Category: Pickleball (Page 98 of 324)

Sunday, May 19, 2024 (Court Day #663)

Unlike yesterday morning, which was a bit misty and wet and threatened to delay club play at Skypark, today, while overcast and rather chilly, was dry as I drove to Derby Park. My nose was noticeably cold, even in my car.

My right knee has been bugging me. I could feel it mildly aching while walking around this morning. I generally wear a knee brace (that Ted gave me) when I play, though I don’t always. But, today, there was no question if I was going to wear it or not—100% yes!

Found Paddle

On Thursday night, as I walked near the courts at Skypark, I found a really nice paddle on the ground next to the path. It had “Kiki” written on it along with a phone number. I meant to call on Friday morning, but I got overwhelmed and completely forgot about it until late last night. I texted the number this morning and we’ll see if I can get this paddle reunited with its owner.

Derby

I arrived at Derby Park about 15 minutes before opening time and got about setting up. There were a few players there knocking a ball around.

Lead Tape

My right wrist was very mildly hurting with specific shots, but it didn’t bother all that much today. I got off to a slow start, missing some shots. Later in the day, I realized that I’d added lead tape to the two lower corners of my new Gearbox paddle. This increases the sweet spot some, but also adds just a little bit of power . . . not that I need more power with this paddle.

Skills

With no 4.0+ players there, I signed up in red. In my first red—advanced—game, I end up switching to left-handed to make the game more balanced. I was partnered with Lester and we were at 7–0 in that game. It was played to 9, win by 1. I think we lost, but it’s good practice to play some lefty now and then.

Some strong players appeared later, but it didn’t work out for me to play with them. Colleen came and Adrian appeared for the first time in a long time. Mark G. was there and I did get to play in a game with him but he was always partnered with a weak player.

There were about 50 people so we had long waits between games. Some players gave up and left.

Jeff was there with his brother Scott. (They look quite alike!) Scott has been coming with Jeff on Sunday for the past month or so.

Newbies

I trained three newbies today: Sean, Scotia, and Fernanda. Sean said he was the #1 pickleball player as a sophomore in high school but it has been 10 years since he’s played. They were an appreciative group.

AWOL Phone

One of the players left his phone on the bench, and when he went back, it was gone. I would hope none of the players intentionally took it and, instead, it was simply picked up an error.

I left Derby Park at 12:20 p.m. I’ll be teaching at Willowbrook this afternoon.

The Wife

My wife Kristen is amusing. Today, for my class, she had purchased a new floral pickleball sling bag.

You have to be fashionable, right? Ha ha!

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Monday, May 20, 2024 (No Play)

My activity today while making and eating my lunch. Ben Johns and his brother Colin were placed into a match against two 5.0 players. Normally, this would be a wipeout, but this was not a normal match. This was an exhibition arranged by Zane Navartil for the benefit of his YouTube viewers. The challenge placed on the Johns brothers was to play . . . left handed. Yes, they are both righties.

Ross

I broke the pair of sunglasses I keep in my car. They inexplicably snapped near the nose. Don’t ask me why. I decided to stop by Ross on my way back to work from lunch to get a new pair. Since I was there anyway, I looked at shoes—and found a pair of Fila court shoes in my size for just $19, woo!—and aside from two pairs of cheap sunglasses, I stopped to see if they had any pickleball gear in their sports section. Surprise! They did. They had a Reebok paddle for $19.

The paddle face was relatively smooth compared to my Gearbox or Players Rogue 2 paddles or I might have been tempted to get it for my family.

French Open gets pickleball

In a week, tennis fans will gather in Paris to witness the French Open. But there is a new twist…

Here’s an article about it:
https://www.timesnownews.com/sports/pickleball/french-open-to-have-a-massive-pickleball-upgrade-details-inside-article-110209285

Wife Pains

My wife Kristen was complaining today about pain in her upper leg and glute muscle from pickleball. Ah, well. One has to expect that when you start using your muscles in new ways.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2024 (No Play)

I’m in New Mexico for about 36 hours to help my daughter move her apartment belongings into storage. I few out today. I was surfing Facebook pickleball groups and a circuitous course brought me to this video:

It was recommended as a drill for newer players. While they did say it was windy, I question their dink targeting skills. I’m tempted to try this when I get home a see if I’m as much better as I think I am.

Number of days on a court: 663
Number of total hours: 2,827
Number of paid coaching hours: 36

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

Thursday, May 16, 2024 (Court Day #662)

The days are flying by this week. This morning, I was planning on not playing tonight. My right knee has been bothering me for the past few days and I figured I would give it some rest. But my wife texted asking if I was going to play and while I was still undecided, I picked up what I needed from home during lunch just in case.

War!

I am so annoyed. Really, really annoyed. The PPA business group announced today that it’s launching a “global governing body” to manage pickleball.

What the hell? For 40 years, there has already been a “governing body” for pickleball. It was originally called the United States of America Pickleball Association (USAPA) and was rebranded a few years ago to USA Pickleball. Internationally, the USAPA was instrumental in founding the International Federation of Pickleball (IFP) to promote the sport worldwide. (The IFP went through some management problems and was relaunched as the International Pickleball Federation or IPF, last year.)

Rather than working with USA Pickleball, the business guys decided they’d just start their own association. What really gets me is them laying claim to the 52% growth of participation in the sport last year. What they don’t say is that the PPA and MLP had almost nothing to do with it. The volunteer network of USA Pickleball ambassadors—like me—have been working hard to grow the sport for years, along with local recreational players. It has been very grassroots, with support from USA Pickleball. A recent survey determined that over 90% of pickleball players have very little interest in pro players and pro matches . . . they just want to get out and play themselves. This is very unlike, say, football, baseball, or basketball where the majority of fans don’t play themselves but like to watch. So, again, the pro leagues have had very little to do with the growth of pickleball, they are just riding the wave but want control the sport anyway. Power grab.

(And just to be clear, I do not officially speak for USA Pickleball. The opinion above is my own.)

Weather and Whether

It h ad beenovercast all day today and a little bit on the chilly side. It was almost enough to make you think it was a late fall instead of spring. It was misting heavily as I drove to Skypark after work, but it was only a brief interlude on the freeway then stopped.

After my performance on Tuesday night, I was dejected about my play. Yesterday, I caught myself thinking, “Why do I play this game?“ But there I was this evening, on my way to Scotts Valley to play once again.

Skypark

I was on the courts shortly before 7 p.m. There weren’t as many people playing tonight as there had been on Tuesday. The whiteboard wasn’t brought out and there was only me and about half a dozen other people who are waiting to get into games.

While I played better tonight, I did hit a ball into the white tape three times and also missed about a half dozen of my serves—about an equal number sailed past the baseline as ended up in the net.

There were two passing shots along the right sideline where I left too much of a gap and my opponent took advantage. I have to trust my partner to cover the middle. I can’t leave the easy straight-ahead shot open. I was probably leaving about 4 feet beyond the reach of my paddle along that sideline. The good news is on a third attempt, I had adjusted and the ball was within my reach, and I took care of it and returned the ball over the net. It was a few minutes before 9:30 p.m. when the last game ended.

Ow.

The most eventful incident tonight was David hitting a hard drive from the kitchen across the net and right into my face. Aaron had popped up the ball and David leap up and slammed it square on my right cheekbone. For ball that is so light, it sure stung for a while! David apologized and felt bad. It wasn’t his fault. It easily could have been me hitting a ball like he did. And that is why I wear eyewear all the time while playing pickleball . . . you never know when you’ll get a ball to the face! My cheekbone mildly stung for a while.

Work to Do

There is still work I need to do in court positioning as well as trusting my partner in the middle. The problem is, when you’re playing with a partner who is weaker—which I think was every game for me this evening—you can’t always count on them to make the shot so there’s a temptation take a backhand shot in the middle instead of leaving it for the forehand of your partner.

I will say that overall, my drop shots are getting better and more consistent with this recent paddle change and tweaking. That’s nice to see.

When I got home after 10 p.m., I iced my knee . . . and iced my cheekbone!

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Saturday, May 18, 2024 (No Play)

No play for me yesterday or today. I have too many of my staff on vacation. We ended up four people short at work today.

New York

My brother John has been in New York City this week for his work. He sent a text to the group text chat with my parents and siblings…

John is a funny guy! I’d read previously about the courts in Central Park. From what I understand they were initially temporary as an experiment, but “stuck”. Regardless, neat that he got to see them in person . . . especially since John has started playing some himself.

Reddit

I recently installed Reddit on my phone to access pickleball discussions. This popped up and I couldn’t help but chuckle given the vocal subset of tennis players who keep talking smack about pickleball.

“…no one in my area seems to play anymore.”
Now, I have played tennis and enjoy tennis and I don’t want to see tennis suffer. But I do enjoy the strategies and skills of pickleball. What was it someone said? “Tennis is checkers, pickleball is chess.” A more physically-demanding and a “higher barrier for entry” checkers, but checkers compared to the “cat and mouse” of pickleball.

UPA-A

The flurry of over the announcement by the for-profit UPA that it’s launching a global association to essentially replace the decades-old non-profit USA Pickleball is continuing. The Pickleball Channel posted a poll today and here are the results…

I have some faith in humanity that only 5% of respondents say that the UPA-A is a good idea.

Number of days on a court: 662
Number of total hours: 2,824
Number of paid coaching hours: 34.5

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

Tuesday, May 14, 2024 (Court Day #661)

So, there are up days and down days. Today was a disaster. My first game was paired with Avery against Sean and his brother Danny. I had no warm-up and went directly into the game—but that is little to no excuse. That game, I hit at least three shots wide outside of the sidelines—two to the right side and one to the left. I was just not playing well at all. It was embarrassing. About two-thirds into the game, it seemed as though Sean stopped hitting to me and started hitting Avery so he could continue the rallies. Ugh. It was so bad.

The rest of the night wasn’t so great either. While I had my moments, overall, it was crappy.

Paul, W. shared a drone shot that he took of the courts at 5:45 p.m. today:

I ended up in a game with Shaya (Mauricio’s wife) against Aud and Jax. I hadn’t played with Jax before. He’s a good player. Shaya and I lost. Then Jax played with Shaya and I was with Aud. Shaya started playing better. I kidded her after a good shot, “Why did you make shots like that while you were playing with me?” Shaya said she was “in her head”. There is definitely a mental aspect to the game.

After those games, Shaya complimenting me, saying that my hands are “so fast”.

It was weird, at 9:11 p.m., there were only four of us left, Tim Handley, Matt, and Paul. Everyone else was gone. Maybe everyone came early and left early. That last game of the night was us. Tim wasn’t playing his best and I already said I wasn’t playing my best either. We still played somewhat respectably, but I think we lost 7-11.

Number of days on a court: 661
Number of total hours: 2,821.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 34.5

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