Category: Pickleball (Page 302 of 327)

Monday, September 19, 2017 (Court Day #71)

I took a trip to the pacific northwest over the weekend with extended family. We left on Thursday and flew back on Sunday. I knew it was going to be a short and full trip. Nonetheless, I packed a paddle and a ball. Yeah. Call me hooked.

Garage

Last night (Sunday) after getting back from our trip, I spent about 10-15 minutes in the garage hitting a ball in my marked out “net and kitchen”. I spent part of the time hitting with my left hand and switching back and forth between left hand and right hand. I had to get my paddle “fix”!

Brommer

I arrived at Brommer Park at about 9:10. I guess it takes longer to get there than I typically figure… about 15-20 minutes realistically.

Tony

I got to introduce myself to “Tony”. Tony is probably around 30-35 years old. He wears a woven brimmed hat to protect himself from the sun. Tony plays with the advanced players. I see him now and then. He’s been around since I started, though we’d never played. Between 9 and 10 a.m., the single orange pen was out for the schedule board and the red, blue and balcony pens were still stowed away. That’s how I ended up on a court with Tony. He’s fun and upbeat. He laughed at my jokes, so thumbs up to Tony. Tony plays well. I didn’t have him as a partner, only as an opponent, so he kept me on my toes.

Big John

Also got to meet John. John is a regular advanced player. He’s tall and, like me, could stand to lose a few pounds. He’s very good. He’s not super quick on his feet, but he’s very precise and gets around well enough to be a serious weapon. He and I played against a visiting woman Susi and regular Leslie. (Leslie is currently a site supervisor for Brommer.) John and I won pretty solidly. John was most of that win, though I played decently. I did get a “Nice backhands!” from John after I won a quick back-and-forth rally at the net against Leslie. John makes hardly any unforced errors. Early on in the game, John asked me to shift to my right when I was forward on the right side as he was receiving: “I want to be able to hit the ball to her backhand.” He had to remind me once more, but after that I got it. Learned something new today.

Cameron

Another newbie today was Cam. He said he’d played a while back and was returning it the game. I’d put Cam is in his late 20s. Maybe early 30s. Tall, thin, redhead. He said he works for himself doing construction. We played one game as partners and lost convincingly. We played a second and we won by two points. Big improvement. I offered what advice I could during the games. Hit to the opponent who is back. Hold the paddle up in backhand position while at the net. Lobs are low percentage. Driving at a skilled opponent already at the net is low percentage. He’ll do very well with time.

Dipping my toe into games the big boys

Later, I played a game with lefty Steve against Chuck and “Big John”. It’s nice when you are respected enough to be included in a game with advanced players. (That respect may or may not be deserved, but it is what it is.) Steve and I lost 11-6 or something. John is a machine. It’s a good status check to play against really good players. I have work to do!

The last game of the day teamed Stuart and myself against Chuck and the visiting woman, Susi. All the club balls were packed away—by Stuart no less—but Stuart had a ball in his pack. Stuart reappeared with his ball. Orange. It was an indoor Onix ball with larger holes. With it a bit breezy, we knew the ball would present one additional dimension of challenge, but it wasn’t worth the effort to swap it out. I brought one of my own (an Onix Pure) and Chuck said he had one of his own too. Stuart and I won pretty easily. Stuart wanted to make sure that I mentioned in my blog post that he successfully lobbed over Chuck’s head three times. There you go, Stuart! Stuart reminded me to keep my paddle up in the backhand position at the net. You’d think I’d reliably implement advice I give to others! Stuart also thought I should narrow my stance at the net—that I can only lean instead of being able to easily move my feet to get to balls. I really do need to get my video camera back out again.

Site Supervisor

Karen Long said, “I hear you are going to be our new Sunday site coordinator.” “As long as there are backups, I can do it. I can’t open the court every Sunday.” She reassured me that there would be others. “You’ll me for about six months or so. I want to give back. I don’t want to be a mooch all the time.” She laughed at the mooch comment.

Today was a “climb day”. Overall, I played well.

Play wrapped up at 12:45.

Aches and Pains

Overall, health is decent. My hips are hurting a bit again and I have a mild pull in my right groin muscle and left quad, but nothing to keep me from playing. I’m cutting back on soda and sweets and see if I can lose 25 pounds. That’d get me down to “fighting weight”!

Number of days on a court: 71
Number of total hours: 202.5

Click here to start at the beginning of this blog: PickleballJourney 

Wednesday, September 13, 2017 (Court Day #70)

I was at Derby Park by 9:05. It was a drizzly morning with rain predictions. Dave was setting up and visor Tom were there helping. It was just us three. Stuart added a fourth. The drizzle seemed to slow down the arrivals some. Even then, it was a light attendance day. The sixth net never got set up.

The first game was Dave and myself against Tom and Stuart. I think Dave was even less warmed up than I was—we lost. There was one point where Stuart slammed the ball at me and started celebrating . . . when I sent the ball back, he was taken by surprise. It did end up in the net, but nonetheless, I was a bit quicker than he was expecting! We used Tom’s Dura 40 ball for that game. As I told him, it’s good for me to get used to balls used in tournament since I’d like to play in one someday.

I played a variety of games over the next few hours.

There was a new guy Steve who someone said lives in Los Gatos but used to live in Ireland and Canada. He’s a very strong lefty player. He’s better than I am.

The court started getting slippery and we called the game with Steve and me leading 3-2 over Terri and Grita. Steve said, “This is my first rain in Santa Cruz!” I was on the road about 11:45 to Togo’s for lunch with Eric and Ted.

I got a text from Oleg asking if I wanted to join them tonight for a game—they weren’t at the courts this morning—but given that I already have plans tonight, I had to turn him down.

How was today? It was an ordinary day. Not poor, not great. Time on the court. Today, I occasionally told myself, “treat this point as if you are in a tournament”. And that helps focus. Just playing games helps some, but focused practice helps more.

Number of days on a court: 70
Number of total hours: 199

Click here to start at the beginning of this blog: PickleballJourney 

Saturday, September 9, 2017 (Off Day) 

Well. I had my first pickleball dream. I woke up this morning after dreaming I discovered that I had snapped my paddle right at the top of the grip under the wrappings. Had it really happened, I wouldn’t have had to unwrap it to see the break. A bad dream.

Later, I realized why I had the dream. No, it had nothing to do with being in three challenging games yesterday with advanced players. What caused it is Allan asking me to be the individual responsible to open and set up the courts on Sunday at Derby Park—followed by emails with Dave Allenbaugh about it. I’m a very responsible person, but I’m not retired and Sunday is my only guaranteed day off. Working 6 days per week at the family business has been common fare for me for about 30 years. Pickleball has been good for me, since it’s a reason to get exercise and take an extra 6-8 hours off each week, bringing me down closer to a standard 40-hour workweek. Still, it’s kind of a drag to have obligations—even if one pertains to fun—every single day of the week. Bottom line, it’s stressing me out a bit. But, I don’t want to just be a mooch and take advantage of others who volunteer to open the court. I should “take a turn” and give back. (Not that everyone takes a turn. The SCPC steering committee votes to approve openers.) And there would be backup openers when I can’t do it, so I wouldn’t be on the hook no matter what.

Sunday, September 10, 2017 (Court Day #69)

I was at Derby Park by 9:10. It was a nice day though the temperature would climb into the 80s. A couple of courts were already full.

On my way, I needed to be careful of possible Avengers sightings. Don’t mess with Iron Man!

Ok, so it was a triathlon. Regardless, it didn’t affect my typical path to the courts.

I played an early game with a woman named Susan who turns out is a regular customer at work. “Your name is Andrew? Andrew Lenz?” “Yes . . . how do you know?” “I’ve shopped at your business for years.” She was very nice.

Janet kindly asked how my back was. I told her it was stiff but ok. Grita (my partner for the game) said, “You have back problems?” “It happens when you turn 50.” “You’re 50? I thought you were 40. You look young!” Grita looks young too. She could easily pass for mid-50s instead of the mid-60s that she is. My back isn’t bad. It just gets stiff in the mornings.

I played a bunch of games. I continued to work on having my paddle up and it came in handy on a point where I was playing against Wayne. Wayne, while not an advanced player, has a rocket forehand. I had my paddle up in backhand position, and it was ready for Wayne. The ball got back.

David & Beth Black and Oleg had signed up on the schedule board for a game—names in red for advanced players. I added my name in the next (empty) box in intermediate green. I took a few steps back to allow other people in toward the board. I turned and David asked if I’d like to join their game. “Sure!” I dashed back to the board, wiped my name off of the next box with my finger and added my name in green beneath theirs . . . then I wrote over my name in red so it looked both colors! Someone said, “Hey! Andrew signed up in a red box!” I explained, “I got permission!” We’ll see if David and Beth continue to allow me to play with them.

I played as Beth’s partner. We started the game leading 4-1. Oleg had uncharacteristically returned 2-3 balls into the net. I think David had one too, but they dialed in as the game progressed. I made some errors, as expected. We were playing with one of those hard balls again, which does tweak one’s game a bit. I had to be really careful to not serve too deep, but it happened once anyway. There was one point that I remember, where I had a perfect shot down and off the court, but I hit it about a foot out. Beth would apologize to me when she’d make a mistake. It was very polite. Though I’d be apologizing all the time! Ok, maybe not all the time, but more then her! She was very encouraging and supportive. I made more mistakes than I liked. Beth and I lost. Still it was a great experience. Every game like that helps. Beth said I played well. “Well” is relative, of course. I did have some good gets, but I also messed up too. There was a good dink series where I was patient until Oleg sent it back just a little too high and I smacked it backhand for winner. I was proud of that point.

As time goes on, I’m becoming more aware of how points get won. When a ball gets slammed at a player’s feet and his partner was the last of the two of them to hit it, it’s likely his partner’s fault—and vice versa. A dink that was too high. A drive shot when it should have been a drop. A lob that was too low and short. The list goes on. Or it can be a shot that results in a lost point a few shots later—a escalating progression set off by an initial unwise or poorly executed shot.

It’s really neat to see the improving play of people in the club. Marianne has gotten far better—though she doesn’t do herself favors. She likes to hit hard at players at the net—something I did a whole lot of early on. I told her she’d do better developing her drop shot. Janet has improved significantly. She’s better than she thinks. Jeanne has gotten a lot better. Rolando is improving though he’s still pretty green with raw talent. The whole club is getting better and that’ll drive the aggregate skill level up and up.

Things wound down and I was off to my car at 12:30, then home to watch the Raiders game that I recorded off antenna on our DVR. (They beat the Titans 26-16 to kick off the NFL season.) Pickleball will interfere with early football games, but I’ll just “tape-delay” those games—though it’s not really “tape” it’s an HD signal onto a hard drive, but you get what I mean!

Number of days on a court: 69
Number of total hours: 196.5

Click here to start at the beginning of this blog: PickleballJourney