Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
[00:00:00.000] - Speaker 1
Hello, and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. Hope you're having a great week. This week we got the regular section is going to be about the game that you choose to play. It's really helpful to think about it that way because the game that you choose to play helps you frame how you deal with adversity when you're playing. We're going to focus on losses, but you can apply the same thought process to any part of the game that you're feeling adverse about. So we're going to talk about that. And then in the RIF, I'm going to talk about how to stop being a 12-year-old. And this is a personal story that happened recently to me. So that's how the RIF is supposed to be when I have these stories for you. So I'm going to share it with you in the RIF. If we have not met before, I'm your host, Tony Roig. I am a master teaching professional as well as a senior professional pickleball player. I've dedicated the last roughly six plus years of my life to helping pickleball players improve in general, and the last four years really focused on the mental part of the game, including being the host of this podcast, which is dedicated to your pickleball mind, as I say at the beginning.
[00:01:11.240] - Speaker 1
It's called Pickleball Therapy for a Reason, because here's the thing, folks. There is... Pickleball is beautiful. Pickleball is amazing. I've been able to play the last two days and reconnected with a lot of why I love this sport with some friends and just really nice matches, really nice, just beautiful sport, right? And But I would say that the biggest benefit of Pickleball is not playing, and it's not just playing, I should say, and not the body, even though the body is important. I would suggest you that the biggest benefit of pickleball is actually with your mind, actually with your happiness as a human being and just better quality of life, which comes from the mind. The better you're able to master the mental part of a pickleball, it's not just that you'll play better, which is great. We love it. Let's play better. But the bigger picture is you'll feel better, and you'll just be a happier human being, which is amazing. Anyway, so that's my passion, and I hope to be able to share that with you through this podcast, continue to share through this podcast. This podcast is brought to you ad-free by the BetterpickleballAcademy.
[00:02:18.240] - Speaker 1
BetterpickleballAcademy has courses designed around pickleball, including a fantastic mental course, and they're by my mentor in this process and a great thinker about the mental part of sport. Coach Peter Scales, Coach Pete, as he likes to be referred to, he devised the concept Complete Learn Honor, which is a really good framework for understanding pickleball in perspective. So check out his course as well as a lot of other fantastic courses in there. Good time to continue working on your game inside the Better Pickleball Academy. Have a shout out here from Adam on the Pickleball Therapy YouTube channel. Adam, thank you very much for sharing your experience, not just your experience, but also the one of your from your new friend at Pickleball. If you didn't know, we do have a YouTube channel on Pickleball Therapy on YouTube. If you haven't been on there yet, make sure you check it out. If you go on there, subscribe to the channel. The bigger the channel gets, the more it reaches other players. Adam says, Such content, Tony, Pickleball Therapy, is for people who want a more resilient perspective. I love that, resilient perspective. Great way of framing it, Adam.
[00:03:22.160] - Speaker 1
On the sport we love and the framework it provides for a more satisfying life. What I just say? Maybe I was influenced by reading that earlier. I'm not sure, but that's what we're talking about. It's quality of life, right? A few days ago, I met a guy who said that Pickable helped him navigate both a divorce and recovery from substance abuse. Now, that is some powerful mojo. Agreed. I mean, Pickable is beautiful. What happens with Pickable, and I'll pivot now to the main point of this podcast, or the main section of this podcast, is that we get lost. We lose perspective. If you can keep a perspective, I'm going to suggest this to you. There is no reason for any person ever to stop playing pickleball other than, I physically cannot play pickleball anymore. You know, literally, like I can't get on the court. And I would suggest, even then, there's ways to play pickleball. I played in the hybrid during the US Open, and I learned afterwards that one of the players is a player who, at that point in her life, was not able to walk because I believe it was a knee replacement or a double knee replacement.
[00:04:26.090] - Speaker 1
It was something that basically she's normally able to walk, right? So she normally can walk, but she could not play pickleball standing. So what did she do? She actually played pickleball in a wheelchair for the open, right? She wanted to compete. She wanted to be a part of it. And that's allowed, right? And so, again, you don't want to... It's too much to play from a physical standpoint, that's fine. But there's a lot of ways to engage with the sport. And I would suggest to you that there's no reason a player would ever leave pickleball as long as that player has a good perspective on the sport that they play. Now, this concept we're going to be talking about here is a little bit of tough love. I'm going to have to be a little bit tough with you in a nice way, in a carry way. But it is tough love because what we're going to be talking about, the way we're going to frame this, is that this is a sport that you have voluntarily chosen to play. Very important, right? This is not something that you do to feed your family, something that you do to stay alive, if you will.
[00:05:32.320] - Speaker 1
I mean, there's none of that. This is entirely voluntary. You choose to play pickle ball, and I'm glad you do. I mean, that's fantastic. But the reason that's important is because when you play this sport, there are going to be times that is going to feel bad, potentially, without the right perspective. When we're talking about that, we're always talking about losses, because no one ever feels bad winning. It's not like, come off the court winning and you're upset. No, it's upset when we're losing. We're talking that some this last few weeks, but I want to give you another way of thinking about it, which is that if you choose to play pickleball, which Again, I'm glad you do. You must accept the reality that you will, in fact, lose games. That is not It's not just a possibility, it's a certainty. It's got to be a reality. I want you to think about that not as a negative. That's where the perspective thing comes in. It's not a negative. That there's a chance of loss. It's not a negative that you will lose games because you have chosen to play a sport that has a score, that has a winner, and that has a loser at the end of every game.
[00:07:08.030] - Speaker 1
That is how this sport is constructed. There are other things that you can do in life that don't involve winning and losing. For instance, you could take up running. Now, in theory, you could do competitive running, too. But forgetting about that for a second, you could run. You go out there, run two miles, run whatever you want to run, just do your thing. There's nothing wrong with that. That's fantastic. And runners are very happy doing what they do. You can go out there and you can toss frisbee with your friend. You can play catch. You can play things like Kedema, where you just hit the ball around, no scoring. All those sorts of things. There's plenty of things that you could do that don't necessarily involve a competition where there's tracking of score and an ultimate winner. And the thing about pickle ball, and I would I'll tell you that the way that pickleball is structured is part of what makes it so appealing. I think we would still have some fun if we went out there and just hit the ball around. It'd be fine. But you know how it is. At some point, someone would say, Okay, let's count, because it's more interesting for us as humans.
[00:08:18.740] - Speaker 1
I mean, even when I drill with friends, we'll hit some balls, and then sometimes we'll just go like, Okay, let's play to 11 on dinking only or something. We'll have some rules in effect because that's how our brains are wired, and we enjoy that. The only downside of keeping score is if you feel bad the times that you're not the winner in that situation. But if you frame it out right and you say, Wait a minute, that's just part of what I signed up for. That's part of this deal. It's not like you're going into this with your eyes closed, and you don't know that we keep score, and you don't know that there's a winner and a loser. Then you take that idea that it's a voluntary activity, and you marry that with... You can come at it with a bunch of different ways, but let's just take one. You come at it with a You come at it from a place of empathy. There's a really good word called sonder. Actually, I'm going to look it up while we're talking here. I'm going to give you the full definition in a second. But it's a fantastic word, and it basically talks about about respecting others.
[00:09:33.470] - Speaker 1
The definition of sonder is this, S-O-N-D-E-R. The feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one's own. Basically, they are the central character of their show, of their movie, of their life, the same way you are in yours. When you think that way, you come into this, I'm playing a game that has a winner and a loser. I'm going to recognize saunder. I'm going to acknowledge Sonder as a thing, which means I want to win, but so does my opponent, who oftentimes is not merely an opponent. More often than not, your opponent is your friend, sometimes a very dear friend, sometimes a pickle friend. There's not mutually exclusive. You're not a pickleball friend, it's a dear friend, too. But sometimes it's just someone you play pickleball. That's fine. They're still your friend. Other times, they're a dear friend. Now, if you come at it from this empathetic, saunder place, right, vantage, then Your loss is their what? Is their win. Just like their loss is your win. And so even though it's a zero zero sum game, if you can remove the negative, meaning if you can remove the negative feeling and latch on, developing something as I'm talking here, but I think it works pretty good.
[00:11:14.320] - Speaker 1
So think about it this way. Winning is a positive. People feel good when they win. That's great. Players feel positive when they win. What if we can tap into the positive of our friend. In other words, tap into the happiness that they feel and the happiness that we can feel for them without getting dragged down by a negative on our side. We're changing the paradigm from what normally should be a zero sum situation. In a purely abstract logical sense, it's zero sum because there's a winner and a loser. By definition, that means zero sum. But if we can actually tap into their happiness, into their positive, we then remove the zero sum, and it becomes essentially a win-win. You could say, Okay, they won more than I won. That's fine, because yours is derivative. You have a derivative positive. Theirs is the pure positive. You want to think about it that way. They have the uncut positive, and yours is cut a little bit because you're taking it from them a little You're receiving it from them, but it's still a positive. In that situation, you take away the negativity of the loss and you gain the positivity of the win.
[00:12:45.950] - Speaker 1
But whether you want to go that far with me or not, the more I think about it, the more I like it. But whether you want to go that far with me or not, give some thought to the reality that you have signed up for. The reality that you play a game with a winner or a loser, where not only is there a chance you're going to lose, but you will, in fact, lose games. Given the fact that you signed up for that, then when the loss happens, don't be surprised, don't be upset, don't be frustrated by it, don't feel down by it. It's simply part and parcel of the game that you love and the game that you have signed up to play. So hopefully that helps you when you're out there. If you can marry it with the idea of celebrating your friend and celebrating their win and being happy for them and understanding that your loss was a condition to their win, maybe that'll help you out. Then you go to the positive sum, zero sum thing that I just developed during this podcast. You're seeing it live. This is also what you made some time, folks.
[00:13:56.310] - Speaker 1
These ideas, you're talking, you're thinking, you're writing reading, and then in those processes, these things develop. I have to make a note about that zero sum idea right before we're done here because I'm going to keep developing that. All right, in the RIF, I'm going to talk about Stop acting like a 12-year-old. I think you like my story I'm going to share with you. But before I do, again, Better Pickable Academy. I got to mention it one more time. Better Pickable Academy. Here's the thing about the academy is that the courses in, they're designed to cover specific areas. Actually, we were very surprised because we did a really... I think it's a really good course on lob coverage and defense. Basically, it's like, if you're getting lobbed, this will tell you how not to get lobbed, or not how not to get lobbed, but how to reduce the chance of lobbying because there's a way to squeeze it, and then how to cover when you get lobbed, how to cover safely and effectively and different techniques to do it and stuff like that. What's interesting about lobbying is... What's interesting is that so far, it's crickets, right?
[00:14:57.740] - Speaker 1
It doesn't seem to be generating interest with players, Which is surprising because I know a lot of you deal with lobs all the time. And speaking with CJ about it, it seems like it's a little bit of... Maybe players think that lobs are easy, right? Basically, I just need somebody to point me in a little bit of the right direction without realizing the complexity of the subject. Because I got to tell you, when I got done with that course, 14 videos. I think it was 14. 14 videos. It's a lot of content because there's all sorts of variables you got to deal with on covering logs. Ideally, we want to reduce them first. If we can reduce them, let's do that. There's all that in there. But anyway, there's really good courses in the academy. Whenever you interact with us on anything like that, remember that we always have a money-back guarantee. If you're sitting on the fence and you're like, Yeah, I don't know if I want to do this or whatever, you're called. You're an adult. You do you. But anyway, it's just there's really no reason not to. If you have an area of the game that's bugging you, like bangers or lobs, or you want to know more about attacks up at the non- Volley zone, whether it's dinking or volley attacks, things like that, we got a course from Dylan Frazier.
[00:16:12.990] - Speaker 1
Number one player in pickleball is going to tell you how to get to the transition zone. Why not learn from Dylan? Anyway, so check that out at the Better Pickable Academy, and I'll put a link down in the show notes. All right, let me share with you my story that happened. As I mentioned earlier, I've had the good fortune of... I I've been traveling a lot, so I haven't been in the cycle with my friends here locally, playing with them. I've been off the list because I just haven't been around. I reached out and I told a few of my friends that I was back in town and love to play whenever possible. Also got a couple of invites, which is always appreciated. Just really fun pickable, like joking. The point's fantastic. I mean, incredible rallies. We had some folks who were sitting there watching us play, and they were like, Oh, my God, this is crazy. Really good stuff, right? What happened is I'm playing, and I'll tell you his name because he and I are good enough friends that we can do this. We're playing in a foursome, and one of the players on the courts, a friend of mine named David, who's the mayor of Pickable here, and a good friend of mine over the years.
[00:17:19.210] - Speaker 1
Anyway, there was a ball that got hit to my side, and Larry was on my side. Larry sees it out. It's a dink. It was It was a dink, I'm pretty sure. It was a drop or a dink. It was a short shot right in front of Larry, like lands right in front of Larry, and Larry calls it out. It was close. It was definitely close. It wasn't two feet out, it wasn't two feet in. Or even two inches out, two inches in. It was very close. It was right there. David looked at me, he was just fine. I looked at him and I said, Listen, honestly, I wouldn't have called it out from where I was standing. I couldn't make the call from there. But I don't have to overrule Larry. That's where I'm at. I know it's uncomfortable, but that's life. I'm not overrulling my partner on what I saw in that situation. Plus, I know Larry is literally standing in a place where he could see it. It wasn't a hard shot that he couldn't see. Anyway. I may have misread the situation after that, but I felt like David wasn't happy there.
[00:18:21.990] - Speaker 1
So that made me not happy there. They give me the ball. It's a side out. So they give me the ball. I'm like, To me, my sense is David isn't happy, right? So I don't want to do that. So I take them, I just toss it back to them like, Well, just take the point, right? I'm just pissed, but I'm like, Just take the point. Which, of course, now you know how this is, right? They're not going to take the point, and I don't want to serve. So it gets weird, right? And so this is where I become a 12-year-old. I think, obviously, now I believe it's adult behavior, but I don't want to serve. So I take the ball, I go back to serve, and I take the ball, and I serve it four feet out. Probably it was a little further, but whatever. I serve it way out, like mega point, right? That's where I was a 12-year-old, that I'm like, Okay, I'm going to be a child here in child behavior. And then David, I didn't correct it. He was like, All right, well, It was a pleasure playing with you all today.
[00:19:16.530] - Speaker 1
It was the end of the day anyway. Fortunately, we didn't end there. I got to tell you that. We didn't end there. We looked at each other. It was like, I have that moment of tension. Then I was like, All right, just give me the ball. Let's just play. Give me the ball. We played. Actually, it was a really good match. We was like one of those 13-11s went into overtime. We tapped paddles. We actually went to have coffee afterwards. Everything's fine. But the point is, they went and I exchanged some text. I said, Listen, I'm sorry for the situation earlier. We went back and forth. Then the last thing I said to him was, I said, We're talking about how we're... Because he's on his journey as well. He's on a mental journey. We all are. We're adults, but we're still trying to work on ourselves. I told him, I said, Find a thing. I said, You know I said, I agree with what you're saying, but I'm working on trying not to act like a 12-year-old. And he laughed. I thought it was an interesting way of framing it for myself because that's what I did.
[00:20:10.970] - Speaker 1
I acted like a child in that moment when I hit the ball way out of bounds. And just not something that I... It's not the end of the world, but something that in a perfect world, I would not have done. I wanted to share that with you all to let you know that... Well, I wanted to tell you a story, but also this is a continuing process, and it's the thing where all of us are going to do things. I can't speak for everybody, but it's not that you're all going to do the same things. But we're all going to either do things or feel things that upon reflection, upon further thought process, maybe we can reframe, maybe we could have done differently and things like that. That's the reason we do this podcast is to help with that process. I've said this before for myself, as well as, hopefully, for you all out there. If you're on that journey, on your mental journey, know that we're all in the same boat. We're all hopefully rowing in roughly the same direction, meaning we're all trying to move forward with ourselves and improve ourselves in that area.
[00:21:13.490] - Speaker 1
Anyway, so stick with it, and you will see improvement, because I will tell you, personally, the mental side of my game has radically changed. I think if David was here right now, he would tell you that he sees the game differently now than did before. I think he would say that part of it is based on our interactions, because that's something that he and I talk about. Anyway, keep working at it, and don't be too hard on yourself. If you backslide from time to time and act like a 12-year-old, a 6-year-old, or whatever your child's age is when you do whatever it is you do or think out there. That's the suite podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. As always, please rate and review as if you can share it with anybody you know. I've started to ask this a little bit more. We always ask you to share with your friends, but if you have a pickleball club that you're involved with, if you can share with them, really appreciate. There was a post recently in the pickleball, or there was a reference to us, I should say, in the... It's the Pickable Forum for Women, I believe, in Facebook, I believe it was called.
[00:22:19.270] - Speaker 1
But it's a pickleball group that's for women inside the Facebook. I'll pull it next time. I apologize. I meant to pull it up this time to share, but But the sharing of that post or the making of that post is the thing that maybe somebody else looks at it and says, You know what? I'm going to check it out because I could benefit from that as well. If you can do that and it's natural for you, we appreciate you doing that. As I've said before, our objective is to try and help not just me, but help as many players as can benefit from the messaging that we have here and the concepts that we share at Pickable Therapy. Lastly, as always, please share with your friends because remember, if you enjoy the podcast, they probably will, too. I hope you have a great week, and I look forward to meeting you next time inside Pickable Therapy. Be.