September 9, 2025 • 12 mins
So many players feel stuck and unable to play to their true potential. The problem isn’t you—it’s the noise. From well-meaning court advice to endless online tips, distractions cloud your clarity and keep the pickleball player inside you caged. In this episode, I explain how to cut through the noise, embrace the three pillars of pickleball, and unlock your best game.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/1532-uncage-the-pickleball-player-inside-you/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, thepodcast dedicated to Pickable Improvement.
My name is Tony Roig.
This is a special episode of the podcast.
As you know, if you listen to the podcast,we're getting ready for our fall clinic,
and the Fall Clinic has to do with yourimprovement,
what really matters, myths, realities,pillars, and how you can
(00:26):
build your game around them.
And so I thought, you know what?
Let's do a special episode to talk aboutsome of those concepts, and also to help
you manage your own journey as apickleball player in
terms of your improvement.
Because my experience in this sport as acoach, and a little bit as a player, is
(00:46):
that one of the sources of theopposite of joy, one of the sources of
frustration, of disappointment,isn't so much the game itself.
It's things that we put on ourselves andour minds because we believe that we need
to be playing a certain way, advancingin a certain way, but we're not.
(01:08):
And so what I want to do here is addressthe cause of why it is that perhaps you're
not advancing the way that youshould and could and can, and also talk a
little bit about you andyour ability as a player.
And I'm going to start with you as aplayer and then talk about what's
(01:28):
happening, what's the obstacle here?
And then I'll invite you to the clinicthat we have coming up if you're
interested in learning some moreabout this type of approach.
So let's start with you first, okay?
Because you are the main attraction.
You're the starring actor in yourown pickleball journey.
(01:55):
This is you.
What matters here is you.
Specifically, in our conversation here,it's you and pickleball, but you
are the center, not pickleball.
And so we need to start from that premise.
And it's important for you to understandthat you can play pickleball
(02:16):
as well as you choose to play pickleball.
Period.Hard stop.
You are a capable human being.
You have done things in the past thatyou know you can do successfully.
You've gotten to whereyou are now in life.
You've navigated this human existence.
(02:38):
That alone tells me that you have whatit takes to play this sport very well.
You also already have all the tools.
You have a brain that can do things.You need that.
You have a body that can do things.You need that.
Now, listen, can your body bestronger, be more flexible?
(03:02):
Yes, of course it can.
And that's part of the journey.
That's one of the pillars.
Remember I mentioned thepillars a second ago?
That's one of the pillars,the athletic pillar.
And the same with your mind.
If you have doubts, if you haveinsecurities, if you have it
perfectly natural, no criticism.
Every player has those.
Even the best players in the world, thenumber ones, have those insecurities.
(03:23):
Understanding that and navigating that andworking on that is a part
of the process as well.Part of the athletic pillar.
And the very act that you're listening tothis podcast
is evidence that you are, in fact,doing something about the mental side of
your pickleball, because that'swho listens to this podcast.
This is not a podcast youfall into, right?
(03:45):
You just happen upon.
If you listen to this podcast,it's for the mental side.
So the mental and the body,that's what you need.
Now, what's happening?
Why is it that you're not playing?
And this is really important.
You're not playing playingup to your potential?
Because inside of you, there's thisamazing pickleball player just
(04:06):
trapped inside of you, right?
So why is that pickleball player notexpressing themselves when
you're on the pickleball court?
The answer noise.
That's it.Again, hard stop.
There's so much out there, whether it'sYouTube videos, players at the courts.
I had a conversation today with astudent who mentioned to me that...
(04:28):
And she's She's worked with us for yearsand loves working with us and has
grown her game through our coaching.
But even a player like that is susceptiblesometimes to getting this
input from outside sources,because they seem so believable.
They seem so confident.
Maybe the player hits the ball really wellbecause they come from another sport like
tennis or racquetball, where they havereally nice strokes that they can do,
(04:52):
different than conveying to you how to dothat, and different than explaining how
you can unlock your game as opposed tounlock their game through your body,
which doesn't It doesn't make any sense.
But what happens is there's...
And what she said to me, she said, Itseems like everybody on the court is a
pickleball pro, in quotes, wherethey're just offering advice.
They're coaching.They're telling you what you need.
You need this, add this, do this.
(05:13):
You want to play better.
Everybody has an opinion.
And I'm not criticizing that group.
They mean well.They're well intentioned.
They want to help.I get that.
It doesn't mean they can't help.
There's a big gap between wanting tohelp and having the ability to help.
As a contrast to that is myself, C.J.
(05:37):
Johnson, my co-head coach at BetterPickable, and our coaching
staff at Better Pickable.
This is what we do.
This is our job.We study this.
We analyze what's going on in pickleball.We break it down.
We figure out ways to explain it.
We also prioritize, which is a reallyoften overlooked piece of this, which is
(05:58):
not just what you need, but theorder that makes the most sense.
We do all of that because it's our job,and we're very good at it compared to
just a player at the courts who just playsevery once in a while and has these
ideas, which you're fine to have.
But that doesn't mean they'regoing to work for you.
And often they don't.
More often they don't, Iwould say, than they do.
(06:19):
And so what that does, that noise,it's keeping you back.
Because the secret, when you put the firstand second piece together, we're talking
about, which is you and and whereyou're going to go in the game
is that the problem is not you.
The problem isthe noise is interfering with your ability
(06:42):
to play awesome pickleball, becausethat also and pickle ball, it's there.
It's just trapped inside of you.
And the more noise you have,the more trapped it is, the more bound it
is inside of you because itjust can't play the game.
And I'll give you guys a quick example asto how we coach as different than others.
(07:03):
So every one of us is going to playthe game a little bit differently.
You're going to hitthe ball a certain way.
I'm going to hit the ball a certain way.
And that's okay.
The key is that you understandhow the shot is generated,
the interaction between your body, yourfootwork, the stroke mechanic, the ball,
(07:25):
the positioning, all of these pieces.
That you understandwhat goes into the shot.
And then you understand what you'retrying to accomplish with your shot.
So what is understanding themechanics of how you do it?
The other one is understanding theresult that you're looking for.
I want a shot to look like this becausethat makes sense in the situation.
I put those two things together, and nowI develop the shot that's right for me.
(07:50):
You develop the shot that's right for you,which is very different than me
trying to get youto hit the ball exactly exactly the same
way that I hit the ball,which is my experience with pickleball,
not your experience with pickleball.
So rather than having others try andimprint on you
(08:13):
the way that they approach the game ofpickleball, why not you learn
how the things work inside pickleball?
What makes sense to do?
And then you findthis pickleball self of yours.
And when I say find, it's morelike unlock, it's discover.
(08:33):
They're already inside of you.
You just have to connect with them.
You need to know what you need to know inorder for that player to be able to
manifest itself on the pickleball court.
Because that player is there.
And I can point you to hundreds, probablythousands by now of players who we've
worked with who've had that experience,where they have released a player that was
(08:59):
already inside of them because they gotrid of the noise and they had clarity.
And that's the last piece I want to leaveyou with in this message,
which is that for you to play your bestpickleball, for you to manifest your
pickleball self, It's all about clarity.
You need clarity in the informationthat you receive about this sport.
(09:22):
You need to have clarity about how thesport is constructed,
what goes into this sport.
You need clarity on how you navigate thepickleball court in your footwork, in your
foundation, in your stroke mechanics, allof which is covered in
those three pillars.
You need clarity on the best strategies,the strategies that actually work, not
(09:44):
outlier strategies thatwork one out of 100 times.
No.Strategies that work 80, 85 % of the time.
That's how you playreally good pickleball.
And once you start understanding thosepieces, once you understand those parts of
the game of pickleball, you start seeingthis bigger
picture, and you start understandinghow everything comes together.
(10:04):
And so what we've done inside our coachingis we've developed tools like
the three pillars of pickleball.
The three pillars of pickleball gives youclarity because you have the mechanical
pillar, which is how to hit the shots, thestrategic pillar,
which is what shot to hit when,and the athletic pillar, which I've
referenced earlier, which is thatbody-mind connection,
(10:24):
which is almost never talked about interms of your development
as a pickleball player.
But it really holds you backif you don't have that pillar.
And the way to think about it, and whatthis helps you with your clarity is,
you need all three.
If you want to, in fact, manifest yourbest pickleball self,
you need to know how to hit the shots,what shot to hit when, and your body and
mind need to be in optimal shape in orderto do the job that you want for yourself.
(10:49):
And so that clarity is what we try andprovide inside of our
coaching, not just try.We do provide inside our coaching.
And again, hundreds or thousands ofplayers who have relied on
that methodology strategy tounleash the player inside of them.
So here's the invite.
The invite is we have our fall clinic.
We do it every year.
There's always well-attendent clinic.
(11:12):
It's the amount of information in therethat you're going to receive to really
help you understand the game is going toreally start to change, chip away at some
of this noise that's out there and holdingyou back, and start giving
you some more clarity.
Start showing you a differentway of coming at pickleball.
And I think you're going to start feelingdifferent when you receive the information
in the clinic, when you hear theinformation and the way it's explained
(11:36):
and how the pieces all work together.
You're going to have,at a minimum, one aha moment, if not two
or three, that you go,Oh, I didn't know that.
And I see That makes sense,given my understanding.
And then you start building off of thatto gain that clarity and unleash yourself.
I'll put a link in the show notes.
You can also go to betterpickupall.Com.
If you're on an email list, you'll getemails that have special invitations for
(11:57):
you with some specialmaterials and things like that.
But go down to the show notes,and there'll be a link in there where
you can get access to the clinic.
It's absolutely free.It's online.
So the only reason not to come to theclinic is because you make a decision that
you choose not to come to the clinic,which is 100 % your right to do.
(12:18):
But I want you to knowthat whatever you decide, there is an
amazing pickleball player inside of you.
I encourage you to find away to let that player out.
And if we can help you with our coaching abetter pickleball and the pickleball
system, that's what we love to do.
So the link is below.
(12:39):
I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and I hopeto see at least some of
you at our upcoming clinic.
Be well.
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, thepodcast dedicated to Pickable Improvement.
My name is Tony Roig.
This is a special episode of the podcast.
As you know, if you listen to the podcast,we're getting ready for our fall clinic,
and the Fall Clinic has to do with yourimprovement,
what really matters, myths, realities,pillars, and how you can
(00:26):
build your game around them.
And so I thought, you know what?
Let's do a special episode to talk aboutsome of those concepts, and also to help
you manage your own journey as apickleball player in
terms of your improvement.
Because my experience in this sport as acoach, and a little bit as a player, is
(00:46):
that one of the sources of theopposite of joy, one of the sources of
frustration, of disappointment,isn't so much the game itself.
It's things that we put on ourselves andour minds because we believe that we need
to be playing a certain way, advancingin a certain way, but we're not.
(01:08):
And so what I want to do here is addressthe cause of why it is that perhaps you're
not advancing the way that youshould and could and can, and also talk a
little bit about you andyour ability as a player.
And I'm going to start with you as aplayer and then talk about what's
(01:28):
happening, what's the obstacle here?
And then I'll invite you to the clinicthat we have coming up if you're
interested in learning some moreabout this type of approach.
So let's start with you first, okay?
Because you are the main attraction.
You're the starring actor in yourown pickleball journey.
(01:55):
This is you.
What matters here is you.
Specifically, in our conversation here,it's you and pickleball, but you
are the center, not pickleball.
And so we need to start from that premise.
And it's important for you to understandthat you can play pickleball
(02:16):
as well as you choose to play pickleball.
Period.Hard stop.
You are a capable human being.
You have done things in the past thatyou know you can do successfully.
You've gotten to whereyou are now in life.
You've navigated this human existence.
(02:38):
That alone tells me that you have whatit takes to play this sport very well.
You also already have all the tools.
You have a brain that can do things.You need that.
You have a body that can do things.You need that.
Now, listen, can your body bestronger, be more flexible?
(03:02):
Yes, of course it can.
And that's part of the journey.
That's one of the pillars.
Remember I mentioned thepillars a second ago?
That's one of the pillars,the athletic pillar.
And the same with your mind.
If you have doubts, if you haveinsecurities, if you have it
perfectly natural, no criticism.
Every player has those.
Even the best players in the world, thenumber ones, have those insecurities.
(03:23):
Understanding that and navigating that andworking on that is a part
of the process as well.Part of the athletic pillar.
And the very act that you're listening tothis podcast
is evidence that you are, in fact,doing something about the mental side of
your pickleball, because that'swho listens to this podcast.
This is not a podcast youfall into, right?
(03:45):
You just happen upon.
If you listen to this podcast,it's for the mental side.
So the mental and the body,that's what you need.
Now, what's happening?
Why is it that you're not playing?
And this is really important.
You're not playing playingup to your potential?
Because inside of you, there's thisamazing pickleball player just
(04:06):
trapped inside of you, right?
So why is that pickleball player notexpressing themselves when
you're on the pickleball court?
The answer noise.
That's it.Again, hard stop.
There's so much out there, whether it'sYouTube videos, players at the courts.
I had a conversation today with astudent who mentioned to me that...
(04:28):
And she's She's worked with us for yearsand loves working with us and has
grown her game through our coaching.
But even a player like that is susceptiblesometimes to getting this
input from outside sources,because they seem so believable.
They seem so confident.
Maybe the player hits the ball really wellbecause they come from another sport like
tennis or racquetball, where they havereally nice strokes that they can do,
(04:52):
different than conveying to you how to dothat, and different than explaining how
you can unlock your game as opposed tounlock their game through your body,
which doesn't It doesn't make any sense.
But what happens is there's...
And what she said to me, she said, Itseems like everybody on the court is a
pickleball pro, in quotes, wherethey're just offering advice.
They're coaching.They're telling you what you need.
You need this, add this, do this.
(05:13):
You want to play better.
Everybody has an opinion.
And I'm not criticizing that group.
They mean well.They're well intentioned.
They want to help.I get that.
It doesn't mean they can't help.
There's a big gap between wanting tohelp and having the ability to help.
As a contrast to that is myself, C.J.
(05:37):
Johnson, my co-head coach at BetterPickable, and our coaching
staff at Better Pickable.
This is what we do.
This is our job.We study this.
We analyze what's going on in pickleball.We break it down.
We figure out ways to explain it.
We also prioritize, which is a reallyoften overlooked piece of this, which is
(05:58):
not just what you need, but theorder that makes the most sense.
We do all of that because it's our job,and we're very good at it compared to
just a player at the courts who just playsevery once in a while and has these
ideas, which you're fine to have.
But that doesn't mean they'regoing to work for you.
And often they don't.
More often they don't, Iwould say, than they do.
(06:19):
And so what that does, that noise,it's keeping you back.
Because the secret, when you put the firstand second piece together, we're talking
about, which is you and and whereyou're going to go in the game
is that the problem is not you.
The problem isthe noise is interfering with your ability
(06:42):
to play awesome pickleball, becausethat also and pickle ball, it's there.
It's just trapped inside of you.
And the more noise you have,the more trapped it is, the more bound it
is inside of you because itjust can't play the game.
And I'll give you guys a quick example asto how we coach as different than others.
(07:03):
So every one of us is going to playthe game a little bit differently.
You're going to hitthe ball a certain way.
I'm going to hit the ball a certain way.
And that's okay.
The key is that you understandhow the shot is generated,
the interaction between your body, yourfootwork, the stroke mechanic, the ball,
(07:25):
the positioning, all of these pieces.
That you understandwhat goes into the shot.
And then you understand what you'retrying to accomplish with your shot.
So what is understanding themechanics of how you do it?
The other one is understanding theresult that you're looking for.
I want a shot to look like this becausethat makes sense in the situation.
I put those two things together, and nowI develop the shot that's right for me.
(07:50):
You develop the shot that's right for you,which is very different than me
trying to get youto hit the ball exactly exactly the same
way that I hit the ball,which is my experience with pickleball,
not your experience with pickleball.
So rather than having others try andimprint on you
(08:13):
the way that they approach the game ofpickleball, why not you learn
how the things work inside pickleball?
What makes sense to do?
And then you findthis pickleball self of yours.
And when I say find, it's morelike unlock, it's discover.
(08:33):
They're already inside of you.
You just have to connect with them.
You need to know what you need to know inorder for that player to be able to
manifest itself on the pickleball court.
Because that player is there.
And I can point you to hundreds, probablythousands by now of players who we've
worked with who've had that experience,where they have released a player that was
(08:59):
already inside of them because they gotrid of the noise and they had clarity.
And that's the last piece I want to leaveyou with in this message,
which is that for you to play your bestpickleball, for you to manifest your
pickleball self, It's all about clarity.
You need clarity in the informationthat you receive about this sport.
(09:22):
You need to have clarity about how thesport is constructed,
what goes into this sport.
You need clarity on how you navigate thepickleball court in your footwork, in your
foundation, in your stroke mechanics, allof which is covered in
those three pillars.
You need clarity on the best strategies,the strategies that actually work, not
(09:44):
outlier strategies thatwork one out of 100 times.
No.Strategies that work 80, 85 % of the time.
That's how you playreally good pickleball.
And once you start understanding thosepieces, once you understand those parts of
the game of pickleball, you start seeingthis bigger
picture, and you start understandinghow everything comes together.
(10:04):
And so what we've done inside our coachingis we've developed tools like
the three pillars of pickleball.
The three pillars of pickleball gives youclarity because you have the mechanical
pillar, which is how to hit the shots, thestrategic pillar,
which is what shot to hit when,and the athletic pillar, which I've
referenced earlier, which is thatbody-mind connection,
(10:24):
which is almost never talked about interms of your development
as a pickleball player.
But it really holds you backif you don't have that pillar.
And the way to think about it, and whatthis helps you with your clarity is,
you need all three.
If you want to, in fact, manifest yourbest pickleball self,
you need to know how to hit the shots,what shot to hit when, and your body and
mind need to be in optimal shape in orderto do the job that you want for yourself.
(10:49):
And so that clarity is what we try andprovide inside of our
coaching, not just try.We do provide inside our coaching.
And again, hundreds or thousands ofplayers who have relied on
that methodology strategy tounleash the player inside of them.
So here's the invite.
The invite is we have our fall clinic.
We do it every year.
There's always well-attendent clinic.
(11:12):
It's the amount of information in therethat you're going to receive to really
help you understand the game is going toreally start to change, chip away at some
of this noise that's out there and holdingyou back, and start giving
you some more clarity.
Start showing you a differentway of coming at pickleball.
And I think you're going to start feelingdifferent when you receive the information
in the clinic, when you hear theinformation and the way it's explained
(11:36):
and how the pieces all work together.
You're going to have,at a minimum, one aha moment, if not two
or three, that you go,Oh, I didn't know that.
And I see That makes sense,given my understanding.
And then you start building off of thatto gain that clarity and unleash yourself.
I'll put a link in the show notes.
You can also go to betterpickupall.Com.
If you're on an email list, you'll getemails that have special invitations for
(11:57):
you with some specialmaterials and things like that.
But go down to the show notes,and there'll be a link in there where
you can get access to the clinic.
It's absolutely free.It's online.
So the only reason not to come to theclinic is because you make a decision that
you choose not to come to the clinic,which is 100 % your right to do.
(12:18):
But I want you to knowthat whatever you decide, there is an
amazing pickleball player inside of you.
I encourage you to find away to let that player out.
And if we can help you with our coaching abetter pickleball and the pickleball
system, that's what we love to do.
So the link is below.
(12:39):
I hope you enjoyed the podcast, and I hopeto see at least some of
you at our upcoming clinic.
Be well.
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