Pickleball Pro's Journey and Coaching Insights

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi , I'm Shelly Maurer and I'm Cher Emrick . Welcome to Life .

Speaker 2 0:04

Lessons from Pickleball where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court .

Speaker 1 0:12

Thanks for joining us . Welcome everyone to Life Lessons from Pickleball . We are so lucky to have with us today Senior Pickleball Pro Tony Roig . Tony , you are the host of a very popular podcast which we love as well Pickleball Therapy , dedicated to helping us achieve our pickleball goals .

Speaker 3 0:34

You are also co-founder and director of player development at Better Pickleball and host the YouTube channel Into Pickle .

Speaker 1 0:42

In addition to all of that , you're a full-time pickleball coach and the author of Play Pickleball A Beginner's Guide . Oh my gosh , tony , you are an absolute wealth of pickleball knowledge . But let's start with what you were doing before pickleball . And then how did you learn about the game ?

Speaker 4 1:00

Sure , I'll take it from a player perspective . Uh , first , you know , so I , I was a tennis player . I , uh , I played tennis since I was a child and I played . I didn't play competitively in college or anything like that , but I played a little intramurals and I dropped the game for a number of years .

Speaker 4 1:16

My brother moved into town , I started playing to hang out with my brother I can't remember the exact year , but it was many , many years ago and we played usta League play and we went to Nationals one year and you know I played a lot of tennis and one set I think it was actually no , my wife reminded me it was actually at Martin Luther King Day , so it was a Monday . We got invited by our friend Charlotte to go play this thing and you know they played it at the tennis club here , a tennis center which is pretty well known , and I'm like sure you know we'll go bat the ball around a little bit and we'll go have some lunch . It'll be a nice day . And so went out there and and I always like to tell this part of the story because I think it's it's important to it's important to interact with the sport in a way that's going to interest you .

Speaker 4 1:59

I was lucky that day because there was a gentleman named Steve Tallner who was the one of the pros at that facility tennis pros , but he's also the pickleball pro and he put a whooping on me on the pickleball court and I was like and I'm sitting there going . You know I was . I was like a four , I'm the four or five tennis player and I'm sitting there going like what is happening here ? This is stupid . I'm hitting this stupid little ball in this stupid little court . Stupid little ball in this stupid little court , ass kicked .

Speaker 4 2:23

So you know , and and but , but as , as , as a reasonably decent tennis player , that's what I needed to interest me . Then , after that , I said , man , there's a little more to this . So then I started down the path of of exploring it . I started going to the you know , back in the day here in Tampa this isn't 2015 , you had to play mostly indoors and on gym floors , so it was gym floors , temp nets , you know , just going out there and doing my thing and , uh , I fell in love with it . And then I , uh , my friend Tom and I went to play in the 2016 U S open , which was the first year of the U S open .

Speaker 3 2:54

And they actually had a pickleball . U S open . Yes , ma'am .

Speaker 4 2:57

Yeah , the one down in Naples and it was a the first year of it and they actually had an open category , a true open category . So Tom played , I think , semi-professional golf . He's a really good golfer . So he's like let's just play open and I'm like I'm not even sure we were like decent 4-0s at the time . It was like okay , so we signed up for pro or open and it was a really good format because you played on Friday and basically it was like a play-in . So you played . Basically it was like a play-in . So you played on friday and whoever won that match went into the open division and if you lost a match you got dropped to 5.0 . And so we got there and we played one of the names you may recognize , wes gabrielson . The other one's , dan moore , who's got more sun and at that time they were like top five probably .

Speaker 4 3:40

So we placed them on court 10 and naples we got killed like 11 , 11-3 , 11-2 or something like that , but it was still . It was like it was so eye-opening , it was like , oh , there's so much more to this sport . So you know , I always thank my losses , actually more than my wins , in my journey because , they're the ones that propelled me forward to continue just learning this sport . So that's how I got into it .

Speaker 1 4:02

That's fantastic board . So that's how I got into it . That's fantastic and you're very mind oriented . Even your your pickleball therapy podcast is about mindset Right and I love the psychological perspective and it sounds like that's kind of what hooked you to when you first got it .

Speaker 4 4:18

Well , you know , that's a great . You know , I hadn't thought about that . I don't know that it's interesting , I'm not , I maybe , but I will tell you this Pushing back are you ? What's that Pushing back ? No , well , it's an interesting question . I hadn't really thought about it that way , you know , because I did play tennis competitively . So I think I kind of fell into the mental side of pickleball more intentionally . Later , when I started coaching and I started the podcast , like if you go back and listen to episode one or two of the podcast , I say basically this is my podcast , like the podcast is for me , I'm talking to me about fixing me because I'm a paddle chucker , racket breaker in tennis . I had all those tendencies .

Speaker 4 5:01

And so the Tony of today is very different than the Tony of six years ago or eight years ago or anything like that , and so it's been my journey and I'm happy to share the journey with whoever wants to join me on that journey . So Pickleball Therapy actually started , as it's my podcast for me , and I basically say I'm like I hope you can listen , but it doesn't matter , I'm still going to do the podcast , I'll be here . So join me if you want .

Speaker 1 5:25

So anyway , that's fantastic , yes .

Speaker 3 5:31

So tell us about Better Pickleball .

Speaker 4 5:34

Sure . So I'll tell you the story of how it originated , because it'll tell you kind of where the psychology that comes into our philosophy . So I started the Into the into pickle channel in 2018 and I have to thank my wife for pushing me in this direction . We were actually we were reverse snowbirds . So we live here in tampa , but we were going north during the summers in an rv , so we had an rv and we were just going north and we worked remote . So , um , so we're up in somewhere up in the northeast and my wife says why don't you like do something with this pickleball stuff ? You keep like because I'm always like helping players as I go out there and I wasn't coaching , I just so I'm like you know what ? Yeah , I'll do that .

Speaker 4 6:12

So I looked up the IPTPA , which is the original certification agency in pickleball or you know , for for coaching , and they had something happening and I think it was . So we redirected our trip , we canceled whatever , and then we circulated there , I got certified there and then the first videos that I did on YouTube and into pickle were filmed in Burlington , Vermont , and there were two pickleball courts next to the RV place we were staying at right Public . So I went there and it's like I don't even I have a . I don't even have a microphone , so like you can't even hardly hear me because I'm the cameras all the way over there and I'm talking into it with wind and everything . It is what it is .

Speaker 4 6:47

So , you know , launch the channel in 2018 . That's the into pickle channel . And then fast forward to COVID happens , and at that time it was like my channel . There was better pickleball , which is CJ Johnson's channel , my , my now business partner and co-head coach , nicole Havlicek with Primetime Pickleball was big , mark Renneson with Third Shot Sports , barrett Kinchel with the Kitchen those were like the big players in the space , and Pickleball Channel had some stuff going on too . But anyway , so we're doing our thing and COVID hits . Cj has the most brilliant idea when COVID hit , which is let's do a summit , let's do something . She's doing something because I didn't know her . So she reaches out and says I'm doing this summit . And you know , at the time this is right at the beginning of COVID Everybody thinks we're off court for , like , you know , two months or something . You know two months , three months , and we'll be back in normal .

Speaker 1 7:37

And so she wanted to .

Speaker 4 7:38

She wanted to get it done quickly , right During that time when everybody's off court . So she put it together . I was on it , barrett was on it , I think Nicole was on it , you know so and I helped moderate some stuff behind the scenes and it was a nice little small event , but very nice . And , um , so afterward in the summer I started thinking to myself I like I'm pretty good at the coaching , I'm pretty good at the thinking about the game . I'm not very good at the backend stuff you know , like emails and all that kind of stuff and CJ's . She's very good at the front of the office , if you will , and very good at the back of the office .

Speaker 4 8:11

I reached out to her and I think it was August or something . I was like the way she I'll tell you the way she explained it I think it makes more sense . She says I called her for a business date , like let's collaborate , or something you know . And then she was like no , let's go and get married . And uh , so like the week after , we had a new thing and we started that . And then , like that year in November , we launched the first serious online training platform . It was called VI pickleball at the time and now that's what we call the pickleball system , and then better pickleball is is better . Pickleball is a coaching platform and our mission is to help pickleball players become stronger . So empowering pickleball players through knowledge , right Through coaching , through transmitting knowledge to them , and we do it in various different formats . So that's Better Pickleball .

Speaker 1 9:00

So for those who are not familiar , how do you do that ?

Speaker 4 9:21

Do you have people on the court and you're coaching them remotely as well ? Or is it webinars ? And then you come into the webinar you get to hear something about , like , the most important shot in pickleball or gifted points or something interesting about pickleball , and then you make a decision I like these coaches . They make sense . You know , we explain the whys of things . That's really important to us . And then then you decide I like these folks , this sounds interesting , I'm going to join their course . Great , so we'll do like a three-day version of that , right ? So you'll come in and you have spent three days with us . Call it like an hour and a half each day , roughly an hour , an hour and a half . And at the end and this is a very natural question so I'm not trying to be critical of the asker , but here's the question that gets asked a lot of times Can I really learn pickleball ? And so my response is well , you're still with us and everything we've been doing is online and , frankly , like , like , look at YouTube videos , right , I mean , it's 200,000 views , 150 . I got news for everybody YouTube's online so you can learn a ton of ton , a ton of pickleball through the online program .

Speaker 4 10:19

Now , our program is very different than YouTube because it's all step-by-step and it's all explained to you . And here's the thing Most adults , most anybody can like , do the thing . You just need to know what to do . So we tell you this is what to do , and not just what to do , but these are like the really important things , so we prioritize it for you . So it's like let's start here and then here , and then here and then here , and we tell you listen , if you go to step four before , sort of side story , I just finished producing a video . We're doing some work with the PPA , analyzing some pro matches and things like that , and they're being published on their channel , which is fantastic .

Speaker 4 10:58

But I just analyzed one of the it's the top women's doubles , right ? So it's Anna Lee and Catherine against Anna and Rachel in the Masters Finals . And when I'm looking , you know , what I do is I'll watch the video . Not cold , but I'll watch a video , kind of like let me see what I see , right , let me go in there without prejudging what I'm going to look for , right , there are some things that I already know are tendencies of both teams , but still I want to see what happens . So I'm watching that match and in that match Annalie and Catherine won the first two games . I think it was like five and four , five and six , and then Anna and Rachel win game three , 11 , five , and in game four they're up five zero .

Speaker 1 11:37

So you're up five zero .

Speaker 4 11:39

Anna and Rachel are at five zero , so they've won game three and they're up five zero in game four . So it looks like things are good right For Anna and Rachel , that is , and all of a sudden , like the wheels come off and I'll tell you what happened a second , then it's five , four , and then they take a timeout , they regroup , they get up 10 , five , the wheels come off again and they lose 12

Advanced Pickleball Fundamentals and Coaching

Speaker 4 11:58

. Now why did the wheels come off ? The wheels came off based on and this is a word you know I I hardly ever use this word in these public kind of . I use it a ton when I'm doing like coach . You know , when you're coaching with me , I'll use a term term a lot , but it's fundamentals , cause the minute I say this word , players go oh , that's beginner stuff , I don't need that stuff .

Speaker 4 12:17

And I'm like , but these are the best players on the planet and I'm talking about miss returns of serve , miss four shots , not getting to the line on the fourth . How are you going to win like that ? And these are the best players doing it , even if you're a four or five , you're doing it too .

Speaker 1 12:36

That's very cool , very cool . I don't know if I answered the question , but I went with it .

Speaker 4 12:40

No , you did you did and I'm excited .

Speaker 1 12:43

Very cool , that's really cool .

Speaker 4 12:47

And the other thing I can tell you is this you asked a question about online , so let me just what I can tell you is this I believe the online works because I've been doing it . I've been doing it since before cj and I got together . I did some of it into pick up very small groups , but they were very they . There were repeat students , they came back and they would learn and I I always believed in the online training and I always tell cj so I tell , always tell cj this'm like I am surprised at how well our we call it the pickleball system because it's a system how well our system actually works . It actually surprises me . It surprised me not anymore , but like I expected it to work at level whatever right , and it's well exceeded that . And the reason I can tell you that is because of the feedback from our players and our players .

Speaker 4 13:32

It's not just like I feel better , it's like they'll tell us you know , I , I used to , I I've been playing with so and so for like two years or something , right , and then I , the last six months , they like they can't believe who I am anymore because now they and also it's not just that they're playing better , it's up here in the noggin , like they understand things better and so , and now they're actually asking questions that I'm like , oh okay , You're in a different place right now because you're asking me questions that are like you know , you're like a PhD student now asking me PhD questions and you're not asking me , like you know , sophomore questions anymore , which is fine , Ask sophomore questions , but the idea is not to ask sophomore questions for 10 years ask sophomore questions for like a couple of years and then move on to junior questions . I hope so , anyway , anyway , if you want to , so excellent I go ahead .

Speaker 3 14:15

shell , I was just gonna say , uh , today I was listening to one of your into pickles and it was the five top tips for pickleball and the first one was so good I just stopped and didn't even listen to the four because I had to work on the first one . And the first one was my body needs to follow the ball , don't just run straight up to the line . Oh , I'm supposed to run . If I hit a diagonal , I'm supposed to run diagonal . That was just great and I used it today when I played and it made a big difference . See , I know .

Speaker 4 14:47

So I mean , that's just one basic basic tip and I'm going to give you credit on that , shelley , because you did the right thing , and I think that's one of the dangers of the YouTube ecosystem is we use it because that's how we're going to meet players we haven't met before , so we are on there . We do our thing on YouTube . We try to be more discerning with the information we provide , because nowadays you get like there are two different content creators I don't remember who they were and I'm not trying to , you know , cast shade at them but two different content creators use the heading .

Strategic Approach Against Aggressive Players

Speaker 4 15:19

This shot works against 99 percent of players and I saw that and I'm just like you know , are there everybody saying like you can get to 5.0 with this tip , and which is just nonsense .

Speaker 4 15:27

It's just it gets clicks . You know I'm not going to say that , though I'm not going to say that though no-transcript . And then what happens is , you know , if most players you know and again not a criticism of the players why would they be able to discern the difference ? They don't . They can't look at that and go like , oh , that's bs , I , you know , I , I see what they're . They're just click baiting me . They see it , they go , and then they go okay , I gotta go hard .

Speaker 4 16:00

And a lot of players are out there thinking they gotta go hard all the time , and it's nonsense , it's not in fact we have a video coming out into pickle probably in like I don't know the exact schedule , but in a couple of weeks or something that we're fighting back against that by showing pro play , by showing the pros and how the pros use the soft game . And you know also some other reasons we explain in there , like cloning and how the game is built and stuff like that . But the more you understand those things about how the framework of the game that's what we call it , the more you're able to say no , come on , that doesn't make sense . This is pickleball .

Speaker 3 16:30

pickleball is not the same as tennis , is a different sport , you know yeah , I wish most guys could understand that , because when you go to open play and stuff boy , they just want to slam that ball .

Speaker 4 16:39

I'm gonna give you you know what the best thing you could do against them ? Reset , no , no , what ? All right , let's work through this . You want to work through it ?

Speaker 2 16:48

okay , you tell me . You tell me when I'm going too far Okay .

Speaker 4 16:51

All right so so let's assume the problem with the reset is it's a fine shot , but what's your exit strategy ? Because if you reset a banger shot , what's the banger going to do next ? Bang it and then you reset it . What they're going ?

Speaker 3 17:06

to do next , bang it and then and see what I'm saying . So it's like it's going to go out .

Speaker 4 17:18

Likely . I can't guarantee it . Let the ball go out . Let the ball go . Give it a chance to go out , because most bangers at most levels don't have the control to hit the ball in . In fact , even at the higher levels , I watch pros play right . I did some work with Dylan and some and and and you know it been at the pro matches , live with him and stuff like that . I'm watching it . I'm like these balls are all going out and they're hitting them even at the pro level . If you want to piss a banger off , let their ball go . They think it's like disrespectful or something . Looking into the camera , right Directly in the cameras , and that's the banger . And so they bang it and I'm going to let's use . Actually , I'm going to pick on my friend Phil . So I'm going to use Phil because Phil's a banger . So I'll be like I'll be like I'll get out of the way and I'll look at Phil . I'll be in Phil . I couldn't , I couldn't turn in time . I just I trust you . Ball's going to be like four feet out .

Speaker 1 18:16

Was he going to call ?

Speaker 4 18:17

it in .

Speaker 1 18:18

That's good . Okay , I'm going to remember that one . That's your best defense against bangers .

Speaker 4 18:23

If you hit . And one thing to understand is and this is like I'm going to give you guys like so part of it's the out ball . But let me tell you like a reason why because it makes it more impactful . Think of the size of a pickleball court relative to the size of a tennis court .

Speaker 3 18:39

Not half .

Speaker 4 18:41

Okay , in terms of the length right or the depth right , think of the height of the net . It's almost the same , it's two inch difference . So you have a net that is disproportionately high and disproportionately in terms of , like , what's happening , what's going to happen to the ball landing in relative to the depth of the court .

Speaker 4 19:00

So why not use that to your advantage ? And that's framework , right ? That's you understanding ? Wait , I understand how my game is constructed . My game is constructed on a short court with a high net . Let them go , because it's really hard to hit that ball in the court .

Speaker 1 19:15

Oh my gosh . Thank you , the check is on the mail . Let him go .

Speaker 3 19:20

But I just don't like the grin on their face if it happens to be in I know , you know what ?

Speaker 4 19:25

Here's what you know You're playing a bigger number and I'll tell you guys another quick story because it has to do with

Strategic Play in Pickleball

Speaker 4 19:30

that . So this is a good friend of mine , matt , great two-handed backhand , beautiful back . In fact , some of the other pros back in the day would be like we'll see matt's backhand and go like I want that backhand because it was so pretty , so we're playing it's . I can't remember who my partner was . I know for sure it was matt and tom tom the same guy from the open because he was razzing me . So matt , light matt gets ready to hit his beautiful backhand . I get out of the way because I'm pretty good at that . Actually , one thing that upsets me when I play is when I hit out balls . When I hit balls that I think are going out because I'm like that means I'm not in the moment , but anyway , so I get out of the way .

Speaker 4 20:02

I let the ball go . Ball lands in Like barely in , like an inch or two in right in the corner , and so they start razzing me . Oh , that will go All that nonsense Right . And I'm like , yep , I'll let it go again next time too , because here's the thing , the score Eight us to them .

Speaker 1 20:25

Four or five had already gone out . Oh my gosh .

Speaker 4 20:27

I understand that . I understand that If you , if you here's the thing if you worry about all of them going out , then we we refer to as being the huckleberry , you're the banger's huckleberry , because the banger goes , oh so and so is across the net . I can just beat the crap out of the ball and I don't got to worry about it . Now , if you let the out ball , if you let the out part of the court come into effect now , now there's a cost to doing it and it might be . Let's say it's 80 20 , you know 80 , 80 , 20 you . Let's say it's 65 , 35 , you good , good on you because I'm gonna give you guys another piece of depth here .

Speaker 4 21:02

Here's the part you're missing when you think , when you look at it that way , yeah what are you going to do with the ball anyway ? So you decide to hit it right because you don't want it to go out . How's that work out ?

Speaker 3 21:13

a lot of times it hits my racket and goes flying .

Speaker 4 21:15

I'm just saying you got to think about that . So , like a pro player , right , a pro player can hit everything . It's fine because they can handle every single shot . They should let him go , but it's not going to be as devastating if they decide to counter , punch it right or something .

Speaker 1 21:35

For most , for most amateur players , pace is a problem and so the ball comes hard and okay , so I gotta let it land in , maybe , but what am I gonna do with it anyway ? Yeah , oh , wow , thank you .

Speaker 4 21:41

Now we're connecting with share on that one connecting with shelly on the net with share on the yeah well yeah , what am I ? Gonna do I might as well just let it go and see what happens I'm gonna try that .

Speaker 1 21:51

That is awesome .

Speaker 4 21:53

Yeah , I'll be playing with a few like that in a few days the key there is make sure you get out of the way before they hit it , if you wait till they hit it . You are , they get the point and don't don't tell and I don't let players can't tell me they didn't have time to get out of the way , I'll I push back .

Speaker 4 22:07

I'm like uh-uh you , just you , just you were too late thinking about it . Like , what's the banger going to do ? Are you waiting to see ? Oh , I wonder if they're going to bang it .

Speaker 3 22:17

Oh yeah Right , no , they're going to bang it , so Get out of the way , it's what they do .

The Pickleball Framework and Life Lessons

Speaker 3 22:25

So the pickleball system is just full of all kinds of tips like this .

Speaker 4 22:29

The pickle . It's . It's I want to push back a little bit it's not tips , yeah , we don't look at it that way . So we look at it as the framework is so important and it just changes how you interact with stuff . Because once you get like these framework pieces , like you start construct , it's like a puzzle , right . So you start construct . It's like a puzzle , right . So you start constructing , seeing how it put together .

Speaker 4 22:46

You understand the two bounce rule and how it impacts everything that you do in pickleball , and most players don't even think about it . Why would you this ? You know I don't violate it . You understand the importance of the non-bally zone and then you start thinking about it differently and using it differently . You understand the court right and the net height versus the out of bounds , and so , and then you start cause , here's the thing , every one of us plays pickleball a little bit differently , right , like your skills , shelly . Your skills share your background , your , your , your reflexes . Everything's different and mine is different , right , so we're not going to all play pickleball the same way , but we're all playing the same game on the same court with the same rules , with the same everything . Ben Johns , annalie , waters , all of waters , all of all of us . We all play the exact same game , right ?

Speaker 4 23:26

The question is , how do we want to interact with the game ? How do we want to , how do we want to come up with what works best for us ? The most rewarding way to do that is to understand the framework first . So , like the pickleball system is built on , we call it the foss approach , which we developed . So think about it like this you start off with framework , so that's understanding how the game's constructed . Then from there you build objectives right , that's the old .

Speaker 4 23:46

So like , these are my objectives when I'm playing on the return side , on the serve side , and then from there I gain strategies or I develop strategies . So what strategy will allow me to accomplish my objective ? And then the very last one is my shot . What shot do I need to hit to accomplish my strategy ?

Speaker 4 24:01

Most pickleball players work bottom up , which is not as satisfying . That's the YouTube approach . Right , let me find a shot , let me find a thing right . And so I just , I have all these different shots in my mind or strategies in my mind , but I don't understand how they work together . And so I can't then like as soon as you throw me a little bit of a wrench or a curve ball . I'm toast because I don't understand how it all works . Like we even explain how , like the how the shots work , so that you basically understand , like when you miss a shot , which a hundred percent you're going to miss a shot , you understand you can work backward and go I missed the shot because of this or that , and then you can work back through there .

Speaker 4 24:37

This is a likely cause , Okay , and now you can fix it . Otherwise you're just like , okay , I missed the shot , I don't know what to do about it . So I think how much more powerful that is for you as a player to be able to have that kind of that level of understanding and listen , we just met right . But I got to believe that . You know , you guys are running a podcast , you guys have led successful lives , you guys . You guys are capable human beings right so but I'm just saying why can't you guys ?

Speaker 1 25:02

have the same knowledge .

Speaker 4 25:03

But why can't you guys have the same knowledge that I do about pickleball ? You know playing pickleball , not otherwise , but I'm just . You know what I mean . And so that's our , our , our mission , our , our , our , our goal is to try and transfer knowledge as much as we can in , in , and we're happy to do that in whatever form . But that's how the system is built . It's to deliver that kind of knowledge to you , not just like , okay , here's a tip to do this , here's a tip to do that .

Speaker 1 25:26

Brilliant , very comprehensive . Love it , love it , love it . Okay Now , in all this experience you've had on and off the court , what are some of the life lessons that you can share ?

Speaker 4 25:37

Well , the biggest one is probably just the pickleball therapy journey . You know I went from . You know I played tennis my whole life , never thought about the mental side of anything . I never read the end of game of tennis , never read any of those books . A book that really impacted me was Peter Scales book , and you know , if anybody , I'll give you the name of it . But if you guys want to link to it , that's fine too . But we have a link at better pickleballcom under resources . So all these , like what book did Tony say ? It's all on there .

Speaker 4 26:05

But basically , uh , he wrote a book called uh in um , mental and emotional training for tennis , but you can forget about tennis because that's it's so applicable . And then his tenet is compete , learn honor , and it's it just really changed what compete , learn honor . And it's basically his , his philosophy is , and he's actually , he is a psychologist . I'm not , he is a psychologist and he does . He's also a sports coach . He coaches tennis , he does coach pickleball now , but when he wrote the book he was coaching tennis and anyway . So when he gives you a different way of thinking about your interaction with the sport , that really opens up your eyes to a different perspective , so anyway .

Speaker 4 26:46

So then , that journey right has led me to where , basically , I've been hosting the podcast , you know , weekly , you know , faithfully weekly for like four years plus . We have two books actually in process which have to do with the mental side of the game . Uh , it's really forced me to think differently about um sports in general . You know , like I'm working on this idea of we I think we , we've , we're waiting , first place too much in our thinking Um , and it's not . This is not let's go to participation trophies , so not everybody gets a trophy but it is an idea that , like , let's celebrate all of this other work that's been done and not just the one team or the one person , player or whatever that ends up on on the on the podium .

Speaker 4 27:34

Um and the closest concept is that bowl of ice cream concept that we developed at pickleball therapy , which is the idea that every time you play pickleball , you get a bowl of ice cream , even if you lose all your games . The reason is you're freaking , playing pickleball . Let's start from there , right ? You're out there playing the sport that you love , so nothing could take that away from you . So that's your baseline . You can't go under that , and it's your favorite ice cream . It's a full bowl . If you win , though but we want , we want to understand also that our psychology is if we win , we feel better . Okay , then add sprinkles to the ice cream , throw some whipped cream on top , throw some fudge , throw some nuts so you can differentiate , but don't go below a bowl of ice cream , and I'll tell you guys , an interesting story .

Speaker 4 28:13

I had a conversation at Nationals with a pro player . I won't share her name because I didn't ask for permission , but she's a very good player and she was . I just happened to see her sitting like in next to the courts and she looked kind of dejected . So I went up to her and I said hey , no , I said nice to meet you . I really am . I , you know , I love the way you play .

Speaker 4 28:32

She plays a very good , fundamentally sound game , right , with very little paddle movement . So I told her I , you know , I you mind if I ask you . I mean , you seem like you're . She was yeah , I didn't , I didn't play well today or whatever . And I said I said can I throw something out there for you ? And so she kind of played along a little bit and I was like I was like let's , let's take a moment here , because you're at nationals playing pickleball . You're a top 15 , 20 player , female player in the world . That's pretty cool . You know , I don't , it seems pretty good to me . So then I told her about the bowl of ice cream . But what's interesting is she pushed back , and this is very common . I've had players do this , where they push back and they say well , maybe I got like a little like a spoonful or something and I'm just like why ?

Speaker 4 29:19

but why is so we're so hard on ourselves ?

Speaker 4 29:21

Unless we have the W and we could spend three hours talking about win , loss , but anyways , that wasn't the question .

Speaker 4 29:25

So so I would say the pickleball therapy , um , has been a big life lesson for me . And then the other thing I think for me has been that's really impacted me and it makes me very passionate about the work that we do is seeing the impact that pickleball has on players lives , uh , fence , well beyond the court , you know , I mean I mean in terms of social life , I mean just that's so rewarding to me , you know , because I grew up playing sports . So to me it , you know , I mean it's , it's been very impactful in my life , it's changed my life , but it I don't , it hasn't had the impact in my life in terms of life changing for me as it has for , like some of our students who I know , who didn't play any sports at all in their entire life you know , and they're 60 and they're picking up a paddle for the first time and they're like wow , and so they're discovering this whole other side of themselves and I'll share with you guys a quick side story .

Speaker 4 30:18

And she doesn't mind me sharing this because she's open about but they're open about this idea . But one of our students named Lynn , who related to us similar thing . She doesn't really have like a sports background and she's playing pickleball and this comes from my co-head coach , cj Johnson . She's always been really adamant about , or she's stressed initially , that we are . If you play pickleball multiple days a week , you listen to podcasts like this you do , you're an athlete and it's really important to use that terminology .

Speaker 4 30:46

And that terminology is it's not just a word , because that terminology then changes how you view yourself relative to everything , but relative to the sport . And for Lynn , for instance , it totally changed , like she was like , oh shit , I'm an athlete , get out of here , you know . And then it changed how ? But it's interesting , right . It's like it seems like a little thing , right , but it can be very impactful , so anyway . So that's the other thing I would share .

Speaker 1 31:12

I love that . Oh my gosh . We could talk with you for three hours . We even said that before we got started . It's like Tony , but how can people find you and what is coming up for you ?

Speaker 4 31:23

So the easiest way is better pickleballcom . We have everything's on that website our podcast , the YouTube channels , the . We have some really nice guides you can get . We have . We have a lot of free resources and we have some non free resources , because this is what we do for a living .

Speaker 4 31:38

Our next event is actually a super interesting event . We're doing it . We . We're the host of the Pickleball Summit every year .

Speaker 4 31:45

So we decided this year we're going to do an extra event called the State of Play , and what we're doing is we're basically going to talk about what's going on in pickleball now , because there's so much noise out there and so much you know . You got to do modern pickleball , you got to hit hard , you got to get a two on the backhand , you got do all these things . So in the state of play , we're going to address a lot of the trends that we're seeing out there and let's decide is it like , should you follow it or not follow it ? So the state of play it's a free event , right , because we thought it was super important , but you do need to get a ticket because we you know there's only so many seats in these rooms .

Speaker 4 32:18

Uh , it's online so you can attend from anywhere . So if you go to better pickleballcom there's a um , uh , there's a button at the top you can register for that , and then in March we have our next system class starting . That's the class I mentioned earlier , the big class Um , and we start the classes like that and then we basically CJ and I coach you . Uh , for the first 90 days you get coaching calls with , and then after that it goes like quarterly coaching calls . But yeah , it's super intense , but the results are in . So you can just read the testimonials , I don't need to take your time up with that .

Speaker 1 32:52

Nobody's going to need to read testimonials after this show . Oh my gosh , we're all sold . Tony thank you . Thank you so much for being our guest Very fun . That time just flew right , shell , it sure did . I can't believe it , and we want to thank you all . Thank you so much for being a part of this show too , for listening and watching and sign up for Tony's stuff . Oh my God , betterpickleballcom , go for it . Thank you all , and we look forward to another conversation next week . Bye-bye .

Speaker 1 33:25

Bye-bye conversations On Apple Podcasts , Spotify or wherever you listen , go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner , and on YouTube , click the subscribe button under any of the episodes . Thanks so much . Hope to see you on the court .