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Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,
the podcast dedicated to

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your pickleball improvement.

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My name is Tony Roig.

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I'm the host of this weekly podcast.

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It's a pleasure to be with you.

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This week we're going to cover a pretty
dense topic, but I think it's a topic that

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merits some conversation because it'll
help us with how we interpret information

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when we play and when our results come in.

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It's just another step in our learning
process of how to think about our

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results and our performance when we play.

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And in the RIF, I'm going to share with
you a story that happened today in a game

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this morning that I played
that plays along with that, and it gives

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you basically a war story that applies to
how we think about our

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performance when we play.

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As we dive into it,
if you've listened to the podcast for any

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amount of time, you've probably heard
me refer to the term therapist before.

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That is a term that applies to pickleball
players who have committed to their growth

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in the sport, in the mental side of the
sport, who listen to the podcast on a

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fairly regular basis, it doesn't have to
be every single week, but on a fairly

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regular basis, and who try and help other
players find their own path or find a way

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to move forward with the
mental part of the game.

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And so we're going to
be reaching out to you.

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If you're already a therapist, with some
new get together and

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some ideas that we have.

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And if you're not yet a therapist and want
to be a therapist, or want to know more

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about it, send me an email
at tony@betterpickleball.

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Com.
Put therapist in the subject line, please.

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That'll help me hone
in on what it's about.

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And then I will send you some additional
information, or myself or the team,

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someone will send you some additional
information about

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becoming a therapist, and then you can
make an informed decision as to whether

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or not something you want to do.

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Actually, two other piece of housekeeping.

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One is that if you're listening to this
podcast near its publication, We have

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our strategy clinic coming up next week.

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So if you want to check that out,
you can go to betterpickleball.

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com and check that out.

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And then one other piece is that there's
still a couple of spots left in our

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Tampa camp at the end of July,
if you're interested in that.

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That's at betterpickleball.
com as well.

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All right, let's talk about
how we process information.

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The reason this subject came up in my mind
as a good topic to discuss was I was

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having a conversation with my son, and if
you I don't think I've

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mentioned this before.

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My son Andrew actually helps with the
podcast, finalizing the podcast,

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getting it out and all like that.

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So he's probably listening to this right
now and cringing a little bit, but that's

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life, working with your father,
who's a podcaster, I guess.

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Anyway, so we were having a conversation
at the end of

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the Tennis French Open, talking about
results and a number of uneforced

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errors in a match and things like that.

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And it got me to thinking about how
we think about what's normal or

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expected in a contest, in any sports
contest, and in our framework is

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pickleball, our context is pickleball.

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And so I wanted to
broach that subject here.

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We talked about it a few...

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It might have been a month or so ago where
we talked about 85, 15,

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when you miss a shot.

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If you haven't heard that episode,
I highly recommend you check it out.

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It'll really help you when you miss shots
because it'll give you a

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better way of processing that.

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But it's also in our prepare
to play guide, that concept.

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So if you haven't gotten that yet,
you can go to betterpickleball.

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com I'll put a link in the show notes
and you can get a copy of the guide.

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Anyway, so the idea that
I want to talk about is Basically,

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how do we process the...

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How do we deal with the variability
in outcomes when we play pickleball?

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And what I mean by that is, let's take an
example of you're going to play

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Let's say your standard is to play,
let's just use eight games, right?

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So a regular pickleball session
for you is to play eight games.

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If you've listened to the podcast for any
amount of time, then over time, we

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expect that to be a 50/50 proposition.

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50/50 proposition is we're going to win
four games, we're going

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to lose four games.
But that's a big number.

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That's part of this deeper
understanding of how the numbers work.

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The 50 % is over a lifetime.

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It has to be a large sample size.

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Within that sample size, in other words,
within the specifics, we are going to have

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fluctuations in our results.

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Our results will range from
losing every match I know it

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sounds terrible, but it'll happen.

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Losing every single game, I should say,
and then to winning every single game.

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So you go from winning zero, losing eight,
all the way to winning eight, losing using

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zero, and then every combination in
between, seven and one, one and seven, six

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and two, five and three,
four and four sometimes.

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And that's just normal.

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In other words, it's not
necessarily what you want.

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I get that.

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It's not necessarily...

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I'm going to use the term expected here,
and I think there's two different

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ways of thinking about it, right?

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Two different ways of
using that word, I believe.

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One is, do I go into the
games expecting to lose?

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I don't think that's positive while you're
in the moment, while

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you're doing your thing.

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But when you're done with your session,
you've played your eight games.

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If you go 0-8, and I say to you, so zero
wins, eight losses, and I say to you,

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well, that's expected.

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And you respond by saying,
no, I don't expect that.

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Then I would submit to you, you're
not dealing in the real world.

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Because the real world is one in which
in the course of your sessions, of your

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playing multiple sessions,
you will, in fact, have sessions that are

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0 and 8, just like you will
have sessions that are 8 and 0.

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And there's really no difference between
those two, even though it seems like

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they're usually different because
one's 8 and 0 and one's 0 and 8.

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And the reason I say there's no difference
is because when you think about these

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things, it's helpful to think about
things along a bell curve in terms of

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statistics So literally,
picture a bell in your mind.

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If you haven't studied this in a long time
or never studied it in school,

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just imagine like a bell, and the bell
has an edge on the left side, then it goes

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up to the natural bell shape, comes
down, it has an edge on the right side.

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Your 8: 00 and 0: 00 and your 0:
00 and 8: 00 are on the extremes.

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Those are the least
likely things to happen.

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It does not mean that they're not normal
to happen, but they're the least

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likely ones They're going to happen.

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You're probably not going to spend your
pickleball career playing

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a bunch of 8: 00 sessions and a bunch of
08: 00 sessions and then

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averaging 4: 00 and 4: 00.

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It's more likely that you're going to
spend more time

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in the 5: 00 and 3: 00, 3: 00 and 5:
00, 6: 00 and 2: 00, 2: 00 and 6: 00.

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Those are going to be more common than the
8: 00, 08: 00, and also more

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common than the 7: 1, 1: 7, right?

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So that's the next one in.

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And then right in the middle of
your Bell Curve is four and four.

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And so basically, you think about your...

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You can understand that those aren't going
to be common, but that does not

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mean that they're not expected.

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And I think The reason this is important
is because when it invariably happens to

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you that you lose all of your games in a
session, you should not leave that session

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feeling bad about the session because
you understand that it is expected.

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And this is where the term
expected comes to help you now.

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I'm not going into the games expecting
to lose all my games that day.

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I'm not beginning the day.

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But when I'm looking backward, when I'm
looking in my rear view mirror, so to

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speak, to the day,
I understand, as a reasonable,

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sentient human being with a mind,
that an 0-8 day is not only

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possible, it's expected at some point.

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And so
when I'm feeling upset about going 0 and

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8, or going 1 and 7, or even 2 and 6, or
any number, then I go,

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Okay, but I expect that.

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And I understand that that's part of the
deal when I go out and

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play pickleball at level.

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And so we have this tool available to us
whenever we have a session that

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our gut reaction, our instinctual
reaction, is to feel bad about,

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because we lost more than we won.

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Because if you think about it,
you never have a problem when

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you win more than you lose.

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When you go 8 and 0,
that's divine justice.

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That's the way the
world is supposed to be.

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It's supposed to be 8, 0
or 7 and 1, right?

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But it's never supposed to be 1 and 7.

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It's never supposed to be 0 and 8.

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And what's interesting is if you think it
through, for you to go 8 and 0,

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chances are that somebody went 0 and
8 or 1 and 7 or something like that.

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So somebody else is on the other end
of that stick when you're 8 and 0.

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Our 8: 0.

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And so understanding that it's part and
parcel of the game that you love and the

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game that you play, I think, will help you
help reduce some of the angst that can

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creep in whenever we have those sessions.

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So keep that in mind.

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And have that in your back pocket so when
you invariably have those situations.

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And so now I want to talk about the Rif,
and the Rif is a game that happened this

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morning where it was a
really good game, at level.

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In a group.

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We were playing in a mixed
group, mixing around.

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This was a really tough match.

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Tough game, I should say.

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And me and my partner were down 6-10.

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If you
are coached by us at the Better Pickleball

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Team, then you know that one of the things
that we preach on the mechanical pillar is

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never let the net beat you, clear
the net, give yourself margins.

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At like eight, six them or something like
that, I was all about skimming the net And

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sure enough, backhand and
forehand dinks, both into the net.

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I'm just like, What is going on?

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So I was not happy with
those shots, right?

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But I understood that
there's still a game to play, right?

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And this is thinking about
it within a game now.

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I understand that inside of a game, there
are good moments, and there are

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moments that I wish were better.

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If I had everything perfect,
then I would never make mistakes.

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But
And understanding that there's going to be

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ups and downs, what you do is
you just keep pushing forward.

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And so we sided them out at 10: 06.
Then we served.

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I don't think we scored any points.

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They sided us out.

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We sided them out again.

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I believe that time we scored a
couple of points, got it to eight.

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Then they sided us again,
sided us out again.

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Then we sided them out again.

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And then we ended up winning 12: 10.

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I think we ran four points at that stage.

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And the key is, our
Our opponents had some...

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Over the course of the game,
they had some really spectacular shots.

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They had some bone-headed shots.

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We had some spectacular shots.

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We had some bone-headed shots.

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But if you understand that these ups and
downs are perfectly natural, including

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not making good decisions on my dinks
there where I was trying to do too much

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from bad situations,
and just allowing the game to continue to

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flow, it gives you the best a chance to...

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Even if you don't win the game,
sometimes you'll win the game.

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Sometimes I played another game that
we just started off really rough.

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We were down like 5: 02, I think.

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They were serving and it was like
misreturn, misfourth, a

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couple of miscommunications.

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It happens in rec play because
you're moving with new players.

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They don't understand
what you're going to do.

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You're not sure what they're going to do.

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So we're down 5: 0, and we
ended up losing that game 12-10.

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And I think we had at least
one game point at 10: 09.

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I think we got to 10: 09.

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But those games are exactly the same.

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One, we won 12: 10, one, we lost 12: 10.

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But they both had their ups and
downs, their natural progressions.

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The key is just to stay in
the moment as best you can.

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Stay in the next rally, stay in the
next rally, drop the prior rally.

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I'll tell you that today, I also saw a
couple of instances of carry-over, where a

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shot was missed and all of a sudden it was
carrying over into the next

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shot and the next shot.

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So what's one mistake, which can happen,
it's going to everybody, instead of one

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point, becomes three points or two points.

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So there's something else to
think about that I saw today.

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But the message I want you to understand,
big picture from what we talked about

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today is understanding the natural
spread of results, big picture.

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So 0 and 8, 8 and 0, 7 and 1, 1 and 7.

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That's big picture about your session.

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And then within the game, understanding
that within the game, there's also

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going to be the ups and downs.

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There's going to be the boneheaded shots
you're going to hit and also select.

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There's going to be mechanical errors
you're going to make, and there's also

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going to be that on the other side.

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And the better you're able to simply stay
in the rally, stay in the next

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shot you have to hit, you give yourself
the best chance of having the most success

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in that game, whether you
win or lose that game.

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So that's this week's podcast.

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I hope you enjoyed it.

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I know we went a little bit deep on the
math and that, but I really do think that

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the better that we can process our
information

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the better that we can understand
the data that our brain is trying to

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process, the more
empowered we are to positively engage with

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that information and
not let it drag us down.

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If you enjoyed this week's podcast,
please consider rating and reviewing it.

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I did not have time to check the reviews
before recording this one this week.

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I will check it next week.

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I know we haven't had a few in a minute on
Apple the last time I looked, so if you

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have a minute, again, appreciate it.

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It's not just...

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I like reading it, sure, I'm a human
being, but it also helps us reach other

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players who, just like you, may benefit
from this type of content but may not see

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it without the algorithm
feeding it to them.

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And ratings and reviews are
important in that regard.

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And as always, please consider sharing it
with your friends because remember, if you

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enjoy the podcast, they
probably will, too.

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I hope you have a great week, and I will
see you next week on the next

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Pickleball Therapy.
Be well.