Month: September 2024 (Page 2 of 4)

Sunday, September 15, 2024 (Court Day #717)

I arrived at Brommer Park at 10:10 a.m. It was partly cloudy today and about 70°F with a small breeze. It was a nice day.

It was kind of funny, I had a ‘jacket and tie’ charity function in the morning and I was secretly wearing my pickleball shorts and T-shirt under my formal clothes! Those, I peeled off in the Brommer Park lot, changed my socks and shoes and I was ready without having to spend an extra half hour to go home to change—less time driving, more time playing!

Parking was easy, but the flipside of that was getting into a game was not as easy. There were a couple of empty courts  and a lack of players. But once I got into a game, it was nearly nonstop until I left.

First Game

My first game was a great one. I played with a guy I’d never met, John Alden, against Kyle (whom I had forgotten, but he remembered me) and Australian Josh, the spin-master!

This game was a battle.

Josh wound up and a fired a very hard drive from the his baseline while I was across from him at the net. With my backhand, I drove the ball off the court for a winner. I got kudos from our players for that one. My partner jubilantly exclaimed, “What was that?!?”

Another ball was coming to my backhand along the left sideline. Josh ran to the net but crept a little to the middle so I hit a hard backhand passing shot drive for a winner. He was able to make contact with the ball but it flew up wildly into the next court. I don’t think he was expecting a shot like that from a backhand.

After spending a long time at 9-7, John and I won 11-9 against Josh and Kyle. Not bad, considering John and I went into the game cold with no warm-up. That was the game of the day for sure.

Next Game

John and I played another game together, this time against tall lefty Greg and a fellow named Rick. We picked up another win 11-8. I wasn’t playing as sharp in this game. I was missing shots I should’ve made. I definitely had too many balls into the white tape or the net. Even one or two in a game is painful, but more than that is bad.

Eyeballs

I was in a game today when the ball deflected off of one player’s paddle, flew sideways, and hit the player’s partner’s protective glasses. And that’s the thing. The times that I’ve seen a ball hit a player in the face, it’s been off of that player’s own paddle or partner’s paddle, or some ricochet as opposed to a ball coming from an opponent’s paddle. “That’s why I always wear glasses!” Smart man.

David

David Lai arrived—a regular at Skypark—and we played against John A. and Greg. We won 11-5.

William

The last game was William and myself against David L. and a guy I had never met named Eric. The game would’ve been more balanced had Eric played with William and I had played with David, but as it was David and Eric lost 11–3. This was my first time on a court with William. He’s a very strong player. Eric, on the other hand, is probably a 3.0 or barely a 3.5.

I left at 11:45 a.m. I had to walk away from a game partnered with William against Drew and his female friend. Bummer. That would have been a good game.

All the games that I played today were decent as far as the challenge.

Well?

There was only about an hour and a half of play for me today, but it was well worth it.

You know the games are better when you hit a ball that you expect to be a winner, but then the ball comes back. Those are the fun ones.

I got home, had lunch, did some final tweaking of my Intermediate class curriculum, then headed to Scotts Valley to teach my two classes.

Coaching

Today was the last meetings of my two 4-week classes. It was a cooler day, so that was nice. The classes went well and my students were pleased. It was a warm fuzzy feeling when I got a round of applause after my Intermediate class. Usually it’s smiles and “thank you”s and waves. And a number asked about an “Advanced Intermediate” class. That doesn’t exist… yet!

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Monday, September 16, 2024 (No Play)

I believe I forgot to share this photo. This is from a Santa Cruz Pickleball Club event the middle of last month. I didn’t attend it—I was working—but Pam shared this photo online. (Click on the image for a higher resolution version.)

There are currently over 400 paying members of the club, so the 40 players in the photo are less than one-tenth. I know only about 15 of these people by name. There has been a lot of new players over the last few years!

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Tuesday, September 17, 2024 (No Play)

The back of my right hand is bothering me a little, so I’m going to take it easy and not play tonight.

I got a really nice testimonial from one of my students today:

"I was nervous to sign up for the Advance Beginner Pickleball class with Andrew Lenz because I'm new at the sport of Pickleball (took a beginner class a month earlier with a different instructor), and I'm an older gal so I wasn't sure if I could physically and mentally keep up with the class. I didn't want to let others down in the class due to my limited skill level. This let down did not happen!

In fact, I never even mentioned my trepidations because Andrew teaches his class that well. I completely forgot I was a newbie and I just had fun! I gained new skills and confidence and friends, and I even stopped some habits that just weren't working.

Andrew walked around to each participant during the class and was quick to spend time with us on anything he noticed. I truly felt like I was just where I needed to be, and I felt like I was on the inside taking this class because Andrew knows so much and has been teaching in our community for a quite while. For example, I use a drop serve. He was fine with that - in fact, he encouraged it and that made me feel legitimate!

Andrew is also a kind person and a direct person, which is incredibly refreshing that someone can be both.  At one point in a drill, he grabbed a ball and whacked it with the paddle aimed right at me. In the drill, I was acting afraid of getting hit by the ball and it was impeding my ability to keep my eyes focused on the ball. The ball hit me square on and it did not hurt. Helpful communication, don't you think?  LOL

Andrew spoke about each drill before we did them; explaining fully where we would stand, what the opponent would be trying to do, what we are attempting to do, what things we might focus on, and what additional skills we'd be developing, i.e., fast hands, quicker reaction time, better paddle timing and placement, etc. When I was unable to successfully complete the maneuver, he kindly stepped in and demonstrated so we could get a feel of what was to happen, and what would happen next. Love that!

What I would say I liked most from his class (besides his real-life examples of skills used in tournaments):
He teaches class conventionally - with a clipboard of drills and an attendance list. I like this for the obvious reason that drills make us better players. And use of the attendance list was so he could provide a substitute player if someone was going to be absent in the following class. I can't thank him enough for this because I don't want to lose the instructor's attention while he takes the place of an absent classmate. (Thank you Andrew's son, a very competent substitute player!)

And finally, Andrew was always willing and ready to answer our questions. Even questions outside the scope of this class he would take a few minutes to answer.
With the internet full of pickleball training videos, his taking the time for answering questions was so helpful to me! I would sometimes not be clear on a strategy or concept and I could ask Andrew and he would always be willing to clarify and offer answers.  (Thank you so very much, Andrew!) 

I look forward to taking an intermediate class with Andrew Lenz in the very near future!"

Wow. Great to hear. Encouragement from students means a lot.

Banning Courts?

The town of Ross, about two hours north of here in California, west of San Rafael, is considering banning private pickleball courts due to noise concerns. You can read about it here:
https://www.marinij.com/2024/09/14/ross-considers-ban-on-private-pickleball-courts/

Empty Nest

Here is a humorous article about a woman’s husband getting hooked by pickleball:
https://www.today.com/life/essay-life/confessions-pickleball-widow-rcna170895

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Wednesday, September 18, 2024 (No Play)

A couple of days ago, I registered with Selkirk as PPR instructor for their special pricing program. A visiting group reached out to me about giving them a private lesson and they don’t know if the vacation house where they are staying—with a private pickleball court—has paddles and how many. I used to have about half a dozen paddles, but three of them are in the possession of my son and my daughter—one lives out of town and the other out of state—and my wife… who had claimed the paddle that I loaned her but she hasn’t played once since she took a class with me months ago! Anyway, I need a few loaner paddles.

I never received an email from Selkirk saying that my registration went through and the teacher code didn’t work when I went to buy the set of 4 entry-level Nexus paddles for the express purpose of loaning to students.

I called Selkirk today and the nice woman said that my registration was in their system as complete and the code should work. I hung up and tried it. Nope. I called back and had to leave a message. I got a call back about half an hour later from a guy named Dalton and it turns out that the codes from PPR and the code on Selkirk’s own page were last year’s! Dalton took my order over the phone just to be safe and then emailed me the current set of 2024 discount codes.

I should point out that while part of my duties as SCPC Secretary is answering club emails, including inquiries for coaches once in a while. I always provide a list of instructors (with my name last) and/or direct them online where they can look up instructors. It would be unethical for me to say, “Oh, hey, you can hire me!” I don’t do that. I want to be able to sleep at night!

Hand

The back of my right hand was bugging while shaving this morning. Thursday night I have a nonprofit board meeting, so Sunday will likely be my next day of playing. That should give my hand a good break—a full week.

Crazy Story

This week some crackpot took some shots at former president Trump while he was in Florida. It turns out the would-be assassin was a regular pickleball player while living in Hawaii:
Alleged Trump Gunman Was My Hawaii Pickleball Partner
https://www.thedailybeast.com/alleged-trump-gunman-was-my-hawaii-pickleball-partner

Nearby Noise News

Saratoga is about 40 minutes from me. Another news story about how pickleball noise is affecting neighbors. Saratoga is spending a bunch to add noise barriers and a timer lock to remediate pickleball.

Pickleball rule-breakers and fence climbers at Saratoga courts lead to $100,000 budget resolution:

Pickleball rule-breakers and fence climbers at Saratoga courts lead to $100,000 budget resolution

Here’s another link in case the one above is blocked:

Pickleball rule-breakers and fence climbers at Saratoga courts lead to $100,000 budget resolution

The story goes that players are bringing their own lights to play after sunset. And a neighbor claims that they climb the fence when the gate is locked so they can play anyway. And it’s noisy. In the article, a USA Pickleball Ambassador is quoted as saying that the planned sound barriers may make it louder inside the courts and damage players’ hearing. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but maybe it’s legitimate.

I haven’t been to those courts at El Quito Park, but fence looks at least 8-9 feet high. I know a few players who might climb it to play, but sure as hell not me! No thanks! I’ll leave that to the 20-something players. (Plus I likely wouldn’t break the rules anyway.)

Weird Pickleball

My brother Matt twisted his ankle so I have him a ride home to my parents’ house after work. While there, my dad said he had what he thought was a pickleball and he went to find it so he could give it to me.

Um, yeah. No, dad. Not a pickleball. I told him I thought it might be a ball for racquetball.

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Thursday, September 19, 2024 (No Play)

My brother John texted me this morning while I was out walking the dog:

What’s crazy is my brother has played more than me this week! This week, I’ve only played Sunday. Who would have thunk it.

Selkirk Paddles

I got a email notice that my Selkirk paddle order has shipped and to top it off, they opted to send it FedEx 2-day shipping since they knew I need the order for a coaching session. Their codes—including one on their own website—were outdated so it seems that they are making amends. That’s good customer service!

Hawaii Court Drama

So in Hawaii, some local pickleball players want to convert one of the tennis courts to some additional pickleball courts. As you’d imagine, the tennis players are not thrilled with the idea. Tennis players don’t rotate of their courts nearly as fast as pickleball players do.

Number of days on a court: 717
Number of total hours: 2,961.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 75.5

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

Friday, September 13, 2024 (Court Day #716)

I spent part of my morning prepping for the SCPC board meeting which took place this afternoon. On the days of our board meetings, I take most of the day off and don’t get to work until after 3:30 p.m.

By 8:58 a.m., I was halfway between my house and Brommer Park. It was a club day, so I was expecting it to be somewhat busy, which it was. It was sunny and 63°F.

As I drove, I was hoping I’d get into better games than I did last night. As a club day, after 10 a.m., we’d all be signing up by skill level. My fingers were crossed.

Brommer Park

My first hour was games with 2.5 and 3.0 players. Merely social and lazy games.

After 10 a.m., I started a box in blue (4.0+). But I had 3.5 players in my group. Two guys said that they “just played with some 3.5 players” and they told them to “move up into blue.” The funny thing is, it’s never that the losing team should move down, it’s always the winning team needs to move up. That’s why the upper skill levels get overloaded and the lower levels are pretty vacant. It wasn’t a horrible game, but the rallies were short and my partner hit more than his share of balls into the net.

I got two good games with Pauly against Dieter and Rick. We won the first one and they lost the second one. In the second—and last—one, I weakly retuned a backhand into the net. Jackie, who was sitting on the wall watching, called over to me, “You are better than that!” She was right, of course, that was a horrible service return!

Board Meeting

At 12:16 p.m., I was sitting down at the park benches for the monthly Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board meeting. A big chunk of the discussion was trying to decide how to solve the problem of getting players broken up into proper skill level so the games would be better and so better players don’t abandon club play. The meeting was adjourned to 2:07 p.m.

More Games

I walked by the courts toward the parking lot but called down to Pauly, Gary, and Sean McElaney, who were sitting along the wall, if they wanted to play. They agreed. Gary and I lost that game. I hadn’t played for two hours so my play wasn’t ideal. But then Gary wasn’t playing fantastic either.

Pauly decided to sit out the next one, so Sean and Gary played against me and a fellow that I never met named Tony. Tony is an intermediate player. Our opponents were winning early but then my partner and I turned it around and won 11–6. (I was also starting to warm back up.)

When I asked on the time, Sean said it was 2:45 p.m. I told him that I had to go. Work is calling… well, not literally, but you know what I mean!

Tennis Pros

American tennis pro Tyler Fritz was quoted recently as saying, “I think there are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that’s fine. But for me, like, I don’t really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. It’s fine. I don’t see any reason why both of them can’t exist.”

American Ben Shelton laughed when asked about a similar question. “No, man, I got no comment about that.”

https://www.utrsports.net/blogs/news/2024-us-open-pickleball-tennis

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Saturday, September 14, 2024 (No Play)

It was strangely cooler today… like fall is saying, “I’ll be here soon.” Then this afternoon, my sister texted our family group saying that there is a 40% chance of rain on Wednesday. Well, then. Summer is on its way out!

Bagpiper Pickleball

The USA Pickleball Ambassadors have a private Facebook group. An ambassador named Jeff Poff shared a couple photos of a parade in Kettering, Ohio, a few miles out of Dayton. His local pickleball group marched, but he also mentioned that they “had two bagpipe players marching” with them. Being a bagpiper myself, I was intrigued and tracked down their Facebook group and the additional photos he had mentioned in his post.

Now, I have no idea who the bagpiper is. When I asked if the piper played pickleball, Mr. Poff said no. Too bad. It would have be fun to find another pickleball-playing bagpiper.

Number of days on a court: 716
Number of total hours: 2,960
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5

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

Thursday, September 12, 2024 (Court Day #715)

Kind of fun today, Derby Park players Craig and his wife Loni came in for some art materials at my work and it turned out that “an OG pickleball player” Beth Black was in another room getting some picture framing done. Craig said he and Loni have been nursing “his and hers” Achilles injuries and haven’t been playing for months. I told Beth that I’d seen her husband David out at Brommer a couple of times in the last month. She said that she’s been out due to plantar fasciitis. Bummer.

Skypark

I left work early to attend a work Zoom seminar but they are easier for me to do from home where I keep my iPad. Afterwards, rather than returning to work, I headed out early to Skypark to play.

It was sunny and a warm 75°F when I got to Scotts Valley at about 5:45 p.m. My son Nicholas was coming to town since he has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. My wife suggested to him that he come play pickleball at Skypark and he agreed.

My second game was with Kristin Long against a woman named Rose and her friend who said she’d been playing for eight years. Kris warned me that she’s having incredibly hard time with her serving. I think she must have hit half a dozen serves before she got one in. She had a yips. We were losing most of that game, but then we came back to win 12–10.

Nicholas

When Nicholas arrived I was in the middle of a game against David Lai and Beth with David’s girlfriend Minori as my partner. That was probably the strongest game of the night. David, of course, is always a worthy adversary. Beth, I’d say, is a high level 3.0 player or a low 3.5. No doubt in a tournament of women’s doubles, she’d be at least a 3.5, especially if it were age brackets.

After my game was finished, Nicholas and I played every game together. We played a number of games with Ethan’s friend Caitlin in our group.

It was a completely lazy evening. Aside from that game with David and Beth, there really weren’t any games where I really had to try particularly hard. On the contrary, some of the games I was intentionally keeping the rally going by hitting the ball gently.

When Nicholas and Mike were playing against Caitlin and myself, I was trying to serve as easily as I could to their forehands, but even with that, they were having trouble getting the ball back over the net. (Maybe the off-speed was throwing them.) There was kind of an inexplicable game. Neither of them were playing well in that game for some reason.

Last Game

The last game was Nicholas and myself against Fabrizio and left-handed Mike. We won that one 11–5. Nicholas got better as this evening went on and he warmed up a little bit more. One thing he has to stop doing is inviting opponents to the net. I think he may have won a rally once dropping the ball short, but generally when players were back and Nicholas had a little short drop over the net, he would either put the ball into the net or the ball went over and bounced high enough for our opponents to run in, successfully hit the ball back over and join us at the net. Yes, something to work on. (As a matter of fact, later on, he asked me for tips on what to improve. I specifically mentioned that.)

Lights Out

That last game brought us up to 8:29 p.m. and the lights clicked off a few minutes later.

I hopped in my car and he hopped in his car and we headed home to my house. The evening was a wrap!

Number of days on a court: 715
Number of total hours: 2,956.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5

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