Author: andrewlenz (Page 320 of 331)

Sunday, May 7, 2017 (Court Day #23)

I spent a couple days of last week in Portland for work. If I had had more free time, I would have looked up some courts, but it was chock to block, unfortunately. I flew in Wednesday afternoon and back out Friday night. I will admit, while taking the hotel stairs from the 6th floor—I got exercise where I could!—I noticed that the stairwell would have made a decent backstop for dinking practice had I brought a ball and paddle, though had I missed, the ball could have rolled down the stairs! (And 6 stories is a lot of stairs—unless I set up shop at the bottom, of course!)

“Hellllo?”

I arrived at Derby Park at 9 a.m. sharp to empty courts with the exception of Dave who was setting up the first net. It took me about two seconds to figure out why the lack of early arrivers. The Bay Area Senior Games! As previously mentioned, a number of the club were participating in the tournament. John, Dave, Melody, and others. I heard that one (or two) of our club won silver in the “70 and over” class.  Congratulations to whomever those are!

New Video Camera

The new (refurbished) Akaso camera arrived while I was out of town. When I unpacked it, it was missing the second battery and I couldn’t get the remote control to work. I’ll be sending Akaso a message!

I took the new camera instead of the old GoPro, hoping it would work. I recorded a few games on the 1080P resolution instead of the 4K maximum resolution. I do have to be aware of the angle. Hanging the camera up at arm’s length on the fence straight out cuts off the bottom of the court, I’ll have to angle it down a bit:

The quirky thing about the camera is that it segments videos after 10 minutes. So a 15 minute game will end up as a 10 minute video and a separate 5 minute video. Super annoying. But at least you can very easily combine videos in QuickTime Player using “Edit” -> “Add Clip to End…” The picture quality even at 1080P is obviously far better than my old GoPro’s 720P. I’m curious to see what the 4K looks like. I need to figure out the buttons. I believe I missed a game or two because the recording didn’t kick in. We’ll see how it goes.

Kim and me taking on Bruce and Janet. (Cropped image.)

I got to play with a slightly older Asian fellow named Ted. (Not to be confused with Eric’s friend Ted.) Nice guy. Very solid player. Smart in his ball placement and strategy. He also gives good advice and is patient with his partners—like me who aren’t as good as he is. I’d never played with Ted before. He obviously knows how to play, but hasn’t been around much since I started.

Here I am getting little air in a game with Maree against Ted and Robin. The ball ended up slammed right at Robin’s feet for a winner:

The last game of the day was with Robin and Mark with his wife Maree as my partner. It’s was a good back and forth game. Maree and I won. I was tired. I think we all were by then. 4 solid hours of playing—except maybe Robin since she’d arrived about an hour after the rest of us.

Later in the afternoon, my feet ached. I also tweaked my right big toe again and walking barefoot or in flip flops was too painful. Fortunately, wearing shoes helps a lot.

On a high note, I’m playing overall better. Less hits into the net, but I’m still doing that occasionally on those soft shots. But better. I still can improve on my strategy. And I had 2-3 failed poaches on the day that I should have let pass to my partner nearer the baseline—that’s not a new mistake, unfortunately. That’s an old one. There are plenty of small things to clean up on my game. Basics. And plenty to do developing spins and stronger/faster serves.

Hopefully, I can get out on Wednesday morning to play. The next month or so will be a lot of traveling. I’ll miss a few weekends of pickleball.

Number of days on a court: 23
Number of total hours: 67.5

Sunday, April 30, 2017 (Court Day #22)

I got to Derby Park at 9 sharp. It was sunny and in the high 50s, destined to give way to a very warm day. The Nets were mostly up. I warmed up with John P. and found myself in a game a few minutes later when Maree and her husband arrived.

Mark and I moved on and played with Jerry Louis (my partner) and Paule (Mark’s). Paule is a solid player—better than me—though it’s hard to get her to smile. I’d never dream of asking to play with Jerry, so kudos to Mark for making that happen. Playing with Jerry is watching advanced skill. His ball placement is exceptional. I played a second game against him and when he finally made an error (a shot into the net), I told him, “Jerry! You are human! This ball must contain Kryptonite!” He’s really good. I’m looking forward to his class in June. That will be fun and educational.

I played games with and against Bruce. Bruce is a natural athlete. Maybe it’s all the years of playing basketball. Regardless, he’s quick and can rocket the ball. He can also hit it out of bounds on occasion with those! But I f I were picking partners, I’d take Bruce over me. I still make too many errors.

A Game with Tom & Terri

Young Tom L., who I hadn’t seen for a about month, reappeared for the day, though his friend Ileana was nowhere to be seen. Tom and I took on Marie and a very tan tall thin woman named Terri whom I’d never met. Terri said she spends only half the year in Santa Cruz. There were three notable things from that game.

First, Terri is a very respectable player. I’d better than me. (That’s still a common thing.)

Second, I’ve outstripped Tom in terms of abilities. A few weeks into Pickleball, we were similar. In this game, however, t was blatant the difference in skill level. After the game, Tom said, “Wow! You’ve really improved!” I told him, “I’ve been playing a lot. Today was day 21 or 22 on the courts.  A week or so ago, I played five times in eight days!” He countered, “I’ve only been able to play once a week.” Unfortunately, he also shared that he’s moving to Fremont and likely won’t be back to play in Santa Cruz. I shook his hand as an acknowledgement.

Third, there was an amusing point. Marie was celebrating a winning passing shot off to my right down the sideline. One small problem. I managed to just get to it and returned it over the net! Shocked, the best she could do was get her paddle on it and return it into the net! Laughing, I chided her, “Don’t count your chickens!”

“Home, James!”

The session wrapped up just after noon. Stuart was hanging out waiting for Melody to get back so he couldt give her a lesson in singles. The Bay Area Senior Games are next weeeknd. Dave (former neighbor) and John were playing a lot together today in preparation for that event. And an ther first today. I drove away without my GoPro and had to turn back about halfway home. Fortunately, it’s only about a six minute drive to the courts! I think Stuart was amused!

After spending three full hours playing pickleball, I spent the following seven hours building a raised garden bed for my wife. Needless to say, I was beat by the end of the day! Nothing like lifting heavy boards, drilling, screwing, shoveling to wear you down!

The garden box. It’s ok, we didn’t have room for
a pickleball court in our backyard anyway!

Unfortunately, due to work travel and schedule, it’ll be at least until next Sunday before I can play again. I’m toying with bringing  my paddle just to bounce a ball on it. Probably not though. Oh, and I’m getting calluses on the inside edge of my right thumb knuckle and the inside edge of my right index finger. Yep. Pickleball paddle!

Oh, and a first today. Or an almost first. I successfully pulled off an “around the post” winner shot! Except, our opponent called her own shot out! (It was very close so I hit it back anyway.) So, it didn’t count. Rats. Next time!

Number of days on a court: 22
Number of total hours: 63.5

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 (Court Day #21)

I got to the Scotts Valley courts just before 6:30 and games were in full swing. I was person number 17, meaning I was sitting on the bench by myself watching four games of doubles going on. It’s interesting being a dedicated outside observer to games. After analyzing my own failings on video, it makes it easier to spot strategic errors by other players. Colleen was the closest player and, while she’s solid player, I noticed she had a tendency to break out of the soft game a bit early—before she had a clear winner. (“Winner”—winning shot.) Though I wasn’t about to interrupt their game to offer my advice! I appreciate advice myself, but you have to be careful giving it, people can get annoyed!

It wasn’t too long before Alan arrived. I invited him to warm up with me and he accepted.

A man wandered over asking Alan randomly about tennis lessons for his child while also being curious about what the heck was being played. Alan explained pickleball and after I dinked a bit with this fellow, the man found himself suckered into a game by Maree, along with her husband Mark, and myself. When the man’s cell phone rang in his shorts pocket, our game was one point away from finishing, but the bell had tolled and off he went—saying he’d probably be back to play more.

I got three important pieces of advice tonight.

Colleen said that I’ll have better success on returning short hits over the net if I come to a complete stop before hitting the ball. Gee, you’d think that after I’d heard this 5000 times that I’d be able to implement this advice!

Alan said that when I hit a dink into the net—fortunately fairly rare—I had taken my eye off the ball at the last second to look where I intended to hit the ball to. I’ll have to investigate this further.

Dave (former neighbor) played as my partner and really brought to the fore my delay in running up to the kitchen. He was good at calling me out on that. We’re not talking a long time, but even a few seconds count.

Dave and I played Alan and Colleen twice and lost both games by a roughly 2:1 margin. Colleen commended my net play, which was a nice gesture. All the more reason to get to the kitchen line as soon as humanly possible.

Play wrapped up right about 9 p.m. Eric was there but we never played on the same court. I did play a game or two with Rick, however . . . we played a game against Alan and Eric’s friend Jeanine, the newbie. Jeanine is good at hitting the ball but is still coming to terms with the bounce characteristics of a pickleball (versus a tennis ball) and also where she needs to be on the court—she’d sometimes find herself trying to hit a ball from an awkward position.

Overall, it was a decent night in terms of my play. Some really great hits and fewer bad hits. Still not stellar, but not completely crappy. My play at the net is getting stronger—both volleys and dinking. That and I had at least two shots (not serves) where I intentionally imparted a lot of spin. It was satisfying to see a strong player like Alan trying to dink a shot like that back then have it due into the net. Maybe I’ll actually make it to 4.0 someday!

I have a trip out of town coming up next week where I’ll miss Wednesday and Thursday pickleball. I may get to play Sunday next week, but we’ll see if that works out. Hopefully, Sunday this weekend will work out.

Number of days on a court: 21
Number of total hours: 60.5