Category: Pickleball (Page 223 of 326)

Thursday, August 5, 2019 (Court Day #305)

64th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

The Santa Cruz Pickleball Club was offering today a three hour training session reserved for dues-paying members lead primarily by Terry Long. I arrived a few minutes after 3 p.m.—late but work got in the way.

Boy, it was hot! We took water breaks between each drill thankfully.

The session was limited to 24 players and it was full. Terry getting rapt attention.

The first drill was dinking. Fundamental and not particularly difficult but sometimes needs tweaking. I asked John P. To be my partner—ok, actually, I went and stood next to him shoulder to shoulder and he just smiled and said, “yes.” Terry came by mid-drill and said I need to a bend my knees more and not just lean over at the waist. Good feedback! Dan Bliss came by about 5-10 minutes later and said, “It looks like you guys know what you are doing.” I’ve got left-handed dinking down.

The second drill was returning balls from halfway back in the service box with the other player at the net. Boy, this drill showed my weakness of playing lefty.

The third topic of the session was spin. Doing proper spin with control left-handed is a challenge, as you might well imagine. At the end, Terry said to the group, “This is why you don’t try to teach spin to 3.5 players.” (A lot of the group were 2.5 and 3.0 players.)

I left a little after 6 p.m. A few were staying to play a game. I had things to do and places to be that unfortunately did not include any pickleball.

Carol came to me and said, “You are my inspiration. I’ve been playing left-handed.” She had mentioned an injury some weeks back and possibly switching to lefty, but now she’s actually done it. I hope she has fewer frustrating moments than me!

Friday, September 6, 2019 (No Play)

Cortisone Shot

I had a doctor appointment early this morning to have him look on my right shoulder. He said he thought it was a pinching of the rotator cuff and suggested a cortisone shot to reduce pain and decrease inflammation. He also prescribed a referral for physical therapy for it. I asked him if he thought a shot to my tennis elbow would also be helpful, but he said evidence indicates that it’s not effective for treatment of that. We’ll see how this goes.

Number of days on a court: 305
Number of total hours: 845.5

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Wednesday, September 4, 2019 (Court Day #304)

63rd day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

It was a warm one today. I’m finding I’m swamped with things I need to do with work, pickleball, volunteer obligations, and home repairs. Time for writing is short.

Chris, Tony, Cal, Patty on the near Court. Joe, Rob, Dyane, Wayne (farthest court), Leah, Craig.

My serving was bad again today. I’d try to serve deep and it’d land shallow in the service court. I swear . . . left-handed serving is a pain in the butt.

I had an early game with Cal against Mark G. and Grita and we won decisively. I played pretty well. And Cal, with his years as a tennis instructor, is solid. He’s not flashy, but consistently gets the job done.

I won’t mention any names, but there’s a player who is very weak. Marianne, not a strong player herself, would play circles around this woman. But I do my best to be supportive. In a game like that, I’d normally switch to my left hand—the only problem is, I’m already playing left-handed! What do I do? Play with my feet? Hold the paddle upside down? Close one eye? There’s only so gentle and easy that I can play. Though kudos to her for sticking with it.

My play was bordering on junk later in the morning. Way too many mistakes. After one game, I felt bad for my partner Tony. Maybe my poor play was due to fatigue. I was tired. It’s one of those days where you think about leaving an hour into the session. As it was, it left at 11:45. I think that’s the earliest I’ve ever voluntarily left.

Noise Barrier

With the Derby Park neighbor complaining about noise, I was going to make a new post on the Pickleball Forum Facebook group asking about solutions, but once there, I realized I should do a search first. An old post came up about a group that installed this:
http://www.acoustifence.com
I replied to the post asking the woman if they were still happy with it over a year later. She said they were and that it cut the sound by 50%. Good to know. I passed that information on to the SCPC board.

Witch Doctor

I got a call back this afternoon from Rachel Bergman in Walnut Creek about my insurance coverage and determining an appointment. Some of the session will be covered and some won’t. I’ll be spending about the equivalent of a new paddle on treatment. We set up an appointment for later in the month that doesn’t conflict with someone’s vacation at work. It’ll be a long drive and eat up a good chunk of the day with at least three hours of total driving.

Number of days on a court: 304
Number of total hours: 842.5

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Monday, September 2, 2019 (Court Day #303)
Labor Day

62nd day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

Last night, I asked Nicholas if he’d like to come and play today. He said yes and was up and around without me having to wake him up.

We got to Brommer Street Park a few minutes after 9 a.m. It was sunny. A few of the courts were still empty.  We started warming up with Trevor and soon Allan K. joined us and very soon after, we were in our first game. Trevor and I were on the same side of the net and ended up as team.

It got warmer as the morning went on. I’ll admit, after 4 hours of play yesterday, my body was still fatigued.

Quite the crowd on this holiday morning!

Nothing of great note today. I played ok. Not great.

I played pretty well in a couple of games of Jeff and me against binh and my son Nicholas. Maybe it takes me hours to warm up. Or maybe they were tired. I know I was.

Chris Yoder was talking up Dr. Bergman in Walnut Creek again for my tennis elbow. He’s convinced that the “Witch Doctor” as they call him will be able to help me.

City Courts Conversion

Cal was talking to Leslie. He and his student Charles were leaving on Sunday when they were approached by a neighbor to Derby Park. The man was harsh with the two of them about the city’s proposal to covert the venue to 6 dedicated pickleball courts there. The man included, “Over my dead body” in the conversation. There’s a Parks & Rec commission meeting on Monday, September 9 which will discuss the proposal. The man said he’d be there. Cal suggested having police there would be a good idea.

Nicholas and I were on the road shortly after 1 p.m.

Tuesday, August 3, 2019 (No Play)

I bit the bullet. I emailed the Witch Doctor’s office 90 minutes away. (Well, 90 minutes at the right time. Bay Area traffic can be horrible.)

Number of days on a court: 303
Number of total hours: 840

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