February 28, 2025 • 17 mins
'The good thing about pressure is that it lets you know that you care.' Billy Jean King. The difficulty comes in when you let the pressure build up too much that it spills over into our hobbies and sports, including pickleball.
It's perfectly normal for players to start feeling pressure in terms of their performance but not to the point where you're not having fun or can't function anymore.
Here are three ways to release pressure and help you stay focused and relaxed on the court;
1. Between-Rally Pauses; A simple yet effective way to reset between rallies using brief pauses to take a mental step back. This allows your brain to slow down and it could be in form of paddle tap or removing the paddle from your hand to reduce tension and allow your body and mind to relax.
2. Breathing Techniques; Focusing on your breath can help shift attention away from stressful thoughts and bring a sense of calm. In this episode I explain to you two techniques you can try to that bring focus and calmness.
3. Change Your Approach Strategically; If a particular strategy or shot isn’t working, it might be time for a tactical change. For instance, if you’re struggling with your third shot drops, try driving the ball instead. This switch not only relieves pressure but can also improve your rhythm.
In the RIFF I share with you why sticking to a successful formula during competitive play maximizes your chance of success, using an example of a PPA match that happened during the Mesa Cup.
Anna Bright's great framing after the game; https://betterpickleball.com/232-anna-brights-positive-perspective-win-or-lose/
Upcoming boot camp in March; https://betterpickleball.com/march-bootcamp/
Get on our email list; https://betterpickleball.com/
Check out Pickleheads website; https://www.pickleheads.com/
Have a feedback? We'd love to hear from you; therapy@betterpickleball.com
See you in the next episode!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
Specifically, it's the podcastdedicated to your pickleball mind.
My name is Tony Roig.
I'm the host of your weekly podcast.
It's a pleasure to be with you this week.
This week, I'm going to be covering mentalpressure with you and talking about
how to deal with mental pressure.
(00:24):
It's something that happens to a lot of uson the pickleball court, and being able to
deal with it is going to definitely let usplay better and also just
feel better out there.
Then the other thing that I'mgoing to be covering is in the RIF.
I want to talk a little bit aboutone of the matches that I was watching in
the PPA this weekend,PPA tournament, because I think there's an
important lesson to be learned from thatmatch in terms of how we approach our
(00:49):
games whenever we're dealing in acompetitive situation where we
want to give ourselves thebest chance for success.
As we get into the podcast, I want to makesure that you know that we have
an upcoming boot camp in March.
I believe it's towards the end of March.
It is going to be a three plus one,basically three days of training, about an
(01:09):
hour each day, and then one day of apre-boot camp, get together, have a
conversation, get ready togo, and things like that.
I think you're going to findit really helpful to your game.
It's about helping you reduce the errorsin your game, be more consistent by
understandingbetter how to control your shots.
(01:30):
So that's basically the boot camp, but ithas an impact on every aspect of your game
because any problems that you have withyour shots will permeate your entire game.
So be on the look out for that.
If you're on our email list, you're goingto get an email about it,
probably more than one.
And if you're not on our email list,what are you waiting for?
Get on the email list.
(01:51):
All right, let's dive into the mainsubject of today, which is
dealing with mental pressure.And I was reminded of this.
We're doing some camps this weekand last week, it's normal.
(02:16):
I mean, you're having such a hard time.
Your brain has no space becausethere's so much pressure up there.
And it reminded me of there's a quote bythe famous tennis player, Billy Jean King,
where she said, Thegood thing about pressure is that
it lets you know that you care.
That's a positive, right?
(02:37):
Feel pressure means thatyou care about the thing.
The difficulty is, though, lettingpressure build up too much, right?
If you have too much pressure on yourbrain, then you're not having fun anymore
for sure, and you're not able to performyour best because there's no space.
You're only so much space in your mind.
And if your mind's feeling a ton ofpressure, you're just
(03:00):
not going to do as well.
So I want to share with you threeways to deal with that, to deal with
releasing the pressureon your mind as you go.
And then the idea is to...Like a little...
Like a release valve on a pressure Cooker,same a thing, so that you don't have so
much pressure that you justcan't deal with it anymore.
So the first couple I'm going to give youare mechanical, and the last one I'm going
(03:22):
to give you is a strategic or a decisionyou can make while you're playing.
Mechanical meaning likemechanical to your body, right?
Still It's not a traffic pillar becauseit's your body and your mind,
but it's how you interact your body andyour mind to basically relax so that
you can focus on what's going on.
So the first one isactually between rallies.
(03:43):
Between rallies, there's nothing going on.
Somebody's picking up the ball, maybesomebody's figuring out what position they
got to stand in, all that type of stuff.
So you have a few seconds between ralliesthat you can use to your advantage.
And what you do there is youbasically just take a pause.
You just to say, okay, I'm going to take apause here between rallies
(04:03):
in order to allow your brain to reset.
And you really want to get into a resetmode in these situations
where you're basically just lettingeverything slow down for yourself.
A couple of things you can do there issome players, for instance, tap the
paddle on the back of the fence.
That's like a reset motion.
(04:24):
The second one I'm going to give you in asecond relates to the first one, but
another thing you can do on thefirst one that has with breathing.
You can do that, too, and I'lltalk about that more in a second.
But another thing you can do is as simpleas taking the paddle out
of your playing hand.
Some players, they start playing, andbasically that paddle stays in that
playing hand at a 10 death grip forthe full match or the full game.
(04:47):
And that's going to just ratcheteverything up, or that's going to increase
the pressure in your body andthe pressure in your mind.
So taking the paddle out of your hand is away to just have a
practice that allows me to just resetmyself and bring my
the pressure I'm feeling down.
Again, paddle tap on theback of the net is fine.
Just turning and facing back.
You see some tennis players do that wherethey basically turn back, face the back of
(05:11):
the fence for a second,and then come back around.
It's like a reset, reset, reset,bringing you back to neutral.
The second one that you can also do duringbreaks, but it's very specific,
has to do with breathing.
And what you're going to do here isthere's different types
of breathing techniques.You can do the...
There's like a seal breathingtechnique where you basically...
It's not quite holding your breath, butbreathing in at a certain tempo,
(05:32):
holding it for the same amount of time,and then breathing out at a certain tempo.
So it's basically like a three or fourcount in, hold for a three or four count,
and then release for a three or fourcount, and then repeat that once or twice.
That's one technique.
The other technique is theone that my co-head coach, C.
J.
Johnson, shares with all of our campers,et cetera, which is essentially the Lamaze
technique, which is one big breath in,hold, and then two push out.
(05:56):
So you basically push and push.
So one big breath in.
We can do it now and give youa little moment of relaxation.
So it's one big breath in, and then pushout a little bit, and then push out big.
And the key here is the second push.
The second push is where youreally release everything.
So let's try it again.
So big breath in, then a little push, andthen a big push, and then you let it go.
(06:22):
We go ahead and do the seal one, two.
Basically, I'm going to dobasically a three-count in.
Once it's I'm going to hold for three, andthen I'm going to release for three.
Like that, it times it.
And that breathing, any breathing, thesetwo techniques or any other technique you
want to use, it allows you to focus onsomething other than the
(06:45):
shot I just missed, the shot my partnerjust missed, the thing that just happened,
the score that was called wrong, theoutfall that was disputed, whatever.
Whatever the thing isthat's causing us pressure
or causing us distraction frombeing able to play our best.
So breathing allows us to takeour mind off of that, focus on the
breathing and the breathing technique,and that then again resets
(07:07):
us and slows us down.
Then the third technique I'm going toshare with you has to do with adopting
a different approach for a moment.
Let's say that in the situation I wasdealing with specifically or that I was
witnessing, we had to do with a player whowas trying to hit third shot drops on
(07:29):
their words, and theyjust weren't working.
And that happens.
That's just normal.Sometimes it's just not working.
They were going deeper than the playerwanted, into the net,
whatever, things like that.
So what I suggested to that player was thenext time they were on the serve side,
just drive the ball.
And I'm not saying you have to drive itlike crazy, hit it 10,000 miles an hour.
(07:52):
But instead of just trying to continue tohit the same shot that's not working right
now, change because what happens is this,you're trying to get this one shot down.
You're like, okay, I'm goingto just keep hitting the shot.
You keep on squeezing and tightening andsqueezing and squeezing and squeezing
and just trying to get it perfect.
(08:14):
It makes it harder.
It actually makes it harder to execute theshot because you're just so
hyper-focused on getting it perfect.
So instead, you come off of it.
You just take a break fromit, do something different.
The other advantage of driving theball is that you let off some steam.
You're your body relaxes becauseyou're fully swinging your paddle.
It's a little more fluid motion thantrying to hit a precise third shot drop
(08:38):
shot, which requires a little more...
It's more scalpel-like.The other one, you're just going.
And then you just relax a littlebit by just letting your body go.
Now, if you're going to do that,let your partner know that you're going to
try something different,and that way they're on the same page.
Another thing you can do that I've done inthe past is, say I'm trying my
(09:00):
and my thirds are falling short.
I'm trying to be too precise.
It's like, give myself more space with it.
So I float them some.
And even if they get a bolliedor attacked, it's not a big deal.
I let my partner know, Hey, listen, hangback with me for a second because I need
more space on my thirdsright now just to get going.
Then I start hitting him higher and morewiden my shot range so that I can take
(09:25):
some pressure off tryingto hit that perfect shot.
Consider that when you're playing.
If you're feeling a lot of stress Press ona shot or you're missing, say you're
trying to hit a fancy serve, you have acomplicated serve and it's not working
right now or a complicated return toserve, go to a more
basic form of the shot.
Just take some pressure off what you'reworking on or work on the shot you
regularly use because it's not workingright now, rather than keep on just
(09:48):
hitting your head againstthat rock of you or that wall.
Those are three things you canuse to release the pressure.
And then before we get into the RIF,there's a quote that I like,
and I'm going to paraphrase it.
It's from Alan Watts.
He's an American philosopher from, Ibelieve, not I believe,
from the '60s time frame.
And he's a hippy philosopher guy, but Ilike his thinking about
(10:14):
dancing, Lies to Dance.
And he talks about basically the mistakethat we make sometimes is we
take things too seriously.
That can happen with things that are moreserious than pickleball,
but even in pickleball, wesometimes take it too seriously, take
the thing that's happening to heart.
And just remember thatlife in general is a dance.
(10:38):
That's what Alan Watts suggests.
The key is just to dancethe dance a little bit.
But certainly, pickleball is.
Pickleball is definitely...
It's supposed to be a fun activity.
It's supposed to be a game.
Enjoy it.
Enjoy the dance of it, both the good stepsand times you step on your
partner's toe, figuratively.
And just remember that you're in a dance,and don't take things too
(10:59):
seriously and let the thing flow.
You're going to hit great shots andyou're going to hit crappy shots.
That's just part of the deal.
All right, let's jump into the RIF.
Before we do, I want to give a shoutout to our friends at Pickleheads.
One of the challenges of playthese days is organizing play.
(11:23):
It can be a pain, and also it getscomplex sometimes while you're there.
And what I mean by that is playerswant to put their paddle certain ways.
Players aren't happy with theirgame set up and stuff like that.
So Pickleheads, they've been knownhistorically more for
doing places to play.
So they took over placesoplay.
Org, which was a USA pickleballsite for finding locations.
(11:46):
But they've gone beyond that.
Now they have some free toolsthat help you organize the play.
And so I'll give you a quick example.
Say you're doing open play and you want totake away some of the
internal politics and even figuring outwho's going to play with who and
next match and things like that.
The app handles all that stuff,and it's very fluid.
If someone gets there 30 minutes after youstart it, you just put them in the
(12:08):
rotation and the app takes over and itmatches everybody based on trying to get
the best match as possibleand sends players out to play.
You don't have to worry about the paddlestuff anymore, and it just takes a
lot of pressure off the situation.
It's certainly worth checking out.
So if either you're currently organizingplay or you're interested in setting up
some groups, I would check them out, trytheir round-robin format, and I
(12:28):
think you'll like the way it works.
If you have any feedback for us,obviously, always send it to us at the...
You can send it to us attherapy@betterpickleball.
Com.And that's at pickleheads.
Com, and I'll put itdown in the show notes.
Check it out.
Good group over there trying to do theirbest to help us
keep playing in the social format.
All right, on the RIF, I want to talk justfor a couple of minutes about
(12:52):
how we approach games from a strategicstandpoint, from a competitive
strategic standpoint.
And this is something thatI've seen is a trend for...
They're one of the bestteams in the world.
They're pretty much always the number twoseed in their tournaments, and they're
pretty much always in the finals.
(13:12):
This is Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrbacher.
The only team better than them is AnlyWatters and Katherine Parenta, the number
one seed and the team thatwins most of the finals.
It's going to be tough.It's always going to be tough.
In the last episode, we talked aboutwe shared Anna Bright's great framing
(13:33):
after the game, and that's awesome.
I love that way of looking at pickleball.
If you haven't checkedit out, check it out.
Check out that episode.
But what I noticed is what happenssometimes to Anna and Rachel
is that they go off script.
And that's okay sometimes, to be creativeand have fun and things like that.
(13:56):
But when you're playing and your objectiveis to give yourself the best chance for
success, if you have aformula that's working, something
that's working well, stick with it.
And if you want to checkit out, check out in...
It was game twowhere Anna and Rachel were down
(14:19):
towards the end of the game, butthey're making a definite run.
They're putting a ton of pressureon Anna Lee and Katherine.
They're coming back,they're doing their thing.
Everything's working.They're clicking everything.
Everything is Clicking,clicking, clicking.
And then I believe the scorewas 9-10 when this happened.
So at 9-10, Anna goes for an Ernie.
Ill-advised Ernie takesher out of formation,
(14:42):
breaks the formation of the team, breaksthe rhythm that they had going into that,
they lose that rally, side out,and they end up losing the game.
Now, obviously, I can't tell you for surethat had she not done
that, they would have won.
But that's not the point of this.
The point of this isyou want to give yourself the best chance
to win in those situations whenyou're playing competitively.
(15:03):
What I would suggest to you is that I cantell you that when you see
players in a rhythmdoing a thing that's working,
and all of a sudden, inexplicably, theychange that and they could do something
else, it oftentimes doesn't work out forthem because there's
no reason to have done it.
(15:23):
In this case, it's an ernie, butthere's several other things you can do.
Like throwing up a lob wheneverything else is working great.
You're doing thestrategy A, and then all of a sudden
you throw in a lob or you do something.
I'm going to try a flick attack.
Again, this isn't a competitive setting.
Why do that?
If you want the best chance for success,if you have a formula that's working, you
(15:44):
stick to That's how I got the formula.
The flip side of it is not the flip side.
The two coins are discipline on one side,creativity and being
imaginative on the other side.
There's nothing technicallywrong with being creative, right?
But if you, again, best chance for successand something's working, you want
to be disciplined in that situation.
And you're welcome to watch.
(16:07):
Look it up.It's on the PPA Pickleball website.
It's the finals of the Mesa Cup.
There's another time that happened I don'tremember right now exactly when it
happened, but it was a similara thing where they're in rhythm.
You can see it.
You can see that they're in rhythm,several rallies in a row, and all
of a sudden, Mpz lop out of nowhere.
And that was not necessary becauseeverything was working in the
(16:29):
other with what they were doing.
So when you're playing, and again, Irepeat again, competitive type of setting,
not when you'rehaving fun and having a good time.
That's all.Do your stuff.
Have a good time.
But when you're playing competitively,you're playing in a league or you're
playing in a tournament, you're playingin something like that, think about that.
Ask yourself, if I'm in a rhythm, letme stick to the rhythm.
(16:51):
Let me stick to the game plan and notvary from the game plan
just because I feel like whatever I'mdoing, because I want to do it in
a competitive competitive setting.
Anyway, so that's a concept for you onchances for success that I thought was
timely given thetournament this past weekend.
All right, that's this week's podcast.
(17:11):
If you have a minute to rate and reviewthe podcast, that would be awesome.
I haven't checked this week, but Ihaven't heard from anybody in a while.
It'd be nice to know you guys arestill out there and enjoy the podcast.
And that's one way to both A, let us know,and B, let other players know the value of
the podcast and help us reachas many players as we can.
With that said, I hope you guys have agreat rest of your week and weekend, and I
(17:37):
will see you in the nextepisode of Pickleball Therapy.
See you.
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
Specifically, it's the podcastdedicated to your pickleball mind.
My name is Tony Roig.
I'm the host of your weekly podcast.
It's a pleasure to be with you this week.
This week, I'm going to be covering mentalpressure with you and talking about
how to deal with mental pressure.
(00:24):
It's something that happens to a lot of uson the pickleball court, and being able to
deal with it is going to definitely let usplay better and also just
feel better out there.
Then the other thing that I'mgoing to be covering is in the RIF.
I want to talk a little bit aboutone of the matches that I was watching in
the PPA this weekend,PPA tournament, because I think there's an
important lesson to be learned from thatmatch in terms of how we approach our
(00:49):
games whenever we're dealing in acompetitive situation where we
want to give ourselves thebest chance for success.
As we get into the podcast, I want to makesure that you know that we have
an upcoming boot camp in March.
I believe it's towards the end of March.
It is going to be a three plus one,basically three days of training, about an
(01:09):
hour each day, and then one day of apre-boot camp, get together, have a
conversation, get ready togo, and things like that.
I think you're going to findit really helpful to your game.
It's about helping you reduce the errorsin your game, be more consistent by
understandingbetter how to control your shots.
(01:30):
So that's basically the boot camp, but ithas an impact on every aspect of your game
because any problems that you have withyour shots will permeate your entire game.
So be on the look out for that.
If you're on our email list, you're goingto get an email about it,
probably more than one.
And if you're not on our email list,what are you waiting for?
Get on the email list.
(01:51):
All right, let's dive into the mainsubject of today, which is
dealing with mental pressure.And I was reminded of this.
We're doing some camps this weekand last week, it's normal.
(02:16):
I mean, you're having such a hard time.
Your brain has no space becausethere's so much pressure up there.
And it reminded me of there's a quote bythe famous tennis player, Billy Jean King,
where she said, Thegood thing about pressure is that
it lets you know that you care.
That's a positive, right?
(02:37):
Feel pressure means thatyou care about the thing.
The difficulty is, though, lettingpressure build up too much, right?
If you have too much pressure on yourbrain, then you're not having fun anymore
for sure, and you're not able to performyour best because there's no space.
You're only so much space in your mind.
And if your mind's feeling a ton ofpressure, you're just
(03:00):
not going to do as well.
So I want to share with you threeways to deal with that, to deal with
releasing the pressureon your mind as you go.
And then the idea is to...Like a little...
Like a release valve on a pressure Cooker,same a thing, so that you don't have so
much pressure that you justcan't deal with it anymore.
So the first couple I'm going to give youare mechanical, and the last one I'm going
(03:22):
to give you is a strategic or a decisionyou can make while you're playing.
Mechanical meaning likemechanical to your body, right?
Still It's not a traffic pillar becauseit's your body and your mind,
but it's how you interact your body andyour mind to basically relax so that
you can focus on what's going on.
So the first one isactually between rallies.
(03:43):
Between rallies, there's nothing going on.
Somebody's picking up the ball, maybesomebody's figuring out what position they
got to stand in, all that type of stuff.
So you have a few seconds between ralliesthat you can use to your advantage.
And what you do there is youbasically just take a pause.
You just to say, okay, I'm going to take apause here between rallies
(04:03):
in order to allow your brain to reset.
And you really want to get into a resetmode in these situations
where you're basically just lettingeverything slow down for yourself.
A couple of things you can do there issome players, for instance, tap the
paddle on the back of the fence.
That's like a reset motion.
(04:24):
The second one I'm going to give you in asecond relates to the first one, but
another thing you can do on thefirst one that has with breathing.
You can do that, too, and I'lltalk about that more in a second.
But another thing you can do is as simpleas taking the paddle out
of your playing hand.
Some players, they start playing, andbasically that paddle stays in that
playing hand at a 10 death grip forthe full match or the full game.
(04:47):
And that's going to just ratcheteverything up, or that's going to increase
the pressure in your body andthe pressure in your mind.
So taking the paddle out of your hand is away to just have a
practice that allows me to just resetmyself and bring my
the pressure I'm feeling down.
Again, paddle tap on theback of the net is fine.
Just turning and facing back.
You see some tennis players do that wherethey basically turn back, face the back of
(05:11):
the fence for a second,and then come back around.
It's like a reset, reset, reset,bringing you back to neutral.
The second one that you can also do duringbreaks, but it's very specific,
has to do with breathing.
And what you're going to do here isthere's different types
of breathing techniques.You can do the...
There's like a seal breathingtechnique where you basically...
It's not quite holding your breath, butbreathing in at a certain tempo,
(05:32):
holding it for the same amount of time,and then breathing out at a certain tempo.
So it's basically like a three or fourcount in, hold for a three or four count,
and then release for a three or fourcount, and then repeat that once or twice.
That's one technique.
The other technique is theone that my co-head coach, C.
J.
Johnson, shares with all of our campers,et cetera, which is essentially the Lamaze
technique, which is one big breath in,hold, and then two push out.
(05:56):
So you basically push and push.
So one big breath in.
We can do it now and give youa little moment of relaxation.
So it's one big breath in, and then pushout a little bit, and then push out big.
And the key here is the second push.
The second push is where youreally release everything.
So let's try it again.
So big breath in, then a little push, andthen a big push, and then you let it go.
(06:22):
We go ahead and do the seal one, two.
Basically, I'm going to dobasically a three-count in.
Once it's I'm going to hold for three, andthen I'm going to release for three.
Like that, it times it.
And that breathing, any breathing, thesetwo techniques or any other technique you
want to use, it allows you to focus onsomething other than the
(06:45):
shot I just missed, the shot my partnerjust missed, the thing that just happened,
the score that was called wrong, theoutfall that was disputed, whatever.
Whatever the thing isthat's causing us pressure
or causing us distraction frombeing able to play our best.
So breathing allows us to takeour mind off of that, focus on the
breathing and the breathing technique,and that then again resets
(07:07):
us and slows us down.
Then the third technique I'm going toshare with you has to do with adopting
a different approach for a moment.
Let's say that in the situation I wasdealing with specifically or that I was
witnessing, we had to do with a player whowas trying to hit third shot drops on
(07:29):
their words, and theyjust weren't working.
And that happens.
That's just normal.Sometimes it's just not working.
They were going deeper than the playerwanted, into the net,
whatever, things like that.
So what I suggested to that player was thenext time they were on the serve side,
just drive the ball.
And I'm not saying you have to drive itlike crazy, hit it 10,000 miles an hour.
(07:52):
But instead of just trying to continue tohit the same shot that's not working right
now, change because what happens is this,you're trying to get this one shot down.
You're like, okay, I'm goingto just keep hitting the shot.
You keep on squeezing and tightening andsqueezing and squeezing and squeezing
and just trying to get it perfect.
(08:14):
It makes it harder.
It actually makes it harder to execute theshot because you're just so
hyper-focused on getting it perfect.
So instead, you come off of it.
You just take a break fromit, do something different.
The other advantage of driving theball is that you let off some steam.
You're your body relaxes becauseyou're fully swinging your paddle.
It's a little more fluid motion thantrying to hit a precise third shot drop
(08:38):
shot, which requires a little more...
It's more scalpel-like.The other one, you're just going.
And then you just relax a littlebit by just letting your body go.
Now, if you're going to do that,let your partner know that you're going to
try something different,and that way they're on the same page.
Another thing you can do that I've done inthe past is, say I'm trying my
(09:00):
and my thirds are falling short.
I'm trying to be too precise.
It's like, give myself more space with it.
So I float them some.
And even if they get a bolliedor attacked, it's not a big deal.
I let my partner know, Hey, listen, hangback with me for a second because I need
more space on my thirdsright now just to get going.
Then I start hitting him higher and morewiden my shot range so that I can take
(09:25):
some pressure off tryingto hit that perfect shot.
Consider that when you're playing.
If you're feeling a lot of stress Press ona shot or you're missing, say you're
trying to hit a fancy serve, you have acomplicated serve and it's not working
right now or a complicated return toserve, go to a more
basic form of the shot.
Just take some pressure off what you'reworking on or work on the shot you
regularly use because it's not workingright now, rather than keep on just
(09:48):
hitting your head againstthat rock of you or that wall.
Those are three things you canuse to release the pressure.
And then before we get into the RIF,there's a quote that I like,
and I'm going to paraphrase it.
It's from Alan Watts.
He's an American philosopher from, Ibelieve, not I believe,
from the '60s time frame.
And he's a hippy philosopher guy, but Ilike his thinking about
(10:14):
dancing, Lies to Dance.
And he talks about basically the mistakethat we make sometimes is we
take things too seriously.
That can happen with things that are moreserious than pickleball,
but even in pickleball, wesometimes take it too seriously, take
the thing that's happening to heart.
And just remember thatlife in general is a dance.
(10:38):
That's what Alan Watts suggests.
The key is just to dancethe dance a little bit.
But certainly, pickleball is.
Pickleball is definitely...
It's supposed to be a fun activity.
It's supposed to be a game.
Enjoy it.
Enjoy the dance of it, both the good stepsand times you step on your
partner's toe, figuratively.
And just remember that you're in a dance,and don't take things too
(10:59):
seriously and let the thing flow.
You're going to hit great shots andyou're going to hit crappy shots.
That's just part of the deal.
All right, let's jump into the RIF.
Before we do, I want to give a shoutout to our friends at Pickleheads.
One of the challenges of playthese days is organizing play.
(11:23):
It can be a pain, and also it getscomplex sometimes while you're there.
And what I mean by that is playerswant to put their paddle certain ways.
Players aren't happy with theirgame set up and stuff like that.
So Pickleheads, they've been knownhistorically more for
doing places to play.
So they took over placesoplay.
Org, which was a USA pickleballsite for finding locations.
(11:46):
But they've gone beyond that.
Now they have some free toolsthat help you organize the play.
And so I'll give you a quick example.
Say you're doing open play and you want totake away some of the
internal politics and even figuring outwho's going to play with who and
next match and things like that.
The app handles all that stuff,and it's very fluid.
If someone gets there 30 minutes after youstart it, you just put them in the
(12:08):
rotation and the app takes over and itmatches everybody based on trying to get
the best match as possibleand sends players out to play.
You don't have to worry about the paddlestuff anymore, and it just takes a
lot of pressure off the situation.
It's certainly worth checking out.
So if either you're currently organizingplay or you're interested in setting up
some groups, I would check them out, trytheir round-robin format, and I
(12:28):
think you'll like the way it works.
If you have any feedback for us,obviously, always send it to us at the...
You can send it to us attherapy@betterpickleball.
Com.And that's at pickleheads.
Com, and I'll put itdown in the show notes.
Check it out.
Good group over there trying to do theirbest to help us
keep playing in the social format.
All right, on the RIF, I want to talk justfor a couple of minutes about
(12:52):
how we approach games from a strategicstandpoint, from a competitive
strategic standpoint.
And this is something thatI've seen is a trend for...
They're one of the bestteams in the world.
They're pretty much always the number twoseed in their tournaments, and they're
pretty much always in the finals.
(13:12):
This is Anna Bright and Rachel Rohrbacher.
The only team better than them is AnlyWatters and Katherine Parenta, the number
one seed and the team thatwins most of the finals.
It's going to be tough.It's always going to be tough.
In the last episode, we talked aboutwe shared Anna Bright's great framing
(13:33):
after the game, and that's awesome.
I love that way of looking at pickleball.
If you haven't checkedit out, check it out.
Check out that episode.
But what I noticed is what happenssometimes to Anna and Rachel
is that they go off script.
And that's okay sometimes, to be creativeand have fun and things like that.
(13:56):
But when you're playing and your objectiveis to give yourself the best chance for
success, if you have aformula that's working, something
that's working well, stick with it.
And if you want to checkit out, check out in...
It was game twowhere Anna and Rachel were down
(14:19):
towards the end of the game, butthey're making a definite run.
They're putting a ton of pressureon Anna Lee and Katherine.
They're coming back,they're doing their thing.
Everything's working.They're clicking everything.
Everything is Clicking,clicking, clicking.
And then I believe the scorewas 9-10 when this happened.
So at 9-10, Anna goes for an Ernie.
Ill-advised Ernie takesher out of formation,
(14:42):
breaks the formation of the team, breaksthe rhythm that they had going into that,
they lose that rally, side out,and they end up losing the game.
Now, obviously, I can't tell you for surethat had she not done
that, they would have won.
But that's not the point of this.
The point of this isyou want to give yourself the best chance
to win in those situations whenyou're playing competitively.
(15:03):
What I would suggest to you is that I cantell you that when you see
players in a rhythmdoing a thing that's working,
and all of a sudden, inexplicably, theychange that and they could do something
else, it oftentimes doesn't work out forthem because there's
no reason to have done it.
(15:23):
In this case, it's an ernie, butthere's several other things you can do.
Like throwing up a lob wheneverything else is working great.
You're doing thestrategy A, and then all of a sudden
you throw in a lob or you do something.
I'm going to try a flick attack.
Again, this isn't a competitive setting.
Why do that?
If you want the best chance for success,if you have a formula that's working, you
(15:44):
stick to That's how I got the formula.
The flip side of it is not the flip side.
The two coins are discipline on one side,creativity and being
imaginative on the other side.
There's nothing technicallywrong with being creative, right?
But if you, again, best chance for successand something's working, you want
to be disciplined in that situation.
And you're welcome to watch.
(16:07):
Look it up.It's on the PPA Pickleball website.
It's the finals of the Mesa Cup.
There's another time that happened I don'tremember right now exactly when it
happened, but it was a similara thing where they're in rhythm.
You can see it.
You can see that they're in rhythm,several rallies in a row, and all
of a sudden, Mpz lop out of nowhere.
And that was not necessary becauseeverything was working in the
(16:29):
other with what they were doing.
So when you're playing, and again, Irepeat again, competitive type of setting,
not when you'rehaving fun and having a good time.
That's all.Do your stuff.
Have a good time.
But when you're playing competitively,you're playing in a league or you're
playing in a tournament, you're playingin something like that, think about that.
Ask yourself, if I'm in a rhythm, letme stick to the rhythm.
(16:51):
Let me stick to the game plan and notvary from the game plan
just because I feel like whatever I'mdoing, because I want to do it in
a competitive competitive setting.
Anyway, so that's a concept for you onchances for success that I thought was
timely given thetournament this past weekend.
All right, that's this week's podcast.
(17:11):
If you have a minute to rate and reviewthe podcast, that would be awesome.
I haven't checked this week, but Ihaven't heard from anybody in a while.
It'd be nice to know you guys arestill out there and enjoy the podcast.
And that's one way to both A, let us know,and B, let other players know the value of
the podcast and help us reachas many players as we can.
With that said, I hope you guys have agreat rest of your week and weekend, and I
(17:37):
will see you in the nextepisode of Pickleball Therapy.
See you.
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