Category: Pickleball (Page 320 of 327)

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

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 (Court Day #20)

There’s nothing black, but I couldn’t help the title! Ready to play again! I got up, looked out our kitchen window—gray skies. Then my wife’s fancy weather tracker in the kitchen shared the outside temperature: 57°. A bit nippy. And it was lightly drizzling.

That 10% was enough!

After taking a few minutes to copy over a couple of videos for Eric onto a data stick, I got to the Derby Park courts at 9:10. Some courts were good to go and for others, the nets were still being set up. The courts were very plainly wet. This was a novelty for me; they’d always been fairly dry. (Except one time near the fence when I slipped.) Not too long after, my friend John ended up on his backside after slipping. No serious damage though, thank goodness. It was inevitable someone would lose their feet.

The courts very gradually dried out after the drizzle stopped after about 45 minutes. There was no waiting today—except for maybe a partner—only about 20 people showed up with the subpar weather.

I played a few games with Eric and recorded a few games. I played ok, but dropped a few balls into the net. I teamed up with Tom S. for a game and he asked to let him know if I saw anything in the video that he could improve on. Speaking of Tom, I haven’t seen young Tom and Ileana for a while. I’m sure players come and go. I’ll be missing some days in the next couple months due to travel, but missing pickleball is not by choice!

Playing on the Big Courts

The last two games of my day were with Kent, Jane, and Stuart. Jane, I’d seen around, but I’d never played with her. Jane circulates in the “big boy games”. I was surprised to learn later that she started playing shortly after me—but she came right from an active tennis life. She didn’t remember seeing me around before—there are generally a lot of people around—then after I told her I started at the end of January, she wondered why we’d never previously played a game together. “Because I stink.” I didn’t say that, but I’m not at the level she plays.

The first of the two games was Kent and me versus Jane and Stuart. All of them are solid players. They get to write their names in red on the court assignments dry-erase board. Jane and Stuart were leading something like 5-0 then Kent and I worked our way back. We still lost by 3—or maybe 5—points, but I held my own. I’d say it was my best played game of the day. Of course, I hit a couple shots just high enough to get smacked back at high speed, but I don’t think I hit more than one ball into the net.

In the second game, I was paired with Stuart. Stuart—like Kent—was helpful with advice. Stuart was a bit distracted during the game (walking over to talk to someone right in the middle before that person left, for example) and wasn’t playing focused. It’s also hard to play your best when your partner keeps messing up—like hitting three shots in a row into the net! Stuart emphasized getting up to the kitchen as quickly as possible . . . and fully up to kitchen. When I missed returning one shot down the middle after racing to the net, he said, “Look where your foot is.” My left foot was about a foot behind my right foot which was toeing the line. “That’s enough to keep you from reaching the ball. After each missed shot, it’s good to assess where your feet are and where they should have been.” (I get his point. In that instance, however, unless I was playing left handed, it would have been a slight disadvantage to have my left foot at the line since I’d have to twist my body a bit more on the backhand reach.)

Stuart also suggested essentially lobbing on the return of serve: “They have to let it bounce, you might as well give yourself plenty of time to get to the line.” I do have a tendency to smack it back low and fast. I’ve heard Stuart’s advice before elsewhere, I just don’t follow it. I should try that. He also said, “Don’t worry about keeping the same distance from the net as your partner—that’s for higher levels. What if you partner doesn’t move up to the net? Just move up anyway.”

The session wrapped up about noon and away I went. I’m ready to play again. My mojo is back! In black!

Number of days on a court: 20
Number of total hours: 58

Monday, April 24, 2017

I found my limit. Playing pickleball four times in five days was it. I woke up this morning with no burning desire to go out and play. As I type this, about 9:30 p.m., that feeling is slightly coming back. I suspect it’ll be back in time for Wednesday morning.

Live and In Person!

I’m sure, however, you have a burning desire to throw away 14 minutes of your life and watch one of my pickleball games. The video starts out a little shaky due to the wind, but it stabilizes, don’t worry.

(I’m the guy in the tan cap and tan shorts.) It’s less interesting game, not a lot of rallies. If you watch the game, you can see the things I was talking about in yesterday’s blog. The point that starts at 2:20 is so indicative of a consistent error—a failed drop shot, not always from the baseline, sometimes while in motion to the kitchen. (I can occasionally make them, like the point starting at 7:19. And I make a really nice crosscourt drop shot at 7:40.) I could go on about mistakes, there are plenty there to critique. All of four of us have had better games. The wind didn’t help either!

New Toy

I ordered a factory-refurbished AKASO EK7000 4K WIFI Sports Action Camera for $51.95 off of eBay. Buying a refurbished one saved about 40% off the regular price. It’s supposed to be here next week on Tuesday.

[… minutes pass …]

Ok. I just ordered a 32GB memory stick for it ($17). I realized that they likely weren’t going to include memory for it and I was right! It should be here before the camera gets here. I’m curious to see the difference in the video quality. It also comes with a remote to turn it off and on, that could be very handy!

Pickleball Can Save Your Life

I watched a video last night featuring a guy who lives about about an hour and a half north of here. He says that pickleball saved his life. It looks from my poking around the interwebs that his teenage son got hooked on the game as well.

As an aside, it’s stories that like that that make me very wary of riding bicycles around in high traffic areas. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden my bike to work . . . of course, that’s why my wife encouraged me to try out pickleball with our friend John!

Number of days on a court: 19 (still)
Number of total hours: 55 (still)