Friday, March 15, 2024 (Court Day #637)

I woke up this morning with my knee a little bit sore on the inner side and my back was a little tight.

I told my staff that I was going to take the morning off. I had a business meeting with my parents at a corporate attorney at 1 o’clock, so I couldn’t stay the full club session at Brommer Park.

If I’m going to return to my old form, either need to drill or play a lot. Finding time and a partner to drill has been a little difficult, so I’ll take what I can get, so play today it is.

I left my house at 8:35 a.m. I saw on the news last night that in Southern California severe winds knocked over trees and caused other damage. It has been somewhat windy up here as well the last day or two, so I was hopeful that the windscreens at Brommer Park would keep the balls from being too squirrely. It was a sunny morning with no clouds to be seen in the sky and the temperature was very nice 63°F.

Arrival

I pulled into Brommer Park at 8:48 a.m., and there was a boatload of parking. There were a few empty courts. A couple of players were wondering out loud where everyone was.

Play

Today was a dichotomy. I started playing extremely well. Game after game was great play by me. Very few errors. Good shots, good shot selection. It felt awesome. However, I had one last game with Mary Kay against René and Brian. I don’t know what happened to that game but my play imploded. Mary Kay and I were leading 5-1 but end up losing 11–6. I did get all my serves in, those were fine. I was popping up shots or not being quite in the right place on the court, and having balls come right to my feet. René did a couple excellent shots crosscourt at a sharp angle for a winner out of my reach.

René asked if I’d sign up for another game with her, but with my work obligations, I couldn’t and left at 11 o’clock.

And?

If you throw away that one last game, I had a fabulous morning. Top-notch. However, that last game kind of poisoned the session. But it’s been a long time since I had a series of games playing that well. I have to take consolation and hope in that.

I will say that in that last game, Mary Kay and I were on the side of the court with a tree shadows. The ball would go from sun to shadow to sun to shadow to sun to shadow all in the path from one side of the net to the other. I’d like to think it didn’t make any effect on my play, it did, unfortunately. There were probably two or three shots which were affected by me not being able to track the ball properly. Though once we moved to a court with complete sun, my play didn’t improve all that much, so who’s to say?

Players Paddles

I got an email tonight from Players Pickleball:
“Introducing Rogue2 Carbon with Ultra Gel-Core!”

And on their website:
“By adding MORE elastomeric Gel-Core™ material to the honeycomb core of the paddle in strategic locations, we have amplified the key benefits it provides:
Increased Vibration Damping for reduced fatigue and RSI-type injuries
Increased Paddle Stability on Off-Center Hits
Increased Sweet Spot Enlargement“

Sounds like something I might want to try.

Saturday, March 16, 2024 (No Play)

Pickleball made an unexpected appearance in “good deals” YouTube video about Costco. Remember that Selkirk paddle set that my mom sent me a photo of recently? Yeah. That one. Pickleball is mentioned at 6 minutes and 50 seconds into the video.

Players Paddle

So I swapped some of the reward points I accumulated at Players Pickleball for a “$50 off” code. I was hoping to apply it to the new paddle on sale but when I applied the code in the shopping cart, it eliminated the sale and instead took the $50 off of the regular price, not the sale price. So the code only saves me $9 off the sale price. Hmmm. Save $9? Wait and use it later for something else? I’m going to give it a day or two.

New Class

I have a new group of students starting tomorrow. I used to get anxious about class starting, but this will be my fourth group and now I’m simply excited. I have no doubts that I do a good job teaching.

Pickleball Smash 2 Revisited

This popped up. Highlights from the Agassi/McEnroe rematch. I only saw highlights from the first one and only watched about 10 minutes of this one, but Agassi and McEnroe are getting so much better. This doesn’t quite look like a real pro match, but it’s getting closer.

Entertaining regardless.

Number of days on a court: 637
Number of total hours: 2,752.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 21.5

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