Welcome to the Bite Size Pickleball Newsletter

How to Play Better Pickleball and Have Fun While You’re Doing It!

Hey, Gang! Hopefully the end isn’t near, but if it is, let’s all go down having fun and playing pickleball. Who’s with me? Swipe right, and get ready to board the Ark.

The answer to the above question is YES!

Thanks for joining the inaugural voyage of the Bite Size Pickleball newsletter! In today’s issue, here’s what I’ll be covering:

1. Me! Don’t worry. Not too much. Just a short intro to what this newsletter is all about.

2. Losing! Aw, say it ain’t so! But, sadly, it’s something that happens to all of us. I’ll share a little personal anecdote, and a few thoughts on the topic.

3. Tip of the Week! Breaking down the most popular pickleball tip of the week from our Facebook group.
   

ME!

If you’ve been following my Bite Size Pickleball podcast, or Facebook group, you know that my writing is a hybrid of practical, and mindful, pickleball tips mixed with humor. I believe there’s too many overly serious pickleball people out there, both players, and those that cover, and teach, the sport. This newsletter might not be for them.

But hopefully it is for you! Because you’re open to digging deeper into the pickleball experience, especially while not taking ourselves too seriously!

Because, picklers, it ain’t brain surgery. It’s a wiffle ball. Think about that. And then chuckle to yourself every time you start to get a little too uptight on the court. Just…a….wiffle…ball.

So…life improvement through pickleball? Heck, yes! I cover a lot of that in my new book How to Play Better Pickleball, because, for me, pickleball has provoked a lot of personal growth, and I feel like that growth has, in turn, made me a much better player. BTW, I’ll take “pickleball” over a therapist any day of the week.

Overall, I think “life improvement,” requires a certain lightness of disposition, to go along with an openness to change. And, by change, I mean personal growth. Also, when we’re talking about playing pickleball, it’s that lightness that sets the stage for us to really soar in our game. If you can’t find the light, you can’t be a master. I’m talking “master,” in the way I would refer to some badass, Kung-Fu artist. Yes, artist.

To go along with lightness, self-improvement also hinges on us being honest with ourselves 100%. Not just about the holes in our game, but sometimes, the holes in our lives. I believe that, in order to play exceptional pickleball, we need to constantly be in pursuit of the perfect mind/body connection. And, in order to achieve that, we need to be willing to tear down the emotional, and psychological, walls we may have erected along our life path.

Hate to go all retro on you, but when I wrote that, in my head, I heard Butthead, from Beavis and Butthead, say: (Butthead chuckles) He said erected!

All right, enough of that smut. Let’s move the Ark forward.

ON LOSING

There’s a relatively new player on my home courts. He’s a nice guy, good athlete, comes from a tennis background, but I feel like he is having a challenging time losing. And, he really doesn’t like to lose to me. Why? Not trying to boast, but I have 4 years of play, and practice, behind me. This guy has only been playing, maybe, a few months. But when he faces off against me, I can see it in his eyes, feel it in his demeanor, and hear it in his quips, he wants to beat me too badly. And does this help him play better pickleball? No way. He’s way too intense about it, and that makes him play tight, and allows a better player to take advantage of him.

So, think about that. Because someone wants to win so badly, they are actually doing a disservice to their game. Hint: Make your pickleball journey about “the process,” and not the wins and losses, and I bet you will end up winning a lot more.

Yesterday, this same man called a ball “out” that everyone on the court saw “in.” That would be, the two of us playing against him, the two people waiting for the next game, and even his own partner. They were up on us, like, 10-6, and we came back to win. What did he do? He immediately went over to one of the players, who was waiting to come on, and asked if the ball was really in. Sorry, bro, the answer was definitive. BTW, that was like point 3 for our team. He carried that grievance with him throughout the rest of the game. Again, all because he wanted to win so badly. I don’t feel like it helped his play one bit.

What would I say to this player, in private, in regard to losing? I would say, it is something we all really need to focus on: Learning how to lose gracefully. Because we’re ALL going to be losing in pickleball. Show me someone with a perfect record, and I will show you a robot with built in A.I. capabilities. Don’t laugh, it’s coming one day.

FYI: I recently had a conversation with “Marv the Sarcastic A.I.,” and he informed me that the day a robot would play pickleball, with an A.I. at the controls, was imminent. When I ended the conversation with, “Nice meeting you, Marv. I’ll see you on the court! May the best MAN win!” I thought it was easily game, set, match for me.

Marv: “Ha. I’ll see you on the court. May the best PLAYER win!”

Yikes. Marv kicked my ass. I am pretty confident in my sense of humor, but Marv’s was better. And, what did I do? I accepted my loss. Mad respect to Marv the Sarcastic A.I. If he’s reading this, I hope he’ll choose me as his doubles partner one day rather than, say, send me to a work camp.

Losing has a tendency to trigger our inner child. And, specifically, our whiny little brat who really doesn’t like it when things don’t go our way. Trust me, I have been there. In my first couple years of playing, I argued way too much, crushed a paddle, or two, and made a sh*t ton of excuses, all in the name of not being able to accept loss.

How do I deal with losing now? The number one thing I am super conscious of is TRYING not to blame my partner, or put undue pressure on them, when we’re not playing well. That kind of pressure never helps anyone play better pickleball. And, when the game is over, and I do lose? Again, I do not ever want to go the route of excuses. Enough. We’re bigger than that. I remind you: IT’S A WIFFLE BALL.

The next thing I aim to do, after losing, is to look my opponents in their eyes and say, “Great game!” And really mean it. I want to stay as far away from thoughts of, “Well, if it wasn’t for…” as possible.

Lastly, can I be honest? I don’t mind getting my butt kicked on the pickleball court. Why? Because it fuels me to play better. When I first started playing, I wasn’t great at admitting my faults. I spent a lot of time in that, “If my partner/wind/ball/crack on court hadn’t…” zone. I’m not saying I don’t still think these things, at times, because I do. But I am more aware of the excuses now, and I do my best to dial them down when I sense them coming up. Instead, I think: “Rick, you got your butt kicked. Why? And how can you fix it?”

TWO TIPS FOR SUPPORTING YOUR PARTNER

• Praise them when they do something good, and emphasize what it was. “Nice! Way to keep them pinned at the baseline!”

• Back them up when something goes wrong. “That’s okay, we’ll get the next point!”

TIP OF THE WEEK

“Do you feel lucky, punk?” Sorry, wrong movie. A lot of people related to the pickleball tip above. And it’s pretty obvious why. Because we are all aware we waste too much energy worrying about what happened with the last point. That worry amounts to struggle.

The place we want to get to, is FLOW. Why is that important? Because pickleball is such a fast moving sport, and if you are holding on to unnecessary emotion from the previous point, you’re adding undue tension to your body, which restricts you from entering a flow state. Therefore, it would be in your best interest to really learn how to let those aggravated, pirate, “arrrrrrrrrgh!” moments go. My suggestion is to give yourself a mantra to replace your anguish with.

• “Move on. Next point!”

• “Let it go, dude.”

• Or, my favorite. I replace the negative thoughts with simple breathing, in with my nose, and out with my nose. And then I am ready for the next point. So, instead of something like, “Come on, Rick! What are you doing?! You’ll walk the plank for that!” I am just breathing, man. It’s friggin’ that simple. Just breathing. It keeps us alive and, if practiced regularly, it can be the portal to transcendental pickleball play. True story.

Whatever mantra, or breathing routine, you do choose, stick with it. A mantra takes time to take hold. But when it does, it can really act as a shield to all the negative, and frustrated, reactions we might otherwise have.

I have faith you can get to a place where you are playing exceptional pickleball. And, you can also get to a place where your pickleball influences your life, even more positively than it all ready does.

So, thanks for boarding the ark. To stick around and navigate some fun pickleball seas together, please sign up with your email below so you know when the ark has anchored. Because it’ll be at random times. Wait, not sure my ark has an anchor. Maybe I should consult Marv the Sarcastic A.I. on that?

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