Month: May 2017 (Page 3 of 4)

Wednesday, May 17, 2017 (Court Day #26)

Work went off the rails as there was a big accident on Highway 1 the main freeway between the south end of the county—where some of our staff lives—and the north end of the county—where our family business is! Four of our staff were going to be late to work. So into work I went. By the time all the staff arrived, I went home, I changed and got to Derby Park, it was 10 a.m. I’d missed an hour of play, but that’s the way the ball bounces—or doesn’t—sometimes!

As with any new activity, there are climbs and plateaus and perceived regressions. Right now, I feel as though I my game has plateaued. I don’t think I’ve regressed, but I don’t feel like I’m improving. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. But it feels like I’m not. Jerry Louis’ class next month can’t come fast enough. I keep talking about drills, but I’ve yet to make that happen.

Oh, my foot. It’s still bothering me sometimes, but most of the time, I don’t even notice it anymore.

Joyce made a pertinent comment as my partner: “If you are going to poach, make sure it’s a winner.” In other words, don’t screw things up for your partner and accidentally end up in a worse situation when you poach!

I videoed a few games from the side of the court instead of behind the court. I much prefer this view. It’s much easier to tell what’s going on since bodies generally don’t block the action. Like so:

I did send back the Akaso camera this afternoon, however. I couldn’t get the remote control to work even with a new battery and so they said to send it back for a replacement. With shipping cross-country and all, I expect it to be at least 2-3 weeks before I get one back in my hands. I have to say, I do really like the far crisper image over our old GoPro Hero camera.

I could go on about how I’m currently unhappy with my play—such as hitting several service returns into the net or deep out of the court—but here’s a photo after a passing shot I hit perfectly between my opponents—and about 4 inches beyond the baseline:

And they call football “the game of inches”!

Number of days on a court: 26
Number of total hours: 75

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Needed That

Sunday, May 21, 2017 (Court Day #27)

Having gotten back from a long driving trip and getting to sleep about 2 a.m., I got to Derby Park at 9:10 …

[Rest of post lost due to lame WordPress software error. Stinks!]

Number of days on a court: 27
Number of total hours: 78

Sunday, May 14, 2017 (Court Day #25)

Walking out my front door, I could feel my foot. The ball of my right foot was tender. Kind of like the feeling after a body part has been hit with a hammer but has healed for a day or two. Or how it feels after stepping on a nail a few days previously. But it wasn’t bad. And it certainly wasn’t going to keep me from pickleball.

I arrived at the court at 9 a.m. Five or six people had beat me there and one game was already in action under partly cloudy skies.

Mike

I was partnered with Mike today. Mike does compliment occasionally, to his credit. On the other hand, when I unwisely tried to get tricky on a game point serve and it dropped into the kitchen a few inches short of the service court, a exasperated mumbling of “Jesus!” escaped his lips. I’m sure he wasn’t praying because we’d led the whole game and were still leading by three points at that time! (Hey! I’ve only been playing 15 weeks, cut me some slack!) But I simply complimented his good shots and politely kept my mouth shut on his—rarer—missed shots. It’s just hard on a fairly green player to hear strong negative comments from a more experienced one—even when they are absolutely correct comments. I’ll admit that I have a thin skin—but it’ll get thicker as I improve.

New Guy

Later in the morning, I got to play with a young fellow named Alex. Alex is tall with an athletic build, mid to late 20s would be my guess. From what I gather from his conversation with Melody, his parents are avid pickleball players. Alex shared that he had been competing as a 4.5 tennis player until he hurt his leg, which hasn’t been the same since, he said. Alex is a pretty solid pickleball player. Before we dragged him back onto a court, he’d been playing on a court with Stuart and Dean and Dave (neighbor)—the big leagues. Dean won a couple medals last weekend at the Bay Area Senior Games. (I copied the local winners list from the SCPC website below.) Alex and I won the game over Melody and Lauren.

I had a first today. So did Alex. We played singles after we’d finished a doubles game. We only got to 2-2 before we were invited into a new doubles game, but still it was eye-opening and fun covering a whole court! Alex is a nice guy. Good to play with. Smiles and is humble.

It was a very windy morning. Our net blew over. It was only the second time that I’d seen that.

Doing What Not to Do Very Well

Not that the rest of the game was worth writing home about, but I’m going to share a positive (aside from the fact that Lauren and I won 11-9) . . . and a negative. I did a very nice crosscourt drop shot.

Here I am at the baseline hitting the ball:

And here’s where the ball landed (you can see it inside the kitchen):

While she just managed to make contact with the ball, Marianne was unsuccessful returning it. Now the negative with this is that it was absolutely not the correct shot to hit. Since Marianne was at her baseline, I should have hit it deep to keep her there. The drop shot in this instance was the high risk shot. Since it’s not a shot that I can reliably make as a winner every time, it was a bad choice. Technically, good. Strategically, bad.

The last game of the day was Mark and me against his wife Maree and Lauren. Due to the strong breeze, we switch sides at 6 points. It was a battle. I believe the final score was 15-13 with Mark and me edging out our opponents.

We ended play right at noon, but it sure felt later. I was fatigued. At 2 p.m. was the first practice for our summer Co-Rec softball team that I also manage—fortunately, turnout was extremely light (Mother’s Day) so my opportunities for running was very limited! Especially since my foot has yet to heal.

Camera

I delivered Eric’s new 32GB datastick full of all his games. It was funny, I told him, “This contains every game of yours that I have ever recorded.” I looked at me and then said he was thinking that with that comment I was threatening blackmail! Ha! Nah.

After quickly checking the new footage from this morning, I learned that at the Akaso’s “4K” setting, the games get broken up into 5 minute segments! 10 minute segments were bad enough! Gag! And there’s a one second gap in the segments at 4K—crummy. Plus I have no 4K monitors/TVs and the software won’t zoom in on the higher resolution, so there’s no point. I’ll go with 1080P from here on out.

Tip

I was watching some pickleball instructional videos on YouTube (as if that’s something new) and one stuck out. Marcin Rozpedski—a singles champion player—said when hitting a ball directly at an opponent, aim for the armpit of the paddle arm. This spot is the hardest to properly defend. Good advice!

[Later note: Watching the video from a game of Janet and me against Paule and Mara, it was embarrassing. “That shot was lame!” “That was lame too!” “Ugh.” Granted it was early in the day, but still… horrible play on my part! We still won 11-7, so I was part of something decent, but I just have to shake my head.]

Number of days on a court: 25
Number of total hours: 73

— — — — —

SCPC Medalists at the 2017 Bay Area Senior Games

Women’s Singles
Melody Singer — Silver — 60-69 Age Group
Melody Singer — Bronze — 60-69 Combined Age Group

​Men’s Doubles
Dean Kingston & Dan Bliss — Bronze — 65-69 Age Group
David DiBiase & David Ludin — Bronze— 55-64 Age Group
Kent Shain & Bob Bates – Silver — 70-74 Age Group

Mixed Doubles
Karen Long & Mike Stahl — Gold – 50-54 Age Group
Susie Dougan & Dan Bliss — Gold – 65-74 Age Group
Susie Dougan & Dan Bliss — Gold – 70-74 Age Group
Leslie McGarvey & Dean Kingston — Gold – 60-64 Age Group

Women’s Doubles
Karen Long & Laurie Roberts — Gold – 50-59 Age Group
Karen Long & Laurie Roberts — Gold – 55-59 Age Group
Leslie McGarvey & Susie Dougan — Gold — 60-64 Age Group

Thursday, May 11, 2017 (Court Day #24)

My toe, while still not healed, wasn’t causing me to hobble quite so much, in fact, sometimes I’d forget about it—until I’d do something wrong and then I’d unquestionably feel it. After debating all day, I decided to chance it on the courts.

Being that I have access to an asortment of paper-based boards in our picture framing department, I cut a long piece of 1/8″ thick scrap to toe width and sanded the edges as a support. I got home and taped up my toe accordingly. During the evening, it served well, my toe was only painful once briefly. And most of the time, it was quite serviceable.

After all the taping, I arrived at the Scotts Valley courts at about 6:40.

Jerry Louis, when I arrived asked me if I was signed up for his class coming up. I told him yes. He said he was trying to spend time with his students so he could better serve them when the class rolled around. Before we played a game as partners, he warmed me up with some dinking and me doing some drops. At once point, he told me to keep my paddle up. “If you drop your paddle, I’m going to smack you with the ball!” Which he did once! We played as partners after warming up was done.

I was partnered with Stuart for a game later against Jerry and Maria and my really good shots were often followed immediately by miserable shots. I pointed it out to Stuart and he started laughing each time it happened. We lost after I messed up two shots in a row.

I played a game with a woman I didn’t know named Jane against Maria and Kris, then Maria and me against Kris and Cheryl. Each game has its opportunities and challenges.

Erik and I played as partners late against Mark and his wife Maree and we won pretty handily. We switched up for a second game pitting Maree and me against Mark and Erik. Maree and I did our best to mess up and keep them in the game, but still won by a few points for the last game of the night.

It was an ok evening. The company was good, as always, but my playing was up and down in terms of quality. I still need to pick a target for each shot—time permitting. (Quick volleys are tough.)

One thing I am doing now that I think about it is watching the angle of my opponent’s paddle as a clue to better ancicipate and prepare for the ball’s direction. Hey, anything to help, right?

Lost!

As the night closed at 9:10, I couldn’t find my car keys! After some increasingly frantic moments, I found them in the main section of my backpack instead of the smallest outside pocket where I keep them. In a moment of distraction, I missed my target. I won’t do that again!

Hopefully, my toe will continue to heal and I didn’t do much damage, if any, tonight. Sunday? Fingers crossed!

[Note from the next day: Yeah. I think I did stress my toe a bit last night. Not too badly though. I should be able to play on Sunday. I’m going to miss playing next Thursday and next weekend, so I have to squeeze in what I can! I did tweak my right ankle some, it have have happened since I was favoring that foot a bit. Hopefully, it’s not a sign of things to come!]
Number of days on a court: 24
Number of total hours: 70