Author: andrewlenz (Page 74 of 327)

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 (Court Day #731)

I dropped off my brother Matt at my parents’ house at 6:30 p.m. My dad is temporarily mostly bedridden with a very painful knee. He wasn’t complaining but when we convinced him to go to get an appointment, the doctor asked him about his pain on scale to 10, and my dad responded: “9”. So the doctor told him to stay off it for a while. I visited my dad for a few minutes then talked to my sister and my mom about him and also family plans for my mom’s birthday next month.

As I took the overpass and drove into Scotts Valley, it was 6:53 p.m. and 61°F. While there is still a little bit of light on the horizon, it was fairly dark.

Skypark

One of my first games, if not my first game, was with muscular Asian Aaron against Tim H. and his girlfriend whose name escapes me. I would say she is a solid 3.0 and she was well matched to balance Tim H.’s talent. Tim has dialed in his topspin lobs. They used to be quite unreliable, now however, they are deadly. In that game with him, he had at least two, if not three, lobs that appeared as if they were going out, but instead dropped comfortably about a foot inside the baseline. His girlfriend is coming along in her skill.

New Guy Dan

Mike Schmidt, who is retiring at the end of the year, was playing with a tall fellow, who I didn’t know named Dan. Dan said he has been playing for about six months. Dan is already easily a 3.5, if not a 4.0 level player. He has made astonishing progress. Granted, his soft game isn’t super, but he attacks very well. Manda and I were down quite a bit in that game, but then came back and tied up only to go on to lose 11–8.

We had a rematch, but this time Manda was making a fair amount of errors. He volunteered that he was tired.

While it was busy tonight, the rotation was fairly quick. The games were all fun, if not the most challenging.

Shaun White, Olympic Snowboarder

Gold medalist, Shaun White is into pickleball. This video appeared online a few days ago where he says that he tries to play as much as he can and that that his mom is addicted to the sport:
https://www.instagram.com/pickleballdotcom/reel/DBUvXoTyU8o

He’s been playing for a while, apparently. Here’s a video of him from a year ago. He’s running around his backhand and not getting up to the kitchen but there’s a good rough blank here.

Number of days on a court: 731
Number of total hours: 2,991
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5

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

Sunday, October 20, 2024 (Court Day #730)

Last night was the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club’s holiday party, which was held at Bargetto‘s Winery in Soquel. My wife Kristen came along and got to meet a lot of pickleball people that I know like George Propper, Eric Schmidt, and Ted B., plus Gregg “3G” all of whom were at my table. Steve Bontadelli, one of our Site Coordinators, was at our table too, but he was on the far side. It was a bit difficult to hold a conversation from that distance given the noise level.

Tennis Snob

Early in the evening, I spoke to a man who I didn’t know, and he asked me if I was a pickleball player. There were a number of people there who were friends or spouses of players who didn’t play themselves, so it was an honest question. I told him that I did play and I asked him the same question. He said that he had played pickleball a little bit but taught tennis for a long time and continues to play tennis. He referred to pickleball as “a good activity for old people.” We chatted another minute and whenever I used the word “sport” in reference to pickleball, he’d use “activity.” I was mildly annoyed as well as amused. It seems as though he had never got into a game is anyone over a 3.0 or maybe a 3.5 level. Generally, opinions like his change when you play against better players. Perhaps I should’ve shared professional tennis player Genie Bouchard’s comment about coming to pickleball making her feel as if she was in the tennis juniors again. Or the male pro who returned to tennis after playing pickleball and found tennis to be “very slow” in comparison. As it was, I just let it go and later shared the story with Eric at my table. Erik chuckled and said something about that arrogant option is not uncommon amongst tennis players. And regardless, the average age of pickleball players continues to drop. Last I checked, it was 35 years of age and falling fast.

Brommer

I got the Brommer Park this morning at about 9:30 a.m.

The first game of the day I was paired with Drew against Evan and Jay. We got slaughtered.

The next game with Evan and myself against Drew and Jay and this time it 
Evan and I who won by a similar margin. 

My last game was Isaiah and me against Shawnté and Bruce’s son, Josh. (Josh said that Bruce has was in hospital for a week, but he’s doing better.) And we won 11–7 or 11–8. That was a fun game with a lot of battles.

Sweat Drops?

There is one rally this morning where I got distracted. As I hit drive near the baseline about half a dozen drops of sweat fell to the ground. I was confused. Did these fall off of my paddle? I made a mistake on my next shot which ended the rally. I shook my paddle again. Nope. No drops of sweat. They either came from my arm or from my head. I’m generally not a big sweater, but I seem to be a bit more lately I guess.

It’s nice to be in games where I’m not the best player on the court, which frequently happened at Derby.

There is one game with three advanced players when we asked for a fourth and a 3.0 player volunteered. I was partnered with him, and we got destroyed. He was popping up shots, returning serves into the net, hitting drives long… it was a bad combination. Fortunately, that was the only game of the day like that.

I checked the time and it was 11:48 a.m. It was time for me to go and get ready for teaching.

It was a good morning. I get a break from teaching next weekend, And then five weeks later, come December, I can play on Sunday mornings as long as I want since I won’t be teaching again until January.

On my drive back to you my house, it was 77°F and sunny.

I still need more opportunities to play with better players and hone my skills. I can understand why pros avoid rec play. It’s easy to get sloppy.

Number of days on a court: 730
Number of total hours: 2,989.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5

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

Thursday, October 17, 2024 (Court Day #729)

Today was the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which had its epicenter just several miles from downtown Santa Cruz. It was a magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale. It damaged at least hundreds, and probably thousands, of buildings in Santa Cruz alone, including dozens that had to be completely demolished. (Chimneys cracked at the roofline were quite common. My parents’ home was a victim of that too.) The event had a major impact on the character of our downtown business district. Miraculously, only three people died, though many more were injured. It’s something I know I will never forget.

Sample Paddle

I was informed by email today that there’s a sample paddle on its way to me from Aireo. It’s another paddle that I can share with my students. 

Scotts Valley

As I arrived in Scotts Valley just about 7 p.m., the sky was a dark blue gray but with a glimmer of amber stretched along the western horizon. By the time the time change hits next month, it’ll be completely dark even before I get to the courts.

Michelle & Jason

My first game tonight was with Michelle as my partner. Michelle is the wife of Jason Cohen, who is a bookstore manager and an avid painter. Jason used to be my daughter’s boss before she went off to medical school. Since then, he changed jobs from that downtown retail store to the university bookstore.

Jason was at the other end of the courts in the game with some other people. I had met Michelle a couple of times before at art events. They had mentioned that they sometimes play pickleball, but I’d never bumped into them at the courts before.

Michelle and I played against Tim H. and Wendy.

So we had me, who is a 4.0 player, partnered with Michelle, who is a 3.0 player against Wendy who is a 3.5 and Tim who is approaching a 4.5 level. You can probably guess, Michelle and I lost, and the result was never in question. Still, a fun game.

Next Game

Next game I played was Tim H. and Minori against her boyfriend David L. and myself. It started out with David and I losing a fair margin, but then we started coming back and made a game of it. We still lost, at least it was more respectable. Midway through that game, I was disgusted with my play and part of me wanted to simply stop and go home. But I did start to play gradually better.

Jordan

Jordan was just leaving as I got there. He was pretty sweaty and apparently tired as well. Too bad, he’s always fun to play with and against.

Gabe, Aaron, Dr. David

The next game was Dr. Dave and myself against big lefty Aaron Bartley and Gabe. We played a couple of games in this configuration and I’m pretty sure Dave and I lost both games. Gabe was playing pretty well and Dave wasn’t.

Gabe was pretty funny. I was mixing up my serves, sometimes targeting a backhand, hitting short and angled, and I put some pretty strong top spin on some of them. There is a couple of times Gabe audibly blurted out something to the effect of “wow!” after I hit a particularly good serve. All three of my courtmates were complimenting me after the second game about the speed of my hands. Always nice to hear.

On the downside, there were at least three or four shots tonight—maybe even half a dozen—where I wasn’t covering the middle well enough and I wasn’t close enough to the side of the court with the ball. Yep. There’s a difference between knowing what to do and actually executing it. 

Surprise! Paddle!

They had only this morning said the paddle had shipped, but it was waiting for me when I got home from playing.

The paddle arrived with a paddle cover, overgrip, and an assortment of pamphlets explaining the rules and the features of the paddle. The paddle has a very grippy surface. Impressive.

Number of days on a court: 729
Number of total hours: 2,987
Number of paid coaching hours: 84.5

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