Hello, and welcome to pickleball therapy.
This is the podcast dedicated to your pickleball mind to helping you navigate
the mental aspects of pickleball.
My name is Tony Roig.
I am your host of this weekly podcast.
I wanna thank my co coach, CJ Johnson, for jumping in last week and talking with
you about, the improvement journey.
This week, we're going to shift gears back to the play part of the
mental aspects of pickleball.
Specifically, I'm gonna share with you a way of thinking about
the game when you miss a shot.
Because what happens is when we miss shots, that's usually the most negative
feeling that we have other than losing potentially, and we deal with winning
and losing it on some other podcast.
But you know, when we're playing a match or a game and we miss a shot, particularly
1 that we consider to be quote unquote easy, you know, we can get on ourselves.
Right? We can get down on ourselves.
We can spiral perhaps.
And so the technique or the way of thinking about it that I'm gonna share
with you this week should help you with that process.
As we jump into the podcast, I wanna let you know that CJ and the,
Better Pickleball coaching team have come up with some really, nice packages to let
you join the Better Pickleball Academy.
It's super easy right now.
You know, this whole Black Friday, Cyber Monday, basically everything
before Christmas kind of a thing.
And we've also set up some programs that are that allow you to gift the, Pickleball
Academy Better Pickleball Academy.
So if you have loved ones or friends who love pickleball,
you know, instead of getting them like a pair of socks or, something like that, you
know, get them the best education out there, the best pickleball improvement
available with a Better Pickleball Academy.
And you can go to betterpickleball.
com and check out those offerings for you to join the academy or
to gift the academy.
Alright.
Let's dive into this concept of, you know, how do we process when we
miss a shot when we play?
And let me ask you a couple.
We're gonna we're gonna explore a little bit first so that you get comfortable with
where we're going, and then we're gonna go deep into this.
But at the end, again, you're gonna have a tool that will help you better
navigate those misses when you play.
So let's start with this basic premise.
Can we agree that when we play, we are going to miss some shots?
Right?
Even the ones that I mentioned are like quote unquote easy shots or those shots
that we quote unquote should not miss.
Can we agree that it is a normal part of pickleball for us to miss shots when
we play again, even the easy ones?
The answer should be yes, that we should be able to agree to that.
We understand that as human beings, we are gonna have
some, there's mistakes that we make.
There's there's, errors that we make even in the best of circumstances and even with
the quote unquote easy ones or the ones that we should not miss.
So the answer to that question should be yes.
We do expect that we're going to make mistakes when we play.
In the article that I wrote that relate, you know, that relates to this, I I
basically say that if you are I I put out there that if the answer to that question
is no, now if if you answer no, I should never miss a shot when I play, then
obviously that requires a deeper exploration of of living in reality.
And it got me thinking actually about the podcast and how we we the information that
we provide to you in this podcast, which I would submit to you is different
than some of the information that you may read out there on Facebook
or in other sources.
Because we try and give you information that allows us to live in the real world.
Right?
That we can live in the reality of playing pickleball because that is the world
that your mind is needs to navigate. Right?
That's that's that's that's what's happening.
Right? And your brain understands that.
So if you try and trick your brain or do other things, you know, that are not
grounded in reality, it just doesn't work long term because your brain
will go like, wait a minute. That doesn't make sense.
Does you know, there's a it'll create that,
basically a disk and a discord, right, between the the what you're seeing or what
you're experiencing and what you're trying to tell your mind and
that just doesn't hold up.
And then we try and give you tools like the 1 in this podcast to help
you navigate that better. Right?
So 1 of those realities that we deal with is that when we play pickleball,
we will in fact miss shots.
We will in fact make mistakes. Okay?
So the second now we know that we're gonna make mistakes, let's get to an,
reasonably expected number of mistakes.
And here's the thing.
It doesn't have to be exact for for purposes and, using this
tool or this technique.
You don't have to get to an exact number of, you know, it's gotta be
this many per 100 or whatever.
What we're gonna use here is, for purposes of our conversation, I'm gonna
use the number 15 out of a 100. Okay?
And we're gonna let's focus on volleys. Okay?
What that means is we use 15 that we expect them as 15 volleys.
That means that out of the next 100 volleys that we hit,
85 volleys will be successful.
We'll hit them into the court the way we want, and then 15, 15 volleys, we'll we're
gonna miss, and that includes easy volleys.
Right?
The floaters that are just at your shoulder and you just hit them into the
net or hit them wide or hit them long.
It also includes medium and difficult ones.
Right? So all mixed in 15.
I'm gonna talk about this more in a little bit, but 15 is a pretty aggressive number.
15 out of a 100, you know, missing only 15 out of a 100 is, I would
admit, pretty decent.
If you watch even the best players, the best players miss shots.
Right?
So this idea that we're gonna miss 1st first of all, the fact that we're gonna
miss 0 out of a 100 makes no sense. Right?
Because even the pros miss.
But 15 out of a 100 is not a bad number, but let's go ahead and
use 15 as our number.
Now here's how the technique works.
When we miss a shot in pickleball, we never allow that to be 1 of the 15.
And that's it's kind of funny when you think about it there.
Right? So, you know, you're playing.
You get the floater.
You dump it into the net.
We don't let that be 1 of the 15.
In other words, that is, that's that we shouldn't have missed that 1.
And then we miss another Volley maybe, you know, a few shots later.
Right? And also we shouldn't have missed that 1.
And then the next 1 that we miss, we shouldn't have missed that 1 either.
So the idea here is to and the the title of the article that we put out
is called, was that a 15% Volley? Right?
Was that 1 of the 15, basically?
Is that when we're playing, we need to change our mindset from
I should not have missed that Volley to, okay, I missed a Volley.
Okay. That's just simply part of the deal.
Right?
That's 1 of the 15 that I expect to miss when I play.
And that's really important, is setting the expectations.
You know, and it's a corollary of reality, if we wanna
look at it that way, which is expectations, right?
If we set expectations that are within the, within the parameters
of the reality that we deal with. Right?
So if we can set expectations that are reasonable within the parameters of our
reality, we're less likely to feel disillusionment.
We're less likely to feel let down because our expectations were not met.
So in this case, if you understand that you're you are accept, not even
understand, it's just accepting it.
Accept that you're going to miss shots when you play and,
understand that that when you miss a shot, it's perfectly fine for that shot to be 1
of the shots that you expect to miss when you're playing.
Whether you expect to miss 15, 10, or 30 out of a 100 when you play,
next time you miss a volley, rather than beating yourself up about it and saying,
oh, I should not have missed that shot, doesn't mean you have
to be happy about it.
But you have to understand that it's just expected.
Right?
It's just part and partial of the overall deal of how you play.
It's part of your 100% when you play.
And if you think about the benefits of this approach, this approach will help you
stay in the real world. Right?
Observe reality and not create some some some discord between some dissonance
between what you're telling yourself. Right?
The words that are you're trying to tell yourself and the reality
you're dealing with.
And it allows you to avoid needlessly beating yourself up.
Right?
Spiraling potentially out of control whenever you miss a shot.
It's basically, you know, missing a shot and and hear me out here
on these percentages. Right?
But missing a shot is 100% within your expected 100% of play.
In other words, it is a certainty that you will miss shots within the the
entire scope of your shots during a a rally, or during a game,
or during a session. Right?
Or during your life. Right?
You're gonna miss so many shots.
So the key here is the magic, if you will, is recognizing when you miss a shot,
that that missed shot is simply that part of your game that that is going
to be missed shots and that is part and parcel of the overall you as a player.
And it is not it is not a failure by you because it is part
and parcel of your overall game.
Okay?
And touching back on the pros again, the pros miss shots.
Right?
So when the pros miss shots, no 1 says, you're a failure because
you missed a shot. Right?
Obviously, you know, it doesn't mean they have to be happy obviously in the shot,
but missing the shot is within the best that they can do as players.
When you miss a shot, it's within the best that you can do as a player.
It's included in that.
The problem is we don't recognize the shot or we don't we don't attribute
to the shot the right title.
In other words, that is just in that 15%.
Right? The 1 using 15% in this case.
It's not in the 15%.
We every volume that we hit is in the 85%.
We must have we should have made it.
That doesn't make any sense. Right?
Because the 85 that go in, 15 are gonna miss.
So the key is is when you miss acknowledging that the 1 you missed is
within the 15 and not always forcing all of your volleys to be in the 85,
which ignores the volleys that you are going to miss
as simply part of your game no matter how well you play.
Now I'm gonna talk in a second about, you can modify the 15 that's doable over time.
That's an improvement process.
But first I wanna mention this.
I've been using 15, right, in this podcast.
15 is pretty darn good.
You know, if you're missing only 15 out of a 100, that's not a bad number.
That means that you hit a 100 volleys, you make 85 of them.
Okay. That's solid.
Now maybe you can make it 90.
Maybe you can make it 92.
Maybe you can make it 94, whatever.
But, you know, and maybe you're playing pro, you're doing 94, but
those are really good numbers. Right?
15 is not a bad number for a lot of us.
The numbers are number is gonna be higher than 15.
Right?
It might be 20, it might be 30, it might be 40.
Now we're talking about the misses. Right?
The errors that we make out of a 100.
Let's say you're in a at a place where you're missing 35 out of a100.
You're still making more than half. Right?
You're making 65 and missing 35, but there you're gonna have
a higher chance of missing. Right?
So when you miss, it's gonna be more your misses are gonna be more common.
So you have to be particularly, nice to yourself.
Right? In terms of and even nice to yourself.
Just real with yourself that I missed a shot.
I missed a volley. I missed a serve.
I missed a return.
I missed the dink.
And that is part and partial of my game.
Because you can take this concept of misses.
You can also talk about in terms of pop ups.
You can also talk about it in terms of of, of, incorrect decisions, if you will.
Like, I hit the ball straight, but I should hit across the
court would have been better, and you realize that after the fact, that's part
and partial again of how you're gonna play.
You're gonna make you're gonna hit shots that are not the best idea, because that
is how you're built as a human being.
And that shot is not a failure by you.
It's just part of the overall, of your overall execution
and strategic decision making when you're playing pickleball.
So the the the don't get hung up on the 15.
It's not a 15 thing that matters.
You can make it x if you want to.
The key is to properly attribute the miss to simply being part of the overall,
of your overall play of the sport.
And then the other piece, to to think about is these numbers
aren't set in stone. Right?
So let's say right now, let's just say right now you're 30.
Okay?
30 out of a 100, you miss on a particular shot, or pop it up or do something that
you other than what you would like to do.
Not execute the way that you would like to execute the shot.
So that means 70 times you're executing the way you wanna execute it.
30, you're not. Is that forever?
The answer is no.
You can move to 30.
Maybe the 30 becomes 28, becomes 26, so on and so forth.
Are you keeping as you as you keep working on your game, you can in fact
reduce the number of errors that you make when you play.
Also reduce the number of unintended shots.
Right?
That's not an error, but it's not the shot that I wanted.
You can also reduce the number of of decisions that you make that you you make
the wrong decision when you play, by working on your game, by working on the
mechanics of your game, also working on the strategy of your game.
If you listen to the podcast, you probably by now already know that we use 3 pillars.
We use mechanical, strategic, and athletic to cover all the aspects of,
of you as a pickleball player.
So on each of those areas you can do work to reduce the number of
errors that you make.
But that said, no matter how much you work on your game, you will still make errors,
make mistakes and have errors when you play mechanically and strategically.
Okay?
So no matter how much you work on your game, no matter how small you get that
number, even if you become a professional player, you're gonna make mistakes when
you play, even missing shots that you should should open quote not miss, which,
right doesn't make sense not to understand that you should miss them.
It's part parcel of the game.
T
and also allows you to live in the real
world and, play pickleball in a in in within that real world without
unnecessarily beating yourself up.
That's this week's podcast.
I hope you enjoyed the podcast.
If you're interested in the better pickleball academy, check that out because
like I said, there's some really good stuff out there right now, and
you go to better pickleball. com and check those out.
Otherwise, if you have a minute, you wanna rate and review.
Actually, not otherwise. You can do this in addition to.
It's not mutually exclusive.
Consider rating and reviewing the podcast.
We really appreciate you doing that and sharing with your friends because if you
enjoy the podcast, they probably will too.
Next week, my plan is to chat some more about this subject.
We're gonna expand it some more based on some conversations that I had with my
friend here, my player and friend local player and my friend, David Pellet,
and where we talk about these things.
And he push he is always pushing me on these and and and suggesting that there's
other that there's there's flaws in it because of things.
So that'll that'll lead to next week's conversation,
next week's episode where I'm gonna talk to you about, the average of the average.
So we're gonna go even a little bit deeper on the subject because I think it's that
valuable for you as a player so that you, feel much healthier when mentally
healthier when you're out on the pickleball court.
Have a great week, and I will see you next time on pickleball therapy.
Be wild.