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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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I'm your host to the
weekly podcast, Tony Roig.

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It's a pleasure to be with you this week.

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This is another episode of our Walk & Talk
podcast versions,

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which are recorded while I walk.

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So if you hear some background
sounds, don't be surprised.

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I am not in the studio right now.

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Perhaps these
episodes will be an encouragement

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to you to get out and walk yourself.

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There is very...

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There are not many exercises or activities
that you can do, frankly, including

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playing pickleball,
that are better for your overall body

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health and your mental health than a walk.

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And I believe the latest research is
somewhere around 10 minutes of walking.

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It's a good amount of time.
If you can do a little longer, great.

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If all you can do is five
minutes, that's fine, too.

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But the benefits of walking
cannot be overstated.

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It's really good.

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Actually, I'll give you
two reasons to walk.

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One is that's how your body is designed.

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We're bipeds, and we are made to
engage in this motion.

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Again, pickleball, fantastic.
Love pickleball.

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But the movement of pickleball is not
our natural movement pattern.

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Walking is.
That's how we're designed.

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So you're lubricating all your joints.

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You're moving in the way
that your body is designed.

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On the mental side,
there are several benefits, but

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one benefit in particular is
your brain is on fire when you're walking.

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Your eyes or your visual
stimuli that you get when you're walking,

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so you're walking in a forward manner.

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That's how your brain is super designed to
receive that information and process it.

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And it's just like candy for your brain as
you walk forward and you see the stimuli

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tree hedge, garbage can,
the road coming at you.

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It's just tremendous for your brain.

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So try walking.

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It's a great thing for
you, generally speaking.

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Excuse me.

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And it'll improve your pickleball.

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Believe it or not.

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All right.

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Subject for today's podcast, in addition
to the mini soapbox walking presentation,

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is about different styles of play.

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What we're going to talk about today is
we're going to talk about

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the Sometimes the risk, I think, of
players who, or not players, but of

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content and messaging that you get out
there that talks about this is how you do

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it or that's how you do it
in terms of style of play.

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And so you'll see arguments made
in favor of the soft game.

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I'm a proponent of the soft game.

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But because I'm a proponent of the soft
game, doesn't mean that I'm

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an opponent of the hard game.

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The soft game and the hard game
are both parts of pickleball.

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They're both skill sets and strategies
that can be used to be

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successful in pickleball.

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But what happens is you'll see
something on Facebook or a YouTube video

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or something that
says, Pickleball is hard now.

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It's gotten hard in terms of pace.

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And that's a circular saw.

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That'll be interesting background noise.

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So basically, you'll see about the hard...

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The game becoming a hard game.

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So what happens is, pickleball players
then will start migrating

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toward that hard game, right?

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Towards, okay, I got to play hard.

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Soft is dead, hard is in.

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And that is a mistake because both hard
and soft strategies, approaches

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to pickleball, can be successful.

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And the
analogy/metaphore that I like to think

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about in terms of
the approach to pickleball that works

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is mixed martial arts or MMA.

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So MMA, if you're not familiar with it,
is a format of fight where you can

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almost do whatever you want.

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There's a few rules,
but within those rules, you can fight

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whatever style you want to fight.

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So if you're a wrestler, you can wrestle.

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If you're a
judo practitioner, you can try judo.

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If you're a jiu-jitsu, that's like martial
arts, where you subdue your

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opponents, chokes, and things
like that, you can do that.

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If you're a boxer, you can go in there
and just start whaling in your opponent.

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So you can do anything that you want, from
the hard arts, like

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karate, boxing, Muay Thai,
striking type of techniques,

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to the more soft style techniques.

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Jiu-jitsu, in my opinion, being one of the
most effective soft styles that

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you can use in mixed martial arts.

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So you can see a mixed martial arts
situation where you have a good boxer

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against a good jiu-jitsu practitioner.

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And in that situation, you're going to
have one of the fighters who is

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going to be throwing punches.

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They're going to basically be throwing big
punches at the other one,

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trying to knock them out.

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The other fighter is going to be
using jiu-jitsu techniques.

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That means they're going to be
closing the gap with the boxer.

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They're trying to get close to the boxer
to take away the boxer's range

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and then try to subdue them.

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I'm going to work through a little bit
more because I want you to see how that

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transitions toward
your pickleball strategy.

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So when you have a boxer against a
jiu-jitsu practitioner,

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what you have is you have one fighter
who is trying to keep distance

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from the other fighter,
and then using punches and perhaps

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kicks if they're a kickboxer.

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So they're using punches and kicks and
things like that to inflict damage

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on their their opponent, which
is what they do.

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That's the game that they're playing.

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So you have one who's keeping distance and
then trying to punch and kick and

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inflict their stress that way.

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You have the other fighter who has a
different strategy,

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totally different strategy.

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The jiu-jitsu fighter does not want
to keep distance.

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The jiu-jitsu fighter wants
to close the distance.

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The jiu-jitsu fighter is trying
to get in close, grapple.

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So basically, grab onto the boxer.

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And then once they grab onto the boxer,
they want to keep hold of the boxer.

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And then they work to
basically subdue the boxer.

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You can think about it like
a Python, like a constricting snake

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that grabs on to its prey and then
constricts the prey into submission.

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And then, well, in the Python's case,
into death, but into submission.

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That's what a jiu-jitsu practitioner
or a jiu-jitsu fighter will try and do.

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So in this ring, you have two fighters,
one with a certain strength,

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which is striking, and one with a
certain strength, which is submission.

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Each one has their own strategy, their own
way of coming at the fight,

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and their own approach to how they want
to fight the other fighter in that match.

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Pickleball is the same way.

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In pickleball, you can have a player
who is particularly good at the hard game.

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A lot of times, tennis
converts into pickleball.

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Their Their
first strategy that they use is hard.

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They come in and they're blasting balls at
everybody because that's what the tennis

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player instinctively knows
how to do from tennis.

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That's fine.
That's the boxer.

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Then you have other
pickleball practitioners who are

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softening, and those are
your jiu-jitsu fighters.

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Those are the players who want to submit,
who want to keep everything nice and tidy

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and grind, and then submit their
boxing or hard-hitting opponent.

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The point is that you can win
at pickleball in both ways.

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You can win as a
good jiu-jitsu practitioner with a soft

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game, or you can win as a good
hard game practitioner in the boxing.

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Now, I will tell you that once you get,
as you move up in level

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and look at the pro game, most pros have
both a good soft game

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and a good hard game,
because they'll mix the two depending on

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what's working in that moment
and their overall strategy.

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An example of the best
jiu-jitsu practitioners would be

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the Johns brothers, Ben and Colin.

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They're extremely disciplined
with their soft game approach,

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and that is primarily what they rely on.

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You'll see them drive a ball here and
there, but most of the time when they're

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driving balls, it's simply
trying to extend the rally.

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They're not driving balls
as their winning strategy.

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What they use as their strategy to win
is the soft game, primarily.

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They just grind out the rallies
and wait for a mistake from their

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opponent, either a ball that they can
attack from the air, a roll volley

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type of shot, or just a miss.

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If you look at a team that is a
hard-hitting team,

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you would look at Kwan Wong and Chr.
Alshon, for instance.

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Their strategy is the shake and bake.

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So they come in hard, hot, and
heavy, and they can have success.

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They beat the Johns Brothers in a
recent tournament in the finals.

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And so there is a place for that boxing
style to win in those tournaments.

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But just because we see
Chrishun and Kwaung

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win that match against the Johns brothers,
doesn't mean we all need to run out and

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learn how to hit the balls the way
that a kwaunguan goes, for instance.

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Because Kwaung has a very unique
style of play.

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It's very effective, and
it's no criticism of Kwaung.

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It's a fantastic way to play for him,
but it is extremely difficult to copy.

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The way he grips the paddle, the way that
he hits the ball, very unique,

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very effective for him.

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So we don't watch that match and then run
out and go, Okay, I need to learn how to

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hit everything hard because that's
what won that particular match.

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What I want you to walk away from or take
away from this is that you can

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be successful as a pickleball player
with different types of approaches.

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And what that allows you to do then is
to customize the game

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to your particular style.

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Meaning if you're
a better soft game player,

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you can keep working on your soft game
and improving your techniques in

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your soft game, and and have success.

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Now, if you want to add some
hard game to it, that's fine.

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That's great.
Keep layering.

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But don't feel that
you saw a Facebook post or a YouTube

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video or a friend said, Got to hit hard.

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And now all of a sudden, what you know how
to do, which is the jiu-jitsu soft game of

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pickleball, doesn't work and you need to
throw everything out the door because you

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can be very successful with that approach.

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And when you're playing with a soft game,
consider thinking about...

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I got a helicopter now, see?

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Got all sorts of surprises
for this podcast.

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When you're playing as a soft game player,
envision yourself as

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the jiu-jitsu fighter.

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Understand that you're using a technique
that is effective and successful in in a

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sport of pickleball, understand
what you're trying to do, which

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is to submit your opponent.

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Let's say you're playing against
some bangers, some hard hitters.

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Your objective is to slow them down,
is to get everything under control, and

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then force either a pop-up,
a miss into the net, or an outball.

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Because I'll tell you this, if you're
playing a good soft game

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and don't have good outball discipline,
that's going to be very difficult

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for you to really be a jiu-jitsu master
and to be able to submit

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from that style of play.

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But there is a submission approach
that is very effective in the sport

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of pickleball with the soft game.

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So keep working on your craft, understand
that there's different techniques and

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different approaches
that you can bring to bear in the sport,

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and you'll have more fun, but you'll also
be able to think more broadly

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about the sport of pickleball.
That's a diesel, by the way.

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So we've gone saw, diesel truck
next to my path, and helicopter.

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We have the trifecta.
It's almost the bingo card.

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But just Just remember that you can
come at pickleball different ways.

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Find the approach that works for you.

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Understand that it's multidisciplinarity,
meaning jiu-jitsu, boxing, wrestling.

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The better you get at the different areas,
the better you'll play

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a well-rounded game.

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But focus on the area that's more natural
to you, that's more maybe easier for you

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in terms of your personality and
how you like to play the game.

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Get really good at that.

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Understand that you can win a ton
of games from that solid foundation.

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And then from there, you can grow.
You can expand.

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You can add a little boxing.

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You can add a little wrestling, maybe
even a little judo into your game.

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So that's this week's episode of
the Pickleball Therapy podcast.

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Hope you enjoyed the podcast.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, as always,
consider sharing it with your friends,

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because if you enjoy the podcast,
they probably will, too.

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I hope to see you all at
the next episode next week.

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In the meantime, be well.