Special Episode - Basic Consistency

With so much information flooding in from courts and YouTube, players can feel overwhelmed. In this episode, I help you cut through the noise, showing how simplicity and sound mechanics lead to true consistency. Listen in to shift your mindset and discover how embracing the basics can unlock confidence and success on the court. 

Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/1534-special-episode-basic-consistency/

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickle improvement.
This is a special episode of the podcastwhere I'm going to be talking about
trying to navigat informationas you progress as a player, specifically
between the idea of consistencyand basics or fundamentals, and how those

(00:25):
two concepts interplay so that you canmake better decisions about your game.
This is a special episode because we arein the middle of our fall clinic where
we're busting miss, adding truce, and thendiscussing the three pills of pickle as we
go into our fall pickleballsystem enrollment period.
I wanted to address some of theseconcepts because of the comments that

(00:48):
we've been getting inside of our clinic.
Really good comments help us understand alot more about what's going on out there
with players and how they're viewing thegame, and also the flood of information
that they're subjected to,frankly, in an hourly basis now, between
YouTube and the courts and everythinggoing on with everybody
telling them how to play.

(01:09):
The reason we structure this clinic thisway is because we know that there's a lot
of frustration out there withall this flood of information.
Then so we wanted tobust or dispel some myths that are holding
players back,and then fill that space in with some
trues, areas that players can work on, andthen give them a bigger structure,

(01:31):
that three pillars of pickleball.
So let me give you...
I'm going to read a couple of thesecomments in a second, and then I'm going
to talk to you about howsometimes what we're trying to get in our
game is available to you but it's going tobe difficult to get it because there's
confusion about this other concept,about basics and fundamentals.

(01:52):
So Valerie wrote this in.
Thank you, CJ and Tony.
Very helpful, and I can already see theerrors of my play and
ways I can address it.That's excellent.
That's part of that myth-busting.
I relate to all you have pointed out andcan honestly say I've had many ahas
watching the first series of videos.
I really appreciate the system serve andrealized that as I am just coming up to 70
years of age, I was consistently toldto serve a fast, low serve to get better.

(02:18):
I tried, I practiced, I strainedmy arm and failed consistently.
I wanted to quit pickleball.
Finally, in a moment of sanity, I decidedto just serve, and that serve was
similar to the system serve you shared.
I relaxed, stopped trying so hard, andamazingly, my serve was a
success most of the time.
Players were now complimenting meversus avoiding partnering with me.
Go figure.

(02:39):
I have hope now that I can continueto play pickleball and improve.
Means a lot to me as I love the game.Hugs to you both.
Val.
So here what you see is you see a playerwho was playing a certain way,
gets told by this flood of information, bythis noise, No, you need a low
hard serve to be good, right?So let's do that.
It harms her, harms her game,and more importantly, harms her

(03:03):
personally, physically,as you said in there.
And it doesn't work.
It was like whoever's advising thatdoesn't really understand
the point of the serve.
Because if you understand the point of theserve, the system serve
is a much better serve.
And then Val was lucky enough to atleast fall into the system serve.
But she's, How many arelucky enough to do that?

(03:24):
That's why we wanted to share the systemserve, because with anybody who wanted to
attend, the clinic is It's free andonline, so anybody can watch it.
And so the system serve allows you to havea serve that's super effective, gets you
compliments, and players want topartner with you like they do with Val.
But it's because you're able todistinguish between bad information, which

(03:47):
is this hard, low serve,who's telling you that?
What are their credentials?
What do they know about the game?
Versus a system serve, which is being toldto you by myself and CJ and the better
pick-a-ball coaching team, dedicatedprofessionals, high certifications, do
this all the time, think about the game,actually care about your improvement,
as opposed to just a sound bite.

(04:07):
So that's Vals.
Let me read you one more, which is Joanne.
She says, Okay, you may be right.
In Insistent play is holding me back.
I give up too many points.
Even though I have many great shots duringthe game, I still lose most of my games.
That's a reality.
That's a truth that we're actually gettingready to unveil in-depth tomorrow tomorrow

(04:30):
during our three truessection of the clinic.
But you can see in here, what you see isyou see players struggling
to figure out what's what.
With Val, it was Yeah, they'retelling me to serve like this.
Why am I having to serve like that?
Just because they're sayingit is the only reason, right?

(04:52):
And then you have Joanne having the ahamoment about the idea that inconsistency
is what's affecting her play.
Now, most of you probablyrelate to that term, right?
When I say inconsistency, you're like,Yeah, I need to be more consistent.
Everybody would agree with that, I think.
So how do you do that?How do you become more consistent?
And here's wherethis navigating information trap comes in,

(05:16):
which is, and there was a comment furtherdown that talked about
something like, basically, I'vebeen struggling with consistency.
I'm ready to try the more basic stuffthat you're sharing, the basic stuff.
The term basic, the term fundamentals.
I'll tell you guys a quick funny thing.

(05:37):
Cj and I, we love the term fundamentals.
That's one of my favorite words in thedictionary in terms of what
we do with our coaching.
But you will never hear us use theterm fundamentals with the wide public.
In other words, like in a widelypublicized video,
not because the word fundamentals isn'tamazing, not because the word fundamentals

(05:59):
isn't apt or applicable to the situation.
We don't use the term fundamentals becausethe minute we use the term fundamentals,
everybody runs away.
Everybody just runs inthe other direction.
And that's contrary to what we want.
We want to be able toconnect with players.
So there's this incongruity between whatyou want as a player, which is

(06:21):
consistency, and you understand,consistency is key,
and the natural aversion that players haveto terms like basic
fundamentals, things like that.
And that's where I think navigatinginformation, where you can do a better
job of navigating your own information.
When you getadvice or suggestions from coaches like

(06:45):
us, coaches who, again, are full-time,dedicated, have the
certifications, have the training.
This is what we do all day long.
We study, we explain.
Plus, we explain to you the why.That's the other thing.
We will tell you why the system serveis better than the hard, low serve.
The propone of the hard, low servewon't be able to explain that to you.
The proponent of the hard, low serve issimply going to say, You

(07:08):
got to serve hard and low.
Hard, low, let's go.
Why?Why do I have to serve hard, low?
What advantage does thatgive me in the rally?
If you understand the big picture of therally that you're playing
on the serve side?
It doesn't.That's the answer.
It doesn't.
So you have qualified professionalslike us who tell you the why.

(07:28):
I don't care whether or whether it'sthought of as basic or
fundamental or whatever.
It's going to work, and it'sgoing to get the job done.
Compared to just the flood of informationout there at the courts or in the YouTube
videos and things like that,where's that coming from?
Who's that?And why are they saying it to you?
Also, who's giving you the why of why youshould do it that way in a

(07:49):
way that makes sense to you?Because you're an intelligent person.
Listen to our why, andyou make your calls.
And I will tell you this, if you wantto be more consistent, simply Eplicity.
The simpler your shots are, the simpleryour processes are, movement, foundation,
stroke mechanics,the more consistent you'll be.

(08:10):
And there's a quote that we use all thetime because it's so apt
and it really strikes home.It's from Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee said, I fear not the fighterwho has practiced 10,000 kicks one time.
I fear the fighter who has practicedone kick, 10,000 10,000 times.

(08:31):
So the difference here is instead oftrying to
do 10,000 different kicks and justpractice them one time, so you can't
really do any of them well,why not do one kick 10,000 times?
So you become the absolutemaster of that kick.
Why not have a system servethat you know is there for you?

(08:53):
You can do it again and again and again.
And it forms a foundation for a lotof your other shots in pickleball.
Why not have a foundational, fundamentallysound volley technique that's going to do
a lot of lifting foryou when you're playing?
As opposed to, I need to have a cut serve,a roll serve, a Thompson serve, a short
serve, a long serve, a serve tothe left, a serve to the right.

(09:16):
Then I need to have a roll third, a flatthird, a cut third, a
cut dink, a roll volley.
It's a nightmare, an absolute nightmare.
And what ends up happening isyou're becoming consistent.
So if you want consistency, which is arhetorical question, because I know you
want consistency,consider stripping away some of the
fluff, some of the window dressing in yourmechanical pillar, and go to a very,

(09:42):
quote, unquote, basic, quote, unquote,fundamental form of stroke mechanics,
a footwork, and a foundation.
And what you're going to see isyou'll see your consistency skyrocket.
And that is the incongruity that I wantedto address in this episode between
what you actually wantand this roadblock that you're putting up

(10:02):
because you're thinking about things interms of it being basic or fundamentals
and that being not something you want.
It is what you want because it is whatwill give you what you ultimately want,
which is to be a more consistentand confident pickleball player.
You want to be like Val,where you're so consistent that everyone's
like, clamoring to play with you andswitching those paddles around
because they want to be on your team.

(10:23):
If you're in the clinic and haven't had achance to check out the
content, please do so.
There's a lot of really good in there, asyou're seeing from these comments here.
These are only a few.
There's like 180, 190 comments in there,and you're welcome to check
them out at betterpickleball.
com/myths if you care to.
I think there's still timeto sign up for the clinic.
If you happen to not have signed up forthe clinic, click that

(10:44):
button at betterpickleball.Com at the top.
Sign up for the clinic, check out thematerials in the clinic so you're ready to
receive the three trues that are droppingtomorrow, and learn about the three
pillars of Pickleball and thesystem enrollment this weekend.
Otherwise, I will see you.
If I don't see you inside the clinic, Iwill see you on Friday at our regular
episode of Pickleball Therapy.

(11:04):
We're going to be talking aboutsound mind in a sound body.
You're not going to want to miss that one.
Be well, and I hope tosee you inside the clinic.
Bye-bye.