Month: April 2024 (Page 3 of 4)

Thursday, April 11, 2024 (No Play)

Today, a woman named Aleksandra private messaged me on Facebook about teaching a class at April 23 for her company holding an event at Chaminade Resort across town. She had posted in the Santa Cruz Pickleball group looking for an instructor and I was debating responding when she reached out. We talked about it and I agreed to teach. It’s a corporate retreat and they want to have some fun activities to do as a break from focusing on business. It’ll take about three hours out of my day for the 2-hour session. I don’t know where the company itself is based, but she’s on the east coast.

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Friday, April 12, 2024 (Court Day #645)

There was a dramatic weather change this morning. Yesterday, the temperature climbed to almost 80°F. Today, it’s overcast in the 50s with rain forecasted for tonight.

Vet Trip

Oliver, our older corgi, gets monthly shots at the vet and today was that day. I drove out to Scott Valley for his 8:10 AM appointment which was brief and then headed back to Santa Cruz to drop off Oliver and then head out to Bromer.

Board Meeting Prep

Today is the day of the monthly Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board meeting. Last night, I finished off the agenda and tweaked the meeting minutes from our board retreat in March and sent off the links to the Google Docs to the board members. This morning, Pam told me that I had misspelled her last name and Barb told me that I had forgotten an item she had suggested for the agenda. I apologized to them both and made the corrections.

Players Test

Yesterday, while out walking our younger corgi Pepper, I took another crack at the USA Pickleball Player Rules Test. I felt pretty confident about my answers and felt that this might be the first time where I might actually get them all correct. But, unfortunately, while I had my best score ever of 94%, I still missed 3 of the 50 questions. And just be clear, the test is not the same every time, the questions are randomly drawn from a pool.

The first question that I missed was a true or false question regarding verbal warnings. The question asked whether or not it was true, if the team gets a single verbal warning once per match. I said the answer was false. However, the test came back telling me that it was true. I later realized that I was confusing ‘verbal warnings’ with ‘technical warnings’. Both are delivered verbally without immediate consequences, but a verbal warning is just an informal “hey, don’t do that”. A technical warning counts toward a possible technical foul.

I ran out of time before work to scroll down through the 50 questions and figure out which remaining ones that I missed.

The Drive

As I drove to Brommer Park is misting heavily. It wasn’t rain, but it did start to worrying me about the condition of the courts. I had to run my windshield wipers every 15 seconds or so—an annoyance. I was happy that I grabbed a sweatshirt on my way out this morning, I remember one of the previous board meetings being kind of cold though that was during winter and not during spring. But at 54°F, it wasn’t exactly a warm morning today.

Brommer

When I arrived, the parking lot was still a quarter empty. Walking in, I noticed that there was a court with only three players on it. There was Marquis (pronounced “Marcus”), Dan (the middle school teacher) and a man I didn’t know. That man turned out to be Jeremy, who is visiting from Camarillo. Jeremy is a good player, I’d have him as a tournament partner anytime. I played with Jeremy as my partner for the first game and then for the second game we switched it up and I played with Dan. I won the first and lost the second. (I say “I” though it’s always “we”!) Jeremy paid me a few compliments over the course of the matches: “Fast hands!” “Nice drop!”

Confusion!

So whoever the site coordinator was today, change the pen colors. Blue is always 4.0+, and red is Advanced 3.5, green is Intermediate 3.0, and black is novice/recreational. Today, blue was 3.0 and green was 4.0. It was very confusing. I inadvertently signed up in a game with 3.0 players! Exasperated, Pam pointed out the change and I immediately changed the pen colors to what is common and expected. I was very gracious about it and played the game anyway though one of the players offered me an out . . . I played most of the game lefty. One of the players was visiting from the Mount Shasta group. [I played there two years ago.]

I felt I played reasonably well today.

Board Meeting

The board meeting started at 12:15 p.m. and I joined them a few minutes late, right after my game ended. The board was sitting at a park table under the gazebo. (I think it gave someone an illusion of protection from the wind—ha!) It was a long meeting that ended at 2:27 p.m. We easily could have had it go another hour. George is a very good treasurer but he is rather verbose. It can take him 10 minutes to explain something that could probably be explained in 3 minutes . . . but better too much than too little! Boy. It was cold. My sweatshirt was not enough. And I wasn’t the only one! We were glad it was done more for a chance to warm up than to get on with our day!

Number of days on a court: 645
Number of total hours: 2,778
Number of paid coaching hours: 24.5

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

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 (Court Day #644)

A few days ago, Mauricio and I had tentatively set up a drilling session this morning, our first. I followed up last night around 8 p.m. and it took him about 45 minutes to respond, but he said our arranged time would work.

Drilling

Set my alarm for 7:00 a.m. and by 7:25 a.m., I was out the door with my pickleball backpack, some orange cones, and my mini practice net. I had never use the mini practice net before. As I walked to Mauricio’s house it was a rather chilly 45°F.

I arrived at Mauricio‘s driveway and he popped out a minute later at 7:30 a.m., right on time. We went through his side yard front gate, then his side yard back gate, then through the community green space shared by the ring of houses, then down to the shared tennis court. After Diego‘s description of the court, I was expecting something very horrible. However, while it was bad, there were areas that were workable. Mauricio and I figured out a reasonably decent spot and I set up my portable mini net there using one tennis court baseline as one kitchen line and we used the cones to vaguely indicate another kitchen line.

We spent the next 90 minutes dinking and then volleying. I suggested that we take one step inside the kitchen line to make the volleys a little bit faster so they when we got to a real kitchen, we’ll have more reaction time and the ball will seem slower.

Mauricio is very consistent with a soft game, perhaps even more so than mine. His volleying was good, though not quite as strong as his extremely reliable dinking.

Our drilling session wrapped just after 9 a.m. By that time, I felt like I might be getting a sunburn on my face. The sun had creep up above the trees and was shining at my side of the net.

Skypark

After working all day, I left shortly after 6:30 pm. and headed to Skypark in Scotts Valley.

While the shadows were long, the sun was still up and it was a nice 66°F as I arrived at Skypark. I had to park down the block and around the corner. Not too bad.

Right after I hung up my backpack and was putting on my tennis elbow strap and wrist brace, but tall man who I didn’t recognize walked through the side gate. He asked how things work here. I asked him if he is visiting, and he said he was from Vacaville. His name is Jeff and he’s is in the area for short time while working at the Moss Landing power plant. He’s staying in Aptos but made the drive to Scotts Valley after getting some information about play here from the Facebook group. I asked him if he wanted to warm up and we warmed up at a court together.

Not long after two young fellows join us—Kyler and one of his friends. I’d never played with Kyler before but based on conversations overheard later, I think he’s in the Christian group from UCSC that has been appearing on a regular basis. Kyler is friend with a number of younger people there, Griffin—who seen before, Caitlin, a stocky fellow named Hudson, and a few others. Kyler comes from a strong tennis background and it shows.

The evening started out with me playing pretty well. The problem was, as soon as the sun went down and we had to rely on the lights, my performance suffered a little bit. I must have missed about half a dozen of my serves tonight. I guess the good news is, but I only hit the white tape of the net two or three times over the course of the 2 1/2 hours.

A Distracting Hinder

Mosquitoes were out in force tonight. That’s unusual. One flew right past my eyes when I was returning a serve. My return didn’t go so well and I asked for a replay! (Which we did.) By rule, that’s a “hinder” by the way, not a “distraction”. A hinder is from outside the court—like a ball rolling on or an insect in your face. A distraction is something outside of normal behavior done by your opponent—like randomly yelling as you are about to hit the ball.

Overall, I was satisfied with my play tonight.

There were two or three shots noticed I was a little bit out of position and should’ve been hugging in the middle more. As it was, I left a little bit of a gap and that is enough for my opponents to hit winners in those instances.

As typical, the lights clicked off shortly after 9:30 p.m. I spent the next half hour chatting with Tim Feickert, Mauricio, Pauly, Matt, Paul, Aaron, Mike, and there is a tall guy there that I don’t really know as well and I keep forgetting that his name is John. When I got to my car, it was 54°F.

Kevlar Paddle?

Paul W. had a paddle that is made with Kevlar. It is an off brand, but it’s the same company that makes his backpack that looks the Joola brand version. An interesting notion, Kevlar.

Paddle Grip

During one game, during a firefight at the net, I had a backhand volley, and the ball flew out past the end of the court. I haven’t mentioned it before, but I noticed recently that I’m gripping my paddle rotated slightly to a closed face from the continental grip that I have been using since the beginning. It’s more of an eastern grip. I’m not sure exactly when this happened. I know Dean would be happy with that change, years ago he had suggested that I’d be better off with a slightly closed face on my paddle.

Son Nicholas

Tonight, my son Nicholas texted me asking about two pickleball classes that are being offered over in Santa Clara where he’s living. There’s a beginners class and also an intermediate class.

Nicholas was asking which one I thought he should take. Nicholas has played half a dozen times and knows the rules and he is coordinated. Early on, people were asking incredulously if he was really brand new to the game. Nicholas, like me, has good hand/eye coordination, and is somewhat athletic. Anyway, I asked him if he wanted to be the best student in the class or if he wanted to be in the lower half of the class. He said that the only reason he was considering the beginner class was that he might know some people taking it. I told him there is some merit to that consideration. We’ll see how that all ends up.

Number of days on a court: 644
Number of total hours: 2,775
Number of paid coaching hours: 24.5

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

Sunday, April 7, 2024 (Court Day #643)

I took the USA Pickleball Player Rules Test last night while walking the dog. I got 92%. That’s four wrong out of 50 questions. I’m getting better. I’m still shooting for 100%. 

WHOOP

My wife is big into medical analytics. A few years ago, she bought a WHOOP, after her sister bought one. (This is a common theme. Her sister buys one, she buys one, then their mom buys one!) This is a device that you wear and it purports to keep track of the stress you are experiencing, as well as the length and quality of your sleep, along with other metrics.

A week ago, my wife got a new whoop device in the form of a ring she could wear. She gave me her old device to wear for a few days so she can compare the data for me to her own data. I’ve worn it the last couple of days and she’s thought it might be interesting to see what happens if I wear it while playing pickleball. I very rarely wear a watch or any kind of jewelry outside of my wedding ring. I suppose I could get used to it, but generally, I just find it annoyance. Regardless, I wore the WHOOP to pickleball today.

Derby Park

There’s a sunny, if chilly, morning—my car read 52° as navigated the suburban streets on my way to open up the courts. I arrived at Derby Park at 8:45 a.m.

My knee hasn’t been bothering me other than an ache here and there, so today I thought I would try and play without the knee brace and see how things go.

It was not a day of a lot of great games. The last game of the day was Mark G. and Mauricio against myself and Ted B. 

It started raining around 1 o’clock with large, but very sparse drops. Such a strange day. It started out actually beautifully, then the clouds moved in and we had raindrops. 

I left the park at 1:30 p.m. Normally, I’d leave around noon to go teach, but the main highway was closed for the demolition of an overpass, so I cancelled today’s class.

WHOOP

My wife said that the WHOOP said that my body was under “stress” during pickleball. I wasn’t concerned, that’s expected!

Number of days on a court: 643
Number of total hours: 2,771
Number of paid coaching hours: 24.5

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