Hello, and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball
improvement with a focus on your pickleball mind.
I'm your host of this weekly podcast, Tony Roig.
It's a pleasure to be with you.
As we get into the podcast, we're gonna be continuing the conversation, I should say,
from last week's episode where we started dealing with this idea of
of expect setting expectations, specifically regarding errors that we're
gonna make when we play, you know, missed shots, so that we can deal with them
in a healthier, more positive way.
This week, we're gonna continue that conversation based on,
some follow-up that I had with a local player who I had these kind of
conversations with, and he, pushes me in certain ways and in a positive way.
You know, pushes me to think about it further.
And also, presents me with ways of thinking that I recognize as
being common for players out there.
And so I wanna address that in this week's podcast to drive home the conversation
we're having last week about setting reasonable expectations.
Before we dive into the podcast, I wanted to, give a shout out.
Appreciate the, reviews that you all leave on on YouTube as well as,
in the podcast platforms.
This 1 comes from Thomas and Dennis.
Alongside it, positive vibrations.
Always a pleasure to listen.
I'll take it to my matches today.
Appreciate the shout out, and, keep them coming.
You know, that we like getting them.
Just, you know, that's reality. Right?
That's that's the truth.
And, but it also helps other players, reach it, not just because they get to see
the review and make a decision for themselves, but also
because the algorithm.
You know, we live in a world of algorithms, and the algorithm will feed
information based on, how popular something is or how
how much interaction there is.
So the more interaction there is with a piece of content, the more
it gets pushed out there.
That's just how it everything's built.
So, you know, we appreciate you going in and taking the time to review
the podcast or leave a comment.
It helps us reach other players. Alright.
Let's dive into the, topic for this week, and what I want what
I encourage you to do is if you did not listen to the podcast last week about
what's a 15% Volley, or if you don't really remember it or
don't really you're not really sure, highly recommend you
check that 1 out first.
I'm gonna summarize it here, but it's not this podcast will not be as meaningful to
you if you don't really grasp the concepts from the prior podcast,
that have to do with the, 15% Volley.
Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to figure out what's the best way
for us to approach the invariable situation where we miss a shot.
And we've been using the last time we used the volley, I'll keep on
using that that, framing here.
But what how do we deal with with how do we react
to situation during a game when we miss a volley, even an easy 1, into the
net, or out, you know, long or wide.
So we miss a shot that we, quote unquote, should otherwise not miss.
How do we approach that?
So in that 15% Volley, we talked about that, and and went into that in-depth.
And what happened is is I I play locally with,
you know, in a few groups, but David, David p is a good friend of mine here
locally, and I get to play with him, you know, a few times a month.
And we you know, I've I've known him for a long time, and we have a good
relationship, and I I banter with him about, about, you know,
when he gets on himself about missing and things like that.
And so, I believe over the years, we've had a, positive I've I've been able to to
to, be of help to him in terms of his personal
growth as a player, and I think he's enjoying the sport more and
just, you know, like all of us. Right?
Just proceeding as a human being and evolving as a human being.
And so we were, you know, while I was developing this idea
of the the missed, shot and how to deal with it, the 8 8 to 15 percent idea.
And so I shared that with him during 1 of our recent sessions together,
and he responded by, actually, he he took it home, you know, thought about it.
He's he he likes thinking about things, including pickleball, and so he took it
home with him, and then next time I saw him, he said, I've been
thinking about, the 15%.
And, you know, basically, like, it threw me basically what's
what appears to be a curve ball. Okay?
At first, it appears to be a curve ball, and it is fair to
hear this and I'll explain in a second, but it's fair to hear this and
say, okay, that makes sense. Right?
I I can do that.
But when you really start breaking it down, it it doesn't work.
The the curveball doesn't work, and you cut your back to the 15% being,
a good way of approaching the game.
So the curveball is this.
And we're using 15, same as last time.
So 15 out of a 100 volleys are gonna be missed, 85 will be successful.
So 15 is our average error rate.
And the curveball is I can do better than my average.
Right?
Meaning that in this game right now, I can do better than 15 errors per game.
And then the idea here is you basically talk yourself into this concept
that if I just focus better or if I just, you know, execute better, if
I move better, whatever it is, right, I can overcome my expected
average, my expected miss ratio, the 15 that we've been using.
In other words, I could do better than that and the
the the the reality though is that the 15, by its very nature,
is something that cannot be fixed by you in the current moment.
And you'll understand that as we work through this, but
it's it's something that you cannot fix by definition because the 15 is baked into
yourself as a player it's baked into your humanity.
You know there's there's several items or I'm calling them items right now but
obstacles if you will that will arise during a game that will impact your
your results negatively.
Things like losing focus.
Think about just misjudging the flight of a ball as it traveled towards
you before you hit it. Right?
So the ball's traveling your way.
There's a little bit of wind or maybe you you misread the angle of the shot with the
way it's traveling, the amount of energy it has, how fast it's coming to
you, all those sorts of things. You know?
And if you really step back for a second, let's let's step back
for a second from this.
Think of how amazing it is that you are able to
figure out the expected point in the universe where a ball is
going to be sometime in the future and get your paddle around to hit that
ball at around the time that the ball is there.
I mean, that's just kind of crazy, right, that I can actually do that.
But within that, there's baked in some error.
Right?
Some some margin for error that you're gonna commit because you're
gonna just misjudge the ball.
You're gonna swing the paddle in the wrong trajectory.
You're gonna swing the paddle a little too late.
You're gonna maybe stumble a little bit as you're moving.
All those sorts of things.
All those obstacles that are natural that are inherent in your nature as a fallible,
human being that is who is subject to variability and how you do things as you
go through your day and how you go through a pickleball game.
And so these obstacles or these items that will naturally arise as part of you being
a human being are what create the 15%.
You know, the these are the obstacles, these are the reasons why you cannot
reasonably say the next game I play, I will not miss a single shot.
Imagine that.
Imagine saying to yourself, the next game I play, I am not gonna miss a single shot.
I mean, it sounds crazy when you when you think of when you hear it, right?
That doesn't make any sense.
That's not possible, and that's because you're a human being
and you have, again, items or obstacles that will arise naturally, and those are
the items that by by extension create that 15%.
And those items are again unavoidable.
So if the items are unavoidable and the items create the 15% or
whatever the number is. Right?
Remember from last time, it might be 20%, it might be 10%.
If the if the items or the obstacles are unavoidable
and they generate the percentage, then that means that the percentage is
unavoidable by extension. Okay?
And I'm going to talk about a couple more more topics here to to to complete the
picture here, but the idea that I can that I can best my average
is is a fallacy.
And what happens is, if I use that thinking, then I
I I I have I have not avoid, but I sidestep or I I don't get the benefit of
the thought processes that we went over in the last episode.
The benefits of when I miss a shot, just being able to say, okay.
I mean, I'm not excited about it, but I realized that that mistake that I made,
is simply part and parcel of the overall picture of me as a pickleball
player no matter how good I get.
And so it's okay for me to have missed that shot.
So we sidestep that benefit by saying to ourselves, no.
No. Not this game though.
Right? Not this game.
This game, I shouldn't have missed it because this game, I'm going to do better
than my expected, number, which, again, does like, if it's
expected, then it you you can't get away from it.
Right? Because you're expecting it.
So and you can set the number however you want, and I'm gonna talk about that more
in a second because you can reduce the number.
You can get it down from whatever your number is now to a different number.
But at the end of the day, recognize that you're always gonna have a number, and how
you decide to react to the missed Volley relative to that number is going to be
relevant to, how you feel and also just dealing in the real world.
So there's a couple more points that I wanna I wanna get to in a second, but
before I do, I've mentioned this last time, and I'll I'll I'm gonna tell you
about it again because we're in the season still.
We have some really, easy ways to enter into the
WeArePickleball Academy right now.
CJ and the folks at the Better Pickleball Coaching team have put together some
really nice packages on the Better Pickleball Academy.
So if you're if you wanna check out what we have in the better pickleball academy,
get yourself out of the, YouTube algorithm sending you the videos that
may or may not help you.
And I will tell you the percentage wise, you know, the very low percentage that a
video that you get on YouTube is actually gonna help you.
But if you're tired of that stuff, you wanna check out the academy,
now is a great time. Just go to betterpickleball.
com and check out what's going on, what they got for you there.
Oh, 1 more thing before I get into these notes.
It was kind of a funny timing.
So this morning before I recorded this podcast, I was, making some eggs.
I was I was, whipping some eggs to scramble them.
And I, I went to grab I put salt in them and I went to grab the pepper.
And when I went when I reached up to grab the peppers, I came back down, I
knocked the glass over, like, for real.
Locked the glass over, you know, busted the egg, spilled all over the place.
And that yeah.
Very apropos given the subject of last week's podcast and this week's
podcast, which is human error.
Now, you know, was I happy that I broke the glass?
Of course not.
But I had the benefit of I was I had already been thinking about
the content of this podcast, and I had written out the article that
goes along with this podcast.
And, and it's interesting that, you know, after I wrote that, I go in and I knocked
this glass over, eggs spill out, they go between the cabinet and
the oven, they slide.
I mean, it's just a it's, you know, it's a mess, but it's just part and
parcel of being a human being.
Like, human beings make those kinds of mistakes.
I brought my arm down and didn't, you know, see the glass out of the corner of
my eyewear glasses too, so I didn't see it out of the periphery and I
knocked it and it fell over. Life.
Right? It's no different than playing pickleball.
And that's 1 of the beauties of of, and you've heard me say this before probably,
but that's 1 of the beauties of our sport is if you use it as a canvas
for yourself, for your personal growth, for your development as a human being, you
can grow in ways that you know are are not on the pickleball court.
You know, that help you just enjoy a better life.
So the next time you knock over a glass and spill eggs all over the place, you
just go, well, that's just my 15% or 10% or whatever percentage
you like for yourself.
So, anyway, I thought that was, the timing of it could not have been better.
Alright.
2 more notes that I wanna talk about on this subject, to wrap it, up for you.
1 is we've been talking 15%. Right?
And that's just a placeholder for our our conversation so that, you know, they'll
shorthand for us to have this conversation.
As I mentioned last time, you know, your number, the number for many of us
is likely higher than excuse me.
Like likely higher than 15%.
Just because that's just human nature again.
No no big deal. It's just a number.
Right? But it's it's higher.
Right? For for many of us.
So, and that's okay.
Nothing wrong with that.
You can you can reduce the number over the long term.
In other words, you can work on your game.
You could there are techniques to, become, to to increase your focus when you play.
You're never gonna get the 100% focus. Not a thing.
But you can definitely increase your focus.
You can decrease your distraction, which by extension increases your focus.
Right?
So if I am less distracted when I play, I'm more focused because I'm not using my
mental bandwidth on distracting thoughts like what's the score in the middle of a
rally when it doesn't matter while I'm in the rally?
Or, you know, getting upset about a line call and then having that bleed
over or even you miss a Volley. Right?
You're not using the technique that we're that we've talked about last week and this
week in terms of accepting it as just being part and partial of your game.
So now you're you're you're you're just, you know, you're you're, hyper focused on
the you're obsessing about the missed volley and and and, oh my god, I
can't believe I missed the volley.
And now you missed the next 2 shots because of it.
It happens all the time.
So you can improve your focus, when you play with these techniques and
with, you know, working on your mental game.
You can improve your shots for sure by working on your shots, by practicing, by
drilling, by, even by playing some but more by practicing by drilling,
you can improve your shots.
If you understand, what goes into your shots, like shot
variability, and removing variables, all sorts of
there's all sorts of ways to reduce your percentage.
That said, at the end of the day, you will have a percentage that is higher than 0%.
There is no 0% error rate.
Not even the pros have a 0% error rate.
So that is impossible.
And this leads to the second point, which is that you again, you can work it down,
but no matter what, you're gonna have a number.
So even if you were able to squeeze your rate down to whatever number you want, and
I'm gonna use 12% here because that's the number my friend David p gave to me.
He keeps on saying, I'm gonna I'm gonna get it to 12 today.
But even if you go from 15 to 12, doesn't change what we talked about last
time because you're still gonna miss a volley.
Right?
I mean, we all agreed to that last time that you're gonna miss shots.
So when you missed that Volley, now, okay, it's not a 15% Volley anymore.
It's a what? It's a just a 12% Volley.
But the the the the reaction to it, how you interpret what
happened is identical, whether it's a 15% Volley, a 12% Volley, or even a 2% Volley.
When you miss the shot, it is within the expected, ratio of your expected error
rate, no matter what that rate is.
So it becomes basically, you come back to the same analysis here.
And so, you know, you the idea that I'm going to
play better than my average fails because whatever whatever you end up doing is
gonna be essentially your average for that game.
Right? It's gonna be your rate for that game.
So when you miss the shot, you still come back to that simply 1 of the,
shots that goes into the category of my normal error rate as a human being.
And when you do that, you don't get as upset about missing the shot.
You don't, potentially spiral and obsess about the missed shot.
You accept it as just being part and parcel of the big picture, which gives you
a healthier perspective and grounds you in reality.
Because that's another thing that's, I think, really important when you think
about how you approach the mental part of the game is not allowing yourself to get
lost in some hypothetical fantasy world of, in this case, never
missing a volley when you play pick a bone.
So, again, if you haven't if you did not have a chance to listen to the
last podcast, check that 1 out.
Listen to this 1 again.
This concept of 15% or 20% or 12% error rate will really, really help you in
your play because missing shots is gonna happen every single time that you
get out of down the pickleball court.
Obsessing about missed shots is a common distraction.
I see it all the time.
In fact, I've called timeouts in tournaments when I've seen my partner get
distracted over a missed shot because I know what's gonna happen.
I've seen it in tournament play when we do game studies, you know, in pro matches
where you'll see they'll miss a shot and they'll miss the next 2 shots or 1 or 2
shots, maybe 3 because, of the it's a carryover effect that happens.
So the better you're able to disassociate the next rally from the air
that you just made, which you're gonna make, by using techniques like this 1.
And this is a very powerful 1 because it's grounded in reality.
It's not just you, you know, like, tricking yourself into,
you know, moving on here.
You're moving on because you're like, yeah, that's just,
yeah, I'm a human being. It's perfectly fine.
Just like me spilling the eggs earlier.
So you're able to then, move on from rally to rally much much
easier when you make the silly mistakes, which again, unfortunately, or
fortunately, I would say, you will make as a human being.
So I highly recommend checking out this podcast in the prior podcast.
Again, in the future, Bookmark them.
Put it on your calendar because these concepts, if if they if if you if if they
sink in deep inside you, you're gonna feel way better the next time that
you spill eggs on your counter.
I gotta go clean them now.
I gotta clean up the cabinet between the oven and the, and the cabinet.
But next time you spill those eggs, you're not going to be as upset about it
because it's just part of the deal. All right.
I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast.
As I mentioned earlier, if you have a minute to, rate, review, or comment on
the podcast, really appreciate that.
And as always, please consider sharing this podcast with your friends who play
pickleball, particularly because of, they enjoy the, if you enjoy the podcast,
they probably will have a great week and we'll see you on the next
episode of pickleball therapy.