I got to play in one event at the USA Pickleball Nationals in Mesa, Arizona, that I'm going to be using as the centerpiece for today's conversation- How do we play better pickleball?

It was a mixed doubles match where me and my partner, Ken, got to play hybrid which is one standing player and one player in a wheelchair. 

We were going to play Troy and Ryan in that Bronze Metal match where they won the first and second game. In the third game, we're getting hammered but we put on a run and beat them in the last match. 

So what changed between when we were getting hammered and when we ended up winning? Here are the tips for success based on that game;

i) Play at a tempo that makes sense for you, slow yourself down, and you're going to play better. 

ii) Smile. I know that sounds so simple that it can't possibly work but smiling gives you additional calmness leading to better play.

There's a lot of things you need to improve your play and that's fine. But all things being equal and having done the other stuff to the best of your ability, consider taking your time and consider smiling to enjoy the situation more. 

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Let's talk about the concept of clicking when it comes to knowledge acquisition. How do we acquire knowledge and how do we know that we've acquired it? 

Sometime there's frustrations of not acquiring knowledge as quickly as we would want it to. So things may not be clicking for us and there's something that we're missing right now. 

i) Something as simple as listening to the podcast is a click, because you didn't do that before, and now you listen to the podcast.

ii) Looking back and knowing, 'I've already learned a lot in the past' or that things clicked in the past gives you a sense of comfort and a sense of confidence that you will be able to learn the new things you're working on. 

iii) Understand or embrace the fact that you will never learn everything that pickleball has to teach. It's just not possible so keep at it, as long as you're curious and want to keep growing as a player.  

We also talk about gratitude because playing pickleball is a wonderful opportunity and we get to enjoy or experience a positive moment every time we're on the pickleball courts with our friends. 

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On a pickleball court, there are four factors that affect the outcome of the game; us, our partner, and our two opponents. 

We'll use an analogy where factor A is going to be us, factor B is going to be our partner then factor C and D are our opponents-the two players across the net. 

The input in a pickleball game is going to be the game, the rules, the ball, the wind conditions, the court size which is standard and all the things that are happening to play a pickleball game or affecting the court conditions. Those are inputs while the output here is win the game or lose the game. 

Of the four factors, the only thing you can control is you and your play; how you did relative to you or what you're able to do, relative to your baseline, and relative to what you can bring that day to the court, nothing else.

This means I can't look at the results of the game to determine how I played so play pickleball as a contest of you against you. To test yourself against yourself. 

The best way to think about competition in this game is to view it in terms of our journey as pickleball players. Look at your play and determine whether your play is improving or not improving during a session and also over time. 

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 Pickleball, in its essence, is a zero-sum activity because it's built around the concept that there's going to be one winner and one loser.

In a zero-sum world, our opponent's victory is our loss. Their positive is our negative. But it doesn't have to be that way. Think about your losses as simply learning opportunities so now you have a positive and a positive.

Let's go into an analogy metaphor where you, or a loved one or a partner of yours, drops a dish that means something to you and it breaks or cracks. That's the reality. That is the thing that happened.

How we react to that reality is 100% entirely within our ability;

i) We can just get upset about it and despair over it
ii) We can acknowledge that these things happen and it's human nature to make such sorts of mistakes and drop things
iii) When an opponents overpower us or plays a really good rally, we can celebrate their rally rather than getting bogged down.
iv) Embrace the beauty of the cracks and understand losses are just a natural outcome.

We have a certain amount of control over the way we react to and handle adverse events when we play pickleball at the different levels of events; from the end of the game to the rally, all the way down to being inside of a rally.

Turn potentially negative loss into a positive, which is a celebration of your opponent's win.

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In this episode we're going to re-up one of our most popular and best episode.

How do we customize the journey best for ourselves?

Think of your journey as a customer experience and treat it that way to feel the best about yourself as a player and as your experience.

We also talk about the concept of agency in outballs that applies to everything you're doing. What shot did you just hit? Where are you standing on the court? Did you play with a player who was not pleasant to you?

Take some ownership over the decision to hit the ball that puts your opponent in an uncomfortable position.

Now the idea of doing a second accountability concept or being a therapist is a commitment to yourself that you commit to listening to a certain number of the podcasts and doing other things which include starting some mental training with a book.

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Pickleball Rules-The Definitive Guide to CALLING OUT BALLS || Avoid Mistakes and Controversy; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvO9jR6N9JI&t=51s

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You can be successful as a pickleball player with different types of approaches, both hard and soft game strategies, and being a proponent of the soft game, doesn't mean that I'm an opponent of the hard game.

Most pros have both a good soft game and a good hard game, because they'll mix the two depending on what's working in that moment and their overall strategy. 

The analogy/metaphore I like to think about in terms of the approach to pickleball is mixed martial arts or MMA which is a format of fight where you can almost do whatever you want.  
 
Each player has their own strategy, their own way of coming at the fight, and their own approach to how they want to fight the other fighter in that match. Pickleball is the same way, it's multidisciplinarity, meaning jiu-jitsu, boxing, wrestling.

You can win as a good jiu-jitsu practitioner with a soft game, or you can win as a good hard game practitioner in the boxing. 

Find the approach that allows you to customize the game to your particular style, personality or how you like to play the game. Get really good at that. Understand that you can win a ton of games from that solid foundation. 

From there you can grow, expand, maybe add a little boxing, wrestling or even a little judo into your game. 

Sometimes we'll play in situations in open plays where there's really no gathering of levels. So it's basically a free-for-all. 

How do you keep the game fun? How do you keep playing productively with players who you've known for a long time when you, or they, get to different levels of the game? 

This is a common question or situation we encounter and that's what we're going to be talking about in this new format of a Walk and Talk episode.

i) Work on your game and when you're playing outside level, work on the social part too.

ii) Work on the nontechnical parts; your gratitude and parts of your game that make you feel a little bit more stressed about the results of a particular game. 

iii) Understand that pickleball has no end line, there are lots of positives that you can gain from it.  Regardless of the level of play, as long as you choose to be a part of this sport, pickleball will have something to teach you, it never runs out, and you can never exhaust it.

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Be part of our mailback episodes. Send us an email, at [email protected], put on the subject line, Pickleball Therapy Question

In this special episode of Pickleball Therapy, we have a meeting with fellow pickleball therapists who share their insights and happenings from their own pickleball journeys.

Let's talk about ratings, one of those double-edged swords that really don't say anything about how you play. 

While there's definitely a place for ratings in our sport, the only reason you need the rating is if it's consistent with what you want. 

Always ask yourself;

1) Why do I need the rating? 
2) What's the rating doing for me and what I want with the game? 

So if you want to play tournaments and it requires a certain type of rating, then you're going to have to comply with that requirement. That's a tournament specific requirement. 

Use DUPR or any rating system, only as necessary to accomplish your objectives as opposed to a vicious cycle that interferes with the reason for your play and why you go out to the court. What really matters at the end of the day is how good you feel about how you're playing. 

In this episode we also look at another email that I received from one of our students talking about focus- baseline focus. The focus you can reasonably bring to bear while you play. 

Now, you want to try and bring your attention to the thing that matters when you're playing pickleball in the technical sense and the thing that matters is the little yellow ball. That's all that matters. Where is it? Where's it going? What am I going to do with it? 

The better you're able to ignore that score, the better you're going to be to stay in the moment and focus on what needs to get done.

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As a pickleball player, I want to feel good and play without doing that at the expense of my opponent. Taking advantage of my opponent and paying attention to my opponent's negative feelings to expand my confidence should not be something to look forward to or to work towards.

The idea that our tank of confidence will be filled by our opponent's misery, them being upset at their partner or some negative thing for our opponent is way of thinking like a vampire or a parasite.

Why? Because a vampire needs the blood of a human and a parasite will need the sustenance of its host. It's a very short-sided way of thinking about the game, and not a healthy one for anybody, not just for your opponents, but for you either. 

Building anything on external considerations means you're always going to be subject to whatever those external considerations and fluctuations are. 

Here's the bigger picture, I don't want to live in a world where my success is built upon or relies on your failure. Now, that's different than winning and losing, right? Because I can play my best and feel good. 

We can focus on making ourselves strong human beings while allowing others to do the same. We can encourage them and consider building them up rather than knocking them down. 

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Good pickleball, and the best pickleball you'll ever play, is built upon a foundation of sound FUNDAMENTALS.

I was reminded of the 'imagined' bad word, fundamentals, during a pro level match that I was watching because as pickleball players we often shy away from that word and dismiss it as only applicable for beginners.

The truth is, executing everything really well, including those fundamentals, is what separates pro players from the other teams that they play against is their focus on the fundamentals.  

A good example of those pro players is Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau who I believe are the strongest pro team right now in terms of everything that they do from beginning to end, including the fundamentals. 

They don't take a shot off, execute everything really well and they're very good at every part of the game. That is what separates them from the other teams that they play against.

Now to the idea of an actual bad word that I discuss in this episode; if you have this attitude at the end of a tough game where you make statements to demean or diminish the other player, I would challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of your opponents. 

Have some empathy and think about it through their eyes.

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