Live from the PPA in Utah
Wassup with that?
In today’s issue of the Bite Size Pickleball newsletter:
My experience at the PPA in Salt Lake City
Just gonna throw out some random thoughts on a couple of days of watching the PPA.
Above I am pictured with Zane Navratil. Cool that he was the first one I ran into because I had interviewed him for a piece I wrote for Pickleball Magazine a couple years ago titled, “The Art of the Pump Fake.” We had never met in person, only via zoom. Awesome dude AND, this is also from seeing all the other pros, the camera really does add 10 pounds! These players look much smaller in person! Which is not to take away from their heart! Let’s go! Moving on!
Lots of players holding their breath! This creates tension. I saw a few actually doing “intentional breathing.” Any sports psychologist in the world will tell you that this is a key element. My favorite intentional breather, and Karate Kid member, was Caitlyn Christian. It seemed to be working for her!
Jack Sock seemed like he didn’t want to be there. His pace between points, and timeouts, and games, is really languid, he moves like is much older than he is. One of the reasons he moves like this is to try to dictate pace, and get in his opponent’s head. He tried to do it against 34th ranked Grayson Goldin who beat Sock’s ass. I was sitting right behind Goldin’s bench, and when Goldin came over after the victory, I said, “Way not to let him f*ck with your head,” which Sock was trying to do in other ways as well. Goldin really liked hearing that.
The Awesome Award goes to Jessie Irvine for taking time out of her schedule to drill with special needs adults.
The last Bite Size Pickleball newsletter featured one word: JOY! I saw some joy from a few players, not a ton, but a few really brought it, and it mattered. Connor Garnett really plays with joy and has a good time out there. I also found a little joy on the way back to my hotel room, summing up how I felt after watching 8 hours of pickleball, improvising on a random piano I found along my path.
Kudos to my Santa Barbara friends Cade and Bry for playing really solid in singles!
Looking forward to tomorrow when the men’s and women’s doubles start. Singles kind of bores me. Anyhoo. Bite Size Pickleball, out. For now :)