Sunday, September 8, 2024 (Court Day #713)

Oliver, our older corgi, started woofing shortly after 6 a.m. As much as I tried to get back to sleep, that didn’t happen. Eventually, I grabbed my phone and checked email and social media and watched a few pickleball videos. I crawled out of bed about 8, got ready and was in the car on my way to Brommer Park 8:35 a.m. I could already tell it was going to be a very warm day. It was warm enough in direct sunlight, that I had a natural inclination to seek shade. I was hoping that it would not be too crazy hot for my classes in Scotts Valley in the afternoon.

I pulled into the Brommer parking lot at 8:45 a.m. to plenty of parking.

First Game

It didn’t take too long to get into a game. Australian Josh walked in right after me and we played against Rick Arnold and Jason. Josh is a slice machine! Nearly every drive was a slice. We played three games with the same teams and Josh and I won them all. As Josh and I got warmed up over the course of the games, our play improved.

Eh.

Josh had to take off and it broke up our group. I ended up putting my paddle up in the rack with three unknown players just to get out onto a court and play. It turned out there was a 3.0, a 2.5, and a newbie. No offense to the players—they were nice people—but it was a game that you hope will end quickly so that you can get into another better game. That was my worst performance of the day. I was a bit lazy.

Better Games

Dave Cox was there and he paired up with Jean against John and myself. (John, Robin‘s husband.) John and I won something like 11-7.

We got off the court and put in our paddles to play as a group again but this time Dave wanted to play with John. I was playing quite well. It was a back-and-forth game. We were ahead but they crawled back to 10–9, but then Jeanne and I took lead 11–10. Unfortunately, Dave, then John, each put a ball that literally landed on the white sideline on my side of the court. With the angle, I figured that they were both were going to go out, however that was not the case. Then one more mistake by Jeanne and we lost 13–11. Still, they are very fun games.

Dave wanted to play another game but I told him that I had to leave. It was 11:40 a.m. and I need to get home to have lunch, change, and get out to Skypark to teach. I felt pretty happy about my play today no doubt about that.

Coaching & Ninja

I brought and showed a Ninja pickleball to my Advanced Beginner class. I bounced a regular ball on a paddle then the Ninja ball. It’s super quiet and drew a gasp from the students. It’s not a big surprise since it’s a foam ball. Then I held the two balls next to each other and dropped them simultaneously to court surface. On the initial bounce, they both bounced up at the same height, which is the important bounce. What was interesting is after the first bounce, the Ninja ball continued to bounce higher whereas a regular pickleball settled on the ground much faster. One student was super interested in one, so I sold her one of the three that I had for one-third of the $30 price I paid, $10. She said she was going on a trip and the quiet ball would be very helpful for her to drill. I’m glad to hear that she’s drilling!

Number of days on a court: 713
Number of total hours: 2,952.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5

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