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The podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. We are here to help you achieve your pickleball goals, with a focus on the mental part of your game. Our mission is to share with you a positive and more healthy way of engaging with pickleball. Together let’s forge a stronger relationship with the sport we all love. With the added benefit of playing better pickleball too. No matter what you are trying to accomplish in your pickleball journey, Pickleball Therapy is here to encourage and support you.
[00:00:00.560] - Speaker 1
Hello, and welcome to Pickleball therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. I hope you're having a great week. My name is Tony Roig. I am the host of this weekly podcast, which is dedicated to your mind, to getting our mind as right as we can. You know, minds are complicated, pickleballs, complicated, which is wonderful.
[00:00:17.990] - Speaker 1
That's why we continue coming back to this awesome sport. And what we try and do is try and make those two things work together as best as possible. Um, and, you know, part of our thinking here is that, uh, I guess pun intended there. Love it when you start seeing puns everywhere. But part of our thinking here is that, uh, you know, Pickleball is a.
[00:00:38.830] - Speaker 1
Is a means to an end, more than the end itself, right? It's a beautiful sport. It's a great activity for us to engage in, but it's that there's a bigger story going on, and the story is about you, right? We each live our own reach, the stars of our own movies, if you will. And so, pickleball, again, important, but at the end of the day, it's about you more than about the sport itself.
[00:00:59.760] - Speaker 1
So that's what we hope to help you out with this in this podcast. And the riff I'm going to. I have a. I have a request to make of you, so I'm going to. I'm going to asset in the riff.
[00:01:10.560] - Speaker 1
But today we're going to talk about is, we're going to talk about pet peeves. I kind of took a detour on this thing. I had something else planned for this week, but we're in the middle of the summit. By the way, if you haven't yet registered for the summit, you know your decision, right? Whether you want to come to the summit or not.
[00:01:24.190] - Speaker 1
Uh, but there's no obstacle to come to the summit. It's 100% free. I mean, you'll hear about an all access pass. That's optional whether you want to get it or not. That's to get a year of access to it.
[00:01:33.670] - Speaker 1
You don't need to get an all access pass to come to the summit. You welcome to come to the summit at no cost. That is your choice. Uh, and it's entirely online, so, you know, the only reason not that I come to the summit is, uh, you're either, we used to say, having tea with a queen, but I guess that's no longer the case. Um, and, uh, or you just choose not to, but don't.
[00:01:50.730] - Speaker 1
Don't not come to the summit for some other reason, because, uh, we would love to have you join us and you just go to pickleballsummit.com to get your ticket and I'll put it in the show notes. But anyway, so we're in the middle of the, of our summit, uh, time here and we did, uh, ask me anything last night. This is Wednesday. I'm recording this episode. So we, we were live yesterday and I'll ask me anything.
[00:02:09.950] - Speaker 1
I'm pretty confident some of you all were there, so hope you enjoyed it. Um, but CJ and I were on with everyone and, and we had asked, as part of this summit process, we had asked for pet peeves and, uh, we had over 300 players, um, take, take up the, uh, take up the challenge, take up the call, right. And, uh, provide us their pet peeves. And we were going to address it, um, lat last night. And then we have the pulse of pickleball tomorrow.
[00:02:34.340] - Speaker 1
So Thursday, so it'll be the day before this podcast drops. But, um, but we didn't have time because there were so many questions, which was awesome. I mean, that was amazing to have all those questions and we were able to get to them and, and provide some really good information, uh, to help players out. So I pivoted the, this week's podcast from what I had planned to pet peeves. And I think there's some really interesting things that we can learn from pet peeves to help us, uh, with our mental processes.
[00:02:58.190] - Speaker 1
This is not just, we're not just going to go over the pet peeves and, you know, like comment on them or opine on them. That's not the point of this. We're going to go to the pet peeves and then talk about how we can address these things from a mental standpoint and as we engage with pickleball so that we can, um, perhaps avoid some distractions, increase our focus and things like that. So what I'm going to do is we're going to go through the pet peeves and then, um, and I'm going to talk about them as I go down the list. And then when I get to the end, I'll give you some over overarching thoughts about pet peeves and, um, and again, how to, how to tackle them or how to deal with them, because we're all human beings.
[00:03:34.070] - Speaker 1
We all have, you know, things that irk us, right? Things that just, just rub us the wrong way, right, that are pet peeves of. And, um, um, it's not a, it's not necessarily that having a pet peeve is a bad thing. It's that it's only a bad thing to the extent that the pet peeve is detracting from your enjoyment of the sport. Right.
[00:03:50.480] - Speaker 1
And also your ability to play your best. So, um. All right, let's dive into the pet peeve. Let me pull them up here. Uh, all right.
[00:03:56.430] - Speaker 1
As I mentioned, there were over 300 responders, and I'm going to. I've grouped them so we can talk about them in segments. So there were several of the answers were grouped. Well, let me give you an overall thing before I get into them, because I thought this was really interesting. So the way it was constructed was there were several option options, and then there was another category, right.
[00:04:13.670] - Speaker 1
Just basically, you tell us. And, um, out of. Out of percentage wise, 38% chose other. And what's interesting about that big picture is it shows us how personal pet peeves are. Right.
[00:04:26.860] - Speaker 1
Even in the pet peeve, players are like, don't tell me what my pet peeve is. I'm going to tell you my pet peeve, which is perfectly fine. It's not a critic. It's perfectly fine to do that. Right.
[00:04:34.650] - Speaker 1
But it's interesting, right. To see how strongly players feel about pet peeves. Right. It's. It's strong enough to select another and then fill it in.
[00:04:43.720] - Speaker 1
Right. As opposed to just going like, all right, this one kind of covers it. I don't like one of these. The most. Right.
[00:04:48.840] - Speaker 1
The ones that are already listed, I'm going to go to other 38%. So that was. That was pretty insightful, I thought. But anyway, so I've grouped them so we can talk about them. And the first ones I want to talk about are several that can be grouped as rules issues.
[00:05:00.960] - Speaker 1
So 5% were about illegal servers, 10% bad line calls, and then in the other category, I don't know exact number, right. Because this is a piece of. It was not following pickleball rules or rules of the facility. Now, I am not going to tell you to disregard rules. Rules are in place for a reason.
[00:05:17.800] - Speaker 1
And, you know, rules are what make our game. Right. I mean, you know, it'd be like saying, disregard the non volley zone rule. That would make any sense. Or, you know, I'm.
[00:05:25.940] - Speaker 1
I may have. You may have heard me talk about this before, but, like, if a paddle isn't approved, right, um, then should it be played? Should it be allowed at the courts? My position is that there has to be a good reason to allow the paddle, because otherwise, like, if. If that rule, like, if.
[00:05:42.910] - Speaker 1
And I'm speaking specifically of the diet and vice, which a lot of players use if you need to use it, right? In other words, I don't have arm strength or I don't have enough power to enjoy the game at its base level, that's okay. But if you're using it to gain a competitive edge, right? In other words, I could use another paddle, but I choose to use the vice. Then, in that case, why not use a tennis racket, right?
[00:06:02.430] - Speaker 1
Why not use a junior tennis racket? What's. What rule prohibits that, right? So anyway, so you've heard me. You know, I'm not a rule like, you know, an anarchist, right?
[00:06:11.130] - Speaker 1
Just do whatever you want on the pickleball court. That said, I do think that where we draw the line on rules can impact our enjoyment of the sport and also our ability to play our best, which, again, I'm gonna dive into that a little more later on, but what I would consider, what I would suggest you do on rules is maybe think of where you're setting the line on the rule, right? Is the rule that you're concerned about that impactful right to what's going on on the court? I would suggest you that nine times out of ten, maybe more illegal servers are not negatively impacting the game you're playing. And I would also suggest that line call issues, as you probably heard before on one of these podcasts, because we've talked about it a couple of times, there's two.
[00:06:52.500] - Speaker 1
Two takes two to tango. It takes the caller, and it takes the hitter. The hitter put the ball close to the line. So maybe dealing it with that way might. Might take it out of a pet peeve category.
[00:07:01.120] - Speaker 1
Um, and then not following pickleball rules, rules facility. Again, I would suggest the same thing. Set your. Set a bar that maybe, maybe challenge yourself on setting the bar as to what would constitute a rule violation that you deem to be that warrant your attention, right. To warrant your.
[00:07:17.680] - Speaker 1
And warranty your energy. So that would be my. My suggestion. Not throughout the rulebook, but, you know, set the line that way. Right?
[00:07:24.940] - Speaker 1
And there's a corollary here that's we're talking about. This was in the other category as well. So I don't have an exact percentage, but it had to do with net core net chords and let serves, right? So, basically, you know, where the ball hits the. The net and comes over and you have to play it.
[00:07:37.720] - Speaker 1
You know, I am fascinated with. With particularly professional players. I want to focus on here who, um, get caught up in that. Uh, Ben and Colin Johns, you know, have dominated the men's doubles, uh, arena for a long time, right? They're very successful team but Jesus, if a, if a ball hits the net it's like, I don't know, it's, it's like the worst thing in the world's ever happened.
[00:08:00.500] - Speaker 1
I don't understand it. And I've, I've, I've had the opportunity. I don't know Ben as well, but I know Colin, you know, reasonably well. He's, he started his, his pickleball career here in Tampa. So I used to play with him back in the day.
[00:08:11.400] - Speaker 1
And I've spoken to him several times. He's been a guest on our pickleball summit uh, I think two or three times. So super nice, super great young man, smart, good about the sport. But that ball is just like. And even the commentator just say no, no, Colin's going to gasket.
[00:08:25.920] - Speaker 1
But here's the thing, like net met balls, right? They haven't everybody, they haven't on both sides. And what I would suggest to you is if your opponent is hitting the top of the net and they're trickling over or they're popping over right after hitting the net, don't you want that? And what I mean by that is don't you want your opponent to like risk the net? Don't you want them to go close to the net?
[00:08:42.680] - Speaker 1
I do. So you know, reframe it a little bit. Might help you with that one. But again it's just do you want to use your energy on that? Because I can tell you it's distracting if you watch any of Ben and Collins matches when a boy's a net it's super distracting for them.
[00:08:55.890] - Speaker 1
For Colin, his brain gets all mushy because of the snet ball. Probably not conducive to the best play. All right then there were several that had to do with how we interact with other players at the courts. 4% had to do with unsolicited advice. Then there were several in the other category, which are clicks players, not welcoming, better players, not wanting to play with them, bad partners, negative attitudes, taking things too seriously.
[00:09:17.180] - Speaker 1
That's a tougher one I gotta say. Because that one there that deals with personal interactions, right? That's not just you controlling you, right? Like net calls and how you deal with out balls. That's, I think you can reframe that in your own mind, right?
[00:09:28.960] - Speaker 1
You have more control over that process yourself. Cause it's all happening in your mind. This one has to do with how others are. Decisions that others are making in ways that others are choosing to interact with you I would suggest there a couple of things. One is you can use your agency, okay?
[00:09:48.710] - Speaker 1
And that that applies to the bad advice, applies to negative partners, things like that. Negative partners, bad attitudes. You can always decline to play. And we have a blog post on our website called no thank you. Go to the betterpickleball.com.
[00:10:00.590] - Speaker 1
type in no thank you in the search bar. I'm pretty sure you'll find it. If you don't send us an email, we'll figure out how to get that to you or get it so it can be found that way. But it has to do with applying your agency to um, to exercise your agency, I should say, to set boundaries, right. To protect yourself, really, from negative negativity that you shouldn't have to deal with.
[00:10:20.570] - Speaker 1
Right. When you're playing a sport like pickleball advice, same thing. I mean, you can decide how you want to deal with it. You can tell them to, you know, shut up if you want to. Or you can just like hear it polite, you know, if you want to be polite, you can just hear it.
[00:10:31.070] - Speaker 1
I'm not telling you to do it this way. I'm saying it has to be politer. But I. You can just receive it, right. And just be like appreciate it and just forget about it, right.
[00:10:37.310] - Speaker 1
Just put it out of your mind. That's up to you. Now the clicks players, not, not welcoming and better players, not wanting to play with someone, that's a more troubling and complicated thing. Frankly. It's an unfortunate way that our sport is headed.
[00:10:52.090] - Speaker 1
You know, I'm going to give you the answer that I gave last night, didn't ask me anything. The problem with that one, and this is what I tell players all the time, if everybody does that, that no one has anybody to play with. Because whoever the, let's say the three five won't play with a 30 and the 300 won't play with a two five, and the four won't play with the three five. Then who's playing with who? You know, someone has to break that chain, right?
[00:11:12.240] - Speaker 1
It always the better player at some point has to be willing to play with the not better player, right, for that to work. In other words, for there to be a game. And then why does the like, let's say the three five is able to play with four o's in their community? Because the four o's are open to it. But then that same three five isn't willing to play with the 30.
[00:11:30.730] - Speaker 1
A little shitty, don't you think? I mean a little crappy, right? I mean basically, like, I'm going to take advantage of the four zeros, Grace. Right. And playing with me, but I'm not going to extend the same grace, man.
[00:11:38.990] - Speaker 1
Probably not the best way to lead life, but that is an issue that. What I would suggest there is, is you can. For instance, I'm not very good at organizing games myself. I spend my time making podcasts and, and material for, for you, to help you. Um, but, like, if I wanted to play a game next week, I would make some phone calls, right, and I would reach out to some players.
[00:11:59.820] - Speaker 1
Um, some may say, no, I don't know, you know, and, uh, and, but enough would say, yes, I'm sure, to be able to get a game together and so be a little more proactive if you're having that issue. Um, don't just want to go. Don't just expect to drop into open plays. Um, and I. One day, maybe I'll tell you a long story about how my friend Tom DiCaprio and I got weaseled our way into the best group in, in our area back in the day.
[00:12:21.390] - Speaker 1
Uh, but there, you know, there's things you can do. But, but I would say just organize your groups, start some drilling groups with yourself and things like that, and you'll be able to, to find better pickleball. Just home grow. All right. Um, and then there's, um, a bunch of them had to do.
[00:12:36.940] - Speaker 1
I'm going to give you the big two in a second. But the, the balance of the ones that weren't the big two had to do with play experience. So 5% was about players using excessive spin. Now, frankly, I'm not really sure I understand the answer here. No.
[00:12:48.830] - Speaker 1
I mean, it's just not how we drafted it. I don't really understand the answer. Like, does that mean players, opponents using too much spin and it's too difficult, or players trying to use spin and making too many errors, but that was one. Then sandbagging, targeting, poaching, and lobbying were in the other category. I would suggest to you here, consider thinking about pickleball as a complex activity, because it is.
[00:13:13.950] - Speaker 1
Embrace that complexity. Right. Just say, okay, it is a complex activity. I enjoy that. It's complex.
[00:13:18.940] - Speaker 1
I welcome the complexity because that is what keeps me coming back to the sport. And so when you face somebody or when you have to deal with a situation that you haven't dealt with before or that's uncomfortable for you, go, great. You know, I did an episode, I think it was last week, about playing wordle, for instance, or, you know, I'm doing the crossword, sudoku, things like that. You know, there are times when I'm stumped, right? When I'm looking at a crossword clue or a wordle or a connection, I'm like, I'm not really sure that's the good stuff.
[00:13:44.760] - Speaker 1
Right. That's the stuff that's making the work in my mind and helping me think through these things as opposed to just, you know, blowing through answers or blowing through games without challenge. So whenever you deal with those things, consider them, rather than making them a pet peeve, consider them as a challenge, something to learn from, something to climb, climb, climb up top and conquer. And then the big two, I'll deal with them one at a time. One has to do with partner not coming to the naval zone line.
[00:14:10.310] - Speaker 1
That is. That can be very frustrating when you're playing. We have a video, I'm pretty sure on into pickle about this, that talks about a recommendation. So if you want to check that out, go to into pickle and. And search partner, not volley zone.
[00:14:24.400] - Speaker 1
And I. You should be able to find the video that way, actually, I'll put it in the show notes. I'll look for it while we're, while we're talking here. And see, make sure it's there. Pretty sure it's there.
[00:14:33.090] - Speaker 1
And then the other one is that I recommend is we had an episode, I think it was a week or two ago, that has about partner expectations. And. And it's a. Here we go. Yeah, it is.
[00:14:45.530] - Speaker 1
Partner staying back after their return. Use this tip. So there is one on there, and I'll include the link in the show notes. But you can find it directly, too, by just typing in to pickle. I n the number two, pickle, like the snack and the game we play.
[00:15:00.870] - Speaker 1
Just no, no balls. Just into pickle, partner staying back after their return. And then you'll find that one. Um, anyway, so the other thing is partner expectations, right? I mean, if you have a partner who plays a certain way, um, you know, set your expectations accordingly.
[00:15:14.820] - Speaker 1
I mean, there could be that they don't understand the game well enough. They're new, maybe they're injured and can't make it up. Uh, whatever it is, you know, just be more, you know, empathetic and gracious, and I think you'll feel better about the game. And then the biggest, 121 percent were bangers. That goes back to what I was saying earlier about embracing complexity.
[00:15:32.170] - Speaker 1
Right. Embracing the, uh, the fact that there are challenges in this game. And that's what keeps us coming back. If there. If it wasn't challenging.
[00:15:38.970] - Speaker 1
Why are you going to go back to the courts, right? You've already mastered it. What's the point? Um, now let me give you some overarching concepts that I wanted to share with you about uh, these pet peeves. Whenever you're dealing with something that is uh, occupying your mind, right?
[00:15:52.530] - Speaker 1
Let's start from this premise, right? Your mind has a limited amount of bandwidth, right? Doesn't matter how much it is, it could, you could be, you could have the most bandwidth of anybody in the world. It's still limited, right? You have x amount of bandwidth.
[00:16:03.860] - Speaker 1
If you allow that bandwidth to be occupied by things that are not directly relevant to what you're trying to do, they have to by definition take away from what you're trying to do. Okay? So let's say there's like, you have, you know, bandwidth of 1010 units of bandwidth, let's say, right, to, to give it a number. You know, if you have a pet peeve that really pisses you off, that really gets under your skin, it could be taking away four or five of those bands, right? Uh, even a small one like the, maybe the net thing bothers you or like the illegal server bothers you.
[00:16:38.110] - Speaker 1
It takes away one or two. Why, you know, why allow something that is peripheral, right to, to take away from the main, right to detract from the main. And what happens is when you have these distractions in your mind, these pet peeves that are distracting you, they are going to not allow you to play as well as you can because of the bandwidth, but they also potentially will undermine your enjoyment, undermine your experience, because you're not able to give your entire focus to the amazing experience that you're having on a pickleball court with your friends and with whatever's going on, because you're allowing your mind to wander to this pet peeve. So if one of these pet peeves resonates with you, or more than one, consider using the tips in this podcast, consider relistening to the podcast, maybe listen to it before you play next time and after you play next time again. I mean, it sounds repetitive, but that's the key.
[00:17:34.960] - Speaker 1
The key is to repeat some of these things, these cycles, right? Because if you have a pet peeve, that's a learned condition. That's a, that's something that you have acquired over time. You know, you see an illegal server, for instance, let's take a legal server, taking a legal server, it bothers you. So then you justify it being bothered bothering you.
[00:17:52.330] - Speaker 1
Maybe you talk to your friends about it. Maybe you ask a question about it because you want to make sure that it's illegal. And so you're really hammering this illegal thing. You know that. That every time that player comes on the court and you open play, you're like, I'm expecting illegal serve.
[00:18:03.450] - Speaker 1
So now you're looking for it, right. And you're perhaps you're starting to look for it in other. You're starting to see it in other places, whether it exists or nothing. And so now your mind starts going down this rabbit hole of this illegal serve, right? When did you maybe reframe it and ask yourself the question, is it really impacting the game I'm playing right now or not?
[00:18:21.650] - Speaker 1
And if the answer is, you know, it really isn't, then you can let it go and reacquire those bands that are being used for illegal serves and maybe apply them towards your block volley, your return to serve, you know, your game in general. You know? So. So, you know, think about it that way in terms of enjoyment, distraction, and then focus was the last overarching concept. Right.
[00:18:41.600] - Speaker 1
It's corollary of distraction. Right. Sorry. Or the. The, uh, the, uh, counterpoint.
[00:18:46.070] - Speaker 1
Right. So you have. If you're distracted, you can't be focused. So players want to be focused. I get that.
[00:18:50.520] - Speaker 1
Right. We want focus. We want 110%, all those things. Right. We want the mental game to be crystal clear.
[00:18:55.300] - Speaker 1
Consider removing a distraction. Right. And in other words, instead of increasing focus, like, I need to increase my focus. It's not that you need to increase your focus. You need to decrease your unfocused.
[00:19:05.760] - Speaker 1
You need to decrease your distractions. And I was reminded of that. I watched a series on Hulu called the Bear. It's a. I find it a fascinating series.
[00:19:14.290] - Speaker 1
And in the last episode, I just started season three. I don't think it's a spoiler. It's just a little piece of tape. But there's this concept in there about he's making a dish, and the chef says, basically add by subtracting. Essentially, or make it better by subtracting.
[00:19:30.170] - Speaker 1
So he has this little piece of tape that says subtract. And in life, a lot of times, the issues that we're facing, like, let's say lack of focus, isn't because we lack focus. It's because we're trying to focus on too many things at one time. Right. See what I'm saying?
[00:19:41.440] - Speaker 1
So it's not. I don't have enough focus. It's I have too many things inside my focus. So taking things away is actually the, actually, the way to get to the answer that you want, which is increased focus and removing pet peeves, is a good way of doing that. All right, so those are my overarching concepts of the pet peeves.
[00:19:59.190] - Speaker 1
Uh, I'm going to dive right into the rift because I know we're running a little bit long today, which, uh, uh, hopefully you're good with. I'm good with it if you're good with it. Uh, there was a lot to cover today, but I, I'm going to ask your help here. So we've been doing this podcast now, uh, for, I want to say it's going on four years, something like that, you know, and, and we're grateful to have you as listeners. We love.
[00:20:20.160] - Speaker 1
You know, uh, for me personally, it's a. It's an honor to be able to be here with you and to share these ideas with you and to have, um, have someone who listened to the tree falling in the forest, right. And, uh, someone who. For. For whom this matters, right.
[00:20:32.340] - Speaker 1
And that. And we take it seriously and we appreciate it. Um, that said, it has been a challenge to make this podcast available to other players. And I've asked you already to rate and review it, and you've done that. And I'm not going to ask you to do that here.
[00:20:45.900] - Speaker 1
What I want to ask you is, is there something that we can do that would make it easier for your friends to interact or find the podcast, uh, for players who, you know, and just think of yourself, right? Is there something about this podcast that, that made it maybe, like, it was an obstacle for you getting to it, right? Was it. Is it the name of the podcast? The, the.
[00:21:08.080] - Speaker 1
The, uh, the logo can be anything, something that you're like, you know what, I would have found this podcast earlier, but for. Or I would listen more if it were fill in the blank, right? Something that would make it easier even for you to interact with the podcast, let us know, because we, at the end of the day, you know, I love recording the podcast. And I think I said this before, I would record, record the podcast if there was five of you listening to this, right? And thankfully there's more than five, but, you know, because it's helpful to more players.
[00:21:35.090] - Speaker 1
But, but that's not, that's not the reason I do it. But that said, if it can help players, right? Why not allow the players the ability to access this podcast? So if there's something that, that you think we could do better, if there's something that you see that you've seen as an obstacle in your own experience or that limits your ability to interact with the podcast, you know, difficulty accessing it, whatever. Please let us know.
[00:21:58.610] - Speaker 1
You can send us an email therapy@betterpickleball.com I'll put it in the show notes, but really appreciate your willingness to do so and to help us continue to grow the podcast. And I will ask you to do this because I always ask you to do this end of every podcast, which is remember to share it with your friends because if you find value in this podcast, if you enjoy this podcast, if it helps you navigate the seas of pickleball, and hopefully a little bit of life makes it a little bit better, my guess is there's a friend of yours who could who would also benefit from listening to the podcast from time to time. That said, I hope to see you all on at the summit, and if you haven't done so yet, pickleballsummit.com. there's still tickets available for you, and like I said earlier, it's free and online, so I hope to see you there if I don't have a great week and I will see you at the next episode of Pickleball Therapy.
[00:22:46.590] - Speaker 1
Be well.