Hello and welcome to pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to
your pickle improvement.
Hope you're having a great week.
Came back from July fourth up in New York.
Got to check out some Major League pickleball Action.
It was very fun.
Got to go see some art. That was amazing.
Obviously, the food, you're in New York. What's up?
It's a great place.
But back in the saddle this week with a podcast.
I think you're really going to enjoy that we're going to explore the root cause of
what I think is a lot of what happens to us on the pickleball court, and not just
us, what happens to other players so we can understand them better and have a
little more empathy for what's going on there.
And then in the Riff, I am going to talk about something that happened
at Major League pickleball.
It has to do with the distraction that I saw take place early in the match.
And just talk about distraction in general with this as our story.
That'll lock it down for us.
As we get into it, a couple of housekeeping notes
First of all, you may already know this, but we are partnered
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They are our equipment, paddle supplier partner, anything pickleball Ball, right?
You can get from pickleball central.
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They have a code that you can use, which is basically, pickleballcentral.
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Use that, not code, I'm sorry, the link.
Use that link, you're going to be able to access those discounts automatically.
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Let them know that we sent you there, and they're our partner as well,
so we use them as well.
Another housekeeping note, if you're a pickleball system or TPS
student or alumni, be on the look out.
You're going to receive an email that's going to come from us about a exciting
new program that we have on the TPS path.
It's basically TPS 2. 0.
It's the next step in that process.
So if you're ready for that and want to join that, be on the look on your emails
and you're going to get an email inviting you to a session where I'm going to
explain it to you and give you some additional coaching content, some
ways of thinking about the game, really deep stuff, interesting stuff.
We've been sharing it with some players recently on one-on-ones
and things like that.
And I think it's really making a difference.
It's really helping them frame out the sport in a more productive way that's
going to help them with their continuing development them in as pickleball players.
And then the last piece of housekeeping here that I have is about the book.
I wanted to give you an update on the book.
So the team, Jeff, one of your fellow players and listeners to the podcast and
just friend of ours, is helping us get this across the finish line.
He and David and Michelle and Alan and the whole team is in there
working on it, Penny.
And so we are making some really good progress in the final steps.
You would think the editing would be quick on a book like this, but it's not.
And I mean that in a very good way, meaning the final product is going to be
way better than the first and even second draft because of the feedback of the the
team able to really flesh out some concepts a little bit
better and present them in a way that's really going to make that
much more of a difference.
We're still planning for a launch this year, probably at the end
of third quarter here.
That's what we're hoping for.
So be on the lookout for that, and I'll keep on sharing you updates on that.
All right, so let's talk about the root cause of what I think is a lot of our
difficulty sometimes, or our difficulty in processing things on the court as well as
our opponents and friends, other players on the court.
And that premise, or that root cause, I should say, is insecurity.
Plane and simple. Just Security.
And how it manifestsends, and we're going to explore that.
But when you think about...
Let's talk first about us, right?
When we miss a shot, when we pop the ball up, when we miss a serve, when we
think that we lost the game for our partner, right?
Things like that.
Just think about that for a second, right?
Why do we feel the way we feel then?
Why do we react so negatively to what is objectively not that big of a deal?
When you miss a serve, is it great? No.
Do you want it? No.
Is it part of the deal? Yes.
Is it going to happen from time to time to human beings?
Yes. Do the pros miss their serves?
Yes.
Objectively, it's just not that big a deal.
But why do we sometimes feel so bad about it?
Why do we feel like the world's watching us?
The cameras are on, the spotlights are on us.
Everybody's pointing or things like that.
It's just insecurity. It's our insecurity.
Insecurity.
We feel that our worth in that moment is determined by the outcome of that
shot or the outcome of that match.
That's what says, you are a worthwhile member of our
group, or conversely, you're not.
You missed the shot.
You didn't perform, whatever it is.
Insecurity. And then also on how others behave.
Excuse me for one second here.
Apologies.
Had a little bit of allergies, you're kicking in a little bit.
But think about your opponents and your friends, right?
When you have those situations that escalate, an out call, right?
An out call, a lot of times, it's just insecurity by both sides.
And what I mean by that is you hit the ball, you think it was in, right?
You think they called it out wrongly.
But instead of just accepting the call and moving on, It's now it becomes this
personal debate between you and the other player or them and you,
whatever, whoever's debating it.
And it then escalates.
And I would submit to you, partly because of insecurity, right?
Because who cares?
I just did a video breakdown, and I wanted to try something different.
So I did... It's an unfiltered breakdown, literally.
I put a match on that I played in, but I played in a few weeks ago.
I don't remember the details of it, and I just analyzed it as I went, just cold, not
studying it, cutting it, things like that, right?
Very raw. I thought it was super cool.
I think it came out really well.
There's some really good teaching points in it.
But one of the things I noted in there was Actually, it was back-to-back rallies
where there was balls that were close.
It could have been in, could have been out.
But I reminded the viewer there.
I'm like, Guys, this is a wreck.
We're hanging out, we're playing, we're having fun with our friends, whatever.
Move on.
Just Give them the benefit of the doubt and just move on, which
is the rule anyway. But just carry on.
Let's go.
You'll see if you watch the video on Andrew Picker when it
drops, that's what we did.
There was a little bit of a couple of players who were maybe not newer, but
We want to play a little bit newer, so maybe a little more, but
we're just like, It's fine. It's no big deal.
Let's carry on.
It's just a better way of addressing those things and not letting them escalate.
But when you look at...
Another area that's very common is you have the area of
a player asking to play in another group.
So you're out there, you're playing with your friends and whatever, and then you
have someone who you don't know or someone from another court that you may know an
acquaintance or someone you've seen comes over and ask if they can join or if they
can put their paddle down or something like that.
That interaction is just boiling, it's simmering, I should
say, simmering with insecurity there.
So obviously, if you say, Yeah, of course.
If you come in and join us, then that insecurity is going to be fine
because it's not triggered.
But if you suggest that it's a closed group, or if you suggest that for some
reason no or whatever, the reaction is probably not going to be a good reaction.
And Why? Why not?
Insecurity.
Also, whenever you have a debate or a conversation about the way you play the
game, meaning someone on the court is doing something in
a way that another player doesn't think is how you do it.
And so there's a suggestion.
Let's assume the suggestion is absolutely correct, 100% correct, and no question
that it's incorrect, which isn't often the case.
But let's assume that that's correct advice being given.
A lot of times, the reaction to that advice is driven by insecurity
of the player receiving it.
And listen, you don't have to take advice from another player.
You can say, I'm not interested.
You don't have to receive it. That's fine.
If you have your reasons for not receiving it, that's great.
But if it's driven by insecurity, maybe that's worth exploring some.
Thinking about, maybe it's just insecurity.
And what's interesting is, insecurity applies to both men and women.
It's not specific to a group.
But I do think that it manifestsates more...
It may be felt more by the female player.
I'm not a female player, so I can't speak to that, but just based on
my observations anecdotally, whatever, they may be more aware of it, I guess.
Being not comfortable asking a thing or feeling bad about
themselves, about their play.
I have had feedback like that, right?
That leads me to this conclusion.
But I will tell you that I think for male players, the insecurity might actually be
more of an impediment because for male players, 10, in my
experience anyway, what I've seen is not to acknowledge the insecurity, not
not deal with it head-on.
So when you see a fight on the courts, it's...
I mean, women do fight on the courts.
I'm not saying that they're not fights, right?
But who fights more on the court?
And why, right?
And I'm going to submit to you, I think some of it anyway is insecurity, right?
As a guy, we don't want to feel like we're less than or we're being
We're challenged or we're being...
And that's also insecurity.
It's an interesting concept.
There's still something that I'm playing around in my mind in terms of trying
to articulate it and put it together.
Not articulate it because I'm doing that now, but put it together
in a more cohesive manner.
But I wanted to share with you because what I've been seeing, I've been
processing through that filter.
Is that insecurity? What about that one?
And a lot of times I'm finding the answer is yes, or more likely, yes.
And so what that helps me then with is empathy.
Because now, if I see a behavior and I go, You know what?
I can understand that behavior better than I could have had I not processed it.
Because if it's insecurity, then I'm not going to get upset at the person, right?
And I'll give you guys a quick story, right?
I'll muddle it up and up so there's...
I don't know how am I going to name names and stuff like that.
But basically, It's a situation where a group of players, another player wants
to come over and put the paddle in.
It's a closed group, and it becomes uncomfortable for the
player asking and for the other player.
The dynamic is then there's an exchange of ratings and all these other things.
And not criticizing any of the actors in this, it's a perfectly natural exchange
between sentient beings who don't know each other and they're trying to interact.
But when I thought about it, I go, I can't imagine the insecurity or the
feelings of insecurity of the player coming over to ask, particularly this
group, is a good group of players, whatever.
So it elevates the temperature is elevated in that situation already.
So when there's a little bit of a pushback or a question or
whatever, then it can devolve pretty quickly.
And when I think about it, I think, Okay, was that insecurity?
But the immediate answer is yes.
And then it becomes easier to diffuse the thinking about it, to not get
upset about the way it panned out because you understand the root cause.
Anyway, hopefully that'll help you with understanding yourself a little bit
better, Ask that question about yourself and ask your question about others.
All right, let's dive into the RIF.
So the RIF is something that happened during Major League pickleball,
and it happened in a match.
It was the Orlando squeeze against the Brooklyn pickleball Ball team.
It was a mixed doubles match.
It was Riley Newman, and I can't remember if it was Jackie or Jay Kalmata.
I can't remember which of the Kalmata sisters was on the team, but one of the
Kalmata sisters against Dylan Frazier and Samantha Parker.
What happened was this.
So it was early in the match or in the game.
I don't remember if it was like 1-0 or 1-1, something like that.
It was very early.
And Riley Newman hit an ernie, and it was close.
And the close wasn't stepping in the non-bolish.
The close was whether you hit it before or after it cleared the net.
So the rule, if you don't know what it is, you're not allowed to hit the ball
on the other side of the net, so you have to wait till it gets to your side of the
net, unless the ball bounces on your side first and then goes over the net.
So if it spins and goes back, which is very rare.
It happened to me one time, I got it on video.
I'll tell you that story another day.
But basically, that's the only exception to it.
So you have to wait till the ball crosses the net before you hit
it, the plane of the net. And it did look like it was...
And it was close on the replay. I'll explain in a second.
But, Reilly jumped and hit the ball very close to the net.
So was it on his side or on the other side?
It's a question.
No fault was called.
And so that would have been, and I believe it was a point or side-out.
I'm not sure.
Now, the captain of the team, Federico Saxer, excellent player in
his own right and everything.
He's sitting around the net.
Now, remember, he's not playing.
It's Dylan and Samantha are playing.
And he's not sure what happened.
So he asked the ref, which he's allowed to do an MLP as the captain.
There's nothing wrong with that question.
Then the ref said no or didn't see anything to call a fault.
And then Federico basically challenged it.
That's the way I saw the way it played out.
Federico challenges it.
So now we have a challenge of a potential net violation by Reilly Newman
early in a mixed doubles match.
And it was an It's an important mix-up as a match because, as I
recall, Atlanta was down 2-1.
So if they lose this one, they lose the whole match.
And so you could see Dylan and Samantha come off, but it's confusing.
The vibe is off. It's just weird.
The dynamic is weird.
Plus, you're challenging a call on Reilly Newman.
Now, you can challenge calls on anybody. I don't have a problem with that.
But you got to know your audience a little bit.
Read the room.
Riley is a Reilly feeds off of controversial interactions.
He feeds off of noise.
He loves it.
If you want to chatter with him, he'll eat that up.
He's going to enjoy that.
And it gives him energy.
And so what ends up happening is the call is there's no violation.
And it was very close, okay?
So it was like he was maybe four inches from the net.
I mean, he was very close to the net when he hit the shot, but
he hit it on his side. Very close.
Two frames of the ball, I think. Very close.
So they win that.
And so now what you've done is you have empowered, energized your opponent, right?
Because he likes it anyway, and then he wanted it on top of it.
So it's like, okay, it's a nightmare.
And we've disrupted Samantha and Dylan and their flow.
And MLP is one game to 11, and that's the whole game.
You don't get two games. You don't get time to recover.
And they end losing.
Now, did they lose because of that? I don't know.
I can't say that, right?
But I can say this.
Did that decision to challenge that call at one, zero, or one, one hurt them?
I believe the answer to that is yes, it hurt them.
Even if the call had been overturned, it interrupted what was happening,
their flow, and it wasn't worth the cost of doing it.
And the reason I I share that with you is not because you're going to be challenging
calls and replays and things like that in your game, but the same exact thing
happens on out-call disputes, on score disputes, or score challenges,
serve illegal serve disputes, any of those types of things.
Right?
Mvc violations like, Oh, did you step into the kitchen?
Right? Stuff like that.
All of those things interrupt what's happening.
There's a flow to what's happening, right?
And they just throw a monkey wrench into that.
Potentially impacting your play, distracting you as well, because now
you're thinking about, Wait a minute, that can't be right because...
Let's play with the scoring for a second.
That's a common one, right?
The score gets called out, whatever, and you think it's a different score.
First of all, our advice there is just to play on and fix it later, because
there's just no reason to stop a rally.
But okay, so you have a conversation and you're not 100% sure, but you're pretty
sure, and they're thinking they're pretty sure, and you're pretty
sure, and whatever.
And so you're like, Okay, let's play on then, whatever.
But now your brain is on this whole like, Wait a minute.
But I remember that John started serving the whole match.
So he's the even server.
And it was Peggy was serving from the thing.
And your brain is just so preoccupied with this stuff.
How are you hitting a ball?
How are you getting to the right spot?
How are you reading the How are you reading the rallies?
I don't know. No, because your brain's busy.
You got your brain working on some other stuff.
And I hate to tell you, but there's always so much that you can do up there without
taking for something else.
So you're removing your bandwidth from what's important, which is playing as
best you can, performing as best you can.
And I'm going to give you an even more important one in a second,
but that's important.
And you're devoting it to the John Surfer or the Peggy Surfer.
I don't remember exactly, but let me think about it a second.
Let me just play that all in my head.
Who cares? Whether it's 8,7 or 7,8.
Let's carry on.
You're not 100 %.
You can't make your case quickly or whatever.
They think it's the other score.
Who knows? Move on.
So there's the performance issue of having
your bandwidth taken over, but there's also an enjoyment
issue, which is even bigger.
Because now what you've done is now you've created this A tension
between you and your friends about something that who cares?
Alcohol, who cares?
Score thing, who cares?
And I've been guilty of this core thing. I'll tell you that.
I don't do it too often, but I have a couple of moments where
I question the score, ask a question, and then I feel bad.
And then I feel bad with my friend because I'm like, Why am I?
And then after the game, I'm always like, I'm sorry, whatever.
But why am I creating that situation?
So it just doesn't make sense to create that situation that's not really conducive
to why you're there anyway, which is to have a good time, hit some balls, move
around a little bit, perform the best you can.
So what I would suggest you is this.
Am I suggesting never to challenge anything?
No, not necessarily.
It's fine not to.
What I am suggesting to you is this.
Sway it appropriately.
Before you go out there and shoot off your mouth with some challenge
thing or whatever, process it for a second and say, Is it really worth it?
Is the juice worth the squeeze that I'm going to get out of this?
The answer is, I'm going to bet you 99% of the time, the answer is going to be no,
it's not worth the squeeze because there's really no...
You gameplay it a little bit, it's not good.
Now, if there's a question about the score and you can give your idea, that's fine.
If they're not sure and you're not sure and you're working through it,
that's a different conversation.
I'm talking about where they're like, Score is 9-8, and you're like, No, it's
not because back in 1973, here's what happened.
Something like that.
Again, you do you, but my recommendation would be both in terms of your performance
and your enjoyment, you're probably going to be better off not proceeding with that,
even if you're right, and even if it costs you the game, because at the end of
the day, is that why you're out there?
All right, that's this week's podcast.
I hope you enjoyed it.
It's a pleasure to be back in the seat giving this information to you.
As always, if you have a minute to rate and review it, please do so and
share with your friends, folks.
It'll make a difference in their game because hopefully, it's making
a difference in your game.
See, I did a little bit different there.
Have a great week, and I'll see you next time on the next episode
of Think About Therapy. Be well.