Ep. 275 - Do More With Less

There's a powerful principle that limits many players without them realizing it: doing too much. From overly complicated mechanics and layered strategies to mental overload on the court, excess complexity creates inconsistency and stress. Listen in to discover why simplifying your shots, game plans, and focus can unlock better performance, calmer decision-making, and a more confident pickleball experience.

Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/275-do-more-with-less/

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, thepodcast dedicated to your
pickleball improvement.
I am your host of theweekly podcast, Tony Roig.
It's a pleasure to be with you.
This is a different sounding podcast,probably because I'm on location.
Myself and Kylene from the BetterPickleball Coaching team are at the PPA
Tour event here in Dayton Beach, Florida.

(00:25):
It's the last event of this year.
It's a different vibe event, differentWe're in a mix of players coming to it.
So it was an exciting event to come to.
Have the opportunity to commentate thisafternoon in about an hour and a half.
I'm going to be going on to Grand Standand commentating some singles
matches, so we'll see how that goes.Looking forward to it.
This week's podcast, I want to talk to youabout some concepts that I've been

(00:49):
reminded of and just honing in a littlemore, fine-tuning about
how we approach the game.
We just finished some camps here in Tampaa week a half or so ago.
And then we have our upcoming campscoming up in January in Tampa again.
And there's, obviously we deal with a lotof campers or play with a lot of,

(01:12):
coach a lot of players, Ishould say, during those camps.
And it helps us really get a sense ofwhat's going on out there, what campers
and players are thinking about in theirgame, and what we can do
to help them get better.
A couple of housekeeping notes before wedive into the sum and
substance of the podcast.
One has to do with thecamps that I just mentioned.
We do have some spots openfor our upcoming camps.
If you're interested in checking out oneof our camps, it is a

(01:35):
game-changing experience.
So check out our camps.
We have camps in Florida.
We also have camps in Arizona on the tableright now or on the calendar right now.
You can go to betterpickleball.
Com and click on campsand check those out.
I also want to let you knowthat the book is up and out.
It is available inpaperback as well as Kindle.

(01:55):
So if you want to check that out,you can go to amazon.
Com.You can also just go to betterpickleball.
Com and there's a link at thetop that'll take you there.
If you do happen to have the book and haveread it and can leave a review on
Amazon, that would really help us.
I've looked at the...
I appreciate the eight or so have leftreviews, but I know a lot more than

(02:15):
eight players have read the book so far.
So if you can take a few minutes andleave a review, really appreciate it.
It helps us reach other players and letsthem know if you think it's valuable,
letting them know when a review will helpthem gain access to the book as well.
And then the last thing is that we have aneight-week fitness challenge
starting in January.
This is always a big hit for ourstudents going into the new year.

(02:41):
It's always an exciting project for them.
So if you're on our emaillist at betterpickable.
Com, be on the look out for theupcoming eight-week fitness challenge.
If you want to challenge yourself in avery positive way to help your body
not just play Better Pigger Bowl,but also feel better throughout 2026.
To check out the eight-weekfitness challenge coming up.

(03:02):
All right, let's dive into the substanceof today's podcast, which has to do with
how do we approach the game of pickable?
What's the best way for us asplayers to interact with this sport?
And what we see time and time againis players trying to really
layer too much into the game.

(03:24):
And before we get too deep into this,I want to be clear here.
I'm not being critical of any player who'sdone this or who's doing it right now.
Very natural, right?
As human beings, we see a situation,and a lot of times we want to solve it.
So what we do is we add another layer toit, or we find another layer to add to it,
trying to find a solutionfor the specific problem.

(03:44):
It's rarer to stop and say, wait a minute,maybe I have too many layers right
now, and I can remove layers.
And I can tell you that in pickleball,this idea of layering and having too many
layers is what is holding a lot of youback and really restricting
you from moving forward.
I'm going to address it in all threepillars, in the mechanical,

(04:05):
strategic, and athletic pillar.
In the mechanical pillar, what I see a lotis I see players who are
overcomplicating the shot.
If you thinkjust really basically about what you're
trying to accomplish on the pickleballcourt, is you're trying to take a small,
usually yellow object, we call itpickleball, and send it into a specific

(04:27):
part of the court alonga specific trajectory.
That's the wholeking kabuda, mechanically.
I want to get the ball to go whereI want it to go reasonably well.
And where I want it to goincludes obviously not missing.
Where I want it to go includes clearingthe net and includes going in bounds if
the other team doesn'thit it out of the air.

(04:49):
So basically, that's what I want.
So how do I accomplish that?
So when you look at the way that we teachpickleball in our camps and also inside a
pickleball system, we come at from aperspective of, Okay, what's the least you
have to do to accomplish that objective?
Let's take an easy example,or a concrete example.
Let's take a volley.

(05:10):
You get a ball around your shoulder, andyou have an angle between the two players
in front of you that you canjust push the ball through.
You can just punch it rightthrough there, nice and simple.
What do we end up doing sometimes?
We end up taking a big swing at the ball.
That's doing more than necessary.
Or perhaps we try and spin the ball.
We try and roll it ordo something like that.
When all we literally All you have to dois push the ball between the

(05:32):
two players to win the rally.
Anything that you're doing in excess of orin addition to the bare minimum necessary
to get the job done adds complexity toyour mechanics, adds the concept that we
think about as variability,adds variability to your shots.
The more variability you have in yourshots, the higher likelihood that you're
going to haveerrors in your game or variances in the

(05:55):
shots that you're hitting, which includeserrors, because of the
additional variables.
Another way to come at it that might helpyou out is think about a
shot needing four pieces.
Let's say you have a shot and you needfour pieces to get it done, but you decide
to use seven pieces to do the same thing.
Now you've added three more pieces that ifany of those three pieces break down, now

(06:18):
your shot is subject to either missingor not going where you want it to go.
If you can get it done with fourvariables, use four variables
instead of seven variables.
This applies to allparts of your mechanics.
It applies to footwork.
For example, let's say thaton a lateral movement to get from point A
to point B, you're able with your body todo it in three steps, three lateral steps.

(06:41):
But instead, you do it in five.
Well, you added two more steps.
If your timing is off in those steps, ifyou have a little hitch, you hit
the cord on those steps, things likethat, that'll mess up your movement.
If you can do it in three, youdo it in three, not in five.
If you can execute the shot in fourvariables, you use four
variables, not seven.

(07:02):
Some examples of specifics that playersbring into the game that adds
too much complexity to the shots.
The easiest example I give you is spins.
This one you probably heard me talk aboutbefore, but trying to add spins to your
shots before you have shot dominance,before you have
just really consistent shot mechanics is arecipe for disaster because it adds

(07:26):
additional variability into your shotswithout the gain that you're
trying to achieve from the shot.
In other words, the gainfrom the spin, I should say.
So you're trying to add...
And let me be clear, when I sayspin, I'm talking about extra spins.
Every shot you hit right now, evenif you hit it flat, has a spin on it.
What players try and do is theytry and use extra spin on it.
They try and brush up on it or cutit excessively and things like that.

(07:51):
In those situations, what we're doing isadding the higher chance of
making a mistake on the shot.
So spins is one.
Another one is the example I gave with thepunch volley where you
can just punch it through.
Instead of a big swing, a big cut,that's adding another, adding excess to
the shot, adding excessiveswing to the shot in order to try and

(08:13):
accomplish the shot we're trying to hit.
Those are examples of trying tolayer other things into the shot.
Another example I'll give you aboutovercomplication is having too many shots.
And what I mean by that is you actuallyonly need one good ground stroke
mechanic, a couple of volley mechanics,one to handle blocks,
one to handle punches.You're good to go.

(08:35):
If you get really good at those mechanics,now you can do what you got to do when
you're out on the pickleball court.
What the pickleball players do is they'llhave a ground stroke mechanic, and then
they'll have a different ground strokemechanic for this shot and a different
ground stroke mechanic for that shot.
And that looked like it hurt, Kylene.
And a different mechanic for theother shot and things like that.
So they'll basically have toomany mechanics in their game.

(08:56):
So what ends up happening isthey don't ever master any of them
because there's so many of them.
Whereas if they just concentrated on oneground stroke mechanic, a couple of volume
mechanics got really good at those,be much better off.
And that's the concept of less is more.
Of trying to simplify our mechanics,you'll actually end up
playing much better.
Now, once you get really good at thosemechanics and you want to

(09:18):
layer on top, that's fine.
But have the solid foundation onwhich to layer on mechanically.
From a strategic standpoint, what we findis we find this on the
strategic a lot now.
So this is understanding what shot to whennavigating the game from
a strategic standpoint.
From a strategic standpoint, what we seein terms of complexity is a couple of

(09:40):
different ways of looking at it, a coupleof different areas that cause difficulty.
One is being too complexwith our strategies.
An example I give you is a serve concept.
I just saw a comment recently ona video that we found on YouTube
for a little bit on the serve.
And we come at the serve in a where hegets a job done, simplified, let's

(10:03):
do this, it's going to do the work.
And invariably we get a comment orresponse is, Oh, that's fine,
but that's too predictable.
It's not, but I don't want to getinto the details of Why it's not?
Because that's a serve conversation.
I'll tell you it's not toopredictable to begin with.
But let's assume it's predictable.
So what?
Why overcomplicate that shotwhen it gets the job done?

(10:27):
If I'm getting the job done with theserve, with the shot that we recommend,
why go back to serve and then have 82different thoughts about
like, okay, you know what?
This time I'm going to serve it out widebecause I remember the last three
times I serve it the other way.
And also this player, they don't liketheir backhand, so I'm
going to serve it over here.And what if I serve it low?
It's an absolute nightmare.
Absolute nightmare.

(10:48):
And it's not adding really...
If it adds anything to your game, it'sadding marginally a tiny,
tiny thing to your game.Not worth it.
Well, not worth it.
And I even talked about the additionalvariability in your shot, meaning the
increased chance that you're going to makean error because all the different
changes you're making to the shot.
But even just from a bandwidththinking process, it's too much.

(11:10):
Too much.And again, it's not necessary.
So one area on the strategic side istrying to do too much strategically.
I don't know.
It's like trying to split hairs.
It's like trying tochop everything so finely that you
just end up losing your mind out there.
Here's the thing.
Not even the pros do that.

(11:30):
The best male player onthe planet, Ben Jones.
I like using him as an example on thesebecause he's obviously an amazing player.
The results prove it, and also just youwatch him play, and he's so
difficult to play against.
But his strategy is a very simplestrategy, which is he wants to get to the
line when he's on the surf, he wants toget to the line, and he's just going to

(11:53):
dink you cross-court and middle,cross-court and middle, cross-court
and middle until the cows come home.
And then he's going to dare you toto go hard and then he counters.
That's it.That's the whole strategy.
He's not like, Okay, youknow what I'm going to do?
I'm going to cut this one like this, andI'm going to roll this one like that, and
then I'm going to go overhere, and then I'm...
No.
I'm going to hit an MBC lob, and I'm goingto flick attack, and I'm
going to do these things.

(12:13):
No, no, no, no.
Very simple but effective strategy thathe can execute successfully, does the job.
He's a master atdoing the most with the least.
Again, in terms of when you thinkstrategically, he He comes into
the game with a very set game plan.

(12:34):
Everybody knows what he's going to do.
All his opponents know exactly what he'sgoing to do, but he does it, and he beats
them doing exactly what he wants to do.I'll give you the other example.
It's from another sport.
It just popped into my head,and so I'll share it with you.
If you ever watched basketball back in theday, there was this
guard, and I think it was a forward, guardand forward combination of John Stockton
and Karl Malone literally ran thesame play every time down the court.

(12:55):
But virtually identical play.
It was basically John Stockton would go tothe outside go to the top of the
shot key there, and he would basicallybounce past it into Karl Malone,
who would turn around and score.
Pass it to Karl Malone,turn around and score.
Why wouldn't you do the same thingagain and again and again if it works?
So strategically, simplifyingyour life is going to help you.

(13:16):
The other side, I would suggest you, andthis one straddles strategic
pillar and athletic pillar.Athletic pillar is body and mind.
So it's a strategic concept, but it's alsoan athletic concept because it's occupying
too much of your mind, which Which istrying to figure out the
solution to everything.
So the one I just talked about iswhere you're planning everything.

(13:39):
And perhaps you can plan everything.
You have the ability to come up with theoptimum strategy down to the
72nd degree of specificity.
What I'm suggesting isyou don't need to do that.
The other one is where you don't knowwhat's happening, meaning
you're not sure what's happened.
And a good example here is where there wasa couple of dings, you got pulled out

(13:59):
wide, maybe you popped it up andyou're, Okay, what do I do then?
What I suggest there is try not toanswer all the questions right now.
Understand that there's questions that youcan answer later, and
that's perfectly fine.
So don't try and answer everything rightnow and allow yourself
the grace, if you will, of focusing on acouple of areas that are a

(14:23):
primary concern to you right now.Focus on those.
An example, again, would be like yourFor instance, we like to do a lot of our
third shots towards the moving player.
If you're one of our students,this will be familiar to you.
So focus on that.
When you're playing,you can focus on that.
You don't need to focus on the exact...
Did you go to the backend or the fore-end?
Did you go to this or that?

(14:44):
Just keep it more big picture,more where you're at right now.
Focus on that from a strategic standpoint.
That'll help you strategically becauseit'll focus you on what matters.
It'll also help you athletically becauseit'll free up your mind from having to
worry about everylittle thing, which segues into the last
piece that I wanted to talk about on theathletic pillar in terms of less is more.

(15:09):
What I see players here is I see players,and this is not so much a camp concept
that came to mind, justfrom play experiences and hearing stories
and seeing it, it's when we worryabout things like, what's the score?
Or is that an illegal serve?Or whatever.
These ancillary things that don'tgo to the heart of what we're doing.

(15:30):
They're not really central to the heartof the experience that we're having.
I'm not going to go into too muchin-depth on the illegal serves.
I think I did a whole other episodeon that and I've written about it.
If the illegal serve is something that'smaterially changing the game,
fine, let's worry about it.
They're serving overhead and justcrack at the ball 200 miles an hour.
Okay, fine.
If they're serving a little bit of sidearm, a little bit above the waist, a

(15:52):
little bit of whatever,and it's just a normal serve that anybody
else is hitting, let's notget bogged down on that.
With the scores, getting bogged down on,I can't serve until I know exactly what
the score is, and I have to ask for thescore several times because
literally, it's occupying your mind.
And it's here the less is more idea isyou're worrying about too many things.

(16:14):
Why are you worryingabout all these things?
Worry, and worry here, I'mputting air quotes around it.
If you're watching the video, you see it.
But worrying quotes about your next shot.
Worrying quotes about whereare you aiming your serve?
Worrying quotes about what's your positionwhen you're the non-returner
at the non-bubbley zone line?
Worry, again, in quotes, about the thingsthat really matter, a big picture that

(16:36):
would go to the heart ofthe experience that you're having on the
pick-up-ball court, and perhaps try andavoid worrying about
peripheral items that aren't...
Who cares, really, at the end of the day,about those in terms of the overall
experience that you're having, as opposedto, I care about them because
it's some marginal thing.
Anyway, so hopefully this idea movingforward, you can think a little bit about

(17:01):
what parts of my game and what parts ofthe way that I'm thinking about my
game can I modify, can I strip away?
I should say not modify, but stripaway, remove from what I'm doing.
Because if you do that, what you'll oftenfind is that you're going to be able to
shine more in the areasthat really matter.

(17:24):
And perhaps this willresonate with some of you.
Think about it like you got aan older piece of furniture at a garage
sale or somewhere, and it's covered in 72layers of paint and primer and whatever,
and they're justbeautiful wood underneath.
So you're going to just sand it down.
You're going to remove those layersthat don't really add to the piece.

(17:47):
And instead, you're going to let reallythe heart of the piece expose itself.
So maybe that will resonate with somebodyout there in terms of less is more.
But it's a practice.
It's something you have to do.
It's something you have to work at.I should say.
You have to work at if you want to do it.
So you need to work at it.
Ithink that'll give you more peace of mind,

(18:08):
more calmness when you're playing,and also you're going to play better.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeof Pickable Ball Therapy.
If you had a chance to rate and review thepodcast, but also the book, if you've
read it, really appreciate that.
And as always, consider sharing thispodcast with your friends, particularly
any friends of yours who are worried aboutthe score, illegal serves,
and things like that.
Let them offload that so they canhave more fun and play better.

(18:32):
I'll see you guys.
I'll probably be in studio next week.
I think next week is the holidays, Ithink, so I should be able
to record one in studio.
If not, we'll pull them from the archives.Be well.
Happy holidays, and I'll see younext time on Pickleball Therapy.
Ciao.