I dropped off my brother Matt at my parents house after work on my way to Scotts Valley.
At 6:49 p.m., I was walking to courts. It was warm in the sun, but cooler than yesterday. That was hot—in the 80s. I know . . . we are spoiled here. I was talking to a friend today and he said it was 105°F yesterday in Sacramento! We whine when it drops below 65ºF or gets above 75ºF!
It was a pretty light crowd tonight. I don’t know if something was going on elsewhere or just the way the cards fell.
My first two or three games, I was obviously the most skilled player. Those aren’t quite as fun . . . games where you feel guilty for your opponents not being able to return your serves. Where you feel like you really need to dial back your game in order to keep the rallies more than two or three shots.
Fortunately, I was able to get into a games with David L., Tim Handley, and Paul. We played two or three pretty balanced games before Tim called it a night.
Aside from the earlier, weaker games, I played all my games tonight and some fashion with David and Paul on the court as my partner or an opponent.
There is a good player closely crop blonde hair, Jordan, who uses a static fully open stance on his serves. It’s unusual to see someone stand like that for a serve, but it’s effective for him.
Friday, June 7, 2024 (No Play)
Yeah. Knee hurts. Story of my life right now.
New Classes
In the last 24 hours, I’ve done a lot of texting to students for my new series of classes starting this weekend. This will be my time doing two classes back to back. It turns out Binh’s fiancee Laurie is in my beginners class as is her sister, Christina. There’s also a woman acquaintance of mine, Elizabeth, in the beginner class as well. I’ll know about half of the Advanced Beginners class . . . previous students.
Under Pressure
Coincidentally to the topic that started this post above, ever wonder what a pickleball looks like in slow motion when hit? Here you go: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C74rVDLPEGb/ You’re welcome!
Screenshot
Number of days on a court: 670 Number of total hours: 2,848 Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
At 6:58 p.m., I was on the path walking to courts. It’s the warmest evening that I remember. My brother texted a photo earlier of his thermometer reading 94°F. He lives in Scotts Valley about ten blocks from the Skypark Courts.
The dry erase board was out when I arrived, but it wasn’t being used and it didn’t get used tonight at all.
Missing Women
It was a bit unusual tonight in that there were almost no women there. I was told there was a women’s league going on at Brommer Park tonight. I saw only one or two women. Spencer’s mixed partner Mo showed up later, but it was a whole lot of just guys.
Weather
It was very warm and unusually muggy. It made for a very sweaty and sticky evening. At one point, I had to get out a towel and wipe off my forehead. If I have ever had to do that before at Skypark in the evening in the years that I’ve been playing there, it was just once.
Good Games
Tonight was pretty much all good games. The really fun one was me partnered with Ethan against Marquis (“Marcus”) and David. They were standing there looking for a fourth. I wasn’t feeling super confident and said, “I don’t know . . . I could be the goat in this game.” (I didn’t mean Greatest Of All Time, I was thinking more “sheep and goats” . . . goats are the undesired!) But Ethan encouraged me and said, “You can play with me.”
And this is not any of the regular David, this David is a little bit taller and older David, who remembered me although I didn’t remember him. David asked if I was the Andrew who was having the arm problem. I told him, yes, shoulder, but then I added after the next rally, I had had really bad tennis elbow. In any case, he remembered me. I only had a very vague fuzzy recollection of him after our conversation. It’s been many months, no question. Maybe even pre-pandemic—that’d be four years in the past!
Anyway, that game was a lot of fun. Sure, I had a handful of bad shots, but on the flip side, I also made some really good shots as well. Ethan was a machine, as you would expect. He complimented me mid-game on my resets. I remember one rally where I was rock solid on my dinks. There was one shot that I popped up a volley while at the kitchen, Ethan said I probably should have let that one bounce. Yes, volleys are harder to control than shots off the bounce. I’ve been trying harder to try and take most shots out of the air while at the kitchen. It’s getting all the decisions perfect—“volley or bounce?”—that is hard.
Dropped
Also, as I was walking on the path back to the remote parking lot, I got a call from David L.—of David and Minori—saying that I had left my wallet at the court. Unfortunately, I have the habit of being a bit lazy and not always completely closing the zipper on my backpack. It’s more efficient, but a bad habit. My phone fell out once about a year ago, and this time it was my wallet. Someone also reached out to Paul Winn to get my number, but David already had it. I walked back, hung out with big Mike Diaz and Aaron (OG, not the big linebacker-size lefty Aaron) and chatted. At 10:15 p.m., I called it a night and left them to finish their beers.
Ugh
As I stepped out of the car at home, I was sore and stiff. Boy.
Wednesday, June 5, 2024 (No Play)
The big news of the week is the continuing saga of the Joola (“you-la”) Gen 3 paddles being delisted/unapproved by USA Pickleball.
The story goes that the wrong paddles were submitted by Joola for approval. USA Pickleball approved the paddles—using their third-party testing service—then a different paddle was shipped out by Joola to the masses with the approval label on them. These paddles sent to consumers were tested and failed. Originally, it was chalked up to a clerical error on the part of Joola . . . but it came out today that the second set of paddles failed too! Uh, oh. Big problem. Now there are thousands of paddles “in the wild” that are not legal to use in tournaments. I will point out that this is NOT the fault of USA Pickleball. Inconsistency in manufacturing is a problem with the maker.
Health
I should have iced my knee last night. Also, my back is tight.
New Courts
So Karen Haselden, another local certified pickleball coach, has five beautiful new courts on her and her husband’s property in Scotts Valley. She’s calling it “Quail Valley Pickleball.” They even have an LLC for it—probably a good idea, you never know if someone is going to sue you when they are a klutz and hurt themselves! Dave Cox graciously reached out about joining him and having me play there on Friday night, but it’s $15. I’m not on generous retired firefighter’s pension, so I’m going to play for free on Skypark on Thursday night instead. I’ll probably go to Karen’s place at least once just to see what’s up.
More on Joola
So also today, later, Joola issued a statement basically saying they are unhappy with the USAP decision and say “we are confident the current Gen paddles are materially and structurally the same as those approved by USAP in September 2023”. They go on with: “We plan to dispute USAP’s decision to remove Gen3 paddles from the list, and the process employed to do so, in forthcoming legal proceedings.”
So, it sounds like they plan to sue USA Pickleball. Such a headache. Someone said online that something similar happened with Joola a few years ago when one of their paddles failed a “field test”. Perhaps they are just pushing the envelope so much that the variance in manufacturing can tip the scale and a paddle can fail. There’s risk of pushing too much, of course.
Mindset at the Net
Here’s a good reminder that I tell my students. Expect the speed-up. Prepare mentally and physically for it. And If you don’t get it, you have time to adjust to a slower shot. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7z9YaNgRTw/
Number of days on a court: 669 Number of total hours: 2,845.5 Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
I had volunteered weeks ago to assist with the “advanced” training session for SCPC members. Shawnte would be the lead instructor. Today was the day that it finally rolled around. And it was a good day for it—sunny and pleasant. As it turned out, this was an “intermediate-advanced” session.
I changed at work then arrived at Derby Park at 3:35 p.m. When I pushed myself out of the car with my right leg, my knee complained. It has been bothering me a bit more than the last week, but that push particularly hurt.
When I walked in the gate, there were a couple young women hitting a ball back and forth on a court. Nearby, a man was lying down on the aluminum bench, his face obscured by a broad-brimmed hat. “John?” Yes, it was John Pacholski—my one-time tournament partner and instrumental in me trying pickleball for the first time about 7 1/2 years ago. Puzzled, I told him, “I was expecting to see Shawnte here.” ”Why?” ”Well, it starts at 4, right?” ”4:30.” ”Ahhh…..”
I don’t know why I had 4 p.m. in my head, though that was probably my planned arrival time, not the clinic start time. Obviously, I should have double-checked the time during the intervening weeks!
A Game
Since we were very early, John suggested we play skinny singles. Eric Schmidt and John had played a ton of skinny singles during the pandemic. Playing sounded good to me. We did a combination of cross-court (even score) and straight ahead (odd score). Soon, I was up 4-1. I went on to win 11-1. We finished that game at 4 p.m. Between the skinny singles game and warming up a couple of players shortly after, I figure I got in about half an hour of court/play time.
Clinic
So, the 90-minute training session was scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. Shawnte gave an extra 10 minutes to allow for people running late. Barbara Gerry said there were 17 registered, but when we started, we only had 15.
Before we started, Shawnte gave the four assistants—of which I was one—a very quick overview of what he had planned: warm-up, topspin dinks, ATPs, and stacking. The assistants would be me, Dan Bliss, John Pacholski, and Larry Yien.
Introductions
After we gave plenty of time for students to arrive, Shawnte started introductions, introducing himself, then he gave time for me, Dan, John, and Larry to introduce ourselves. We didn’t take the time for 15 student introductions, and I knew almost all of the students already . . . though there were one or two that I didn’t know.
Warm Up & Sorting
Shawnte asked every student go to a random court which he numbered 1 though 4. He looked around and immediately changed the court numbers so the stronger players would be on courts numbered 1 and 2. Each court had two simultaneous games of skinny singles which was played for about five minutes. After five minutes, the winner would move up half a court and the loser moved down half a court. We did this about four times to sort players so they would be of similar skill level on a given court.
A 16th student, a woman I didn’t know, showed up 15-20 minutes late. Larry then could assume his role as an assistant instead of acting as a student to fill a court.
I ended up instructing on the #1 court with the strongest players. John P. had the next court. Dan covered court #3, and Larry covered court #4.
Drilling Dinks
The first skill activity, we drilled topspin crosscourt dinks. One diagonal pair worked on forehands while the other pair worked on backhands. Then they switched.
Long Time No See
Midway through the session, Tristan showed up with three buddies to play. They settled in on one of the two courts we weren’t using for the clinic. I hadn’t seen Tristan in a long time. He looks like a full adult! I asked him, “What are you now 18? 19?“ He smiled and replied, “20!”
ATPs
Shawnte came to me partway through the session and wanted my opinion if we should cover ATP or stacking, since we didn’t have time for both. I told him ATPs and that’s what we did.
We ran an ATP drill. The ATP drill required the full court. There is the feeder who is trying to hit the ball wide enough for the diagonally opposite player to attempt an ATP, to the defender who would hope to return it to the fourth player. We rotated through backhand ATPs first giving each player a chance to do it, and then we switched and had the players do forehand ATP attempts.
Me instructing Eugene on the finer points of ATP court positioning and preparation. (And yes, that’s a paddle in the back of my shorts!)
Validation
There was one nice moment, where there was an ATP, an ATP return, then the shot by Eugene, who is properly position and covering the middle and hit a winner. Shawnte complemented Eugene on the shot and Eugene told Shawnte, “Andrew taught me that!“ Validation and success for a student!
When time ran out, Barbara Gerry gathered everyone for a group photo.
The group. I’m at the lower right, bumping elbows with Shawnte.
Post-Clinic Games
After the session broke up at 6 p.m., some of us wanted to stick around and play some games. (John P. was funny. He smiled and shared, “I’m going to go lick my wounds from skinny singles!”)
Jax and I played a couple of close games against Paulie and Larry.
Then Julianne and I played against Jax and Paulie. I believe we won 11-9 after being down 8-3. But maybe that was a different combination of players. (It’s been a long day!)
I played a game with Misa against Paulie and a fellow named Adam whom I may have seen around before but I don’t really know. It was a very close game. I think we end up winning 14-12. It kept going back-and-forth.
I was missing an unusual number of serves during this session. I missed maybe half a dozen. It was odd.
By 7:06 p.m., I was in the car and on my way to Skypark in Scotts Valley to play more.
Skypark
As I was walking in on the path from the remote parking lot, I was already tired. Maybe it was a lack of sleep. Dunno.
Paddle Reunited
Kiki and I finally connected up and I was able to return her paddle tonight that I found last week. She said it’s not an expensive paddle, she bought it from Jon Barlow for $50. She said Jon has a factory in China knocking off some name brand paddle . . . China is the wild west when it comes to things like that. She remembered me from a few years ago while she and her now ex-boyfriend were playing Sundays at Derby. As much as I try to remember everyone, I honestly, just can’t remember everyone I meet on a court, as much as I try!
Games
Jax and I played a game against David L. (of David and Minori) and Spencer. We got our clocks cleaned, losing 6-11. But we won the rematch 11-2. That felt better!
Tonight was a really fun enjoyable evening. The crowd is a little bit lighter, although they did eventually bring out the white dry-erase board to organize those waiting, but the waits were not very long.
The only game was not as much fun/balace, was the game where I was partnered with the new guy, Jason. Jason did ask me advance if I’d be willing to play with him since he’s a newbie. Of course, I said I would. We teamed up against Tim Fekeirt and a man named Daniel, who is tall and I never met before. I asked Tim about Daniel’s skills . . . part of the pre-game ritual to try and balance teams. Tim said Daniel is new and not very good. Tim, of course, is a very strong player. And . . . it turned out that Daniel is pretty good too. Daniel hit some strong shots and was a steady player, and after Daniel hit a winner, I walked up to the net and—with a big smile—pointed out to Tim, “I thought you said Daniel wasn’t very good!” Tim laughed. He knew that he’d been kidding with me. Jason had more of a soft game than many beginners, but he has a ways ago with that yet. He also has a strong tendency to stay back at the baseline. But Jason is definitely a good rough blank. Lots of potential there.
Last Game
The last game of the night was Rachel and myself against Ofer and big Mike. Initially, the game was close and back-and-forth and then Rachael and I pulled out ahead and won 11-6. I was playing quite well at that point. We squeezed it in just before the lights clicked off shortly after 9:30 p.m.
I got nearly all of my serves in at Skypark, however, I hit at least half a dozen shots into the white tape of the net. That was a bit frustrating, but overall, I was happy with my play tonight.
Nick Kyrgios, famous bad-boy pro tennis player, talked some months back about eventually playing pickleball after retiring from tennis. Well, here he is in some recreational setting, playing: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7jrGhhA5vO/ And I’ll note, he switched to his left hand to take a shot. Nice. I’m not the only one!
Sunday, June 2, 2024 (No Play)
I’ve had all kinds of extended family stuff going on this weekend and no teaching this afternoon. Val Rathbone was available to open Derby for me today. It’s probably good. My right wrist is bothering me and my right knee continues to ache more than normal.
Number of days on a court: 668 Number of total hours: 2,843 Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
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