Month: April 2017 (Page 3 of 6)

Thursday, April 20, 2017 (Court Day #17)

I arrived in Scotts Valley about 6:20. I was surprised and a bit worried when I easily found a parking place. “Is there no pickleball tonight?” But I spied some activity through the netted fence at the far end of the courts.

Mark and Maree were helping move temporary nets from the locker to the courts. Cheryl, the Scotts Valley organizer, was there. I offered, “Do you have another of those that needs to be carried in?” The answer, of course, was yes, though we ended up only setting up four nets instead of the regular six.

I met and played against and with a tall woman named Kris. Very pleasant person. She said that pickleball offers a great escape by offering time away from the worries of the world. It’s easy to forget about everything else and just have fun. Kris brought these neon pickleballs marked “top”—easier to see but an adjustment due to their extra bounce. Janet and I swapped them out for regular balls after a few minutes of use with the newbies.

The Newbies

So, the woman Eric had invited on Sunday came back for a second day of pickleball. Her name is Jeanne and she brought a friend, Marie. (Yep, another Marie to add to the Marie and Maree!) I could relate, being that I just started playing less than three months ago, so I spent some time along with Janet helping the two of them learn the rules and practice some basic skills. Paying it forward. Then we played a game. Jeanne seems a natural, but Marie caught on pretty quickly too. I yelled over to Eric that he’d regret the day he invited her (Jeanne)!

We maxed out the evening with 18 players, including the two newbies. A lighter crowd.

Proof that pickleball is exercise. Not me, I barely sweat!

Half the lights turned off and wouldn’t be revived, unfortunately, so we all moved the four nets to under the working lights, but it was still quirkily dim.

One notable thing was me hitting a drive shot with lots of intentional spin. Worked well too. The return ended up in the net even against a solid player, Sue. And likely I was a bit overconfident on the paper plate serving target. I haven’t tried it yet, but I now suspect it might be a touch too small for me to be reliably hit!

Oh, and Janet mentioned she’d read this blog and recognized the obsession. Takes one to know one. I’d given the URL to Bruce when he stopped in to work to shop for some oil paints, telling him he could read about himself! Janet mentioned a location with backboards that was good for practice, “like your garage.” The sad thing is I’ve only used my garage setup a few times. Though I guess the happy thing is that it’s because I’m either playing games or sore from playing games!

We wrapped things up about 9:10, after my game of Bruce and me taking on his wife Janet and Eric’s longtime friend Ted. Janet has been improving dramatically. Bruce and I had to work hard for our win.

Number of days on a court: 17
Number of total hours: 49.5

Wednesday, April 19, 2017 (Court Day #16)

So, last night, I rewatched a video of a game from three weeks ago. It’s funny. (The observation of own analysis, that is.) Previously, I’d been concentrating on my errors and improving tracking so much, I missed the good stuff. In this one 14-minute game, I made my first error about a third of the way into the game—popping a volley up that got slammed at my partner’s feet. The second—a dink that was about 2″-3″ too low to clear the net—almost 9 minutes into the game. I did make two additional errors over the following 5 minutes, though one came after a fairly intense volley series at the net—a ball that sailed far out of the court. The last and final fourth error came when I far too weakly hit a dink that made it only halfway up the net! Three of those four errors ended in points for the other team. But four errors—well, probably five if you count one additional pop up that we recovered from—is not too bad for an entire game. You know what, I just focused on the negative again. I made some decent drop shots in that game. And not many errors. That’s positive!

Oh, and my neighbor Jill got talked into taking a beginner pickleball class through Parks & Rec in July by her lifting (gym) partner. Her husband told Jill that I was playing, so she asked me about it yesterday evening. I told her to watch out because she’d get hooked!

On the Court

I arrived at Derby Park just about 9 sharp. The sun was out in clear skies with perfect temperatures. Glorious day. There was one game already going and Tom (visor) was working by himself on a deadly backhand spin serve. We warmed up a bit together, then Alan joined us, then a woman I don’t know, and this lead to a game. And assorted games followed.

Today felt pretty good. I made mistakes here or there, but not too bad. Fewer lame shots into the net. And I got another ace serve. Part of that is watching where your receiver is . . . hugging the center line? Far back off the baseline? Inside the service court? Left-handed? One fellow was creeping in a bit on me into the court and I served it at his toe! One thing that I can count on is being fairly accurate on my serves. Not pinpoint, but if you put a metal garbage can lid on the court, I could probably hit it just about every time. Now I’m curious. I’ll have to bring out a paper plate sometime and see how I do with a small target!

Alive One Minute, Dead…

I thought I’d successfully charged my GoPro, but the USB power is cut off when my Mac Mini goes to sleep, so it didn’t charge when I left it connected. I got only about 2 minutes of one game this morning. One of my better games too! Lesson learned!

Often, it takes me a couple of hours to start playing well. Today, it was a lot less. That’s good. I played against a woman named Cece and was later partnered with her. She’s a reliable player. There were some really good rallies when she and I played against Alan and Lauren. (Or was it Wayne and Lauren? Or both?)

Short Term Memory Loss

What’s quite amusing is when you have four—four!—players who all cannot remember what the score is or who is supposed to be serving! You’d think it’d be simple! Regardless, that will help you understand why I’m a stickler for people calling the serve every single time. Maree did today what I did on a previous occasion with Wayne. He served and she grabbed the ball and tossed it back to him, insisting that he call the score. He said he had, but very quietly . . . which kind of defeats the purpose! (I’m smiling.) Wayne is always fun to play with, he’s got hard forehand and quick serves.

A memorable shot was an opponent’s drive from the baseline to me at the kitchen. I was able to take the power off the ball, drop it over the net and have it lightly bounce a couple of times and die in the kitchen. Another was a when I was playing with Maree and called “switch!” on a high deep lob which worked perfectly—I returned it and after a brief rally, we won the point. Another was the ace that I mentioned above. Another was a longer dink rally where I didn’t make any mistakes.

Cheek to Cheek?

I had a first today. Not a good first, a bad first. I had my slam hit an opponent right in the face. Marianne got it in the right cheek. I felt really bad. Fortunately, she was halfway between the kitchen line and the baseline, not right at the net. She left the game prior to it resuming with Lauren in Marianne’s place. After the game was over, I went to look for Marianne but I couldn’t find her. She hadn’t left though, she was back out playing on another court! Whew. (She said later that she’d left our game because her eye was tearing up, but she was doing fine.)

I didn’t get to play with Eric or John though both were there. The quirky thing about the signup board . . . well, first let me explain the organization for waiting for a court to open.

The Signup Board

The club has a white dry erase board divided up in a grid of 12 squares. Aside from the “pen instruction” square, each represents a group of four players waiting for a court. To avoid surprises, there are two pens: blue for intermediate and red for advanced. Blues don’t sign up with reds without asking, it’s just courtesy. Today, a third green pen appeared designated for beginners, I’d never seen that before. As a team takes the court, a line goes through their names in the square. When the next court opens up, the next square of names moves onto it. Now, it’s also a courtesy to not leave people “hanging” on the board. (You wouldn’t want your name up there and have no one sign up to play on your court!) If you want to play with a wide variety of people, here’s the problem. You finish up your game and walk to the board, the people mostly likely to put their names down are the ones you just finished playing with! You might get one new person mixed in for the next game, but not always. You could always take a game off and sit on the bench then put your name down, that would increase the “mix”. I might try that.

At some point, I’d like to play against some of stronger players in the club. I’m still getting plenty of work as it is, though I can’t help but remember the game against Jeff—whom I have not seen since that one and only day where he came in, played me/us into the ground, then off he went. But there will be time to play against stronger players. I have to continue to get my chops up.

Enjoy it!

I spend most of my pickleball time smiling. I try not to get down on myself for the bad shots. It’s easy to dwell. You can dwell if you are using that dwell time to improve for next time. Regardless, I’m out there having fun. What’s weird to me is that the few people who are out there looking supremely serious and make like it’s drudgery. It’s a game, people! Games are supposed to be fun! It is fun! Have fun!

I wrapped things up at 11:50 to get showered and to work by 12:30 for a rep appointment—as it was, the rep was an hour late, so I could have squeezed in at least one more game. But, hopefully, I’ll get to play again tomorrow night. Yeah, did I tell you that I’m hooked?

Number of days on a court: 16
Number of total hours: 47

Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017 (Court Day #15)

Being that I have no kids at home, I went to an Easter Vigil service, and our annual big extended family gathering isn’t until mid-afternoon today, pickleball fit right in!

I got to the courts at just about 9 a.m. under overcast skies. Rain was expect to start around noon according to my wife—she can put weather forecasters to shame! One game was underway already between Dave Allenbaugh and a few other people, two of which I’d never seen before. A couple other nets were already set up and Maree and her husband Mark were warming up at one. I asked if I could join them and jumped in on Mark’s side of the net.

I rotated around playing games with Maree and Mark, Eric, Bruce and his wife Janet, Tom S., Paule, Ted, Tom (visor Tom), Mara, Eric’s friend Rick, and others. I sat out one game on the bench alone. We never did get around setting up the sixth net today—quite the rarity. I think we did top out about 23 players mid-morning, instead of the 30-40 we typically get. Even Jerry Louis and the Longs didn’t come. But, hey, it’s a major holiday after all.

While we were partners in a match, Bruce pulled off a great around-the-post shot. Rick asked, “Is that legal? Doesn’t it have to go over the net?” Yep, legal, and no, it doesn’t have to pass over the airspace above the net. It doesn’t even have to go above the level of the top of the net. Bruce’s shot was maybe 18″ above the ground when it entered our opponents’ side of the court. Unreturnable. Point.

A woman quietly appeared on the bench around 11 a.m. After a few minutes, Dave checked on her. She said she invited by Eric to check out pickleball. When Eric finished up his game, he and some regulars introduced her to the sport.

Rick—who I hadn’t previously met in person—was having a hard time with his serve early in the day and Tom and I worked with him on it for about 10 minutes. By the end of the morning, Rick had it solidly down and only missed one serve in the last match I played with him. (I had a game where I missed two of my serves. Gag. Unheard of.)

My Achilles’ heel continues to be getting a drop over then net when I’m running up to return a dink/drop. I far too frequently simply don’t hit it hard enough and the ball drops into the net. This happened probably ten times today.

While I did get another serving ace today—shallow, low, topspin, outside corner—it was a “blah” day. It didn’t feel like a good performance. Half my close shots were out. I made a lot of unforced errors. I wasn’t focused enough. I need to pick my target for each shot. I’m not doing that. And I need to develop consistently reliable higher-percentage shots.

The rain started in earnest about 12:10 in the middle of a game of Eric and myself against Ted and Rick. We braved a few more points then pulled the plug.

I came home to a couple of hot cross buns—well, hot after I microwaved them! Yum.

Crazy Good Rally

Someone mentioned a video on the pickleball group Facebook page yesterday. I looked it up on YouTube, and sure enough, it didn’t disappoint! It was the Gold Medal match at the USAPA Nationals VIII from November, six months ago. Wes Gabrielsen and Kyle Yates against Daniel Moore and Matt Staub—all fantastic players. (Daniel Moore is Scott Moore’s son. Scott is coming to Santa Cruz to do workshops in mid-June, though it’ll probably be overkill for me at this point to go to his workshops given the price, over $300 for a 3-day “bootcamp”. There is a $90 3-hour minicamp option. But, now that I’ve actually looked, I’m going to be out of town around then anyway, so it’s moot.)

I just have to watch in awe. They are just so consistently excellent. I keep things in perspective when someone says I’m pretty good or playing well. Those guys in the video are great compared to me and I’m great compared to a toaster oven.

Number of days on a court: 15
Number of total hours: 43