Month: November 2021 (Page 3 of 4)

Thursday, November 11, 2021 (Court Day #433)

It was a stunningly beautiful day today. As I drove to Skypark in the dark, my car read 60°. The time change was last Sunday, so the sun is long set by the time work wraps up these days. When I got to the courts a few minutes after 6:30, parking was overflowing well into the neighboring streets. I parked in an unorthodox fashion next to the walking path. I wasn’t the only one parking weirdly, cars were jammed in next to trees, for example.

There were a couple of dads and two young kids playing tennis. Then there were over 30 pickleball players. What is nutty is I had never seen nearly half of these players before! So many new faces!

Once I got into a game, I was rolling from one to next until the lights went off at 9:30. While I wasn’t perfect, I was playing very, very well. I was pleased.

I got to play in a game with Tim against Mike B. and Mark Dettle. Mark was playing some of his better play tonight. That was a really fun game. It was a battle. Mike is always a formidable opponent.

Maia asked if I’d mind giving her a ride to downtown Santa Cruz, I agreed and that apparently allowed her to play later into the evening. We ended up playing a series of games with Tim and Paul, then with Paul and his friend Eric—me swapping between Maia and Eric as my partners. Maia mentioned to Tim that I had been coaching her and a few others on Tuesday. I was impressed with her progress. “I’m officially addicted,” she shared. I chuckled, “Welcome to the club!”

Analysing Play

When I lose rallies, I try to take a few seconds to figure out what went wrong. Sometimes, it’s obvious, like a dink into the net. (Though I still don’t know why that happens sometimes!) Other times, like on a couple of shots from Mark Dettle tonight, the ball came to my upper paddle arm which is always awkward. A “chicken wing” shot. I have to wonder if I’m missing opportunities by not hitting more to my opponent’s paddle side between the hip and armpit when I’m attacking dinks at the net. Something to keep in mind.

Arm

My right arm felt pretty good. Nonetheless, I iced it anyway.

As I was about to crawl into bed, I checked my phone. There were a few texts—my wife reminding me to take our 6-month-old corgi puppy Pepper to the vet tomorrow morning, my bagpiping mentor saying he’d come by after work tomorrow to play along with me and one of my staff who is a current student of his—and one of those texts was Kristin L. more or less apologizing for her play and telling me that I’m a “great player”. Heck, I have bad days too. All good.

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Friday, November 12, 2021 (No Play)

Today, the club sent out a notice that Derby Park will be closed a couple of days—Wednesday and Thursday—next week while the city repairs the cracks in the courts there. The surface definitely needs some TLC!

Number of days on a court: 433
Number of total hours: 2,131.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Tuesday, November 9 , 2021 (Court Day #432)

It rained today. There was a text strand of a bunch of pickleball players who frequent Skypark in the evenings. Someone said the rain had stopped in Scotts Valley, another said he was going to check the courts . . . it all sounded like things were a go. Judging from the weather, I wasn’t convinced, but I’m always optimistic. Ominously, there were only four cars in the parking lot when I pulled in about 6:45 p.m. Not a good sign.

There was a man I didn’t know sitting and watching Larry L., Sabina, Maia, and Vanessa. (Mia is propounded “my-ah”.) Right before he left mere minutes after I arrived, the man said they had been there since 5:30 . Since they’d already been playing over an hour, the rest were happy enough to allow me to rotate in.

The courts weren’t entirely dry but I didn’t slip during my two hours of play. There is always that risk—we all knew that—and indeed, Sabina did slip and fall while dashing and reaching during one rally, but she was no worse for the wear. (Considering that she’s on the local roller derby team where they crash into each other intentionally, I suspect she’s used to bumps and bruises and falling.) The courts gradually got more and more dry and slipping faded away as a concern.

Taking It Easy

It was obvious to me that Larry was taking it easy on the ladies like I was. Larry and I are both significantly better than the ladies . . . but they are all pretty new after all. I opted to play lefty. Larry was pretty tired and took off about an hour after I arrived.

As the evening went on, Sabina chuckled, “He’s playing offhanded and he’s still kicking our asses.” I had to hold back a laugh after that one. She had no idea. I was working very hard to merely keep the ball in play and not hit winners!

I used various scenarios as lessons here and there. Some I waited until games were over. They all seemed appreciative of the coaching moments. Maia said Larry had four of them drilling at the NVZ line (less risk of slipping) with a one player dinking, another volleying, another driving, another resetting. I suspect there were some challenges accomplishing that, but nonetheless, drills are always good regardless of skill level and abilities.

Arm

I took every shot tonight left-handed tonight, so my right arm got a break. My right was feeling pretty good—knock on wood—so it probably would have been fine getting used.

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Wednesday, November 10, 2021 (No Play)

This link below was suggested on the Pickleball Forums on Facebook—for videos of busy pickleball courts and unused tennis courts. One of the videos that I’m sure they were referring to is actually our local Brommer Park!
https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/item/163889547-brommer-park-santa-cruz-california-full-pickleball-courts-sm

Number of days on a court: 432
Number of total hours: 2,128.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Thursday, November 4 , 2021 (Court Day #430)

I was able to get one of my staff to close at work so I walked into Skypark at 6:20 p.m. It was dark. It was busy and I helped set up a seventh court, it was a portable net out of the pickleball storage bin.

So, a little better tonight. Only a few of my shots ended up in the white tape and more of my drop shots cleared the net versus Tuesday.

Ego Check

Kristin L. and I took on Larry L. and his wife Jacquie. Larry played the best I’d seen him play and Kristin and I both played poorly. Jacquie had a wicked topspin passing shot in that game. I think we lost 11-3 or 11-4. It was stunningly bad. Embarrassing and frustrating.

I guess the bright spot is that Kristin and I went on to win the next two games against similarly decent intermediate opponents.

Casey

Damn, if Casey didn’t try two Erne shots tonight! One, he didn’t get to attack since the ball went the other way and the other (which was in a game against me) he did attack, but he hit it too high and Paul—my partner—hit the ball back into the opening that Matt had left between himself and his partner Casey. The thing with Erne shots is you need communication and awareness between partners.

Lights off at 9:30, but I hung around with Paul and Matt and their circle of friends for another 20 minutes yapping.

So what?

I hit some of my service returns too long. I still had some drops that didn’t make it to the net. But outside of that bad game, I played well enough.

Rally Length

Kristin L. made an interesting comment. There was a game where Scott and I played against Mike B. and Tim. That was a good game. Kristin said that she was counting the number of shots from the serve to the point was over, and generally it was 6 shots. A fascinating observation. The fewer the shots before the point is over, the worse the player(s)—it only takes one! I’m a data kind of guy, so I find this kind of stuff very interesting.

Number of days on a court: 430
Number of total hours: 2,123.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.