Category: Pickleball (Page 32 of 323)

Sunday, October 5, 2025 (Court Day #858)

I was taking a leisurely morning today. It was sunny when I left my house shortly after 9 a.m. with the temperature in the low 60s. As I drove down from the upper westside of Santa Cruz, I could see a large fog bank in the distance. I’m thankful for the fog, it keeps Santa Cruz from getting too hot during the day.

I drove into the fog literally two blocks from Brommer Park, but it was already starting to break up a little.

Brommer Park

I pulled in the parking lot at 9:18 a.m. Parking is almost always a cake walk at Brommer on Sunday mornings.

Ying asked if I wanted to warm up, so we ended up on a court. That rolled into a game and Ying and I won 11-2 versus two regulars.

I played with a guy I’d never met named Miles against Ying and Ed. We lost 4-11. Miles made a fair number of errors, maybe he had an off game—I have no idea.

Nick and I played a game against Ying and Sean, who had just arrived. Nick and I were down 0-4, but we came back to win 11-4. (Yes, that’s an 11-0 run.)

The next game, Juls and I won 11-7 versus Mo and Ed. We were down and came back to win.

Gary and I lost 6-11 versus Matt Babb and JP. It should have been a closer game. Matt has gotten pretty close to my skill level these days and JP and Gary are also similar.

Then Ying and I played against Mo and Juls and won 11-3.

Sean, Dave, Aaron

These were the high powered games.

I played a game with Sean against Dave Ryan and a lefty who I’ve never met before named Aaron. Aaron was a machine. Aaron has a really strong tennis background. We had a brief discussion and if I have it figured out correctly, he coached at Cal Poly for a year while Bob Hanson was still coaching at UCSC. Aaron can drive and slice like crazy.

So, Sean and I played together in the first game. We lost by a sizable margin with us scoring about half the points that they did.

We played again and we mixed things up and I played with Aaron. We lost.

We switch sides and played one more game with Aaron as my partner. The final score was us losing 7–11.

Obviously, I was the weak link in all of these games.

It’s fun getting really challenged with the rare experience where I get to be the weakest player on the court. Of course, I hate to be the one to let down my partner, but it really tests your skills.

I left at 12 o’clock sharp. I had to get home then to teaching.

Teaching

I taught my two ninety minute classes from 1:30 to 4:30 at Skypark, then I headed to Derby Park to provide an hour lesson at 5 p.m. to a friend David and his son Nathaniel. It turned into a 90 minute lesson, but I was happy to spend more time with them. It turned out to be very productive and they were quite happy.

Number of days on a court: 858
Number of total hours: 3,297
Number of paid coaching hours: 172

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

Thursday, October 2, 2025 (Court Day #857)

We had late customers today after hours at work. And my brother Matthew wanted a pizza, so the pizza diversion the dropping him off at my parent’s house further delayed my arrival in Scotts Valley.

Skypark

When I pulled up to the Skypark courts at 7 p.m., the sun had already set, but there was still residual light in the sky. Tonight was either the furthest I’ve ever had to park away from the courts or maybe the second most ever. It was down around the corner and down a ways.

I was desperately hoping that I would play better than my dismal performance on Tuesday night. That was embarrassing and awful.

I rolled from game to game to game.

The lights clicked off when I was knee-deep in a game with Wendy against John—the ceramicist who I hadn’t seen in probably a year—and Pauly. We had been up 10–6 but then they came back and they were serving 9–10 when the lights clicked off.

I have my moments tonight, but I still didn’t feel like I was playing that great.

Number of days on a court: 857
Number of total hours: 3,294.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 167.5

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

Tuseday, September 30, 2025 (Court Day #856)

This would be my first night playing at Skypark in a month and a half. I last played in the middle of August and tomorrow will be October 1. In the meantime, we’ve also changed the seasons from summer to fall.

It was overcast and 66° as I drove from Santa Cruz to Scotts Valley. It was a bit gloomy and my car headlights were on.

Of course, with me teaching, it has only been two days since I had last been on the newly resurfaced Skypark courts… but that’s not the same as being there actually playing.

Skypark

I arrived just before 7 p.m. There was no dry erase board out tonight and it didn’t take long for me to get into a game.

My first game was with Alex against Monda and Mauricio. Oh my goodness, I was playing horribly.

My dropshots or horrible. Most of them landed in the net and the rest that got over were too high. Ok, maybe not that bad, but still I considered only about half of my drop shots to be any good. I don’t know if it was being tired after work or getting used to the overhead light, though there were a number of those that I 100% blame on the lighting.

David, Alex, Matt

David L. and I played four games against Alex and Matt Babb. We lost every single one—and it was not David‘s fault. After the fourth game, David was ready to mix up partners and that next game turned out to be the last game of the night.

The Mental Game

Matt Babb and I played against Alex and David. We found ourselves down by a wide margin, coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, at one point, I was thinking about my mindset. At that moment, I was feeling defeated. This morning I started watching a Masterclass video about a “growth mindset”. And that 100% tied into how I was feeling tonight. “Fake it until you make it.” I went from feeling frustrated and disappointed to intentionally thinking “I am a good player and I can win.”

Matt and I were down 1–10. We started climbing our way back. Two points. Another two points. And pretty soon, it was 8–10. From here we had a crazy amount of sight out there at least four and maybe even five. Eventually, they scored one point and won the game 11–8. As we were tapping panels, Matt asked, “How many match points was that?” If you count each server as a match point, then it was at least 8 and maybe as many as 12.

We wrapped up the game 8:27 p.m.

Oops!

Not too smart. Stealing pickleball paddles from police!
https://www.mysuncoast.com/2025/09/25/venice-police-easily-solve-case-purloined-pickleball-paddles/

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Wednesday, October 1, 2025 (No play)

I felt that I played depressingly poorly last night. I have a strong desire to get out and play again and put last night further into the past.

It was overcast and wet this morning. While I wasn’t going to play there anyway, club play at Derby Park was canceled about 40 minutes into the session due to rain.

Number of days on a court: 856
Number of total hours: 3,293
Number of paid coaching hours: 167.5

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