Friday, November 10, 2017 (Court Day #92)

I arrived at Brommer Park at 8:53 a.m. Dean was out blowing leaves off of the courts.

We had a couple of very good players visiting from Monterey. Sean, I believe was the man’s name and I didn’t hear his wife’s name. He’s a tall young guy with 5.0 ranking. The couple played with Dean, John Connor, the Longs and the advanced players. Someone said the couple had played at the state championship and that it was a humbling experience. I was thinking, “Humbling? Just how good must the best players be? Holy cow!”

Today was a down day. No great performances by me. Nothing to write home about. Perhaps the most significant event of the day was wearing the socks my wife bought me that just cover the foot and don’t go up the ankle. These are even shorter than the pairs I also bought, but they worked fine. Another 200+ hours and my “chicken leg tan” should be all better!

Target the best?

In an early mixed-skill levels game, one of the four was “Player A”. Player A is an advanced player. Player A was paired with a significantly weaker player, as are the odds in mixed play. I don’t think I’d ever played with Player A, but judging from the reaction of the others, Player A was/is very good. I was also paired with a weaker player, not that it matters much. We played the game. There were times when there wasn’t an obvious advantage for me to hit to one versus the other, that I hit to Player A. When Player A was at the net but Player A’s partner was at the baseline, I hit to the partner—though I remember making a shot exactly like that and thinking “maybe I should just hit it to Player A anyway”. It would be a dumb shot to make in terms of the score, but in terms of improving skill level by playing against a better player, it would be wise. I’ve talked about this before.

Anyway, Player A came to me after the game and suggested that I hit to Player A more. “Forget the score. Hit to the strong player. Then the better players will want to play with you more.”

I think there are three steps or phases/situations:

1) You avoid the best opponent to win. (Fine in a tournament, not in rec play.)

2) You don’t favor either player and hit where normal strategy would dictate. (Ok, but not taking full advantage of a learning opportunity.)

3) You intentionally hit a lot more shots to the best opponent to push your “skill envelope”. (Best for rec play.)

What I was doing was situation 2. I was absolutely not avoiding Player A. However, while I did intentionally hit maybe 2-3 shots to Player A when both were at the baseline, I was not taking full advantage of the opportunity by avoiding Player A’s partner.

Now, I can’t remember what my partner was doing. Maybe he was doing situation 1, making it seem worse for Player A.

This situation today does provide yet another perspective to the game where I was playing with Terry and Karen Long and John Connors, where I was seeing less targets and my partner Karen was seeing more. Terry was seeking the toughest game situation and was avoiding the weak player (me). That’s good and bad for me. It keeps me from being embarrassed (good!) but also means I get tested less (bad). There were shots that Terry could have taken that likely would have ended the point had he hit it to me, so he didn’t. It did make for a longer and more balanced game.

Drills

On the Pickleball Forum on Facebook, Ernie Medina Jr. posted a short video of drill at a workshop. Here’s what the it looked like:

The sequence for the participant went like this:

– Serve three balls—it appears the serves should land long, near the center line, then short;

– Three lobs are fed over the net to the participant who aims back at a inflated waist-high target;

– Three simulated dinks are tossed which are lobbed back over both the regular net and an additional special higher net and into a hula-hoop ring set on the court near the baseline;

– Lastly, three more simulated dinks are tossed that must be dinged back through a ring positioned just above top of the net.

The 2-minute video is here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1340630926008388/permalink/1731772993560844/

Funny Guy

Last night, someone posted in the same group seeking advice. I shared some excellent thoughts…

Number of days on a court: 92
Number of total hours: 259

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