyou need to fix there is the
latent error. So that's astrategic example. And then let
me give you a quick athleticexample, athletic pillar
example. So the example I woulduse there is a clouded mind. So
(11:10):
you miss a volley. Let's stickwith the volley, right? You miss
the volley. So the missing thevolley is the act of error. But
you miss the volley because yourmind is clouded, because you
were like, you're you're you'reyou're just obsessing about a
alcohol that you think waswrong. You're, you're, they
called out the score wrong. Soyou're thinking about that
(11:31):
whatever it is, whatever istaking up your bandwidth in your
mind is going to is interferingwith your ability to process the
ball traveling to you in thismoment, and the result then, is
a missed volley. The activeerror missing the volley. The
latent error is a cloudy mind.And if you have a clouded mind,
if you have a clouded mind,you're not going to play your
(11:54):
best. And if you're just tryingto, like, oh, I need to solve my
volleys. I need that's not theproblem, right? You're not
You're not addressing the rightproblem, which in this case
would be a clouded mind. Sothose are examples of how
understanding that firstunderstanding that there are,
there are such things as latenterrors, and that those latent
errors underlie, or underunderscore your play right
(12:19):
underscore is not the rightterm, they, they, they sit there
as you play. Basically theyexist as you play. I'll come up
with the under in a second, thethe underworld. But they,
basically they, they're in theirpresent while you're playing
these latent errors that theyexist so a cloud at mind, short
return of serve, foundationalproblem, if those exist in your
(12:41):
game, and you're missing volleysand all you're chasing is, well,
I need to get better at actuallyholding my paddle a certain way,
my ready position, or otherthings like that, you're not
going to be going to the sourceof the problem, which is a
latent error that is happeningin your play. And reading the
definition of latent, again, itis a underlying weakness or flaw
(13:02):
in the system. In this case, youwrite your your one of your
pillars that remain undetecteduntil they interact with active
errors, creating conditions foraccidents, right? So, in our in
our parlance, that is aundetected weakness, right?
Undetected situation going onthat doesn't appear to, you
know, be a thing until you havethe active error, right? So,
(13:26):
until you miss the volley, yourclouded mind isn't going to be a
problem, in quotes, right?Excuse me, until you miss a
volley, your foundationalproblem isn't. Your foundational
issues aren't going to be aquote, unquote problem. You
know, until you miss a volley,the short return to serve
doesn't seem like a big deal.But then when you miss the Bali,
then you're like, oh, there's anunderlying problem here that I
need to address if I do want to,in fact, improve my chances for
(13:49):
success and improve my play. Sogive that some thought, and your
in your three different pillars,mechanical, strategic and
athletic. And it's a it's areally powerful way to process
your your game, so that you cantease out these types of latent
errors. Which news flash aregoing to be present? News flash
for you and everybody elsethey're going to be present
(14:10):
everybody's game. You're goingto have some latent errors, and
if you can identify what thoseare, you'll make really big
improvements in your play. Andas always, you know if you're
coaching, if you're beingcoached by us, our processes
allow you to suss out thoselatent errors because of our
focus on the big picture ofpickleball. So yes, you work
through these big pictureconcepts, you will suss out
(14:33):
these latent errors will berevealed to you through your
work, and then you'll solvethem, and you'll play better.
All right, let me dive into theriff. Before I dive into the
riff, I wanted to let you knowthat we do have a
we have an affiliate code oraffiliate link. I should say,
(14:54):
with pickleball Central, thereare our equipment partners, and
if you're going. To buyequipment, paddles, balls,
anything that you need forpickleball. We recommend you
check pickleball Central. Theyhave the best customer service.
You know, they have a paddle 30day trial period. I mean, it's a
really, really good company towork with. They've been, they
(15:15):
are the largest retailer in ourspace, and they've been, so you
know, forever since, since I'vebeen around, and it's for a
reason. Plus, if you use ourlink, it lets them know that you
came from us, and it helps uscontinue to provide this kind of
programming to you. You can gostraight to better pickleball
comm. If you click on Resources,there's a link to pickleball
Central. If you use that link,then you get any applicable
(15:36):
discount. There are someproducts that have discounts. As
an example, the paddle that wethat, that I play with, that we
play with, the paddle tech, thethe new paddle tech, the LWC,
the Bantam a LWC, as well as thegtoc paddles, all those paddles
have a 10% discount of thatapplies automatically at
checkout if you use our link. Soappreciate you doing that if you
(15:59):
are purchasing pickleballequipment. All right, let's talk
about the riff. So the Rift,what I want to touch on in the
riff has to do with your journeyas a pickleball player. You can
use this in life, too, and itthe reason I wanted to talk
about it is I play the gamesuite at the New York Times. I
think it's a fun way to startthe day. It gets my brain going.
(16:22):
I do a few different things.Some would number, some with
shape, some with letters, right?Because it helps trigger
different parts of my brain. Iswhat I look at the world and But
in that process, you know, I, Iam subjected, and I know I'm
being a little little, maybe alittle extreme here, but I do
feel strongly about this type ofstuff. I think it's, it's that
(16:42):
important to talk about. But I'msubjected to, like,
conditioning, kind of messagingby the game program, things
like, you know, if you, if yousolve it in the thing in two or
something, you get like, amessage that says, Wow, you did
impressive. Or, if you, like,take Wordle for a second, if you
(17:05):
get to the if you, if it takesyou six tries, it's like,
literally, like, few like, A, P,H, E, W, like, whoo, wow. You
know, baby, you barely made it.If you do multiple days in a
row, you get a streak thing.Like, Oh, you're doing 78 day
streak. Keep going, that kind ofstuff. And I'm all in favor of,
like, accountability type ofstuff. And, you know, I know
(17:26):
that it has a can play apowerful role and like, so
you're trying to do, like, thegym or, you know, so having,
like, being accountable foryourself is good. But I also
think that there's a, you know,you got to live your life kind
of a vibe that we need torespect. And so, you know,
whenever I see whether it's appslike Duolingo or the New York
(17:47):
Times and like that have likethese like streak ideas, I think
that can create undue pressureon folks. So I think you need to
be, you know, aware of that andunderstand the psychology that
they're using. And they're usingvery powerful psychological
tools that are well researchedand very effective to get you to
behave a certain way, and ifyou're aware of them, right and
(18:10):
what they're doing, then you canchoose to engage with them or
choose to disengage your brainfrom them, more so than if
you're not aware of what they'reof the games that they're
playing. I guess pun intendedthere, but the you know, I just
think it's important for you tobe aware of these types of
things as you go through life,because otherwise you end up,
perhaps subconsciously, maybefeeling less than if you finish
(18:36):
a wordle in six because of themessage you get or feeling, I
would say, Not. Not justifiably,great if you solve it in one,
for instance, right? To me,solving a word all in one is
pointless because it's, there'sno it's just a guess, right? And
but you got a great like, Oh myGod, that's the most amazing
thing ever. You solved it inone, which doesn't make any
(18:57):
sense to me to send thatmessage, but you know, just be
aware of that. And you know, itextends out to other things,
like, you know, wins and lossesat pickleball and and other
inputs that you get as a humanbeing. But I just thought it was
important to just point that outand just be aware of those types
of the puppies are excited aboutsomething the you know, those
(19:17):
kinds of inputs that you'regoing to receive from time to
time, whether it's a game app orsomething else, and and be
protective of yourself and yourjourney and your mental health
by not allowing those types ofthings to have too big of a role
in your in how you feel aboutyourself. So So that's this
week's podcast. Hope you enjoyedthe podcast. I hope you get a
(19:39):
chance to if you're into it, topre order the our book. I think
you will enjoy the book a lot.And if you don't enjoy the book,
you can always send me. You sendme an email at Tony,
betterpickleball.com. Let meknow you didn't like the book,
and I will make sure that youget your money back for the
book, because it's, you know, wedo charge for the book because
we have expenses to pay, but youknow, we're. All about
(20:00):
delivering as much value, ifnot, oftentimes, a lot more than
than the dollar amount. So, youknow, you can always take a look
at the book without feelingthere's a risk. I think the
price is only like, I don'tknow, nine or 10 or 13 or
something like that, for preorder. So it's pretty, pretty
novel anyway, particularly forwhat you're getting. But anyway,
(20:22):
so take a look at that. I hopeyou get a chance to check that
out. And if you have a minute torate and review, I really
appreciate some of you haverated and reviewed the podcast
lately, and really appreciateyou doing that. It does make a
difference. I like reading them,tell you that much, but it also
makes a big difference in termsof other players being able to
access the podcast. And lastly,the most direct thing you can do
to help somebody else, if youknow that they're enjoying
(20:44):
pickleball or maybe not enjoypickleball so much as they
should be, but you think theycan enjoy it more by listening
to the podcast. Share it withyour friends, because if you
enjoyed the podcast, theyprobably will too. I hope you a
great week, and I will see youduring the next episode of
Pickleball therapy. Be well.You.
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