Friday, August 26, 2022 (Court Day #537)
My calf muscle was bothering me for a few days this week. Like a pull or something. I’d be walking around a work, and I’d feel it. But it went away and is feeling fine today.
My mother-in-law is in town from San Diego and I chatted with her a bit before heading to Brommer Park for club play. I parked at 9:15 a.m. and followed Allan K. and Kent into the courts which were all full with additional people waiting.
At one point, I counted all the people waiting . . . 25 players. 8 courts with 4 players each equals 32 players. Plus 25 waiting, so 57 total players. What’s funny is I only recognized maybe half of the players. A lot of new faces.
Golden Pickle
My first game was with Kent. This was a mixed skill game. (During the first hour of club play.) We split up each taking a woman as a partner. Even though I was trying to hit more shots to Kent to make this a more interesting game, it didn’t make much difference. My partner, the first server of the game, never lost her serve. We won 11-0. My first “golden pickle” ever. Pretty boring. I hope I never have another one unless it occurs with all strong players!
Kent and I signed up again and Alan Cable against Dean added their names. It would be Alan and me. Dean had some moments, but wasn’t his usual self. he’s dealing with injuries. and Kent was rusty, after the game, he said he’d only played once in two months.
IFP
This morning, the International Federation of Pickleball (IFP) sent out a newsletter by email:
https://files.constantcontact.com/098685af801/4e889578-e0a5-4ee1-82eb-298e26b76da8.pdf
Nothing of great importance. They are trying to rebuild their reputation and place in the pickleball world after someone there really ruffled some feathers. What happened exactly is still a bit of a mystery to me.
Focus and Intensity
Somewhere I read about the waving of a finger rallied a pro team to win. While just looking for random pickleball videos to watch on YouTube, I just happened to find that exact game:
At the end of this abbreviated match video, there’s an interview with the winners that explains the motivation.
The motivation factor is a thing for me and why I often play better in tournaments. Focus. If you are forgetting the score in a game, you are not paying close enough attention. In rec play, I’ll sometimes find my mind wandering. It happened today. It’s a bad habit to get into if you want to play your best.
Swiped! Grrr.
Today, I found a wikipedia entry explaining pickleball terms. If you look at the references at the bottom, the #1 site that they pulled a bunch of entries from—they include the first letter for words they copied—is mine:
I’m kind of annoyed. At least they give credit for my copyrighted material that they are, well, copying and posting elsewhere on the internet without my permission.
I put a lot of work into my article. I had added and continue to add terms as I run across them while playing, watching videos, reading rule books, magazine articles, podcasts, etc.
Saturday, August 27, 2022 (No Play)
Dan Bliss stopped by at my work and dropped off a new dry-erase white board for Derby Park. I need to do the work of adding lines to the board, then I’ll take it to Derby.
Number of days on a court: 537
Number of total hours: 2,448.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
Leave a Reply