Month: October 2019 (Page 2 of 3)

Wednesday, October 23, 2019 (Court Day #315)

71st day out playing lefty. (Tennis elbow.)

I arrived at Derby Park at 9:10. I realized that I’d forgotten my phone at home. It hadn’t properly charged so I’d broken my routine and left it to charge longer while I was getting ready. Then I’d left it altogether! I was #9 on the courts when I arrived, but it wasn’t long before I was in a game. My second game was with Dave A. and me against Tony and Mike. Dave and I went up 3-0, but they caught up and ended up winning the game. But it wasn’t a bad warm-up game. I played better as the morning went on.

By 11, I was a bit frustrated. Of the 35 or so players there I was probably in the top 5, even with me playing left-handed. I was playing well as a lefty. Rob was there, and stocky Rich, John P., Tony  is pretty good for an intermediate, and Deshen is a bit of a banger, but is coming along. But aside from an opening game against Tony, I didn’t get to play with any of them. It’s a weird day when you start a red advanced box and end up playing with Wayne, Dave A., and Tim who fill out the foursome. Wayne and Dave and Tim are decent 3.0 players—maybe 3.5 on a great day—but they’d never be confused with very strong players. It didn’t delight me that they signed up in my box. They are all wonderful people that I honestly enjoy, but I was really looking for a harder game. Between not getting challenging games and forgetting my phone, I was tempted to leave early.

There was a man named Richard and his wife who were visiting from Pasadena. I ended up in a game with Tom S. against Richard and Dave A. Seeing a few shots from him earlier, I suspected that Richard was more than just a run-of-the-mill player and that proved to be true. He had good command of shot placement. He wasn’t always great at shot selection, but sometimes I’d gamble on some shots and lost too! Tom and I eventually won 15-13. I missed three serves in that game. I never bothered to tell Richard that I’m actually right-handed. It was a good game.

I won a handful of points today due to the significant backspin I put on some backhands. Balls would just get returned into the net. That goes to show the level of the play. Advanced players would still get shots like that back.

At 11:50, I was out.

One element that I can work on is tracking. I’m still leaving holes in the middle sometimes. Part of it is playing lefty. I can’t reach as far doing a lefty backhand as I can reach playing right-handed. I need to compensate better.

Later

Just before 3 p.m., a message was sent out to the club informing us that the County of Santa Cruz work to resurface Brommer wouldn’t be done in time for Friday after all. Oh, good! I have conduct an interview on Friday morning and I may be left with just me and two cashiers with a combined 3 months of experience! No feeling bad for not going!

Number of days on a court: 315
Number of total hours: 881

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Sunday, October 20, 2019 (Court Day #314)

70th day out playing lefty.

I’m typing this post on my own domain (pickleball journey.com) instead of the original/old pickleballjourney.wordpress.com. The big advantage is that there will be no ads mixed into the content here on my own domain.

I woke up with little desire to play.  As site coordinator there is no leeway. Unless I line up someone else, I have to be there to open. My car read 53°F as I made my way to the courts. Brrrr. As I walked in, the path was wet. Not good. Wayne was already inside. The courts were wet. Not super wet, but definitely wet with a little standing water along the fence in the . . . I guess you’d call it shade, but it was foggy, what sun that was apparent was blocked there.

As I blew off the courts, when I held the blower in my right hand, I could feel the pain in my right forearm. Will this tennis elbow ever go away?

We had four new people today. Two younger women visitors from Delaware and two local newbies, Greg and—darn, I forget the woman’s name. Tom S. offered and gave the newbies a half hour introduction since I was in the middle of a game. The ones from Delaware said the play back there there isn’t as skilled as at Derby. This surprised me since Derby play is typically pretty run-of-the-mill based on my experience. That said, since Brommer Park is in the middle of 7-10 day resurfacing project, we ended up with some higher level players—Kent and Kim came, for instance. That may have influenced our visitors’ perception, but that wasn’t my impression.

Today was ok. I missed serves and most of my serves were very short. Today was a mix of frustration and moments of satisfaction.

Number of days on a court: 314
Number of total hours: 878.5

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Thursday, October 17, 2019 (Court Day #313)

69th day out playing lefty.

Today was the day for training with the UCSC retirees group, lead by a woman named Lynn. We were told 17 students would be coming. I left work very shortly after 3 and parked outside of Derby Park at 3:30. Out on the street, Tim McGarvey and Dan Bliss were unloading a car trunk full of paddles and bags. I offered and helped carry some paddles in.

Janet, Alan, Dan, Tim and John. (I’m taking the photo, of course!) John sharing the plan.

A few minutes after 4 p.m., John introduced us to the students and lead the group through some basics about the court and pickleball rules. For the demonstration, Alan was across from me, Dan was diagonal, and Janet was my partner to my right. (For all of this I opted to play right-handed.) John asked Dan and me to dink to show how it was done. A funny moment was when John asked me to pop up a shot and John told Dan, “Finish it.” I popped one up. Dan attacked it with a hard forehand slam. Me, never one to let a ball get by, manage to get Dan’s slam back over the net. There was a loud “Oooooooo!” from the students lining the fence. Dan and I continued to play the point a bit. Then John asked me to pop one up so Dan could finish the point. Me, of course, returned the slam again back over the net. Dan smiled, “That’s not cooperative!” Janet chimed in, “He’s very competitive!” At least the students got a demonstration that it’s possible to return a slam!

After the basics that had lasted about 15 minutes, each instructor was given three students to lead in a game. My three were Judd, Marion, and Marsha. Judd was the Boy Scout leader over 10 years ago when my son Nicholas went to 3-4 meetings. (It was not Nicholas’ “thing”.)

We started out with some more instructions then got into some games. I first played with Marsha as my partner. She asked, “Are you playing left-handed so that we have a chance?” “I won a gold medal playing left-handed.” (In other words, they’d have no chance regardless!) I went on with a short explanation of my tennis elbow woes.

At 5:02, I asked John if we could observe a moment for those lost in the 1989 earthquake. At 5:04 p.m., the minute of the quake 30 years ago, I blew my whistle and asked for 10 seconds of silence. John had been deep in conversation, somehow missed my whistle, and asked me a few minutes later if I was going to do the moment of silence! I wondered why he had been chatting during that time! Oops. LOL!

We played a three games total, me partnering with every student in my group. I’d stop between certain points and call everyone to the net for an explanation of how to learn from something that happened . . . like, “That is a perfect example of why you don’t step in after you serve!” I’d provide encouragement when they’d call the score correctly or make a nice shot. Games took longer with the frequent stops.

At the end, Marsha said, “You’re a great teacher!” I like to think so and an unsolicited compliment is always nice.

I brought my beginner pickleball strategies sheet that I made up yesterday and gave copies to John to hand out to folks. Here a PDF version what I handed out (though I have since updated the URL and added a copyright notice):
Pickleball-Strategies-Andrew-Lenz.pdf

By 6:11, the nets were down, and I was walking back out with Dan and Tim, carrying some paddles.

Scotts Valley

I got home and Kristen, my wife, said she was going to be busy checking her work email. “Aren’t you going to pickleball?” I said that I was checking in at home before making a decision. I was soon on the road and got to Skypark at 6:45. Cars were parked all wonky. But, someone had pulled out and there was a single open paved parking spot in the lot right next to the courts perimeter fence. Nice.

I played a couple of games against Eric—not Eric Schmidt—the other Eric whose girlfriend is Ann. Eric drove a rocket that hit me in the pointer finger of my left (paddle) hand. Man. That stung. It was a milder version of what it feels when you slam your finger in a door. Eric was blasting shots. The key was knowing when to just get out of the way—if you had time.

The last two games Rob and me against Cal and Shawnte. After a very questionable performance in the first game that lead to a loss for Rob and me, I asked for another game and added, “We’ll see if I can redeem myself!” Shawnte scuffawed, “You don’t need to redeem yourself—you’re playing left-handed!” Shawnte is good for some perspective!

I played better in the second game and Rob and I won that one.

In those two games there was a handful of Cal drives where Rob told me after each of my failed returns, “That was going out.” There were less of those in the second game. It’s still something that I need to learn . . . when to just let it fly!

At 9:41, we were done. The lights clicked off as we all walked from the courts to our cars. It’s great having four permanent courts there now at Skypark. It means we can play later without holding up Mark or Sharyl who’d have to stow the temporary nets.

Number of days on a court: 313
Number of total hours: 874

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