Elevating Pickleball Coaching Through Mental Performance | Dayne Gingrich, Pickleball Pro

[00:00:00] You're listening to CourtReserve Unscripted with me, Ashley Owens.

[00:00:30] How are you now? You do not look like Jill. I know, I know. So weird. I saw that. I think that's our PB Mindset Zoom. It's just like autos goes to her. I just wanted to throw you off for just a second. You did a good job for sure. So nice to see you. You too. How are you? I'm great. I'm great. Thanks for coming on Unscripted today where we have no plans.

[00:00:56] I love it. That's the best kind. You know, actually the kind of podcasts or interviews I absolutely despise is when they send you questions and they have you. I hate that. That is not my dream. Good. It's not mine either. I ripped those up anyways. I actually refuse to answer them. Yeah. Good job. I love that. Well, tell me a little bit about what's going on in your world these days. Where are you at? Are you traveling? What's the best part to life right now?

[00:01:24] I mean, well, the best parts of life outside the pickleball court is my daughter and my family. That's number one. Pickleball wise, man, you asked that at a crazy time. I just, I just drove back from Arizona because I like to drive. I'd rather drive eight, nine, 10 hours than fly an hour and a half. Call me crazy. Jill thinks I'm a moron, but I just like to drive.

[00:01:47] So I've been traveling. I just got in late yesterday and like trying to like get reacquainted. We've been traveling for clinics and I'm going to kick off some more tournaments this year. I took last year off, except for the couple at the end of the year. And it's, and then my daughter's gymnastics daughter's gymnastics is going crazy. So literally every week or something, but it's a good problem to have. What's a day off look like in Ben's world today?

[00:02:17] What was that? What were the first two words? Do you say day off? Was that day off day? Gosh, like, I don't know. Like I, okay. So I'll be honest with people. Don't like to hear this, but like for me to completely shut down the pickleball brain, I have to go to Los Angeles and play poker.

[00:02:34] I have to just shut it. I used to play poker semi-professionally at 12 hours a day. I will like to actually pay bills. So I don't anymore. My daughter, when my, when my daughter was born, my wife said, you need to make a choice, dude. Cause you're gone like 15 hours a day. And like, so I was like, well, that's an easy choice. Like, okay, I'll stop playing.

[00:02:55] But it's the only way I can shut it down. If I stay home, like during the NFL season, I'll flip on some football. But I, if I have my phone in my hand, it's constant content creating or ideas for the business, or I see somebody's video and I want to break it down. Like it just doesn't ever end. It's, it's crazy town. It's what I love, but it like, it's crazy at the same time. So day off, like it's, I don't even know what that is really.

[00:03:23] Wow. So do you watch, so was it Texas hold them? Was that the tournament? Yeah. Played? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I play, I play, yeah. I don't play the tournaments. I play cash games. So you sit down with your own money and you win or lose your own money. So it's for me, that's, it's better like sitting down for 10 hours and not winning anything in the tournament.

[00:03:43] So yeah, I did that for quite a while. And it's literally the only way that I won't think about pickleball because you're always kind of analyzing what everybody's doing. So your brain's constantly occupied and it's so just off, you know, away from the court. So it doesn't let me. So what's your best memory of your best hand ever?

[00:04:04] I mean, I mean, a Royal flush way back when, I mean, of course that's, you know, you win, you win some big money on that. Cause somebody else has a really good hand too. And you, they don't know, they don't know that you got it. There's no way they can think you have the best of the best hand. So you kind of suck them in for as much as humanly possible. You usually grab their whole stack if you're lucky. And so that's, that's fun.

[00:04:25] But for me now, like from, for me, then the poker was, it started as fun and then I got good. And then it became like when I was in between like businesses and starting this bit, like it was the way I made money. So then it became a job, which then killed the joy. And now I'm paying bills on wins and losses. And it was crazy. So now I don't play as high of stakes. It's not as stressful. And I don't play for bills anymore. So it's just pure fun. And just to shut the brain down.

[00:04:52] Isn't that the thing they always tell you growing up though, is to find something that you're really passionate about and then turn it into your job. But then the passion leaves sometimes. And then it's the grind, right? It's hard. So how do you do that in pickleball day? And how do you turn that, which is your business now, right? And sell love and a passion. How do you, how do you succeed in the love and the passion?

[00:05:17] You know what? I don't, we talk about this all the time, Jill. And I talk about this all the time. We like, because people come to the clinic and they ask like the higher level you get, it seems like people are losing the joy. Right. And remember back in the day when you just come out and giggle and laugh and, and as you get better and better, I think there are multiple reasons. Personal expectations come right and start sucking the joy out of you.

[00:05:41] I think recently the rating system has absolutely obliterated the joy of most people. They're, they're not playing for the puzzle or figuring out opponents tendencies. They're playing for the number.

[00:05:55] Right. And now if they lose, they, if they win, they drop, if they lose, they like there's, so I think finding the joy, I will say this. I don't know how to find the joy. I don't know how to, how to find it. I know that when you have it and you start losing it, I think pickleball players play way too much, way too much. I don't think they understand the, myself included, understand the power of recovery,

[00:06:23] the power of rest and what that does. Like actually today, even though I'm on with you. And even though I did create content and I'll probably create content, I will not touch my paddle balls or I will not put on my pickleball shoes. I will not have like, I'm wearing this cause I have like, I, I going to write like I have no choice, but like today is a semi day off.

[00:06:44] And it's just, but I think how to find your joy. I don't know. I do know that when I'm not feeling it, I just shut down. I just shut off. I just, I just rest. I just won't do it. Right. Unless we have an appointment of course, but I, I just think pickleball players play way too much and they get bogged down. How many players do we, do we talk to that? Like, I took a week off. I went to the, wherever my vacation, I came back and I played. Right. So there's a lot of power in that.

[00:07:14] Yeah. And you hear the stories too. Um, people may be my age, a little bit older who haven't played a sport in 25 or 30 years. And then they start playing four hours a day and they end up with an injury because their body's like, what are you doing to me? That's right. That's right. That's right. And yeah, they just keep playing and playing. And Jill has, Jill has an awesome expression. She's just like, nobody cares. Nobody in pickleball cares about injury prevention until they get injured.

[00:07:39] Like nobody's preventing any, they just, they get hurt and then they go, Oh, I guess I should probably pay attention. So because the court is so small and we can get good pretty quickly and it's easy to play. We don't realize the pounding. We don't realize how bad it is actually for your body. If you're not taking care of your body.

[00:07:58] Yeah. Imagine a runner, right? I have a cousin who was a avid runner and ended up with a hip surgery and a knee surgery and it's the same kind of asphalt, right? It's the same kind of court. Um, it does take a toll on your body. So I have a question. So I'm a big tennis fan. I play tennis about three days a week and I watch tennis a lot on TV. I watched the pro tours and, and, uh, we're involved with an organization called, um, love of the game. It's through tennis Congress.

[00:08:25] And they raise money to help young professionals get on the ATP tour and the tennis tour. How is the tour different for pickleballers now than it is for tennis? I mean, pickleball's kind of still the new, the new pro tour is still kind of new. So how do you see that in your world that makes it a little different than tennis or maybe the same?

[00:08:44] Well, I think it's easier. I think it's for pickleball because it's still so brand new. I, it's just a lot easier to become a great player. It's easier. It's going to be easier to get a college scholarship. They're just the, the, the pool just isn't as big. Number one, I think it's harder to become good at tennis and kind of writing that wave way back in my old life. It's, it's hell of a grind, but it's, it's so difficult to be.

[00:09:12] You see these players on TV, you see the Djokovic is in the fetters and then the, then the dolls and Serena and all, all the great players. You're like, wow, that's like, but you don't see what the, what they had to do to get there. It is absolutely brutal to become a professional tennis player these days. The, the hoops you have to jump through and the, the futures and then the challengers.

[00:09:33] And then the, like to become one's almost miraculous. It's almost as miraculous as being born. It's that difficult to be where pickleball, pickleball, you know, you have the junior programs. Now, I mean, you have these young kids right now, a couple, a couple, you know, a female, you just saw 13 year old female, 14 year old. Then you have a couple of 14, 15, 16 year old guys in pickleball that are competing in singles against established men, right?

[00:09:57] Fed just lost like that will never happen in tennis. That will never again. Anyways, I should say will happen in tennis. So it's just a little easier in pickleball just because it's so new and still trying to figure it out. And it's just an easier, you know, you know, entry into the world of pro pickleball. I do still believe though, at least on the guy side that we're not going to see another Hayden as early as we saw him grind and compete.

[00:10:26] Cause I think you're getting these college men, tennis players coming into pickleball. So you'll have, I mean, obviously there will be outliers that we, as we've seen, at least in the single score singles, singles may be different, but doubles doubles. There's so much more nuance than you're playing. You know, it's hard at 16, 15 playing against grown, strong, long men when they're late twenties. Doesn't mean it can't happen and it won't happen. I just don't think it'll happen as often as it, as it used to.

[00:10:55] I just think I joke around. I think high school tennis is dead or dying or will be dead soon. Like, because these, these kids, why would you go grind on the tennis court? I mean, I say like 15 year old pickleball players are as good as 23 year old tennis players. It's just so easy to get good at. There's college scholarships that are just going to be, it's just going to be the norm soon. I just think why, if you want to paddle and tennis thing, like why would you choose tennis? You can choose paddle. You get a full ride.

[00:11:23] You could turn pro probably way easier than tennis. And I just think, I just think that's probably going to be the path we see. So do you think that in your opinion, like we've got a bunch of new, you know, beginners and pickleball, these new high school players, college players, do you think that's going to wave the path forward for them to become instructors and coaches and directors at clubs? Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's going to follow the tennis path. I don't think it has yet.

[00:11:50] I remember, you know, we talk about coaching all the time. I mean, back when I started coaching, like you, you couldn't just become a coach. You, you had to like grind as an assistant, as a newbie assistant under the head pro and the, the, the tennis director. You got mentorship. You learned how to coach. Then you kind of worked your way up. I mean, it took me 15 years before I was like one of the top guys at the club. And so I think it's going to eventually follow that path where juniors, juniors play, you know,

[00:12:20] their high school pickleball. Then they go play college pickleball. Then they try to get, try to make it on tour and they realize how hard it is. Then they start teaching. But I think they'll start teaching at a club as a pickleball assistant under a mentorship. I think we just need more high level pickleball mentors to help the coaching. If we're just talking about the coaching thing that we just don't have yet. I think people just become coaches and they kind of self-teach with no much help. And it's just kind of where we are right now, but I think eventually it'll just follow the tennis path.

[00:12:49] The tennis coaching path is pretty sweet and pretty, um, pretty solid. You think with all the certifications, well, there's, I mean, there's some out there, right? There's some certifications in pickleball. You think it's going to follow the path, get established. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not the person to ask about certifications because I don't believe in them. I believe in them for insurance, Paula, for insurance reasons, you need to have insurance on the court. But I thought the same exact way with tennis, like a piece of paper doesn't mean you're

[00:13:19] a, doesn't mean you're qualified. It doesn't mean you're a good coach. It means, it means this, it means something else that Jill would probably kill me if I started talking about, but, but I, I knew, I do think you need it for insurance, but, but we have a lot of low level players that are getting certified at that now start teaching that. I don't know. It's a really tough one because I don't know that you would take a lesson with, you know,

[00:13:43] with an uncertified pro unless like, I mean, I'm certified just for insurance, but like the piece of paper doesn't make you a coach experience makes you a coach passion. Like making it an all in profession and an art form and diving into actually how the human mind works and how, how people learn and growth. And like, that makes you a coach and all in, not just, I got a piece of paper now. Hi here. I'm a coach. So yeah, I'm a coaching snob. I'm a coaching snob.

[00:14:12] I just think that I just, I, I don't want to get into trouble. I don't have to go too deep on it. Well, I'm sure you've seen players who have now gone and gotten certified or whatever, and they just don't make great coaches, right? Just because you can play the sport does not mean you can coach. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I think amazing players don't make great coaches and, and I don't think, I don't think you have to be a seven Oh player to be a great coach, but I, but I do believe

[00:14:38] that if you're going to teach someone, if you're teaching someone how to hit a backhand off speed roll, you need to be able to do it. Like it's just about base. You need to be able to hit the shot and you need to be able to have done it under stress in a tournament situation. Right. I, I just think there are maybe too many coach low end coaches trying to be high end coaches trying to teach things they don't even know how to do.

[00:15:03] I think there in lies a big problem for, for players in our clinics, how many times that we've had to unteach some things that they're being taught and being told not only like the actual information that they're being taught from their pro is absolutely wrong and the way they're being taught. And most importantly to me, I think a lot of people don't understand the power of like superpowers and teaching from superpowers. Coaches, I think too often are teaching from a place of you're broken.

[00:15:32] We need to fix your broken shot versus looking at the student and figuring out where their superpowers lie, where their unique gifts lie. What sport did you play in the, in the past? How can we bring what you do really well and, and build your entire game around your superpowers? Not that one micro shot that's broken. And I think, you know, we have a coach, the coaches like online thing that we're doing right now. And the whole basis is around building like the player development versus shot improvement,

[00:16:02] improving shots don't make you a good player. Like learning how to teach the player, actually how to play the game and figure out the puzzle that makes you a great player. And then on, you know, within that, of course you work on shots, but I think too many coaches are just focused on micro shot fixing versus developing the player from their gifts out. Yeah. Because there's nothing like for me as a player to go to a coach or go to a class and walk away, feeling defeated.

[00:16:27] I should go and I've had the best hour of my whole life and can't wait to come back. Right. That's the number one priority. Our priority as coaches is not to fix a shot. It's to make you leave on fire. The end, hard stop. Now, like that's the problem is we, or too many coaches are looking to, they're teaching this game from some cliche book, some one size fits all book rather than looking at you, Ashley.

[00:16:55] What makes you, what makes you light up? What do you do really well? Like getting to know you for five minutes before you even hit a ball, like getting to know kind of what lights you up and like building your entire lesson plan around that. And, and not some, not just your forehand attack. Right. Like if you're not leaving on fire, I failed no matter what we did. If you're not leaving on fire, then I have completely failed my lesson. So what's Jill superpower?

[00:17:24] Well, number one, God, you're going to make me compliment her. Like this is going to be public. Is there any way I can tell you and then you just edit it out? Her ego is too big. And like, I'm not some, I'm not allowed to compliment her. No, I'm just kidding. She has so many, number one, she's the smartest person in the room always. And she pretends that she's not, but she really is. So humility for sure. On court, her superpower is pattern recognition. She's she sees and feels everything because of how bright she is.

[00:17:53] She can see a player's challenges and, and, and tweak them. She sees everything. She asks a lot of questions. I think one of her superpowers that isn't talked about enough is, is her lack of ego within the process. She's like the most egoless human I've ever met, which just makes her even that better of a coach. You know? That's awesome. So what's next, uh, what's next on your radar? What are you looking forward to this year? Oh my gosh.

[00:18:21] So gosh, where are we? We're in the middle of March. So in two weeks, we, I go to Arizona to, um, actually no next week we go to South Carolina for another mindset clinic. Then we fly home and I will go back to Arizona driving for nine hours. I will drive to Arizona for a senior pro tournament. And then after that, um, some more clinics. And so we're going to be bouncing back and forth between daughters, gymnastics clinics,

[00:18:50] and my tournaments all throughout the, throughout the year. That's. And so then hopefully some, you know, some more private teaching here in person. I love when players come from out of town and spend two, three, four days and we can kind of like take a deep dive into their player development that, that lights me up as well. I love that. What is the best ratio coach to students? Do you think in your opinion? In a clinic situation? In a clinic situation. One to four, hand down. Hands down one to four. One to eight, one to 12, one to 16.

[00:19:19] It's a money grab. Sorry. Like, sorry to piss some people off. Jill and I will never do more than one to four ever. We have eight people at a clinic with two instructors. It's one to four, the end. If, if, if you're not, I could just go crate again. I got to be careful. I get into trouble. If you're not one to four, there is a court that's being ignored even for three, four, five, seven. Like if a court is being ignored for three minutes, you failed. Like that's insane to me.

[00:19:47] I just don't, I mean, I understand why you do it. Grab as many people as you can, right? You take as much money as you can. And, you know, as long as, you know, they think at least not one to 12, but the, the, the norm is one to eight. And I just don't like that. I feel like Jill had like true story. We had two courts running. I'm on one court. She's on another court. We're doing our drill. We're doing whatever we're doing. And she's like, I have to go to the bathroom. Like, well, no, you can't. You have to pee your pants. You can't go to the bathroom.

[00:20:17] So obviously she had to go to the bathroom. And I felt like, I felt like I was robbing these players of, of value. And even it was only three and a half minutes. Right. But for those three and a half minutes, I just didn't know what to do. I think value, we leave so much money on the table. I leave so much money on the table every week, but I'm, but that's not the, the priority is value. Right. Like you have four players and one coach. You're maximizing your value.

[00:20:45] So sorry to answer your question really long, but I just, it's one of my biggest pet peeves that, that we have so many players and, and it's never a one to four. It's insane to me. I love it though. I mean, and even, I mean, I'm in tennis, right? Even though we own a football club, um, I rarely go play, but even in tennis, there'll be 16 women and two courts and it's way, I want to run. I want my heart rate to go up. Right. I want to learn something.

[00:21:13] And you, I think we get a lot of questions from a lot of our coaches that use court reserve. We do a lot of, you know, round table discussions and they're always trying to figure out the secret sauce. So other than one to four, what's the secret sauce, Dane, to running great programming at a club? Oh, at a club just in general. I hear that's such a tough question. It really, it, you know, I, I wanted to piggyback on what you said about getting your heart rate up. I think if you're running a clinic and you have people waiting, there's something you should

[00:21:43] never have people waiting. Like even for, even for 30, there should not be a single human waiting unless like not even unless, but I mean, if it's free, whatever, but usually these clinics are free. They're paying you money to play and to learn. And I think when we have, like, when we have an odd number of people and you have to make somebody wait, I just think that's doing a super, you know, disservice to the, to the, I mean, we have to do it all. We've had to cancel because we had, you know, six, you know, we can go do six, we could do

[00:22:11] six, but I always think like when we leave, they're just not going to get the, I don't want two people waiting and I don't want to do a two on one drill. And if I, if I hit with them, then I'm missing that court. Like there's so many, you know, there's so many, there's, there's just so many things that could be cleaned up about, about coaching, um, how to make your programming. I just think I came, I just came from a meeting. So I'm going to answer your question. I promise. But I'm going to kind of backdoor into it. I just came.

[00:22:39] My best friend is a GM at a, at a golf club in Arizona. And we were talking and it was really high end golf club. And he was talking to all the members and he was talking to the staff. And I, I asked him, I said, you know, what's your number one priority? Kind of what you did. Like, how do you make the programming so solid? You seem like everybody loves you. I said, you know, you treat your members so well. He said, Nope. He said, I'm like, what your members aren't the priorities? Like, Nope. I thought you're, I thought he was kidding your members. No, he said the staff is the priority is the staff.

[00:23:08] If you make the staff happy, if you make your coaches around you happy, if you make your managers happy and the directors happy, that leads down and that funnels down to the members, the members will always be happy. If your staff is unhappy, your members will always be unhappy. I just thought that was kind of mind blowing actually. So I guess to answer your question, it's, it's like, how are we treating our staff at these clubs? Cause I don't think that's focused on enough. I think it's, we focus on the, like you said, the programming, what are we going to do with our clinics and our lessons?

[00:23:38] And then our members, what do we do with it? But, but we rarely talk about what are we doing with Jimmy John over here? How are we treating him? And how are we treating Mary Jo and how are we treating our directors and our managers? Is that will naturally like, so I think instead of the programming being the secret sauce, I think it's about, it's about mastering our, our staff engagement and our, our relationship with them. I love that. I talked to a guy a couple of days ago and he went up through the ranks, was a tennis

[00:24:07] player, got a director job at a big tennis club. And then he was responsible for all of the director stuff, but nobody ever taught him how to interview, how to mentor someone else. Right. And it's all that business stuff that I think you're exactly right. How do you treat your staff? How do you train them? How do you, how many times have you met an instructor where they've never been to a RSPA, a PTR or whatever, just to learn like how to do stuff. Yep. Yep.

[00:24:37] You should be sending them on your dime. They shouldn't pay it. You should send them all to be trained and to constantly be learning. You should be learning with them. Like you should be, I, I just think very often we, we just treat our staff staff as like, whatever. Like the members are without the members. We don't, but members are going to come and go. Members are going to love you. Not like you, but like the staff is it. The staff is the golden ticket to happy membership, right? We can fix any of the programming.

[00:25:02] We can get, we can get opinions on what, what the members like and dislike about the programming that, that, that thing is easy. That's like the execution of your dink. The very last piece of learning any stroke is the execution, right? The why and the how and the, or the, uh, the why. And you know, the other things come last like pattern wrecking, but the actual execution of your programming. It's easy peasy treating your staff properly and treating them like you work for them. They don't work for you.

[00:25:32] You work for them. And I think that mindset, um, probably could take a nice little, uh, probably could be reframed in many, many clubs situations. I know when I had, when I had my worst experience as an assistant tennis pro, it was because of my director and when I had the best experience as an assistant that then got moved up to head pro under the director, it was because of the director. He treated me like a peer, right?

[00:25:57] He mentored, like I knew my place, but he didn't treat me like second class. And he gave me freedom. Like go run your stuff. What do you want to do? Be unafraid to fail. What do you want to do on Friday and Saturday night? What do you want to do on these happy hours? Just go do it. I don't care. Like we'll figure it out. If the members don't like it, we'll gather information and we'll make it tighter, but just go. Right. And I thought that was actually, I never thought about that until just this minute. He gave me so much freedom to just explore rather than micromanaging, making me afraid

[00:26:26] of making mistakes like some pros, like some coaches do on the pickleball court, right? Just let them experiment, let them go. And we can, we can like tighten everything up as we, as we go. I think that's, that's actually maybe one of the biggest, biggest pieces to your overall programming as a, as a club. I love that. What do you think is surprising you at this moment in time in our sport right now? Is there anything big surprising you? Well, the style of game isn't surprising me.

[00:26:55] I've always thought it was going to be insanely quick. I think it's going to get quicker. I think it's going to get spinnier. I think it's going to be, I think what surprises me actually is that more people don't understand what's in front of them. I think what's surprising is the, is the blow is the fight, like the resistance of the evolution of the game. The surprising me is a lack of like coach's ability to evolve with what's in front.

[00:27:24] What's surprising me is not enough coaches are teaching from a place of their students' lenses. It's your student's lesson, not your own. I don't care what you want to do. The lesson isn't about me. The lesson is about them. What do they want to do? Where are they? But I still think it's very surprising how much pushback I get when we talk about pushing your students and experimenting and letting them fail and letting them like, I just think

[00:27:50] we, we, and, but again, I think this is just from a lack of experience and everybody calling themselves pickleball coaches when maybe don't let Jill hear this. Maybe they have no right to call themselves coaches. Right. That's, that's surprising to me that we're, we're not, we don't understand. Like I'll give you another one that has nothing to do with coaching. You can get off that. So I don't get fired from my, I can't get fired, but she'll try.

[00:28:18] You know, what's surprising is like pickleball partners thinking that eye rolling is going to make your partner better. Giving bad body language and giving is actually going to make your partner better. Like that's kind of surprising to me that just human, just being a human being, like when have you ever slapped somebody across the face and they've said, thank you so much. That was so awesome. Like that's surprising to me. So yeah, I guess a lot more things surprised me than I thought actually.

[00:28:44] So, uh, around the world, we hear pickleballs picking up everywhere. What do you think about that? I love it. Oh my gosh. I love it. You know, I love it again, from the coaching perspective, I think we're going to see a lot of these players from Asian all around the world, learning the game differently, not from a stock tennis only perspective where we're holding Eastern and we're hitting forehands and backhands. I think there's going to be a lot of tomahawks and all these weird little things that right

[00:29:13] now, if you were to go do that in the States, they'd call you insane. And that's not the proper way to play. I think it's so amazing. The, the, the, how this is spreading globally and how both, you know, tours are making their way. And, you know, Yola too, it's huge in Asia. Like they're crushing it. I just think the more people we have in the sport, I just can't wait for the Olympics to take over. Or, but I always look at from it, from a coaching perspective, then players.

[00:29:42] And then I just think from a coaching, how much we're going to see some different kinds of shots. We're going to see some really dynamic, weird, like, I just think that's going to be super exciting to see these players come in with like, what was, what did he just, what did she just do? Like, what was that? I think that's just to buck the system, like stop doing what everybody else is doing, right? Find us, find something, find something that's, if everybody's doing it, it just makes no sense.

[00:30:11] Like, I don't want to keep doing what everybody's doing. There's got to be a better way. Every single player is playing the same, playing the same way. There's, there's got to be a different way to, to separate yourself. I love that. So if you've ever watched the tennis channel, sometimes they do a bag check and it's what's in your bag. So you probably don't have your bag beside of you, but what's in your bag right now, Dane? What kind of shoes and what kind of, what kind of paddles are there? Is there, yeah. Oh, you asked me a crazy time.

[00:30:41] Cause I just got back from Arizona and I haven't unpacked that. My big tennis bags. We went over there and played, played some fun rec with Augie Gunn and Kyle Kazuda and another young pro. So like I have, so what do I have in my bag? I have, I have a bunch of balls. I have, gosh, I have so much, you, you're going to, you're going to really be upset that you asked me this question. This is going to take an hour. No, I have a bunch of balls. I have my ankle braces. Cause I don't ever step on the court without those ankle braces. Um, I have grips. I have, um, um, sunscreen.

[00:31:10] I have Advil cause I'm old. Um, I have, uh, six paddles in there. I have towel in there. I have bands in there. I have Babelot shoes in there. I have my kitchen blocker glasses in there. I have two hats in there. I think I have two shirts, probably a couple are sweaty. It's kind of gross. Still have unpacked. They're in there. Um, gosh, I, I, I love those big, big old pro backpacks there. You can fit so much stuff in there. Yeah.

[00:31:40] It's great. And, you know, do you get a new bag? What every six months, every year? What are we talking about? Yeah, it kind of, it kind of just depends. Like on, Oh, I had one accidentally. I actually broke. I actually broke one like the first week I had it. So then I got another one, but as long as it's not, as long as it's not breaking or tearing. And if I really, you know, I like the color right now, what's my blue and like blue and yellow one, the yellow one. I just, you know, paddles are different. We'll get, I'll get new paddles very often, but the bag, if I'm loving the bag,

[00:32:10] the problem is like these big bags, you can't really travel. Cause I don't, when I travel, when I fly, I don't put anything under the plane. I like to carry on. So the big ones, the big, I can't carry that with me. So then you have a smaller backpack. I said, I got to carry that on. So I kind of go back and forth between the big one and the small one. How long has your pickleball paddle last you these days? Um, I rotate. So I'll, I'll break in and I'll break in a couple new paddles, um, that I'll save for tournaments.

[00:32:38] And so I won't play with the two tournament paddles in practice. And I'll rotate three paddles during, during my rec. I have separate teaching paddle that once that kind of starts to go, I don't worry about it and I keep it in the car. So it doesn't matter if it D lambs or crushes or whatever. Um, but I, I don't, I don't like to play. I say this, I say this, and then I, I get superstitious. I'll say this, then I'm going to give you a different answer. Cause I'm a big liar. I, I like to play. I don't like to play with the same paddle as for two tournaments in a row, but I went

[00:33:08] on a couple of years ago. I went on a nice run where I played with the same paddle. It was cracking. I didn't care. I hadn't lose, lost the match with it. It was cracking. It was before all the testing blew up. Right. So I just kept playing with the same broken paddle until I lost like a year later. I just didn't care. I was so superstitious. It was just cracked at the top and I didn't like, I shouldn't be hitting at the top anyway. So like, like hitting the center, right? That's yeah. So I kept playing with that, but in a perfect world, I don't like to play with the same

[00:33:36] paddle for two tournaments in a row. Um, and I just try to keep rotating them, keep them as fresh as possible. Is there like a go-to meal that you have before you play a tournament? Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, dang it. Like you're going to make me sound so stupid. I am. I like to eat something that I know my body will like. Right. And so I like, I'm actually getting, I'm actually growing up a little bit because it used to only be Chipotle only because I, my body trusted it.

[00:34:06] It was pretty clean. It was, you know, when you're traveling, it's really hard to find clean food. So Chipotle with the grilled chicken, I don't do any sour cream or cheese. So let's keep it really clean. But now I get more into the Mediterranean food, like some Greek grilled chicken and rice and salad. And so now I've intertwined those, but I don't like to mess. I don't eat red meat anymore. Um, my body didn't like it. And I just liked the grilled chicken. It has to be, it has to be one of those, or I'm in big trouble.

[00:34:32] I remember going to TOC and Salt Lake or not in Salt Lake in, um, in Utah, where's and all they had, they didn't have, it was such a tiny town. And all they had was fast food and a pizza joint. And I'm like, I was freaking it. So I lived at Wendy's on a chicken wrap. I had like 10 of those a day. I wouldn't eat like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to hit. I'm not going to McDonald's or Jack in the box or any of that. So Wendy's I'm like, Oh my. So yeah. Wendy's chicken wrap for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner.

[00:35:01] It was so crazy. All right. Last question, because this is the most important. What is the meal after you win the meal after I win? It's really funny. Like I, you, okay. So I used to have, you know, those donuts, the small ones, right? The small little donuts, like the donuts, like they're like, they come in those, like at a gas station, you get like powdered donuts. Yeah. So those little things. So after a win, I used to buy two either powdered or chocolate or whatever.

[00:35:31] Um, but I don't eat any of that crap anymore. So like, I don't have a, I don't cheat too much. Like if, what was my last, my last cheat meal was like, like, like wings, like barbecue wings, like, or pizza, pizza. I had barbecue chicken pizza, but like, yeah, I stopped, I stopped eating. I stopped doing all the cheat thing. I don't eat sugar anymore. I don't eat crap anymore. And, and it's really helped. I wish I could give you a really sexy answer, but yeah, it used to be donuts. Give me some donuts. I eat all your donuts in the house. Where's your favorite wing place?

[00:36:02] I mean, I like, I like, Oh, well, my daughter always likes, um, what's it called? Something wings. I always forget that wing space, but my, my wife makes the best wings. So if I had a choice, I would have Leanne make, make the homemade, homemade wings. She makes some crazy good wings. Is it like a secret recipe from Leanne? It kind of, I mean, it kind of is, I don't know if it's secret or not, but she got it from a, you know, professional chef. It's pretty simple. Like, yeah, I don't even know what it's in it, but it's so freaking good. It's crazy. Yeah.

[00:36:30] The best wings are smoked in my, in my, really, you like the smoked wings. Well, and then throw them in the air fryer a little bit. Oh yeah. Those are good. See, but you, you, you have an accent though. You're not from California. I am not. No, I'm not. You have a nice accent. Yes. Well, Dane, it's been great. Thank you so much for spending time with us and best of luck in all your tournaments and classes this year. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a blast. See you soon. Bye. Okay. Bye. Bye.

[00:36:59] Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you'd like to learn more about how Court Reserve became the go-to club management software for racket and paddle sport clubs, come say hello over on our website. There's a link in the show notes. Bye. Bye. Bye.