March 7, 2025 • 16 mins
Open play can be interesting with players of varying skill levels playing and enjoying the game together. But that's not always the case when dynamics of it set in and players advance in skill; exclusivity sneaks in and can lead to less inclusive play.
In this episode we discuss the state of play in terms of how players at different levels interact with each other. This arose from our state of play event that we had a couple of weeks back.
Here's the thing, we have more control over things than we may think and we do a couple of things when it comes to social play to help that such as;
- Trying to keep an open eye for dedicated players in lower-level courts and inviting them to join your group. Nurture a supportive community while working on specific aspects of your game.
- Step into the shoes of those playing at different levels by playing with them – it’s a great way to foster inclusivity.
- Become an organizer to mix different levels of players. Online tools and resources can simplify the process of organizing inclusive events and ensure everyone feels welcome and valued.
And then I'm going to share with you a personal story about progress and taking a step back in terms of your journey as a pickleball player.
Join our email list to get notified about the March open play event; https://betterpickleball.com/ or check out the event here; https://betterpickleball.com/spring-bootcamp/
Find online tools and resources on Pickleheads; https://www.pickleheads.com/
Bookmark episode; Mental Warmup: Prepare to Play Your Best; https://betterpickleball.com/1525-mental-warmup-prepare-to-play-your-best-bookmark-episode/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
I'm your host of the podcast, Tony Roig.
Hope you're having a great week.
This is actually episode number 234 of thepodcast, not including special episodes.
So this is regular episode 234.
Counting Special episode is probablyepisode 280, something like that.
(00:25):
And I think that makes usmaybe the longest running and or the
highest number of episodepodcast in pickleball.
If someone else has information other thanthat, happy to receive it because
I don't think that's the case.
Or I think that is the case.
I should say that we are the longestrunning podcast in Pickleball, and it's
(00:47):
awesome to be able tobring this podcast to you.
I was reminded about the episode numbersin a podcast I was listening to on a
different subjectrecently, and they start the podcast off
by saying episode number this and that.
So I thought that would bea good thing to do here.
So I'm going to try and rememberto do that in the future.
This episode, what I want totalk about is a couple of things.
(01:07):
We're going to talk about open play.
We're going to talk about the state ofplay, if you will, in terms of how
players are interacting with each other.
And this arose from our state of playevent that we had a couple of weeks back.
And then I'm going to share with you apersonal story about progress
and sometimes taking a step back in termsof your journey as a pickleball
(01:30):
player, and I'll just share a personalstory that happened to me that perhaps
will help you understandhow these things work.
I had the pleasure of having a greatconversation with a young pro
player, Richard Levernees, recently.
A couple of days ago, and I shared thatwith him about the taking a step back on
(01:51):
everything, and he shared with me aninteresting perspective that I'll share
with you during that part of the podcast.
As we dive into the podcast, I have onefavor to ask, if I may, of you,
which is if you know a player who...
And just take a moment, right?
You have a friend of yours who's playingand maybe not enjoying the sport as much
(02:12):
as they could if they felt better abouttheir understanding of the pickleball.
Share with them our upcoming event, ifyou would, which is coming up in March.
The easiest way for them to sign up forthat would be to join Join us for the...
Join our email list, and they'llget information about it.
(02:34):
It's a super reasonably priced event for athree-day, three plus one boot camp,
four-day total, but three plus one bootcamp, where we're going to be covering
error reduction,becoming more consistent, understanding
the control that you do have while you'replaying out there and how you can use that
control to reduce the errorsthat you make when you play.
(02:55):
So again, if you know a player who couldbenefit from that, the favor that ask is
that you take a moment, think about thatplayer and share with them the upcoming
event, or the easiest thing is just tellthem, join our email list, and they'll get
an email notifying themof the upcoming event.
All right, let's dive into the open play,and I'm going to read you an email that
was sent by Jeff, and I ask Jeff forpermission to use his name, and he
(03:16):
said it was fine, and the email.
It arose from the state of play,and he asked me to talk about
what's happening with play in generaland talk through it in the podcast.
The email reads like this.
In the first year, I played.
It was all open play.
Everyone played with everyone.
There was a lot of joy and fun.
(03:38):
The second year, as players' advancementand ability started sorting out.
People started being more selectiveabout who they played with.
It was still fun, but there was a loss andnot being able to play with others
I'd previously enjoyed playing with.
In the third year, the smaller group ofbetter players wouldn't
play with anyone below them.
They would start a challenge court.
This was not a problem until people werewaiting for courts and
(03:58):
they wouldn't get off.
Sadly, it almost came to fisticuffswith some guys a couple of times.
This seriously diminishedpleasure in the game.
Then he talks about a new facilityopening, and that
helped a little bit with the pressure.
But then at the end, he says, But I'mstill experiencing a sense of loss
from when I first startedplaying, thanks, Jeff.
It got me thinking about it.
(04:20):
WhatI want to do is share with you a couple of
things that I think we can do as players,exercising our control, our agency.
If you're When you listen to the podcast,that's a really big
theme that runs through a lot ofour episodes, is the idea that
we actually have more controlover things than we may think.
(04:42):
That is we have control of everything.
I don't have a solution for players
segregating into groups or splitting
themselves into different groups to play.
That's happened here locally in ourcommunity, and I think it's just part of
how humans are wired and things like that.
(05:05):
So I don't have...
I wish I had an overall solution.I do not.
But I can offer you a couple of thingsthat you can do to help
maybe ameliorate that, I think that's theright use of the term,
in your own communities.
And one has to do withyou bringing players into your group.
(05:27):
The other one has to do withyou visiting other groups.
So the The first idea was basically keepan open eye for players out there who...
This is where you're looking at playerswho are quote, unquote, below you.
So they're playing in thecourts that aren't your courts.
Spend a moment, walk around, look aroundthere, and See if you see players who are
genuinely working at their game.
(05:49):
And this is not a criticism of any player.It's not.
There's perfectly fine for,and let's just use two numbers.
Let's say you have courts in your facilityto 3: 0, and some that are 3: 5, and
you're playing on the 3 (05:56):
5 courts.
So you go You look over to the 3: 0 courts, you're checking them out. (05:58):
undefined
Some of them are having a good time.They're just bopping the bottle around.
No problem.
But I'm going to bet you that there'splayers there who are working on their
game and who you see and you recognize.
We talk about it beinglike a language, right?
So You look at them and you're like, thatplayer is starting to
speak pickleball, right?
And they're working atspeaking pickleball.
(06:20):
Maybe they still have some flaws in theirlanguage, but you see them
working through the game.
Then I would say it's on you to dowhatever you to help them
come into your group to play.
In other words, opening up your groupto other players is the idea here.
Does it solve everything?No.
But it allows some movement by players whomay otherwise feel left out or
(06:43):
not feel welcome in your courts.
It can be difficult forthe, quote, unquote, lower-level players
to be accepted by the, quote,unquote, higher-level players.
I'm using a lot of quotes because I'vetraveled enough and I've played on enough
courts to know that there are, right now,based on my experience, right now, there
are at all facilities all across thecountry,
(07:04):
there are players playing on the lowercourts who should be playing on the higher
courts and players on the higher courtswho should be playing on the lower
courts based on their ability.I've seen it.
I've been places where I go to thebeginner courts It's beginner courts, and
a couple of players there, I'm looking atthem, they're better than the players on
the intermediate courts oradvanced courts and vice versa.
(07:25):
I've been in other facilities where theydon't have the courts segregated
that way, but groups naturally form.
And the second one,I'm spoiling the second one a little bit
here or giving you a littlebit of a sneak peek on it.
What I do when I go into those facilitiesis I will play with the, quote, unquote,
(07:47):
lower players, the ones that aren'tbeing allowed in the other courts.
And in those situations, what I've noticedis, and this was locally,
where the players on those courts weregreat players relative to the other
players, were fine andcould have played with them.
So I actually I went over to the othercourts and I told the other group, I
was like, Guys, what is going on here?
Why are you guys not lettingthose guys play on these courts?
Because they'reat least as good as you guys.
(08:08):
Now, I understand thatmost of us listening to this may not have
the position in the community to do that.
I'm a content creator.
I'm a senior pro player, so maybeI have some weight to throw around.
But what you can dois you can be the one to...
Now we're going to talk about youinjecting yourself in with the,
quote unquote, lower level players.
(08:29):
Take some time and go andplay with those players.
Play down if you want tothink about it that way.
I don't, but that's fine.
It's a good way of a shortcutway of thinking about it.
Play down.
And what you do there is you playin a way that you work on your game.
I highly recommend workingon your soft game then.
(08:51):
Say, again, you're a three, five, andyou're going to go play
in the three-oh courts.Don't blow them off the court.
There's no sense in that.They're not going to feel good.
There's no, the quote win for you doesn'treally mean anything there because what's
the point of trying to justblow them off the court?
Instead, work on some parts of the gamethat maybe you're not as comfortable with.
Say your back-handdinking isn't that great.
(09:11):
Insert yourself in back-hand dinkingsituations, in back-hand,
third-shot situations.
Work on areas of the game that perhapsyou're not as comfortable with.
Work in the transition zone.
Stick yourself in the transition zone forone or two shots extra
that you can get in there.
So you can do it both ways.
One is to identify players who you canthen be their mentor, if you will, and
(09:34):
invite them up into your group to play.
And you can personally go into the, quote,unquote, lower-level courts and
participate with thoseplayers and engage with them.
Improve the social, broaden the socialexperience for everybody,
yourself and them.
And also perhaps they'll seesomething that is interesting.
They'll be motivated to keep workingbecause they'll say, wow, that's a really
(09:57):
interesting way of playingI hadn't seen before.
Those are two things you can do to keepmore of the social open play
aspects of our game alive.
And one last piece that you can do,which is you can become an organizer.
It takes some work.
I will tell you that ourfriends at Pickleheads pickeled.
Com, and I'll put a link in theshow notes, but the pickleheads.
(10:18):
Com folks have created some toolsthat help you do that more easily.
They're free, so they basically help youfigure out how you want to run it, and
they have Ron Robbins in theirformats and things like that.
But you can organize.
And so now you, as the hub, you getto decide who comes to your play.
And I can tell you here, there's a fewlocal players who do a
(10:40):
good job of that, right?More than a few, I shouldn't say a few.
There are several local players who do areally good job of that, of creating
inclusive groups, of bringing playersof different levels together, players who
would not otherwise naturally playtogether, play together because
of the force of these organizers.
So that's a third way thatyou can help improve that.
(11:02):
But other than those three tips, I don'treally have an overall solution to this.
I wish the world was a better place and wecould all sing Kumbaya together sometimes,
but that's just not how we are wired.
Thefact that that's not how we're wired and
that's not how we do things naturallyshouldn't stop us from trying to take
these steps to help improve that process.
(11:24):
So hopefully that helps you with that.
All right, now I'm going to sharewith you, we're going to pivot.
We're going to pivot to It's a personalstory, and it's a small story, but I think
it's helpful to see how your mentaljourney process ebbs and flows.
So I went to play this last weekend,very social setting, just a social group.
(11:45):
I was joining them to play a few games,and I caught myself two things
that I caught myself afterward.
One was I was getting on myselfwhen I hit balls into the net.
Now, I don't mindnoticing when I hit a ball into the net.
I don't mind making adjustments.That's fine.
It's the way I was addressing myself,which was getting angry with myself
(12:06):
when I hit the ball into the net.
Unnecessary, unhelpfulin that format, right?
Also not fair to me because this is socialplay, not like get down, dick it down low
and play competitive and get alljacked up and things like that.
Very social play.
And I was approaching it that way, butexcept I wanted to make all the shots.
(12:31):
It doesn't make any sense at all.
So that was one thing that I did.
And the other thing that I noticed was myfeelings were different
based on the score.
And you've heard metalk about a lot, right?
When losses doesn't matter,results don't matter.
I agree.
That's 100 % how I feel about it,and that's how we should proceed.
That doesn't mean that mylizard brain doesn't...
My lizard brain is stillback there, still activating.
(12:53):
And so when the score was in ourfavor heavily, I was relaxed.
Everything's fine.
When we were in a tight game or we werebehind, now all of a sudden my
demeanor changes, my interaction with thegame changes, which is not how I want to
carry myself, not the way that I want toreact to what's going on on the court.
In this conversation I had with the youngpro Richard Leverny, as I mentioned
(13:16):
earlier, we were talking about basicallythe idea is approach every
rally the same way.
That's how it should be inan all things being equal world.
Basically, you just approachevery rally the same way.
Whether you won the last rally, lost thelast rally, no matter what the score is,
you're always even keeldoing the same thing.
(13:38):
And what he shared with me, it wasinteresting because he's had the
similar experience with his...
He's on a mental journey as well.
He's younger than I am, also hasn't beenat it as long, but he's
made tremendous progress.
He's a student of themental side of things.
In fact, the podcast I mentioned earlierwith the episode numbers was a podcast
that he recommended to me during ourconversation that I started listening to.
(13:59):
It has to do with stoicism.
It's called Stoicism on Fire.
If you want to check it out,it's a great little podcast.
I'm only into episode, I thinkI'm on episode three right now.
I started at the beginning.
But it's basically about stoicism and thatphilosophy, which has a lot of parallels
with what we talk about in this podcast.
But in any event, the way he framed thatwas basically like, when that happens,
(14:23):
basically we lose our center, right?
So we're not centered anymorewhen we start going awry.
And what happens is once you start gettingoff center, if you don't come back to
the center, then you just keep going.
You keep going down thatpath and it gets negative.
And what I would say, I think to minimizethe chances of that happening next time
will be some pre-game preparation.
(14:45):
And if you haven't checked it outyet, check out our Bookmark episode.
It's one of the special episodes.
It was a couple of weeks, two or threeweeks ago, so it's in
the recent feed still.
The reason it's a Bookmark episode calledPrepare to Play, it's mental
warmup, Prepare to Play, I think.
Is because the idea is it's a practice.
To get the most out of it, you shoulddo it before every time that you play.
(15:10):
To minimize and perhaps even avoid theseGetting off the path or not acting in the
way that you want to act,given how you objectively understand the
sport and your relationship toit from a mental standpoint.
So what I've toldmyself is that the next time before I go
(15:35):
play, I am going tolisten to the Bookmark episode, check it
out, and make sure that I'm centered, thatI'm centered better as I move forward.
That said, when these things happen,there's no reason to beat
yourself up about it.
You observe it, you see it,you react to it in a constructive,
positive way, meaning I'm going to take astep positive in the future, which is
(15:58):
prepare to play better next time sothat I minimize the chances of a repeat.
But that's just part of human life.
You take a step forward, another stepforward, another step forward, then a half
step back or a step to the side, thenhopefully another step forward
and then a step back like that.
That's just how the human experience is.
Anyway, so hopefully sharing that with youwill help you when you have those
(16:18):
situations where you invariably take astep back in your journey
because that will happen to you.It's just human nature.
Anyway, that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
I guess I do have asecond favor to ask you.
If you have a minute to rate areview, that really helps us out.
As always, please share the podcast withyour friends because if you enjoy the
podcast, if it helps you, itprobably will help them out as well.
(16:42):
I hope you have a great weekend and nextweek, and I will see you during the
next episode of Fertile Ball Therapy.Be well.
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
I'm your host of the podcast, Tony Roig.
Hope you're having a great week.
This is actually episode number 234 of thepodcast, not including special episodes.
So this is regular episode 234.
Counting Special episode is probablyepisode 280, something like that.
(00:25):
And I think that makes usmaybe the longest running and or the
highest number of episodepodcast in pickleball.
If someone else has information other thanthat, happy to receive it because
I don't think that's the case.
Or I think that is the case.
I should say that we are the longestrunning podcast in Pickleball, and it's
(00:47):
awesome to be able tobring this podcast to you.
I was reminded about the episode numbersin a podcast I was listening to on a
different subjectrecently, and they start the podcast off
by saying episode number this and that.
So I thought that would bea good thing to do here.
So I'm going to try and rememberto do that in the future.
This episode, what I want totalk about is a couple of things.
(01:07):
We're going to talk about open play.
We're going to talk about the state ofplay, if you will, in terms of how
players are interacting with each other.
And this arose from our state of playevent that we had a couple of weeks back.
And then I'm going to share with you apersonal story about progress
and sometimes taking a step back in termsof your journey as a pickleball
(01:30):
player, and I'll just share a personalstory that happened to me that perhaps
will help you understandhow these things work.
I had the pleasure of having a greatconversation with a young pro
player, Richard Levernees, recently.
A couple of days ago, and I shared thatwith him about the taking a step back on
(01:51):
everything, and he shared with me aninteresting perspective that I'll share
with you during that part of the podcast.
As we dive into the podcast, I have onefavor to ask, if I may, of you,
which is if you know a player who...
And just take a moment, right?
You have a friend of yours who's playingand maybe not enjoying the sport as much
(02:12):
as they could if they felt better abouttheir understanding of the pickleball.
Share with them our upcoming event, ifyou would, which is coming up in March.
The easiest way for them to sign up forthat would be to join Join us for the...
Join our email list, and they'llget information about it.
(02:34):
It's a super reasonably priced event for athree-day, three plus one boot camp,
four-day total, but three plus one bootcamp, where we're going to be covering
error reduction,becoming more consistent, understanding
the control that you do have while you'replaying out there and how you can use that
control to reduce the errorsthat you make when you play.
(02:55):
So again, if you know a player who couldbenefit from that, the favor that ask is
that you take a moment, think about thatplayer and share with them the upcoming
event, or the easiest thing is just tellthem, join our email list, and they'll get
an email notifying themof the upcoming event.
All right, let's dive into the open play,and I'm going to read you an email that
was sent by Jeff, and I ask Jeff forpermission to use his name, and he
(03:16):
said it was fine, and the email.
It arose from the state of play,and he asked me to talk about
what's happening with play in generaland talk through it in the podcast.
The email reads like this.
In the first year, I played.
It was all open play.
Everyone played with everyone.
There was a lot of joy and fun.
(03:38):
The second year, as players' advancementand ability started sorting out.
People started being more selectiveabout who they played with.
It was still fun, but there was a loss andnot being able to play with others
I'd previously enjoyed playing with.
In the third year, the smaller group ofbetter players wouldn't
play with anyone below them.
They would start a challenge court.
This was not a problem until people werewaiting for courts and
(03:58):
they wouldn't get off.
Sadly, it almost came to fisticuffswith some guys a couple of times.
This seriously diminishedpleasure in the game.
Then he talks about a new facilityopening, and that
helped a little bit with the pressure.
But then at the end, he says, But I'mstill experiencing a sense of loss
from when I first startedplaying, thanks, Jeff.
It got me thinking about it.
(04:20):
WhatI want to do is share with you a couple of
things that I think we can do as players,exercising our control, our agency.
If you're When you listen to the podcast,that's a really big
theme that runs through a lot ofour episodes, is the idea that
we actually have more controlover things than we may think.
(04:42):
That is we have control of everything.
I don't have a solution for players
segregating into groups or splitting
themselves into different groups to play.
That's happened here locally in ourcommunity, and I think it's just part of
how humans are wired and things like that.
(05:05):
So I don't have...
I wish I had an overall solution.I do not.
But I can offer you a couple of thingsthat you can do to help
maybe ameliorate that, I think that's theright use of the term,
in your own communities.
And one has to do withyou bringing players into your group.
(05:27):
The other one has to do withyou visiting other groups.
So the The first idea was basically keepan open eye for players out there who...
This is where you're looking at playerswho are quote, unquote, below you.
So they're playing in thecourts that aren't your courts.
Spend a moment, walk around, look aroundthere, and See if you see players who are
genuinely working at their game.
(05:49):
And this is not a criticism of any player.It's not.
There's perfectly fine for,and let's just use two numbers.
Let's say you have courts in your facilityto 3: 0, and some that are 3: 5, and
you're playing on the 3 (05:56):
5 courts.
So you go You look over to the 3: 0 courts, you're checking them out. (05:58):
undefined
Some of them are having a good time.They're just bopping the bottle around.
No problem.
But I'm going to bet you that there'splayers there who are working on their
game and who you see and you recognize.
We talk about it beinglike a language, right?
So You look at them and you're like, thatplayer is starting to
speak pickleball, right?
And they're working atspeaking pickleball.
(06:20):
Maybe they still have some flaws in theirlanguage, but you see them
working through the game.
Then I would say it's on you to dowhatever you to help them
come into your group to play.
In other words, opening up your groupto other players is the idea here.
Does it solve everything?No.
But it allows some movement by players whomay otherwise feel left out or
(06:43):
not feel welcome in your courts.
It can be difficult forthe, quote, unquote, lower-level players
to be accepted by the, quote,unquote, higher-level players.
I'm using a lot of quotes because I'vetraveled enough and I've played on enough
courts to know that there are, right now,based on my experience, right now, there
are at all facilities all across thecountry,
(07:04):
there are players playing on the lowercourts who should be playing on the higher
courts and players on the higher courtswho should be playing on the lower
courts based on their ability.I've seen it.
I've been places where I go to thebeginner courts It's beginner courts, and
a couple of players there, I'm looking atthem, they're better than the players on
the intermediate courts oradvanced courts and vice versa.
(07:25):
I've been in other facilities where theydon't have the courts segregated
that way, but groups naturally form.
And the second one,I'm spoiling the second one a little bit
here or giving you a littlebit of a sneak peek on it.
What I do when I go into those facilitiesis I will play with the, quote, unquote,
(07:47):
lower players, the ones that aren'tbeing allowed in the other courts.
And in those situations, what I've noticedis, and this was locally,
where the players on those courts weregreat players relative to the other
players, were fine andcould have played with them.
So I actually I went over to the othercourts and I told the other group, I
was like, Guys, what is going on here?
Why are you guys not lettingthose guys play on these courts?
Because they'reat least as good as you guys.
(08:08):
Now, I understand thatmost of us listening to this may not have
the position in the community to do that.
I'm a content creator.
I'm a senior pro player, so maybeI have some weight to throw around.
But what you can dois you can be the one to...
Now we're going to talk about youinjecting yourself in with the,
quote unquote, lower level players.
(08:29):
Take some time and go andplay with those players.
Play down if you want tothink about it that way.
I don't, but that's fine.
It's a good way of a shortcutway of thinking about it.
Play down.
And what you do there is you playin a way that you work on your game.
I highly recommend workingon your soft game then.
(08:51):
Say, again, you're a three, five, andyou're going to go play
in the three-oh courts.Don't blow them off the court.
There's no sense in that.They're not going to feel good.
There's no, the quote win for you doesn'treally mean anything there because what's
the point of trying to justblow them off the court?
Instead, work on some parts of the gamethat maybe you're not as comfortable with.
Say your back-handdinking isn't that great.
(09:11):
Insert yourself in back-hand dinkingsituations, in back-hand,
third-shot situations.
Work on areas of the game that perhapsyou're not as comfortable with.
Work in the transition zone.
Stick yourself in the transition zone forone or two shots extra
that you can get in there.
So you can do it both ways.
One is to identify players who you canthen be their mentor, if you will, and
(09:34):
invite them up into your group to play.
And you can personally go into the, quote,unquote, lower-level courts and
participate with thoseplayers and engage with them.
Improve the social, broaden the socialexperience for everybody,
yourself and them.
And also perhaps they'll seesomething that is interesting.
They'll be motivated to keep workingbecause they'll say, wow, that's a really
(09:57):
interesting way of playingI hadn't seen before.
Those are two things you can do to keepmore of the social open play
aspects of our game alive.
And one last piece that you can do,which is you can become an organizer.
It takes some work.
I will tell you that ourfriends at Pickleheads pickeled.
Com, and I'll put a link in theshow notes, but the pickleheads.
(10:18):
Com folks have created some toolsthat help you do that more easily.
They're free, so they basically help youfigure out how you want to run it, and
they have Ron Robbins in theirformats and things like that.
But you can organize.
And so now you, as the hub, you getto decide who comes to your play.
And I can tell you here, there's a fewlocal players who do a
(10:40):
good job of that, right?More than a few, I shouldn't say a few.
There are several local players who do areally good job of that, of creating
inclusive groups, of bringing playersof different levels together, players who
would not otherwise naturally playtogether, play together because
of the force of these organizers.
So that's a third way thatyou can help improve that.
(11:02):
But other than those three tips, I don'treally have an overall solution to this.
I wish the world was a better place and wecould all sing Kumbaya together sometimes,
but that's just not how we are wired.
Thefact that that's not how we're wired and
that's not how we do things naturallyshouldn't stop us from trying to take
these steps to help improve that process.
(11:24):
So hopefully that helps you with that.
All right, now I'm going to sharewith you, we're going to pivot.
We're going to pivot to It's a personalstory, and it's a small story, but I think
it's helpful to see how your mentaljourney process ebbs and flows.
So I went to play this last weekend,very social setting, just a social group.
(11:45):
I was joining them to play a few games,and I caught myself two things
that I caught myself afterward.
One was I was getting on myselfwhen I hit balls into the net.
Now, I don't mindnoticing when I hit a ball into the net.
I don't mind making adjustments.That's fine.
It's the way I was addressing myself,which was getting angry with myself
(12:06):
when I hit the ball into the net.
Unnecessary, unhelpfulin that format, right?
Also not fair to me because this is socialplay, not like get down, dick it down low
and play competitive and get alljacked up and things like that.
Very social play.
And I was approaching it that way, butexcept I wanted to make all the shots.
(12:31):
It doesn't make any sense at all.
So that was one thing that I did.
And the other thing that I noticed was myfeelings were different
based on the score.
And you've heard metalk about a lot, right?
When losses doesn't matter,results don't matter.
I agree.
That's 100 % how I feel about it,and that's how we should proceed.
That doesn't mean that mylizard brain doesn't...
My lizard brain is stillback there, still activating.
(12:53):
And so when the score was in ourfavor heavily, I was relaxed.
Everything's fine.
When we were in a tight game or we werebehind, now all of a sudden my
demeanor changes, my interaction with thegame changes, which is not how I want to
carry myself, not the way that I want toreact to what's going on on the court.
In this conversation I had with the youngpro Richard Leverny, as I mentioned
(13:16):
earlier, we were talking about basicallythe idea is approach every
rally the same way.
That's how it should be inan all things being equal world.
Basically, you just approachevery rally the same way.
Whether you won the last rally, lost thelast rally, no matter what the score is,
you're always even keeldoing the same thing.
(13:38):
And what he shared with me, it wasinteresting because he's had the
similar experience with his...
He's on a mental journey as well.
He's younger than I am, also hasn't beenat it as long, but he's
made tremendous progress.
He's a student of themental side of things.
In fact, the podcast I mentioned earlierwith the episode numbers was a podcast
that he recommended to me during ourconversation that I started listening to.
(13:59):
It has to do with stoicism.
It's called Stoicism on Fire.
If you want to check it out,it's a great little podcast.
I'm only into episode, I thinkI'm on episode three right now.
I started at the beginning.
But it's basically about stoicism and thatphilosophy, which has a lot of parallels
with what we talk about in this podcast.
But in any event, the way he framed thatwas basically like, when that happens,
(14:23):
basically we lose our center, right?
So we're not centered anymorewhen we start going awry.
And what happens is once you start gettingoff center, if you don't come back to
the center, then you just keep going.
You keep going down thatpath and it gets negative.
And what I would say, I think to minimizethe chances of that happening next time
will be some pre-game preparation.
(14:45):
And if you haven't checked it outyet, check out our Bookmark episode.
It's one of the special episodes.
It was a couple of weeks, two or threeweeks ago, so it's in
the recent feed still.
The reason it's a Bookmark episode calledPrepare to Play, it's mental
warmup, Prepare to Play, I think.
Is because the idea is it's a practice.
To get the most out of it, you shoulddo it before every time that you play.
(15:10):
To minimize and perhaps even avoid theseGetting off the path or not acting in the
way that you want to act,given how you objectively understand the
sport and your relationship toit from a mental standpoint.
So what I've toldmyself is that the next time before I go
(15:35):
play, I am going tolisten to the Bookmark episode, check it
out, and make sure that I'm centered, thatI'm centered better as I move forward.
That said, when these things happen,there's no reason to beat
yourself up about it.
You observe it, you see it,you react to it in a constructive,
positive way, meaning I'm going to take astep positive in the future, which is
(15:58):
prepare to play better next time sothat I minimize the chances of a repeat.
But that's just part of human life.
You take a step forward, another stepforward, another step forward, then a half
step back or a step to the side, thenhopefully another step forward
and then a step back like that.
That's just how the human experience is.
Anyway, so hopefully sharing that with youwill help you when you have those
(16:18):
situations where you invariably take astep back in your journey
because that will happen to you.It's just human nature.
Anyway, that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
I guess I do have asecond favor to ask you.
If you have a minute to rate areview, that really helps us out.
As always, please share the podcast withyour friends because if you enjoy the
podcast, if it helps you, itprobably will help them out as well.
(16:42):
I hope you have a great weekend and nextweek, and I will see you during the
next episode of Fertile Ball Therapy.Be well.
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