E2: Shannon Burkhalter: Embracing the Pickleball Life

Life Lessons From Pickleball

Hi, I'm Shelley Maurer. And I'm Cher Emmerich. Welcome to Life Lessons from Pickleball, where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court. Thanks for joining us. Hey, welcome everyone to Life Lessons from Pickleball. We're so glad you're joining us today. and we're delighted to have Shannon Burkhalter as our guest. Shannon grew up in Tacoma, Washington, a middle child with an older brother and younger sister, and there was a lot of tennis and swimming going on in her family. She graduated from Washington State University with a major in child, consumer, and family studies, with a minor in business, and has worked with children professionally for 40 years in positions ranging from assistant teacher to district manager. Shannon owns Braithburn Academy, which she purchased in 2000, and she's been married to her husband, John, for 26 years, and they have a 21-year-old son and a 24-year-old daughter, and she enjoys reading, travel, time with friends, and, of course, pickleball. Welcome, Shannon, to Life Lessons from Pickleball. Thank you for having me. Most importantly, though, she is my tournament buddy. Yay! Wonderful, wonderful partner, Shelly. Shannon is the best tournament buddy that anybody could ask for. She's so kind and fun. And just, I just love, I look forward to tournaments. When one's over, I can't wait for the next one because we always have so much fun on the day of the tournament and just experiencing it together. And we just have some great stories and a lot of fun. You are the sweetest. I feel the exact same. I could not ask for a better partner, somebody that is fun and kind and smart and wants to do well, but isn't a little, isn't crazy about it.

Yeah.

You mean there are some people who are crazy about it? Maybe that wasn't the best terminology. Somebody that has reasonable expectations and a positive attitude. We work very well together. We communicate well, and we do have a lot of fun. You really do. And you're as much fun to watch playing as you are to play with. And Shannon, I've had the joy of playing with you too. And my gosh, you have the best... slam and you and you place it right at my feet and yeah so hey here's the thing you your family you played tennis and you swam how the heck did you get into pickleball Interestingly enough, because this is pretty rare, I had a friend when I was in grade school that had a court in her backyard. Not a super close friend, but I went over to her house a couple of times and didn't actually play the game, learn the game, learn how to score, but hit the ball around. And then also our family belonged to family fitness. So my dad would take us there and he'd play racquetball and we'd hit the ball on the pickleball court. So this is literally 45 years ago. So you hit the ball a little bit a long, long time ago, but I started out recently about 11 months ago. A lot of my friends were starting to play and a lot of people invited me to play. But finally, one of our mutual friends that we play with, Daphna Robin, she invited me to a lesson and the lesson was a perfect day for the busy life that I had. Perfect day, perfect time. And I went and just met you. lovely people and our wonderful instructor. And it was so much fun. And now my good friends call it my cult because I am very, very into it. In

fact, you got us all to buy a sweatshirt that says, I can't, I have pickleball.

I almost wore it today for this, but I thought, is that too much? Because I received mine already. Yes, I love that. It's so fun. Shannon's a big merch person. I've got to show you our merch. Life lessons from Pickleball. Oh, that's so cute. I love it. It's so fun. Yes, fun merch. Definitely. So what keeps you coming back to pickleball, Shannon? What keeps bringing you back to the court? I just absolutely love it. I was worried because I have some shoulder injuries and some back issues. I thought it was going to be all much younger players because this is the hot new sport. But when I got there, I mean, there was an age variation and whatever, but I don't know if it's just where we play, but it seems to be the sport of the retirees. And so that was very unexpected, but I... What do you mean by flight? Yeah.

Which

is what you ladies do. I've, I've substitute for those. Maybe you guys could describe flights better. It's just competition that we sign up for play with four people for two hours and switch off partners for during those two hours. Yeah. I knew you could describe it better than me. And it's kind of moderated by one of the coaches and she's the person that sets it up. So it's pretty convenient for everyone that does it. You don't have to text all your friends and book a cord and all of that. We have a lovely Monday kind of round robin group that's automatic every Monday that makes it very easy, very fun, a little bit competitive. There's tournaments. There's open play that I've done a few at a couple of the places. And there's open play with coaching and open play is just show up and whoever comes. So a variety of people, a variety of experiences, a variety of levels. And with the coaching, it's great because they walk around. around and give you advice on your particular your game and how you were doing. So I just loved all the different opportunities. And the social part, of course, is amazing. I would never have met you lovely ladies. I have met people I never would have met some of the most intelligent, kind, warm, friendly women. I loved it so much that after a few months, I said I need to, we would have our five minutes before we play and our five minutes after walking off the court. And I was like, I need to be around these ladies more. So I I hosted that first happy hour where we just invited everyone, made it easy. Everybody brought their food. And it was so much fun that we've been doing it, continuing, and different people are hosting. And we've done other events at people's homes and outside. It's been wonderful. It really has. And I'm grateful to you for getting that ball started because now everybody, oh, I'll do it next month. I'll do it next month. Yeah, it's so fun. And we were talking about how... It's all different backgrounds, all different kinds of experiences. And there's something just endearing about, oh, you play pickleball? I'm immediately close to you. Yes, it's an immediate connection. Yeah. I love it. So you played tennis and you swam. Were you doing those competitively? Not swimming. I just grew up on a lake, so lots of time almost every day down there swimming. But tennis, I played pretty competitively through tennis. Almost through college. Is that right? Almost through college. Well, I've told Shelly this story that I was going to play at a D1 college, but I was going to be the bench writer. And it was a huge commitment. So I decided after the workouts and the physicals and the meetings that I wanted to participate in all of the other components of college. So I did not play, but I did have that opportunity. And I did play a lot throughout my childhood. So sports and competition and all that has been a part of your life for most of it. Yes, and that's what I thought made it easy for us to get into tournaments because that can be a little bit intimidating, especially being new to the sport. But is this a good time for me to tell you my story about our first tournament?

Competitive Mindset in Pickleball

pickleball place and we showed up signing up for the 3.0 pickleball area level and we were told at 7 in the morning that we will be playing 3.5 players 4.0 players and one 4.5 players and this was very character building we had no option well our option would have been to walk out and say no thank you because it was already a little scary but we both just laughed and decided we're going to do the best that we can. And we're going to try to not get pickled, which is 11 to zero. And we're going to learn from this and meet some great people. And we had the best day. We looked at each other at the end of the day. We looked at each other at lunchtime at our break and said, this is so much fun, even though we weren't winning. But we were so proud of us that we got four points off of the winners the entire tournament. And then that made any future tournament And downhill from there, it was just a lot less stressful. Brilliant. Yeah. I mean, it really made us realize we can, we can do it. We can do hard things. It was great. It is. It's very good for us. That's one of our favorite podcasts. We can do hard things. So we're promoting them in the. I love that. That's awesome. So because you had competition in your background and now you're playing competitively in pickleball, um, Is there a difference for you when you're on the court being competitive and when you're off the court being competitive? Like in life, do you find yourself being competitive? Now you are running this, well, not just this academy. I mean, you are one busy gal and you have been for years and years and years. Is competition a part of your life? I don't know if I would say competitive for me, but definitely work ethic because I grew up with parents that absolutely required that we would always have jobs and that we would have chores. And my husband and I are that type of parent as well. We want our kids to know the value of work and contributing to the family. And so I've always had an extremely big work ethic to the point where it's a problem. where it's hard to relax at home if there's laundry to be done or whatever. So definitely competitive and a can-do attitude for work. And same with pickleball. Shelly and I went into that first tournament before we knew we were playing well above our skill set, saying we don't care if we lose everything. All you can do, this is my philosophy, all you can do is prepare and then do your very best that day. And one of the things from my tennis experience Yeah. So I feel like that that has translated very well. I don't get upset with myself. I never get upset with my lovely partner. We can be down. We laugh about it. We can be down five zero and we'll still say we've got this point by point. All you can do is, you know, play hard, try to be smart and do your best. And those are good life analogies. Those are good life lessons. Yeah. Those are good. I thought it was really funny. Shannon's husband, John, I've had the chance to meet a couple of times and he told me, Oh, Shannon, she's really competitive. And I thought that was so interesting because she doesn't come across that way as a team member, right? She's not hard on me or, I mean, we both like want to do well and want to win. So I think it's kind of like what you're saying with your can do attitude. So yeah, You're competitive with yourself, I think, right? Probably, yeah. Today, after you left, Shelley, I played with three ladies and I wasn't playing very well. And somebody was really sweet and trying to say encouraging words. And I was like, I'm fine. I'm not getting down on myself. I'm being analytical and saying, what did I do wrong in that point so I can do better next time? So that's kind of my... my thinking it's funny when we uh we went with our kids on vacation recently our adult kids and played a lot of pickleball and it came up in conversation that uh we didn't let them win games like board games and card games um i mean we weren't pummeling them we were nice parents but i know some parents did do that or some like being a teacher a preschool teacher that some people did do that and we were talking about that but i think there's so many life lessons in learning how to lose and learning how to win gracefully and how to be kind to your opponent and how to deal with disappointment and to deal with doing well and being kind and gentle with opponents. So that's been a theme all along. I haven't thought about how competitive I am until now you're saying that. And that's funny that John said that. That's hilarious. I have

to ask

John, what

do meant by that

we're going out for a happy hour after this so we'll have fun conversation I gave you a conversation starter there you go thanks girl so what do you do when you I mean you talked a little bit but when you don't win how do you how do you Talk to yourself about that. I think what I was starting to refer to earlier that I analyzed, I think I can be an annoying person to play with because I do analyze. Not other people. I'm not out there criticizing because I don't think you should give people advice unless they ask for it. But I do. I talk a lot. I'll say, oh, I shouldn't be. Running while I hit. Oh, I didn't have my paddle up. So I do a lot of that analyzing, but not beating myself up at all. Just learning. Oh, I should do this. You get these tips from coaches or lessons, but it's one thing to hear it and know it and then put it all together at once while in the middle of a game of the ball coming at you. So I don't get really sad and disappointed at all. I try to just kind of figure out. what I could do better. That's great. Even losing. That's the beauty of pickleball. Even losing. It's so much fun. And especially the women we've met and even beyond where we play mostly at Eastside Tennis Center at all of the other places, I've met lovely people. And I feel like it's, there are so many opportunities for laughter. There's so much idea exchange, whether it be about pickleball or, you know, other life things, it's still super enjoyable. I would play every day if I could, but I think it's healthy to go every other day, at least for my middle-aged body.

We can all concur. And

you talked about playing a lot with your family in Arizona. What a fun family thing to do, right? Like, I love it. It's so much fun. We, we're pretty good. Like even our extended family, especially on my husband's side, we'll see them for Easter this weekend. And there's a lot of dominoes games, boards, games, doing puzzles together. And I think it just brings, whether it's the young kids to the great grandparents together. So I love that. So, I mean, we don't do it all the time and my daughter doesn't live with us and everybody's super busy. So when we have this opportunity, we do, we've played a few times pick of all... prior to this vacation. And it's fascinating because we're used to our group of ladies and kind of our level of play, or we go into a tournament this level, or we do open play at this level. And my family, all three of them are very new to pickleball, but they're all pretty athletic. And my son was a big baseball player, a good tennis player. And my husband's a super soccer player. It's interesting though, my daughter played a little bit of tennis and a lot of soccer and she's kind of emerging as the strong one of the three of them. But we do rotate it around and switch partners every game and we're learning each other's game and we just laugh a lot. It's really fun and it's so good to be outside and moving our bodies and I absolutely look forward to it. You mentioned that your daughter played soccer, and I believe Anna Lee Waters, the number one young 16-year-old pickleball player, I think she was in soccer too. And what I'm fascinated by is how fast she is on to move from side to side, just like you would have to do in soccer. And you mentioned your daughter's super fast and all, and I think that soccer background is really helpful.

Yeah.

and she was very competitive like we traveled in the around the country and she played uh premier soccer so so she is competitive and she it's funny it emerges as she figures out the basics of pickleball and that she can do this and and now she's i would say of the four of us the most competitive and i don't know if that's the soccer background or or us not letting her win it shoots and ladders and dominoes when she was little i I don't know. Came back to bite you. Yeah, but everybody's kind and everybody follows the rules and everybody's calm. It's very lighthearted and I look forward to many more years playing with them. So

Pickleball as a Stress Reliever

I know your life has a lot, like I said, you're chock-a-block full, your life. So is there stress in your life and does pickleball influence that one or the other? I mean, does it make it more stressful, less stressful? tiny one was time and it's interesting because now I've shifted where almost pickleball was the priority and I'm trying to fit all of the other things around it it's crazy and we have a mutual friend wenting that switched her work schedule too it's crazy when you fall in love with something how that you will make the time and one of the biggest reasons I make the time it's fun but it is a stress reliever It's so fast paced, no matter what level who I'm playing. We've played 80 year olds that are lovely, amazing women. And no matter how I'm playing, the ball is continually moving and you're continually moving and you're thinking. And so I am not worried about life off of the courts. It's an amazing stress reliever. It is. I have a hard time sometimes not thinking about life off the court when I am playing. I'll suddenly think, oh, I need to pick that up at the grocery store. Or, oh, I'll just think about, oh, what's on my calendar. And guess what? I miss the ball when it comes past me when I'm thinking about it. That makes sense. I'm trying to think of what to tell you. Not that I'm the expert at all, but what to tell you. Maybe we need to hit them faster at you, Cher. And then you won't have time to think about your groceries and laundry. We need to make you run. Make you work for it. Being in the moment. Yes. Yeah. You know, I was thinking today, Shannon and I were at a lesson earlier today at, uh, Gorin and Redmond with coach Dory, who's amazing coach. And another like life lesson I got. And what do you think about the Shannon is it's to being open. It's not criticism, but it's being open to a lot of input, right? It's like, Absolutely. Yes. Yes. And not taking it hard, you know, just be not feeling it as criticism. I think that's what I'm trying

to

say. Absolutely. Yeah. If people could do this in life, having managed people for decades, if they could do this for life, it would be an amazing world. And friendships and partnerships and all of those things, be open to that. I think we just have to be very careful when, like I think I referred to earlier, it's probably not great ever, whether it's a partner, an opponent, just a pickleball friend, to be telling them what they, even if you phrase it in the positive what they could be doing better but certainly not in the negative like you made that mistake but I think when you're open and lessons are all about learning and I feel like I'm all about learning and I will ask I've asked you Shelly like what did I do there what do you think what's your opinion but I think it's really good to be open to to learning yeah Yeah, in life and on the court. Yeah, good point. Not always easy, you know, if we're feeling insecure. There's something about confidence on the court that I've been able to take into life. In fact, a couple of times I've thought, oh, I can't do that in life. And then I think, come on, Cher. You know, you've lived all these many years and you can have some confidence on the court. You can have that confidence in life, too. I love that. That's amazing. That's really good. We were talking in our lesson today with the coach about confidence. uh, cause Shelly and I have had a couple of matches that were like championship matches, gold medal, silver medal matches where we were two points away from winning. And of course we reflect back on what happened there. Um, and was it nerves or was it, uh, do you think differently during those points? So we were doing a drill where she had a starting at eight points. And if you, what's that mean starting at eight points, starting at zero, zero, as you do for normal pickleball, we started at eight to eight. So crunch time. And you have to go to 11. And again, it gets me to 11 points. to say because I had said at one point not today but in a tournament oh just one more point one more baby point thinking I'm minimalizing it and taking the pressure off and Shelly's like no no don't say that our coach said to say and you never also I've played with people that say come on now this is it we got to do it let's do this and that's kind of pressure on maybe some people that would pump them up but we one thing that our coach Jory said today that overall with all partners I think would work is I got you or we got this or I got your back or let's do this. It's a us, it's a we, it's a positive, but it's not a big pressure gauge kind of comment. I've

got

your

back.

That takes the whole focus off of winning it's about you and I are good on the court and we're yeah Shelly is that your experience yeah that that really made me feel good too because then yeah I don't feel any pressure I feel like oh Shannon's got my back she's here for me right she's gonna hit all the balls we can do this yeah we can do this I don't feel like oh no I I gotta do this point I you know I can't screw up I didn't feel that it's like oh yeah she's got my back we can do this yeah It's so important what you tell yourself and what you tell others. And I think, I don't know why from day one, we've told each other, no matter how far behind, we've got this. No problem. We got it. Here we go. You know, it occurs to me, we have friends, pickleball friends who are going through kind of hard times and, you know, maybe a medical result that they're waiting for. Somebody has lost a loved one or something and, And we often don't know what to say, right? And sometimes with, oh, it's going to be fine. That's not where they are, right?

But

that idea of just saying, I've got your back. Definitely. I'm here with you. My heart is with you. I love that. Yeah. That's fantastic. And we have had in our group that we kind of grew up with the last year, we've had people with multiple injuries and with health issues. And our amazing group still includes them. Even if they aren't playing pickleball, they'll come to a happy hour, come to an event that we have and be on those text threads and be included. And it's such a great community. It is such a great community. When you think about pickleball and your life, have you been surprised with yourself at all when you're playing? Is there anything you learned about yourself that you maybe didn't know? Maybe because you were in all these other competitions, nothing new. I can't pinpoint anything. I think the biggest surprise is just how in love I fell with it and that I'm Basing my weekly schedule around it, which I had so many friends, I think I had like seven friends say, let's go play pickleball or why don't you take this lesson and for years and finally, just on a whim and only because it worked with my schedule and now I'm scheduling everything around it. That's surprising and how I want to play. I played four hours on Wednesday. That's crazy. I never always worked out. I did bar three for 13 years, three times a week. I did yoga. I've always liked to move, but this is so much fun. Time flies when you play pickleball. It really does. Winning, losing, lessons, games, tournament. To me, time absolutely flies. Sweet. I know. It's what else do you have that you look so forward to doing all the time, right? I just get so excited before every pickleball game. Well, one of the indicators of that is when either we finish a game because we usually get to play in that hour and a half slot, you know, four, five, six, seven games, and you finish the game and all of us look at the clock and excitedly say, we could fit one more in. Or we've done our whole hour and a half and nobody's coming to take the court for the next session and we're like, can you stay? I can stay. Can you stay? Just every five minutes is more exciting and fun. So true. So true. Everyone uses the word addictive. And this is an addiction I think is a good positive addiction. Very positive. I go back to my friends calling it my cult. It's not in positive terminology at all. But it's a healthy one. We love it. We love it. We'll say that. Do you have any other questions? life lessons that you had thought about that we haven't touched on? I think we've talked about most of it. I feel like, yeah, all I can say is it's really enhanced my life. It's a huge stress reducer. It's expanded my social community. It's allowed me additional exciting, fun things I can do with my family. I feel like even though I worked out a lot before, it's a different kind of workout and that I am a little bit healthier. My body moves a little bit better. Yeah. So I'm just thrilled overall with everything. And what might you offer to people who haven't tried pickleball yet? Is there some insight or encouragement you have for them? I absolutely do spread the word. I'm a weirdo. I tell everyone. I tell 80-year-olds, my dad, his lady friend. I invite everyone to play. I think one recommendation would be to take a lesson, whether just a lesson or two, a casual, just because so you do it safely and so that you learn the basics And so you don't start with bad habits, holding the racket wrong or what have you. So you start out doing things right. And then that's an excellent way of meeting a community. That would be my one tip for new players. I think that's a great tip. Have you introduced it to the kids at the academy yet? But I did for Christmas get that portable net. So maybe if we found a parking lot space, maybe you just gave me a fun idea for summer camp this year at Braveburn.

There you go. Good for you, Shelly.

Thank you. Well, thank you. Shannon, you're just a delight on and off the court. You've been such a good friend to us and to the whole community. You got us all connected in a really magical way, and we're really grateful to you. And really, really grateful to you for being on the show. We're so excited to have this conversation with you, and it's just been delightful. Right. back at you you're both really amazing amazing ladies and I wish you all the luck you're going to be great you have wonderful personalities on and off the court thank you thank you and thank you everyone oh my gosh thank you all for joining us today and we look forward to our conversation next week bye everyone music music music