Guest Columnist Vin Diesel

5 Tips to Play Better Pickleball, Diesel Style

In today’s Bite Size Pickleball newsletter:

1. Guest columnist Vin Diesel!!!!!!!!!

2. How do you find out what level player you are?

3. Do You Practice Positive Partner Attitude?

4. The Right Stuff. As opposed to, ya know, the wrong stuff.

TOP 5 PICKLEBALL TIPS FROM VIN DIESEL

Alright, yo, yo, yo, yo, listen up, sweathearts, because I am a mega-famous actor, who didn’t win any academy awards last weekend, which is a total shocker to me. It’s totally rigged. Anyhoo, you wanna dominate the pickleball court like a true champ? You wanna lap the competition like hot wheels on steaming, wet pavement? Do you want me to narrate your romance novel, baby, you’re so beautiful, you know that don’t you? We could be so good together. In the meantime, let me lay down my top five pickleball tips for you, Diesel style.

1.    Control the center of the court. Just like in life, you gotta take command of your space. Like I command the ladies. Keep that ball in play and dominate that middle ground. It’s much harder to pass you on the outside. Hump the middle, baby, hump the middle! 

2.    Don’t underestimate the power of teamwork. Pickleball's not just about you, it's about your partner, too. My whole friggin’ Hollywood pit crew helps keep my beautiful ass-chassis together. Work together, communicate, and watch each other's backs. That’s the pickleball code, bro!

3.    Anticipate your opponent's moves. You gotta stay one step ahead, like I do with the ladies. I’m a master strategist. “Is that mo’fo thinking he is going to sneak one past me? I don’t think so!” Keep your eyes sharp, read the game, and react with lightning speed at the wheel, er, with your paddle. That’s the paddle code, bro!

4.    Focus on consistency over power. Yeah, you might have some brute force, a lot of HP under your hood (that’s hung like a horse power, like the Diesel), but precision and control are what win games. Aim for accuracy, not just hitting it hard. You got that? Because it’s muy importante. Si, I’m bilingual. We shot a lot of Fast and Furious Part 37 down in Mexico. I learned what I needed to say at all the local bordellos. But I digress. That means, I’m driving off course. Before I drive too far, and wind up at FF87…

5.    Never let up on the hustle! It’s just like Hollywood, honey baby: pickleball's a game of endurance and grit, and sexiness. You are so sexy, baby. Stay relentless, keep pushing, push it real good, and never back down until you've claimed victory. Or, as I like to say: “Pedal to the metal, bitches!” 

So there you have it, my fine fellow picklers. Follow these tips, and you'll be dominating the pickleball court like a true champion. Like the Diesel dominates the reading of poetry. I just got a knack for that kind of thing. Remember, it's not just about winning, it's about playing with heart and honor and pride and courage and fearlessness and patience and a tad sexy and—Oh wait! There’s one more thing… 

Stop running into enemy fire and rushing the friggin’ net every time because some intermediate player tells you to! It’s called a Transition Zone for a reason! So you don’t end up looking all tattooed like the Diesel!

P.S. The nipple ring is optional, but it plays well in Hollywood. And, no, those aren’t hickeys!

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Make sure to tune in to the Bite Size Pickleball podcast on Sunday when Vin narrates the above tips for us in person! If you’re on an Apple device you can listen at this link. If you’re not, you can literally find it on any podcast service, as well as at the Bite Size Pickleball website.

WHAT’S MY RATING?

A lot of beginning and intermediate players often wonder: What’s my rating? Or: What IS a pickleball rating, anyway? For those of you who are curious, I want to link you to the USA Pickleball breakdown of ratings, so you can get a better idea of where you’re at.

Once you’ve read the rating descriptions, you now have something to shoot for. In other words, once you discover your rating, look at the rating description above yours, and it will detail the things you need to work on to get to the next level. And, the key word there, is “work.”

In my experience, the players who work at their game, meaning, they practice, progress about a billion times faster than those that just try to get better playing. If you’re truly serious about improving your pickleball game, you need to get truly serious about drilling. That commitment is essential to maxing your potential, and speeding up your learning curve.

If you just want to have fun and play rec ball, then that’s perfectly acceptable too.

Lastly, I would caution you not to try and play too high above your level before you’re ready for it. Baby steps. One rung on the ladder at a time. Win, THEN climb.

POSITIVE PARTNER ATTITUDE OR: PPA

Do you exemplify PPA? Or do you tend to get pissy with your partners? This week’s Bite Size Pickleball podcast is on the subject of partner positivity.

One of the main takeaways, is that if you are challenged by staying positive with your partner, maybe you’d be better off playing singles. That way, no one else to blame but yourself. Oh right, and the wind, the ball, the cracks on the court, the moon in its 7th house, you get my drift. If you’re playing doubles, do your best to stay positive with your partner. It is, sometimes, very challenging to do, and takes practice, just like anything else inherent in the game.

Also, PPA is what is going to win you friends on the court. When you watch the pros, they always exemplify PPA, no matter what is going on. It’s a paddle tap, and “let’s get back into the next point.” There’s no time to stop and mansplain! Pickleball is too quick of a game to hold on to ANYTHING after the last point. Learn to let the mansplaining, and self-criticism go, and get your butt ready for the next point. Tune in to that next point. Not what your partner, or you, just did wrong. Because that’s gone and never coming back! It’s your choice if you want to hold on to it. But the quicker you learn to let go of it, the quicker your mind will be ready for what’s coming.

NOTE: Disregard all the above if you’re absolutely perfect on the court, and you’ve never made an unforced error in your life. As if!

I cover a lot of this mental stuff in my book How to Play Better Pickleball available at Barnes and Noble, and at Amazon.

As an exercise, see if you can begin to catch yourself when you’re about to criticize, or blame, your partner this week. Keep catching yourself, and replace it with POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT. This also works when you want to blame yourself! Stop saying you’re sorry and feeling shame. You’ll both go so much further together when you’re not blaming. Blaming is for politicians, not pickleball players.

THE RIGHT STUFF

There is a right way and a wrong way to swing in sports, whether we’re taking about a baseball bat, or a golf swing. The same thing can be said about a basketball shot, or a swimming stroke…there is a sweet spot to find, and a player will have a really challenging time finding it if they exemplify bad form. This is the same in pickleball. And, I want to say, when beginners come into the sport of pickleball, and they don’t come from another racket, or paddle, sport, the majority of them start out swinging in the wrong direction.

If this was the late ‘60s, I’d insert a swingers joke here. But it’s not the late ‘60s. It’s just a forewarning to you how important it is to practice the “right stuff.”

What happens, typically, is that players form ultra bad habits, which become hard to break once they’re past a certain point. If you’re just starting out, and you think this might be you, my suggestion is to learn how to swing the right way, before passing go. “Yeah, baby! Yeah!”

Hopefully I hit the sweet spot with this newsletter. If not, I’ll try again next time!

Next Issue: Ernie (not Bert) gives you some key tips on how to hit the perfect Erne.