Month: September 2024 (Page 3 of 4)

Tuesday, September 10, 2024 (Court Day #714)

Last night, this popped up as an ad on social media. Just in time for football season. Faux NFL pickleball T-shirts. Clever. I’m almost tempted.

And, Jay, my bagpiping mentor sent me this today:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/850994960544462
Yes, another humorous video short poking fun at pickleball! (And, no, that is not the guy who really invented pickleball!)

Skypark

Arrived at the Skypark Courts at about 6:50 p.m., fortunately a car was pulling out of a parking spot just as I was passing through the lot. It was a busy night and I would’ve had to park down the street and around the corner.

There was a new sign on the pickleball gate entrance that private lessons are only allowed with permission from the City of Scotts Valley. It looked like someone missed the sign tonight since a court in the corner was reserved until 7:30 p.m. and a lesson was going on there. The crowd of players made do with the seven remaining courts.

Tonight, every game I played had at least one weak player. All games were still entertaining and fun, but not necessarily the most challenging. Rallies were generally short, though there were occasionally longer ones.

Crowd Pleaser

My “shot of the night” was a miss in the first game. My partner and I were lobbed deep down the middle. I sprinted back at a dead run, stretched out and just managed to drive the ball back over the net. There was no way to drop it—a drive was all I could barely manage. The ball flew low over the net and toward the right back corner but sailed out by about a foot. I didn’t think much of it until I heard, “Ohhhhhhh” from the smattering of players waiting for games since the effort barely didn’t pan out. Dave Ryan made an approving comment.

Alfred

I had young Alfred was an opponent in that first game. He played very well, but I wouldn’t get into another game with him, unfortunately. He’s gotten a lot better since the last time I’d played him many months ago.

Dumb

Tonight, there were shots I had no business trying to attack. Low crosscourt shots to my forehand. I think I hit 3-4 of those into the net. I was not being patient and shouldn’t have been aggressive on those. I tend to take more risks against weaker opponents. I need to be more consistent and not let myself develop bad habits.

And?

Overall, I was indifferent to my play tonight. I made dumb decisions with some low balls. But I had some good play too.

Chloe and her boyfriend Abe were hitting a tennis ball back-and-forth on the empty tennis court. Ask Chloe if I could hit a ball. I was awful. You would’ve thought that I had never picked up a tennis racket before. Yeah, it’s been at least 20 years, but still, I was hitting the ball into the net, if I even managed to make contact! It was hysterical!

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Wednesday, September 11, 2024 (No Play)

September 11. A day we remember those lost in the attacks on the Twin Towers and elsewhere. It’s hard to believe it’s been 23 years already. I remember getting a frantic call from my sister-in-law that morning. I turned on the television and watched live broadcasts of the tragedy taking place in New York. It’s something that you’ll never forget.

Famous People Who Play Pickleball 

This is an old list of celebrities who have taken up pickleball—for example, Matthew Perry died last year. I’m sure there are even more famous folks these days, but this is interesting even if I know only about half these names!
https://www.paddletek.com/blogs/news/celebrities-in-pickleball

Pickleball Noise in the News

A city government in Avondale Estates, Georgia seems on the verge of requiring foam pickleballs at one of their venues to appease neighbors:
https://decaturish.com/2024/08/avondale-estates-plans-to-require-foam-balls-non-resident-fee-at-pickleball-courts/
This may be a trend for the future, but time will tell.

Number of days on a court: 714
Number of total hours: 2,954
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5

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

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

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

Thursday, September 5, 2024 (Court Day #712)

My car dashboard read a toasty 82°F as I drove through Scotts Valley on my way to the courts. It was a warm day, however I spent all of it inside working, like normal.

Game #1

I got into a game with Conner against Sean and his brother Danny. That was great. However, I wasn’t playing super sharp plus Sean and Danny are better than all of the players that I play with on a regular basis. Conner and I lost that first game, something like 11–6.

Game #2

Connor and I were the best of the available players so Danny and Sean played against us again. This time it was a slaughter. Conner and I lost 11–1. Sean was hitting drop shots to my feet and I was popping up the ball then Danny was crashing the net and slamming the ball for a winner. This happened five or six times. Conner couldn’t’ have been super happy with my play—I know I wasn’t.

Advice

Sean asked if I wanted a piece of advice. Being that evaluating your own play on the fly is one of the most difficult things to do, I told him that I would be happy for any tips. He told me that there are shots that I’m taking from near my feet but I would probably have better luck stepping back with one foot and taking the ball higher off the bounce. Of course, duh. I’ll have to work that into my game.

Game #3

After we finished our game, with the mix players, Sean and Danny decided to go with us again, however this time Sean said he would play with me. (This would help balance the teams.) This time was much closer. Sean and I did lose 11–8 and it was not Sean‘s fault. Sure, he made some errors, but I made two—or even three—for every one that he made.

In the game with Sean as my partner, I was speeding up shots that would either work against more intermediate level players or at least cause no damage… but my speedups were not working against our opponents and, instead, often gave them a winner. As I told Sean, “I’m so used to playing with weaker level players. It’s taking me some adjustment.”

Danny got at least a couple of ernes on me in those games. He’s a lefty which means he can pull them off while I am on the left side which I’m not used to at all. I think he’s the first lefty to ever pull off an erne on me or even try an erne on me for that matter.

Moving On

I got into a game with Kenny against Paul and Brandon. Kenny is a 3.0 level player. We lost 11–5 or 11–6 and I was surprised we even scored that many points. After the game, Kenny said, “It takes me a while to get used to that caliber player.” Having just lived through that in an earlier game, I told him, “Oh, I completely understand, believe me!”

Matt, Paul, Tim

I had two games with Paul Winn against Matt Babb and Tim Feickert. Those are back-and-forth fun games. We won both. I was playing reasonably well in those, though I missed some under the lights and some more simply due to being tired.

Our second game finished up at 8:26 p.m., four minutes before the lights are scheduled to go off and that was not enough time to start a new game. We started breaking down some empty temporary nets.

Number of days on a court: 712
Number of total hours: 2,949.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 69.5

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