November 22, 2024 • 12 mins
A distraction pulls our attention away from the main thing that we're trying to focus on and it could either be physical or mental.
For instance, if you're trying to paint something, and somebody keeps tapping your paint brush right on the end, it becomes hard to paint because you're distracted by it.
Same thing happens when we play pickleball and we're trying to focus on the shot or we're trying to focus on ourselves and what we need to do better the next rally but we're distracted by a number of things.
How should we approach and deal with distractions in a way that is more productive or constructive for us?
Think about challenges and distractions in pickleball as puzzles. So when you're facing a challenging opponent, good dinker/shotter or challenging situations such as the wind or sun, look at those as pieces of the puzzle.
And the more complex the puzzle is, the more challenging the game that you are playing is going to be for you.
This will help you generate more challenge for yourself and create more reward because you get to work through the challenges as you play.
At the end of the day, is that not why we play pickleball? Do we not play pickleball because of the challenge that it presents to us?
If it was easy, then you'd probably grow bored with it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Helloand welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the
podcast dedicated to yourpickleball improvement.
It's the podcast with you in mind.
I am your host for thisweekly podcast, Tony Roig.
It's a pleasure to be with youfor the podcast.
You may hear a little bityipping in the background.
Those are some new puppies that are partof our family now, and they're pretty
(00:23):
active in the morningswhile I'm recording this.
So once in a while, you might heara little bit of a background noise.
That's either Benita or Olivia, figuringout who's dominant over the other.
There you go.
This week's podcast, I want to talk abouta different way of approaching
distractions, distractions that arise whenwe play pickleball, and
(00:46):
talk about a different way of framing thatthat will help you
do it more constructively, right?
Do something more productive andconstructive with those things that we
generally refer to asdistractions when we play.
I was reminded it during the...
We were at Nationals for acouple of weeks now in Arizona.
We just got back a few days ago.
(01:07):
And while we were there, we got to playsome pickup games, and we had to deal with
some adverse conditions, likethe We were fortunate to have a court
where we were staying,but the court was oriented where the
sun in the morning and the sun in theevening basically were
directly into your face.
There was another day that we played,there was a lot of wind,
(01:28):
and a couple of the players were...
Their shots were affected by the wind.
And so it got me thinking about this ideaof when we play pickleball, we
do have to face distractions.
And sometimes those distractions arewind again or the sun.
It could be the ball we're playingwith, could be a number of...
It could be the noise levelsaround us, things like that.
(01:49):
And so when we facedistractions, when we're...
By definition, a distraction is somethingthat pulls our attention away from the
main thing that we're trying to focus on.
If you're trying topaint something, and somebody keeps
(02:14):
tapping your paint brush right on the end,hard to paint because
you're distracted by it.
It's a form of distraction,physical distraction.
You could also have mental distraction,where you're trying to focus on something
around your house that you're working on,and you have a lot of other things on your
mind, so you can't keep your mind onthe thing that you're trying to work on.
(02:34):
Same thing happens, obviously,when we play pickleball.
We're out on the pickleball court,and we're trying to focus on the shot.
We're trying to focus on ourselves andwhat we need to do better the next
rally and things like that.
But we're distractedby a number of things.
And so,how do we deal with distractions in a way
that is more productive for us,that is more constructive for us?
(02:59):
And what occurs Our goal first to me isthat we should
deal with those distractions or approachthose distractions
as just simply more pieces of thepuzzle that we are working on.
Think about a pickleballgame rather than as
some independent activity that we'retrying to or need to solve, or need to win
(03:24):
or need to figure out as just a puzzle,just like a crossword puzzle
or just a puzzle puzzle.
And we are trying to just navigate thepuzzle and solve it to
the best of our ability.
Frankly, the more complex the puzzle is,oftentimes, the more
satisfying it is to solve it.
Imagine trying to do, let'sgo back to a puzzle puzzle.
(03:46):
If you're working on a puzzle puzzle andit only has 10 pieces to it,
or even more basic, you could have one ofthose puzzles that
toddlers use that have the wood pieces.
There's eight of them, and they go intopredetermined slots on a wood board.
Pretty simple for mostadults to do that, right?
And not very rewardingwhen you complete it.
(04:08):
Rewarding for the kid, sure,but not rewarding for the adult.
Compared that to doing likea thousand-piece puzzle.
When you're done with that, it's a painsometimes, because you're
like, Where does this go?
And I can't figure outwhere this piece goes.
But once you're done, it's a veryrewarding experience because you overcame
the complicated puzzle that was presented.
(04:29):
When we think about pickleball as apuzzle, it allows us to take areas or
situations that arise that are potentiallydistractions otherwise,
things like the wind.
I'm going to sit on the wind for a minute.
But things like the wind and welook at those as pieces of a puzzle or as
(04:49):
complexities presentedto us by this puzzle.
We're actually thankful that we have somecondition that creates a more difficulty
for us, raises the difficulty for usbecause it challenges us some more, and it
provides us withmore fatter, if you will, for the
situation that we're having to solve.
(05:10):
So let's sit on the windfor a little bit here.
So when you have a windy day,The wind's swirling.
So the wind may be behind you, and thenit's in front of you, and the
wind's coming from the side.
That's awesome.
Because now you need to adjust yourcore positioning,
the amount of energy you enter into, andthe amount of energy you put into the shot
(05:30):
based on the wind conditions.
So the wind's in your face,then in your returning serve, you're going
to have to take a step backbecause the ball is going to go deeper,
and you're going to have to deliver moreenergy into the ball to get your ball
to go deep, your shot to go deep.
If the wind swirls around and now it'sbehind you and you're returning serve,
then you may have to take a step inbecause now you expect the ball to be
(05:50):
shorter on its trajectory towards you.
Then you need to make sure that youdeliver less energy into your shot to
make sure your ball doesn't go out.
So that's an example of howone additional factor, like wind, creates
more puzzle for you to solve, and alsomakes the shot itself more complex.
One of the players who was playing with usthis week had difficulty with balls that
(06:14):
that bounce and then came into the body.
And so what does that do?
That just createsanother challenge, right?
Just another hurdle that we have toovercome, which is we need to
stay light on our feet beforewe get set and hit the shot.
In other words, we to be ready to move asthe wind moves the ball after it bounces.
And between the time it bounces, the timewe have to hit it, we need to
(06:37):
stay more focused on the shot.
So it's just another challenge for us.
And I think what that does is it allows usto shift our perspective away from
something like, which you hear players saythis, I don't like playing in the wind,
(06:57):
or I don't like playing in X, right?Whatever it is.
Rather than that, you look atit and you say, You know what?
This is an interesting challenge for me.
Maybe this is something thatI'm not comfortable doing.
It's more difficult for me.
It's like they added it instead of being1,000 pieces, now it's 1,200
pieces, so it's more complex.
But that's cool.
That's nice because itincreases the challenge that I face, and
(07:25):
it makes the game that I'mplaying more interesting.
And so this idea of solving a puzzlelooking at these
challenges and potential distractions aspieces of the puzzle will help you
generatemore challenge for yourself, but also
create more It's more rewarding becauseyou get to work through those as you play.
(07:50):
And you can take the same concept of thepuzzle, and you can extend it out even to
things likeplaying tricky players, playing players
who shots you don't know where they'regoing to go, unpredictable players.
Playing, let's say, next rotation,you have a lober on the court.
That's just a differentpuzzle for you to solve.
Instead of being like something that youdon't like doing, something that you
(08:13):
maybe, just try to get the word, that
you look across, you're
like, Oh, no, not a lober.
That's just not what I want.
Instead of looking at it thatway, say, Okay, a lober, great.
Now that's another piece of the puzzle.
(08:34):
What can I do to make my life aseasy as possible when I face a lober?
You can do the same whenyou're facing a banger.
You can do the same thing when you'refacing a really good dinker,
a really good third shotter.
And all of these pieces are just all ofthese elements that you're facing, whether
they be distractions, such as wind, sun,things like that,
(08:55):
or challenging opponents or challengingsituations for you, are nothing other than
pieces of a puzzle or aspects of a puzzle.
And the more complex the puzzle is,the more challenging the game that you
are playing is going to be for you.
And at the end of the day, isthat not why we play pickleball?
(09:18):
Do we not play pickleball, at least inpart, because of the challenge that it
presents to us?
If it was easy, then you'dprobably grew bored with it.
I always pick on cornhole Again, noproblem with corn hole itself.
But corn hole is a static event, whereit's just the
bean bags are always the same weight,the holes themselves are only, the
(09:43):
boards are always a set distance away.
You always toss from thesame place, things like that.
So it gets a little bit rote, doesn't it?
As pickleball, what conditionsare you going to play in today?
I don't know.What's the humidity level?
I live in Florida, and Florida, thehumidity level will
affect how the ball flies.
Cj lives up in Lake Tahoe, and in LakeTahoe, the balls there fly much farther.
(10:09):
So altitude, humidity,wind conditions, sun conditions,
types of opponents you're playing, allthose different things go into this mix,
and they create at the end of the day, thepuzzle that is the challenge of the game
that you're going to currently playwhen you're playing pickleball.
And for yourself, removing the powerthat a potential distraction or a
(10:32):
potentially challengingsituation presents to you
is helpful to you in terms of your growthas a human, because you have that power.
No where you have the ability to,the agency, as we always say in here,
the agency to not allowjust objective things like wind or
(10:57):
lobbying or whateverto impact you negatively.
Instead, you make it a challenge.You make it a puzzle.
You make it just something thatyou are going to
do your best to solve during the game,understanding how it impacts the
solving of that game, thecarrying out of that game.
(11:21):
Then you work on yourself and you work onnot just working on solving the puzzle,
working on how you perceivethe input, how you perceive the wind or
the condition that generally bothersyou, noise and things like that.
And you turn that around to a growthexperience for yourself
(11:42):
in terms of solving a puzzle.
So hopefully that soon, next time you'refacing a potential distraction, or what
you currently call a distraction, asopposed to thinking about it more
positively as a challenge to youas you continue to solve pickle puzzles
every time that you'reout there and play pickle.
(12:02):
If you have a minute, consider rating andreviewing the podcast, and as always,
share with your friends, remember, if youenjoyed the podcast,
they probably will, too.
I hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou at the next episode
of Pickable Therapy.
Be well.
Helloand welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the
podcast dedicated to yourpickleball improvement.
It's the podcast with you in mind.
I am your host for thisweekly podcast, Tony Roig.
It's a pleasure to be with youfor the podcast.
You may hear a little bityipping in the background.
Those are some new puppies that are partof our family now, and they're pretty
(00:23):
active in the morningswhile I'm recording this.
So once in a while, you might heara little bit of a background noise.
That's either Benita or Olivia, figuringout who's dominant over the other.
There you go.
This week's podcast, I want to talk abouta different way of approaching
distractions, distractions that arise whenwe play pickleball, and
(00:46):
talk about a different way of framing thatthat will help you
do it more constructively, right?
Do something more productive andconstructive with those things that we
generally refer to asdistractions when we play.
I was reminded it during the...
We were at Nationals for acouple of weeks now in Arizona.
We just got back a few days ago.
(01:07):
And while we were there, we got to playsome pickup games, and we had to deal with
some adverse conditions, likethe We were fortunate to have a court
where we were staying,but the court was oriented where the
sun in the morning and the sun in theevening basically were
directly into your face.
There was another day that we played,there was a lot of wind,
(01:28):
and a couple of the players were...
Their shots were affected by the wind.
And so it got me thinking about this ideaof when we play pickleball, we
do have to face distractions.
And sometimes those distractions arewind again or the sun.
It could be the ball we're playingwith, could be a number of...
It could be the noise levelsaround us, things like that.
(01:49):
And so when we facedistractions, when we're...
By definition, a distraction is somethingthat pulls our attention away from the
main thing that we're trying to focus on.
If you're trying topaint something, and somebody keeps
(02:14):
tapping your paint brush right on the end,hard to paint because
you're distracted by it.
It's a form of distraction,physical distraction.
You could also have mental distraction,where you're trying to focus on something
around your house that you're working on,and you have a lot of other things on your
mind, so you can't keep your mind onthe thing that you're trying to work on.
(02:34):
Same thing happens, obviously,when we play pickleball.
We're out on the pickleball court,and we're trying to focus on the shot.
We're trying to focus on ourselves andwhat we need to do better the next
rally and things like that.
But we're distractedby a number of things.
And so,how do we deal with distractions in a way
that is more productive for us,that is more constructive for us?
(02:59):
And what occurs Our goal first to me isthat we should
deal with those distractions or approachthose distractions
as just simply more pieces of thepuzzle that we are working on.
Think about a pickleballgame rather than as
some independent activity that we'retrying to or need to solve, or need to win
(03:24):
or need to figure out as just a puzzle,just like a crossword puzzle
or just a puzzle puzzle.
And we are trying to just navigate thepuzzle and solve it to
the best of our ability.
Frankly, the more complex the puzzle is,oftentimes, the more
satisfying it is to solve it.
Imagine trying to do, let'sgo back to a puzzle puzzle.
(03:46):
If you're working on a puzzle puzzle andit only has 10 pieces to it,
or even more basic, you could have one ofthose puzzles that
toddlers use that have the wood pieces.
There's eight of them, and they go intopredetermined slots on a wood board.
Pretty simple for mostadults to do that, right?
And not very rewardingwhen you complete it.
(04:08):
Rewarding for the kid, sure,but not rewarding for the adult.
Compared that to doing likea thousand-piece puzzle.
When you're done with that, it's a painsometimes, because you're
like, Where does this go?
And I can't figure outwhere this piece goes.
But once you're done, it's a veryrewarding experience because you overcame
the complicated puzzle that was presented.
(04:29):
When we think about pickleball as apuzzle, it allows us to take areas or
situations that arise that are potentiallydistractions otherwise,
things like the wind.
I'm going to sit on the wind for a minute.
But things like the wind and welook at those as pieces of a puzzle or as
(04:49):
complexities presentedto us by this puzzle.
We're actually thankful that we have somecondition that creates a more difficulty
for us, raises the difficulty for usbecause it challenges us some more, and it
provides us withmore fatter, if you will, for the
situation that we're having to solve.
(05:10):
So let's sit on the windfor a little bit here.
So when you have a windy day,The wind's swirling.
So the wind may be behind you, and thenit's in front of you, and the
wind's coming from the side.
That's awesome.
Because now you need to adjust yourcore positioning,
the amount of energy you enter into, andthe amount of energy you put into the shot
(05:30):
based on the wind conditions.
So the wind's in your face,then in your returning serve, you're going
to have to take a step backbecause the ball is going to go deeper,
and you're going to have to deliver moreenergy into the ball to get your ball
to go deep, your shot to go deep.
If the wind swirls around and now it'sbehind you and you're returning serve,
then you may have to take a step inbecause now you expect the ball to be
(05:50):
shorter on its trajectory towards you.
Then you need to make sure that youdeliver less energy into your shot to
make sure your ball doesn't go out.
So that's an example of howone additional factor, like wind, creates
more puzzle for you to solve, and alsomakes the shot itself more complex.
One of the players who was playing with usthis week had difficulty with balls that
(06:14):
that bounce and then came into the body.
And so what does that do?
That just createsanother challenge, right?
Just another hurdle that we have toovercome, which is we need to
stay light on our feet beforewe get set and hit the shot.
In other words, we to be ready to move asthe wind moves the ball after it bounces.
And between the time it bounces, the timewe have to hit it, we need to
(06:37):
stay more focused on the shot.
So it's just another challenge for us.
And I think what that does is it allows usto shift our perspective away from
something like, which you hear players saythis, I don't like playing in the wind,
(06:57):
or I don't like playing in X, right?Whatever it is.
Rather than that, you look atit and you say, You know what?
This is an interesting challenge for me.
Maybe this is something thatI'm not comfortable doing.
It's more difficult for me.
It's like they added it instead of being1,000 pieces, now it's 1,200
pieces, so it's more complex.
But that's cool.
That's nice because itincreases the challenge that I face, and
(07:25):
it makes the game that I'mplaying more interesting.
And so this idea of solving a puzzlelooking at these
challenges and potential distractions aspieces of the puzzle will help you
generatemore challenge for yourself, but also
create more It's more rewarding becauseyou get to work through those as you play.
(07:50):
And you can take the same concept of thepuzzle, and you can extend it out even to
things likeplaying tricky players, playing players
who shots you don't know where they'regoing to go, unpredictable players.
Playing, let's say, next rotation,you have a lober on the court.
That's just a differentpuzzle for you to solve.
Instead of being like something that youdon't like doing, something that you
(08:13):
maybe, just try to get the word, that
you look across, you're
like, Oh, no, not a lober.
That's just not what I want.
Instead of looking at it thatway, say, Okay, a lober, great.
Now that's another piece of the puzzle.
(08:34):
What can I do to make my life aseasy as possible when I face a lober?
You can do the same whenyou're facing a banger.
You can do the same thing when you'refacing a really good dinker,
a really good third shotter.
And all of these pieces are just all ofthese elements that you're facing, whether
they be distractions, such as wind, sun,things like that,
(08:55):
or challenging opponents or challengingsituations for you, are nothing other than
pieces of a puzzle or aspects of a puzzle.
And the more complex the puzzle is,the more challenging the game that you
are playing is going to be for you.
And at the end of the day, isthat not why we play pickleball?
(09:18):
Do we not play pickleball, at least inpart, because of the challenge that it
presents to us?
If it was easy, then you'dprobably grew bored with it.
I always pick on cornhole Again, noproblem with corn hole itself.
But corn hole is a static event, whereit's just the
bean bags are always the same weight,the holes themselves are only, the
(09:43):
boards are always a set distance away.
You always toss from thesame place, things like that.
So it gets a little bit rote, doesn't it?
As pickleball, what conditionsare you going to play in today?
I don't know.What's the humidity level?
I live in Florida, and Florida, thehumidity level will
affect how the ball flies.
Cj lives up in Lake Tahoe, and in LakeTahoe, the balls there fly much farther.
(10:09):
So altitude, humidity,wind conditions, sun conditions,
types of opponents you're playing, allthose different things go into this mix,
and they create at the end of the day, thepuzzle that is the challenge of the game
that you're going to currently playwhen you're playing pickleball.
And for yourself, removing the powerthat a potential distraction or a
(10:32):
potentially challengingsituation presents to you
is helpful to you in terms of your growthas a human, because you have that power.
No where you have the ability to,the agency, as we always say in here,
the agency to not allowjust objective things like wind or
(10:57):
lobbying or whateverto impact you negatively.
Instead, you make it a challenge.You make it a puzzle.
You make it just something thatyou are going to
do your best to solve during the game,understanding how it impacts the
solving of that game, thecarrying out of that game.
(11:21):
Then you work on yourself and you work onnot just working on solving the puzzle,
working on how you perceivethe input, how you perceive the wind or
the condition that generally bothersyou, noise and things like that.
And you turn that around to a growthexperience for yourself
(11:42):
in terms of solving a puzzle.
So hopefully that soon, next time you'refacing a potential distraction, or what
you currently call a distraction, asopposed to thinking about it more
positively as a challenge to youas you continue to solve pickle puzzles
every time that you'reout there and play pickle.
(12:02):
If you have a minute, consider rating andreviewing the podcast, and as always,
share with your friends, remember, if youenjoyed the podcast,
they probably will, too.
I hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou at the next episode
of Pickable Therapy.
Be well.
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