Pickleball Pressure & Adult Pretending | Brittany Hord w/ The Pickleball Queen

[00:00:00] I mean, it was hot. It was. But it wasn't unbearable. Oh, was it not? Thanks for speaking for me. Well, I mean, it was fine for me. I just dealt with it because I was winning. I'm just... I'm... This is Big Dink Energy, the Pickleball podcast that's half insight, half nonsense, and all entertainment. If you love Pickleball, don't take yourself too seriously and think a little trash talk makes the game better, welcome home.

[00:00:25] This is the place where life and Pickleball intersect. We celebrate the chaos, call out the nonsense, and put the fun back in dysfunction. You're either in or you're out. And if you're still listening, you're in. So let's go. Big Dink Energy starts now. Boom, it does start now. They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom. A little bit of Braveheart for you wherever you are in your day. But this is the official podcast of

[00:00:55] Pickleball, the Big Dink Energy podcast. And now listen, listen, listen to our sponsor right here. If you're obsessed with rankings, stop listening right now because Dink and Dash is not for you. Dink and Dash isn't for pickleball players obsessed with rankings. It's for people who remember the laughs, the road trips, the random rec partners, the one more game nights. 150 plus people are already inside the app. How do they get in there? And it gets better with more people joining in.

[00:01:23] Track courts, add pickle pals like me, earn badges, save the memories, free, no ads, weekly updates. Go right now, pull over your car and search Dink and Dash in the App Store or Google Play. Search Dink and Dash in the App Store or Google Play. Speaking of playing, we did a bunch of tournaments this weekend. Yes, we did two over the weekend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:01:46] So I thought maybe we could just kind of talk about each of our experiences with both of the tournaments, how we perceive them, how we felt we did, and our takeaways from both the tournaments. Yeah, I love that. So I also want, if you haven't done a tournament yet, this is the episode for you as well, because we met so many people who it was their first tournament. And it has taken that leap of faith to say, okay, I'm going to do this. I've been playing. I've been dinking around in the courts. I'm going to actually enter. And usually the barrier to entry is pretty low. Yeah.

[00:02:15] First one was a little bit more expensive for us, but it was a charity. And then the second one was pretty affordable. Yeah. So do you want me to start? Yeah, go ahead.

[00:02:23] Okay. So the first one that we did was a charity tournament. So it was a fundraiser for the Texas Children's Museum. And my sister and I entered as a team. And it was fantastic. Like last year we ended or last year we had a couple, there was a couple more people than there was last year. But last year we were dead last. And this year we ended up with silver.

[00:02:46] But I wanted to talk about a couple things that I noticed. And I had talked about them on social media, but I'm just going to kind of talk about them here. One of them was the struggle that I had with calling foot faults during like a charity style event. Or any faults really. Really? Yeah. Except mine. You readily call out all my faults at any given time of the day, anywhere. Not a charity event or anything. Just around the house. Yes.

[00:03:14] But then a guy came up to me afterwards and was like, you know, you should still call them because that's what makes, you know, pickleball the way it is. It's fair, you know, and I just really struggled with it. And then everybody, you know, on social media pretty much backed him up and was like, yeah, you should call them. So from now on, I'm calling them. And in fact, at the second tournament we went to, I did call somebody after the third or fourth time. So I let it slide a couple times and I was like, okay, dude, you got to stop being in the kitchen.

[00:03:43] Yeah. But I really, really enjoyed the first tournament because it's for something special. It was, you know, there wasn't like women's or men's or mixed. It was everybody was competing against everybody in that division. We were, I think. We were in the 4-0, I believe. We were in the casual division is what they called it. Yeah. That one guy wasn't, he was all dressed up. Yeah, he was. He loved his belt.

[00:04:06] It was super fun and it's for a good cause. And we had just a great time. They gave you food and drink. They fed us breakfast, lunch, and we had two drink tickets. It was at the Commonwealth and they have just a beautiful facility all around. So we loved that one. And then the second one was on Memorial Day and that was held at Heights Athletic Club. And there was over 55 people that entered and we played 10 games. It was a long day. That is long.

[00:04:33] Was it long for you? I mean, cause you guys played in the shade all of your games. I did not. Where did you find me? Okay. Guy did have to play in the sun most of the time. I did have to play four of my games. I played two games that didn't count in the shade. I played four up there. But the sun, I mean, it wasn't, I mean, it was hot. It was. Yeah. But it wasn't unbearable. And... Oh, was it not? Thanks for speaking for me. Well, I mean, it was fine for me. I just dealt with it because I was winning.

[00:05:01] I'm glad I had the speedo on. I'm just going to say that. I did. I did win nine out of 10 games and I'm very, very excited about that. But most importantly, I really worked on not slamming the ball and being strategic and down-regulating my nervous system. And I really practiced my nervous system deregulation anchoring skills. Yeah. Reloading. And reloading and just getting back to... Reality. Back to life.

[00:05:31] No. Oh. Getting back to just having, you know, fun and then... How do you want it? Okay. However... Getting back to... Nobody was talking to me, so... Okay. Getting back to having fun and getting back to working on my game and not working on winning. Yes. That's awesome. Once I started doing that, I made a lot more strategic choices. And I also realized something that someone told me a long time ago, which is you have more time than you think. That's right.

[00:06:00] So as soon as I slowed down, sometimes I want to... I pretend... Shh. This is a secret. Lean in. Sometimes I pretend like I'm that scene in The Flash when he goes really fast, but everything slows down. And then you can see, like, him, you know, getting to where he needs to be. So sometimes I pretend like I'm The Flash and everything slows down and that ball is coming really, really slow. Flash, flash. I love that. 100-yard dash.

[00:06:25] So anyways, I did get silver. Bummer that they didn't pass out any awards, so that's something I kind of want to talk about. I really feel like if you are in a tournament, you should walk away with something. I agree. So even if it's just a printed out certificate, but I mean, awards are not that expensive. And I really wish that they would do awards because I think people should walk away with something if they participated in a tournament. Otherwise, it just feels like an everyday scramble. Like there was nothing just... I mean, there's nothing really different.

[00:06:55] That's true. Yeah. And we talked about that in our episode where we talked about what we like and dislike in tournaments. Right. So if you're going to do a tournament, my suggestion would be make it a tournament by having actual awards that you go home with. Right. Yeah. But that was my experience and I had a great weekend. Go ahead. Yeah, I did too. I partnered with Paddle Princess at the Commonwealth, which was great. It was my first tournament back after my knee surgery.

[00:07:22] I feel like I really pre-gamed well. I was all warmed up. I was loose. And when I got out there, I wasn't in pain. I was feeling really good and moving around the court really good. And, you know, we didn't come in as first as we would like as we were adjacent, certainly to first. We've seen, we saw first from where we were. Couldn't touch it so far away. But you did bring your Hyper Ice, your Red Light. Yeah. Red Light Therapy from Kinion.

[00:07:47] Hyper Ice for my knee. Absolutely love it. Go find those products if you're struggling with knee or joint pain. Absolutely. They're not sponsors of ours. I highly recommend them because I use them. I did a foam roller, had actual pickleball shoes this time. What pickleball shoes did you end up getting? I got the A6. Yeah. And they look really nice. They're sweet. Yeah. They were definitely nice. And we just had a good time. Paddle Princess and I went into it. We were team Just Don't Die. Yes. And we achieved our goal. We achieved our goal out there. We did not die.

[00:08:16] And we did have free drinks and we had free food. So totally worth it as far as I'm concerned. We did a good time. Yeah. It was good. How about your experience? Mine was a little different. Any tournament that I've ever played in, there's never really been like a spectator section. And in the first one that we went into, I started realizing that people are going to be watching me.

[00:08:40] And it really freaked me out. And I got a really weird headspace. And I just started making dumb mistake after dumb mistake. Like I felt like I was in kindergarten and couldn't hit the ball to save my life. So I really got in a really bad headspace and could not pull myself out of it. It just kind of continued to spiral down. But you were good. I mean...

[00:09:02] I was not. I was absolutely horrible. And so I let myself get in a place that one, I'm not proud of. Two, it was like I'm embarrassed that at this age I let myself get into that deep of a headspace. But it's something that I think we should all talk about because I think at some point we all get there. We will get there again. Depending on, you know, if it's pickleball, work, your kids, whatever it is. You're like at some point we're all going to get into that space.

[00:09:26] But it was really important for me to acknowledge it and to acknowledge it to myself and to acknowledge it to the people that it most affected. Because I feel like I brought their day down as well when I tried really hard not to. But of course I wasn't my normal self. So of course they knew that my head... Are you talking about us? Yes, 100%. You guys knew. Everybody knew that I was in this weird headspace and I couldn't snap out of it and I should have been able to.

[00:09:54] Yeah, you weren't your regular bubbly like let's have a great time, let's take pictures, let's do all this fun stuff. No. And that was definitely noticeable. Yeah. Of course, I mean, in retrospect, we just literally just let you have your moment. Which I appreciate. I mean, I absolutely knew what was going on. I was hoping you were going to drink your way out of it. That's why I can't say. What did she say? She was like, go get your drink. I was like, it's 1030. She's like, go get a Bloody Mary. It's fine. I did. I was like, she needs to relax. She needs to relax. Get that vitamin C.

[00:10:24] So that's good that you mentioned that and you realized that. And so I guess what I'm wondering is why did you get there? Is it because of spectators and you felt like you were on display and people were going to judge you? Um, yes, I 100% felt that way. I didn't know those people and that should have made it a little bit more relaxing. But I feel like people that I've played in front of know whether or not I'm playing well. And, you know, I know I'm never going to be the best person at pickleball.

[00:10:53] I'm never going to be like on the top of my category. But I also don't want to be at the bottom. And once I started realizing, yeah, Steph, you're at the bottom. Like I'm going to be way down there. I did not want to go onto that court. And then when Guy and I were called second, like the second team to go in front of all of these people, I immediately was like, I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Like somebody take me out of here. I don't want to be here. And then from there, like because I was in that headspace, I just kept making all the stupid mistakes.

[00:11:24] And of course, then it was amplified in my brain about how horrible I am. And it just spiraled legitimately. Do you think anything could have changed you from that mindset in the moment? Oh, absolutely. If I didn't care about how I was being perceived or if I didn't care that there were other people there and if I legitimately went into it with the mindset that I typically do is I'm just here to have fun. Right. If I would have went into it with that, then my entire day would have been different.

[00:11:52] What caused the change then if you normally do that? I don't know. I think it was a combination of one, I was really tired and cranky. But two, I think it was just the shock factor initially. Once I realized that people were going to be staring at me instead of me going, Oh, well, whatever. Like, let's have fun. I don't know these people. I'm never going to see them again unless I come back out here to play. So if I screw up a well, it was more of a well.

[00:12:22] One, I wanted to play well for Guy because it was his first tournament. And instead, I just ended up doing the complete opposite. And two, I just felt like there was this pressure to represent myself and us well. And once that pressure started building, I couldn't release it. So do you have any advice for people who get to this point? What's your advice? Take a minute. Take a minute to yourself. Like, if I would have just went to the car and screamed really loud and got all of those emotions that were just like built up in me,

[00:12:52] if I would have just screamed and like smacked the steering wheel or something, just had some kind of outward release, then I think I would have been able to readjust myself. But I was trying to keep it together and I was trying to just keep smiling and talk to people. And then I put my foot in my mouth when I was talking to that lady. So it's just like one thing after another. But yes, I think if I would have taken the time to give myself that space to feel how I was feeling, but then get myself out of it, then the rest of my day would have went well.

[00:13:20] I was going to bring you a Snickers. I feel like a Snickers would have taken care of it. Yeah, I need it. Well, I went home and I took a bath and I took like a three hour nap. So maybe you were just cranky. I was extremely cranky, but I let myself keep getting more cranky instead of pulling myself out of it. So you have to use the halt method. Yes, I needed to use halt at that time. Hungry, angry, lonely or tired. We should have said halt. Yes, absolutely.

[00:13:46] My emotional intelligence was not working on that day at all. And then, of course, I got sick on Sunday night, so I couldn't do the Memorial Day tournament. So that kind of sucked. Yeah, we missed you. Because I kind of I really wanted to come back because I was in such a horrible space. We got another one in a couple weeks. Yes, I wanted to come back with just fun. And but, you know, like I put on social media, I put a post about it. Everyone always shares their highlights and the happy times.

[00:14:14] But I think it's important for us as adults to share when we don't have those two. Yeah, because everybody has them and we all need to be able to help each other through it when we're in that space. If I would have just come up to you and said, hey, like I this is exactly how I'm feeling. I was going to smack you, but I feel like if you would have just taken me out to the car and smacked me and be like, get it together. Then everything would have been better. So, yeah, that's that's my experience over the past week. We live and learn. Live and learn.

[00:14:43] Live, laugh, love. Absolutely. Tell us what you think. If you heard something here that resonates with you, if you've been in that position before or if you've never done a tournament. Now we've kind of got you on that path to thinking you want to do one. Get up on our socials and let us know what you think. Where can they go to to get on our socials? BDEPodcast.com. BDEPodcast.com. BDEPodcast.com. BDEPodcast.com. Steph, look what I got from the mailbag. Oh, can I read it?

[00:15:13] Let me get it over to you. Let me pass this. Oh, thank you. Let me open it. There you go. Okay. This one's from Paddle Battle. She said, thank you so much for the generous opportunity to be a pickle pal on your awesome podcast. I enjoyed the experience so much. You guys should truly be on the cover of a Wheaties box. Love that. And there's a graphic. She sent us a graphic. Yes. Danielle is amazing. At Paddle Battles on Instagram. Follow her.

[00:15:41] She has lots of great content. Go on over. Follow her. Do it. Just the tip. Just the tip. Quick pickleball wisdom in and out before you know it. This one comes to you from Shirley, who we play in a league with. And she is amazing. Amazing. 25 years as an umpire, a referee for like softball and volleyball and kickball and everything. And she's just so amazing.

[00:16:09] She can definitely find your kitchen faults and all your faults, actually. But she says 12 inches back from the kitchen line is where you should be standing so that you allow yourself a little space to step if needed. A little safe space. A little safe space. Thanks, Shirley. I agree with that. It's time for Pickle Pals. Yeah.

[00:16:39] So if you've been following along with us, this is the second interview in our series where we meet our listeners. And why shouldn't we? And, of course, it's great for them. They say never meet your heroes, but I think they're going to like this. We learn about their life. This could be you. Keep watching our socials. And, of course, Texans get moved to the front of the line. Now, listen, listen, listen. Most of us struggle with depth perception. I struggle putting both shoes on every day. But imagine playing pickleball with one eye almost legally blind.

[00:17:04] Tonight's listener, Brittany, the pickleball queen from Livingston, Texas, which is near Houston. She's got a story about resilience, adaptation, and falling in love with a sport that doesn't care about your limitations. From the great United States of Texas, we have the pickleball queen. Thanks for being on the Big Dink Energy Podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm sure this is a treat for you, you know, getting to meet me virtually like this. So please feel free to celebrate and expand on how much the Big Dink Energy Podcast has changed your life.

[00:17:35] Well, I do love y'all's energy. I think y'all have great energy. Your videos and all that. Love it. I hear it all the time that we want more of Guy, less of the other two. So I try to work that in as much as possible. I hope y'all. No, really, I developed this series because we want to learn about, you know, why are people spending their time and energy on listening to us? And who are you? Who are you, the people out there in the world? So what do you do? What's your life like? What do you do in the world? I'm actually a stay-at-home mom. Awesome. I've been doing that for 18 years, just about.

[00:18:03] How many people are you responsible for? Well, I have two living and I have one that passed away right before her first birthday. Oh, no. I always include that. I have three girls. Gotcha. Gotcha. For sure. And I learned early on before we even started the cameras that you have specific and unique glasses. I love the heart glasses. I actually have several pairs, but this is what I call my pickleball glasses. Oh, very good. Very good. So you call yourself the Pickleball Queen. Tell us where, where does that come from? I just came up with it.

[00:18:30] And then I named that group Pickleball Queen because we use GroupMe here in Livingston to coordinate. And one time I just changed my name and they were like, who's Pickleball Queen? Yes. And I was like, that's me. So yeah, over on our Dinkin' Dash app, I don't know if you had a chance to download that. I do have it. If you listeners, yep, go get the Dinkin' Dash app right now. But just playing around with it when we were setting it all up and we were building it, I just, you know, just kind of funnily just dropped in there. Dink Daddy is my handle. I like it. And it has now stuck. So it's in there.

[00:18:59] I don't know if I could even change it if I wanted to. So yeah, I love that. I love that origin story on that, on the Pickleball Queen. That's great. Sometimes you got to step up and you got to say, hey, here's who I am. I love it. Your origin story on Pickleball. How did you come to Pickleball? Well, we had moved to Livingston. We've been here now for like three or four years. But when we first moved here, we restarted our whole life. So I only knew like two or three people in the community. And one of them was like, you should try Pickleball. I was like, I've never even heard of Pickleball. Right. But I was like, sure, I'm going to give it a try. And I went and I was like, this is going to be my thing.

[00:19:28] This is going to be my time away from my kids and just enjoy me. But then I loved it so much. I invited my kids. Mom guilt. And then my youngest one was like, eh, it's all right. But my oldest one, she's 16 and she's fallen in love with it. She calls herself Pickleball star. And we play tournaments together. We're the mother-daughter duo. Oh, that's fantastic. With matching glasses. Do you do matching outfits too? Yes. You have to have matching outfits. It sets the aura of the whole match. That's right. It lets people know you're serious about it. Got to have matching. That's right.

[00:19:57] So what's the pickleball scene like there in Livingston? It's slowly growing. We have about 50 to 100 members in our group name, but I would say only about half are active. We have a good like solid 10 to 12 that are always at the court. And then I think it was like a year and a half ago, we finally got dedicated pickleball courts. We were using tennis courts as usual. Sure. Until we got our own courts. And they built us four courts, which we're thankful for. We're a pretty small town. We only have like a population of like 5,000.

[00:20:24] So the fact that even pickleball courts came was like, oh yeah, it took us two years to get those of working with the city. You know how that is. Oh, well, that's great. At least they're paying attention and they're pivoting. Well, I think the tennis players were getting mad, although they were never there playing. But you know how that is. Oh, well, tennis players get over it. Yeah. So let's talk about, you know, when I asked for a fun fact, you told me about the blindness in your left eye. Yes. So tell me a little bit about that and how that factors into how you play. It's rough. Yeah.

[00:20:51] I think the hardest part is at the kitchen line because things are moving so fast that sometimes I just can't keep up with it. And then my daughter gets annoyed, but I was like, I have an issue. And everyone, they all make fun of me. They call me blind. So if I make an out call, no one listens to it. They asked my partner, they're like, was that really out? I was like, I'm standing right here. You cannot, you don't see me? That's crazy. So apparently I make really bad line calls because I can't see. Well, you know, that just tells you something about your little, your sphere, your social sphere right there. They all love you then. They do. If they feel confident enough to.

[00:21:21] I'm the blind one. That's awesome. I have another pair of my glasses. So I don't know if you can see how thick that lens is compared to the other one, but it's a big difference. Oh my gosh. They could use that on the Hubble to focus in a deep space. And so it looks so funny because I have this one that's horrible and then 2020. So does that, that's gotta be on, when it's on your face like that, it's gotta be noticeable, right? It is depending on which pair I wear. But if I wear that pair, it just sticks to my cheek because it's so thick. It's horrible. Well, I loved it. You've embraced that.

[00:21:51] Was just that, was that over time or how long has that been going on? It's been like that for about 10 years. Okay. We don't really know exactly why it did it. They assume, I had a double mastectomy about 10 years ago and I had a lot of surgeries back to back to back. I think I had like eight surgeries or 10 in 18 months. Wow. And so they don't know if some of the amsteja messed with it because I had a seizure one time when they put me out for surgery and we think that could have messed up the one eye. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Getting a little greedy there with the surgeries. Yeah, I was. I got greedy.

[00:22:19] You know, I, I gotta believe, and I know I, I've seen some of our listeners there. I mean, I just had a total knee replacement. So there are people that deal, dealing with physical challenges like that. Maybe people listening are thinking, well, I can't play anymore or I, or I can't play at all. They haven't even tried it yet. But based on your experience, what would you say to people like that? I'd say you just get out there and do it. And you'll, you'll be surprised that your body will adapt to your issues. I can still be competitive and change up my game. So don't let anything hold you back. Get out there and go enjoy the sport and to change your life. Yeah.

[00:22:47] And I was talking to another guest earlier about all the good, the good, the feel good chemicals in our bodies that, that just explode when we're, when we're playing pickleball. And it does, I am sure medically that it helps with healing and it helps with just your overall health, just getting out there and playing pickleball. I would say it helps a lot, but I always see the memes where like you're out there to have fun and then people are hitting themselves because nothing goes right. Yeah. But it still gives you great chemical reaction. Like you said, like I love being out there. I'd live on the courts. I call it my second home.

[00:23:22] Hey, listen, if you're over 40 and your body is starting to file complaints, we get it. We live it from pickleball to peptides and everything in between. Between the four of us, we've spent years figuring out what actually works and we put it all in one place for you at BD podcast.com slash over 40. That's BD podcast.com slash over 40. Now back to the show.

[00:23:50] Yeah, I'm sure in some way it's a, it's a therapy for you. And so let's, let's explore that a little bit. You said pickleball kind of changed your life. It did. What, uh, what does that mean for you? Well, I was, like I said, I've been a stay at home mom for like ever. And so I didn't know who I was outside of just being a wife and a mom. And so when I found pickleball, I was like, and I do content creating, but I was like, when I found pickleball, I found community. I found friends because I was in a really dark space, like mentally depressed all on and off all the time. Sure. Sure. And like, it just gave me life again.

[00:24:20] Like, I think I'm, I see my friends on the court more than I see my husband sometimes. Wow. Okay. Does he play? He, I got him to play one time on vacation. He was like, I had fun, but I'm not going to play. He's not a sports guy. I grew up playing sports. So it was always my thing. Yeah. And I, I love the pickleball, you know, cause we talked to, you know, we have a under, we have an over 40 crowd too. And it just, it brings so much athleticism back to people. Like you're saying, you used to be an athlete growing up and then now is another opportunity

[00:24:48] for like a second act almost to be an athlete again. Cause I'm, I'm almost at that 40 group. Right, right, right, right. I'll be 38 in October. So I'm getting there. Well, fight it every step of the way if you can, but I think it does come for all of us. So in Livingston, are there, are they all outdoor courts? Any indoor courts? We only have outdoor courts. So, but we have another place that we travel to in Porter. I don't know if you're familiar where that is. Oh, sure. Sure. That's about maybe an hour and 10 minutes. And we go there once a week now. Yeah. And some people may be like, especially our East coast listeners, they may be saying, wow,

[00:25:17] she drives an hour to pickleball. Listen, this is the great United States of Texas. Everything. The city of Houston population is bigger than 26 states population in the United States, just to give you some reference. And, and you can get to Cal from El Paso. You can get to California sooner than you can go from El Paso to Dallas. So sad. So we don't mind driving. So, you know, when you're in New England and you could hit three states within three hours, it's a little bit different for us out here in the great state. I wish we could do that.

[00:25:47] Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes. Any, any unique food? Like if I came to Livingston, would you say, hey, this is definitely the place to go eat. You got to try this. Yes. We just got a new place called Pacific Yards and they have the best shrimp I've ever had, like some big old jumbo shrimp. Okay. And their fries are like, I think like extra battered. Nice. And it's right out on the lake. So you can sit right outside and look at the lake. It's really pretty. Yeah. You guys have a really nice lake. It's huge. Another man-made lake. We have tons of man-made lakes in, in Texas.

[00:26:16] It's a huge, huge lake there. And of course you're not too far from the coast either. So obviously the shrimp bringing in nice and fresh there for you. Is there a kind of, and you kind of described it a little bit, but there's, there's gotta be a community, right? You said you had a group. Are there any big personalities or, or maybe even weird personalities in that group you want to talk about? Yeah. One of my two besties, one of them is Heidi. She, me and her, have you ever had someone you could play on a courts with? And if you lose, you can still have the best time ever. Yes. That's her.

[00:26:44] Like we could just giggle and everyone knows once we start giggling, the game's done. We can't concentrate no more. We're just done. But she's out there. Like her and her husband are going on Bigfoot adventures. Oh, wow. Okay. But she's the one that everyone's like, a lot of people say she's bitchy, but I was like, that's why I get along with her. Cause we have both really big personalities and a lot of people just can't take us, but we have the funnest time on those courts together. That's fantastic. And then my friend Mary, she's awesome. She's more low key, but like I was on a trip a couple of days ago all weekend, I've been

[00:27:13] traveling and I sent her a picture of jeans and she was like, get on. She's like, one of those people I could just text when I need outfit advice. She was like, do it. Nice. And then of course, you know, I play with my daughter. So that's always a challenge, but it's actually built our relationship a lot. I can actually stand her now. Well, so yeah, because you, you have a shared love there. Um, so it is easy to connect over things like that. And I think on the court, when you are experiencing all those emotions, especially the good feeling ones, it's easier to open up too. Yeah. Like the line of communication is completely different.

[00:27:42] So despite your vision impairments, people are, your friends are still asking for clothing advice. Yeah. And well, I asked them, I asked them, I'm like, does it work? And she was like, yes, do it. I was like, okay. Awesome. Okay. One last question. So if someone was, you know, having a physical challenge or a physical limitation and they were on the fence about pickleball, what would you tell them? Just do it. Like I said, your body's going to adapt to it. Yeah. And, and if you haven't tried pickleball yet, uh, number one, why not?

[00:28:09] And number two, just do it like pickleball queen said, because the community is so loving. They put their arms around you. They will make, they will make you have the best time. They will make sure that you're accommodated in every way out there. So yes, just go do it. So pickleball queen, thank you so much for being on the big dink energy podcast. Thank you for being a listener. We love it. And if there's anything we can do for you, let us know. Appreciate it. It's time for pick six.

[00:28:39] Pick six, where we take one question and each bring two answers and immediately regret to all of it. This week's pick six is things adults pretend to enjoy. What are those things that adults pretend to enjoy? Okay. So my first one would be team building activities. Oh, I don't think icebreakers and trust falls are fixing any type of payroll issues. So no, nobody likes them. I'm going to go with kids birthday parties. Oh, I feel like we all pretend like, Oh, Susie, thank you for having us.

[00:29:10] No, I would have rather been in bed. I wish goodbye. Okay. Yeah. If you have it set up right for adults, I mean, I'm, I'm okay. I don't want to be out of the house, but I'll still be okay. I'm not getting on your bouncy house. Yeah. I'm kind of along the same lines though. Other people's kids. You're not cute. Don't see. I don't want to hear her sing the national anthem. I don't want to see a picture. I don't want to see 30 pictures. No. Oh, did they? Yeah. Okay. Good. My next one would be networking events. Like nobody's trying to circle back. Nobody cares.

[00:29:41] Don't care. Nope. No, no one wants to go to a network event. And there's just mini sandwiches. Yeah. And then there's kale. No one actually likes kale. Like it is fancy. It was like the rage when it came out. It was ranch flavored. It was all dry. It's like fancy. No one actually likes it. Kale gets in your teeth worse than chew. I agree with that. And dip. Yep. Not too dip. For me, the last one would be potlucks. Oh. I see some of y'all's houses. I see the background.

[00:30:11] I see your freaking cats on the counter, anus stamping everything. Oh my God. No, thank you. You do not have food handler certificates. And if you made those brownies, did you test it with the same spoon? Yeah. No. You do not have food handler certificates. So no thank you. News you can use. Hold on. The production studio is talking to me in my ear. Stephanie.

[00:30:41] Yes. Going to you for breaking news. All right. So if you're newer to pro pickleball and wondering what everyone means when they talk about MLP, Major League Pickleball, it's the team-based pro league where men and women compete together on the same team. So matches include men's doubles, women's doubles, mixed doubles, and if teams are tied, it goes to a single style tiebreaker called a dream breaker, also known as dream breaker. Dream weaver.

[00:31:10] For 2026, MLP is moving to a 20-team format with regular season events running from May all the way to August. Oh, there's an open position there for me then if we're expanding. It's followed by playoffs and championship events later in the year. If you're wanting to watch, matches are typically streamed on pickleball TV and often carried on networks like ESPN, FS1, and CBS Sports depending on the event. If you want tickets or team info, you can head to the official MLP website for schedules,

[00:31:39] standings, tickets, and even event locations. Basically, if the PPA is individual pro pickleball, the MLP is the team sports version with way more trash talk, chemistry, and chaos. I love that. Yeah. MLP, you're more likely to see someone with that hat that has the beers on each side you can drink from and maybe some names painted on their chest. No shirt. It's the monster truck. Yeah. NFL monster truck version. That's it for this episode. Unless you've got something to say.

[00:32:08] Think we got it wrong? Have a better take? We want to hear it. Find us at BDEPodcast.com or at BDEPodcast on the socials. Drop us a message. We might just feature you in the next episode. If you had a good time, well, samesies. If not, maybe try again. We grow on people. So you know the deal. Follow the show. Tell a friend and leave us a review. Or just pretend this never happened. Until next time, keep the dink soft and the energy big.

[00:32:40] Nobody's trying to circle back. Nobody cares.