174. Let's Talk About Paddle Grit...Enhance MPP Armor Turbo, Pickleball Apes Zen & More

[00:00:03] All right, what's up guys? We are finally back. After months, the longest break that we have ever had from the Pickleball Studio Podcast. I actually don't even feel like I'm doing a podcast. This like feels really weird. We need burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, the air horn, smoke machine, lights are flashing. We're back, baby. I, it, we, even just setting this pot up, we kept joking. We're like, do we even know how to do this anymore? Like, are we going to do something wrong? Like not record our audio or something ridiculous? I know. I mean, this is what? Episode 175? Yeah.

[00:00:32] So after 175 times, I'd like to think that I could do this with my eyes closed, but it was weird after, that's the longest break we've ever taken. And hopefully we'll never have to take a break that long again. That would be great. I mean, we, dude, if you guys, there have been a lot of you messaging me being like, man, when is the pod coming back? And I hope you are ready for a long pod because let me tell you, I had way more I wanted to put in this podcast.

[00:00:57] And I was like, we're going to be four hours long. Look for our California audience. Be ready. Look, I'm yo, I've got two energy drinks stock just in case, because this is going to be a marathon. Okay. I be, I came ready. Oh my gosh. Okay. I mean, it's, it's almost hard to figure out where even to start. I mean, first of all, uh, for those of you who don't know, cause I think there were a handful of people that just, I was getting messages or emails like, Hey, where's the pod?

[00:01:24] Uh, obviously took a long break cause of my back pain, which we're going to talk about in a minute. Uh, just kind of where that's at, what happened exactly. But yeah, like my back was super messed up over the whole summer. Like playing pickleball was very painful. I could, you know, do some day to day stuff, but it just pickleball was off the table. And I've said this many times, like I probably could have still reviewed paddles or made content about paddles, but one, it would have slowed my recovery down.

[00:01:52] And two, I just feel like it's a disservice if it's like, Oh, I'm hitting every paddle for only an hour. And then that's the best I can do. You know, maybe that is better than nothing. But to me, I just feel very strongly about the way we make our content. And I was not willing to really budge on that.

[00:02:08] Well, we have our, our set ways and methods and deviating off that just feels wrong. Yeah. You know, plus it's just not worth the risk of re-injuring yourself, taking a couple of weeks and then hurting it again. And then you need to take a couple of weeks. It's just better to take one block, fully recover and be back strong. Totally. So, uh, yeah, we'll talk about my back pain really quick. Cause a lot of you were curious about, you know, what has helped, what's been going on. Uh, and so we'll just kind of dive into all of that.

[00:02:37] Uh, so this will probably not be every single thing I've done, but probably the things that have helped the most. So some of you might remember that I got an MRI back in like beginning of June, late May, and there was no spinal damage. So I had no slip disc. I had no herniated disc, which is what I kept thinking it was because this back pain has gone on for years. So I was like, it has to be something as my spine's got to be messed up. Right? So nothing was wrong there. So that was good. And then just as time has gone on,

[00:03:07] especially this last month or two, basically what I've learned about my specific injury is that my right spinal erector, which is, you know, one of the muscles that helps hold you up. Right. Anytime it would think my back was in danger, which would be, it could be from a lot of things. It could be bending over. It could be picking something up. It could be standing for too long. Like it could be the most ridiculous things on my back would think it was in danger.

[00:03:35] And then that right erector would just like lock up. And the whole purpose behind it doing that is if it thinks it is unsafe for your spine is trying to stop you from doing something that is going to injure your spine. The problem was I wasn't ever in danger. So it was like overreactive. It was doing something it shouldn't have been doing anymore. So a lot of the work has been figuring out how do I calm that down and get it to chill?

[00:04:00] Because some of it, I'm actually convinced at this point is even less of a strength thing. And a lot of it was learned behaviors. Like I've been in pain for so long that I've taught my body to move in specific ways to avoid pain. Like anytime I would pick something up off the ground, I would brace my entire body. My core would get, I'd get super tight. I'd tense my back and I would like kind of move like a robot, which is in some ways good.

[00:04:26] But the problem was I was basically just teaching that erector, hey, we have to be tight all the time. So it just couldn't loosen up. Uh, so that was kind of my problem, uh, which led to a lot of pain of like when I was really tight, rolling over in bed would be really painful. Sometimes I couldn't even do it. Sometimes I couldn't even really walk. I mean, there were days you just couldn't even get up. I couldn't get off the couch. You'd like, I'd call you and you'd be like, I can't move.

[00:04:51] Yeah. I mean, it was terrible. So that, that is the main thing. So if you know, people out there who have herniated discs, that was not quite my issue. I think there is some overlap in what worked for me would also work for people with herniated discs. But I just want to be clear that my injury, uh, is very different than something like a herniated disc. And also I learned a lot that like back pain is usually not just one thing.

[00:05:14] Like everyone online is actually one of the most annoying things about the fitness world. If you guys think paddle, the paddle reviewer world can be annoying to go to some of these other industries. The fitness world is like, here's the one stretch that'll cure your back pain. And like, as I've been in this for so long, all of that is a load of crap. It is infinitely more confusing. Yeah. It's like, it's going to be more than one thing. Most likely for you, like all these stupid stretches that are like, this will cure your back, man. I'm like trying these things. I'm like, they didn't do anything. If anything, that made it worse.

[00:05:41] Yeah. So that was a whole mess. Um, all right, let's get into some of what worked. Uh, cause I know people want to hear about paddles and not my back. So like I said, back pain is often more than just one thing for me at times. I would be like, Oh, it's my core. Then be like, Oh, it's my glutes. Oh, it's my erector. Oh, it's like my quads. I'd be go through all of these things. And it was probably all of them. Like all of those things needed to get stronger. My glutes need to get stronger. My hips need to get stronger. My core need to get stronger. So I've been working on all that, but I kept believing for a long time.

[00:06:11] Oh, it's this one thing. If I fix this, it'll be done. Yeah. And then I'd find another thing and be like, Oh, it's this. And so I learned that it wasn't just one thing. That was a big thing. The probably the number one thing that helped the most was very gradually loading my back. And I early on, I would be like, okay, well, I can still play pickleball. That's fine. Then I would learn, Oh, that's still too much. And so I kept having to regress. And basically it got to the point where I regressed so low that I was literally

[00:06:41] like bending down just to touch my knees and then going back up. So I would hinge, touch my knees, go up, do that 10 times, do that like two sets. And that's all I did that day. And along with walking, you know, I've been doing my 10,000 steps every day, whatever. And so, but that's just to give you an idea of how little load I could put on my back. And so I was doing these things, literally thinking to myself, this is so stupid. There's, this is so little load that it can't even be helping.

[00:07:08] And then I would do that a couple of days in a row. And then I would notice, Oh, Hey, I can like go to my shin now. Like that's different. And then a couple more days and I'm like, Oh, Hey, I'm on the ground at like touching, you know, my toes. And I'm like, Oh, I couldn't do that before. So I'm like, okay, I'm going the right direction. Then I would pick up a five pound ball off the ground and do that for 10 reps. And like, this is how slow it was progressing. And sometimes I'd go a whole week and be like, I didn't improve at all. But then the next week I'm like, Oh, that's weird. Like I feel better now. And so from there.

[00:07:37] Worked my way into the gym and was doing, there was a cable machine for any of you who are familiar with like basically a pal off press and what that is. You just hold the cable out in front of you and kind of twist. I literally started with five pounds, five pounds. I guarantee you every single person listening to this podcast could probably do at least 20. Like, I don't think there's one person who couldn't do less than that.

[00:07:58] Well, that's the one thing about like recovering from, from injuries and stuff is it is so humbling. Like you just think, Oh, that red exercise band. So weak. Not when you're recovering from injuries because that thing's going to hurt or yeah, like five pounds sounds wimpy, but it's going to feel like a lot of weight.

[00:08:15] Yeah. Because particularly, especially when you are recovering from injuries, something's weak or yeah, you know, you just haven't used it enough or used it properly or use it properly. And, uh, yeah, that at five pounds is heavy. I mean, it was embarrassing to me. Like, I would be like, I hope no one's looking at the weight that I'm doing. Like this feels absurd that I'm doing five pounds.

[00:08:36] But then I would, I would log all of my workouts. And so I could see if I was actually progressing up both in weights and reps. So like I was doing like 10 reps at five pounds and I'd do that for two sets. Then the next week I'd be like, okay, let's go to 12 pounds. See if I can do the same thing and slowly creep up. Usually I wouldn't increase the weight during the week. I would do a whole week of one weight and maybe add a couple more reps. And then the next week I'd add a little bit more weight.

[00:09:03] And continue to trend up. Because again, there were a lot of flare ups during this like recovery period. This was not a straight line up. This was like, oh, I'm doing really well. Oh, I'm doing really bad. Oh, I'm doing really good. Oh, I'm doing even worse than before. Oh, hey, I'm doing pretty good. Like it was very up and down. So there was that. But a lot of, um, glute work, a lot of single leg work, exercises for my hips. I don't think I'm going to go super deep into all of those right now. Maybe another podcast will do that.

[00:09:32] But just for those of you who do have back pain or other injuries, just know that you're going to have to load probably very slowly. And you do not want to load too quick. The mistake I've made multiple times now, the most recent flare up I had was about two weeks ago. A buddy came over and he was like, hey, let's drill. So we drilled for an hour. I felt great. And he was like, hey, you want to play singles? I was like, I'm feeling great. Let's play. So we played two games of singles. I felt awesome. So I was like, hey, you want to play a third game? And I knew I shouldn't have been doing this. I was like, oh, this is probably pushing it. But I felt so good. I was like, oh, let's do it.

[00:10:02] Played a third game halfway through. I was like, nope, I'm done. And I didn't feel terrible. I just felt tight. And I was like, oh, I should probably stop. That set me back a whole week. I literally couldn't work out for a week. Actually, even the second week, I didn't work out because I was still in pain. So don't be stupid. You know, like I'm literally at the point now. Last night I played two games with some friends. Stopped. I was like, that's my limit. I shouldn't go more than that. Yep.

[00:10:24] So my warning to all of you is load very slowly. Like I said, a lot of core and glute work has been very helpful. Those muscles are just your back shouldn't be doing all the work. Your core and your glutes should be doing that. Next up, a big thing that actually really helped me when I would have a flare up is dry needling. That was helpful. But, you know, I have to go somewhere to do that. It's a little annoying.

[00:10:47] So I bought a TENS unit, which is just these little like electrode pads and I hook them up to my back. And then I have this little device that I can turn the intensity up. And it's basically sending little shock waves into my back to get it to calm down. And I only got that maybe a week and a half ago. And that thing has been so helpful. I wish I had gotten that way sooner because anytime I finish pickleball now and my back is a little tight or I'm like, I don't really like how that feels. I'll go put this on and I feel great afterwards. Like I feel normal.

[00:11:17] That's a cure all for people. But for me, the TENS unit has been huge. So I'll usually use that twice a day for like 20 minutes. Again, not overdoing it on pickleball. That was very helpful. I also built an app with Claude to help me track my back pain. So I would log my back pain every day. One out of 10. I would log the exercises I did and then write a little journal note of like, hey, you know, I walked for this long. My back kind of fell this way so I could see patterns over time. Like, okay, hey, that's actually making me feel good. That's making me feel bad.

[00:11:44] Because for any of you who've been in back pain for a long time, it's very easy to lose sight of what's actually happening. Like the amount of times I would be getting better, but it didn't feel like it was like the entire summer. So I would highly encourage people to do that. And then one of the last things I'll say is this probably didn't have as much impact on my back, but I'm sure it helped. I decided to lose a lot of weight. So I was about 171 pounds. And then I was like, I need to clean my diet up.

[00:12:14] So I just started tracking my protein doing 160 grams a day tracking my calories so that I would lose weight. And now I'm down 13 pounds, and I'm aiming for like another eight pounds. And I think I'll be in the spot I want. So that was a big thing to you know, just eating cleaner not eating so much frozen food like I've been eating the same things for like two months. Yep. Chicken breast, cooked away that I really enjoy sweet potatoes, and then like a yogurt bowl for breakfast. And then, you know, some more chicken for dinner. So and thankfully, I'm not sick of it yet.

[00:12:43] I wouldn't be doing this if I was sick of it. But yeah, losing weight definitely helped. So kind of how I am with meals and stuff. I'll eat the same thing for like three months, then get bored of it, find something else, eat that same thing for three months and just rotate. Totally, totally. So yeah, that's kind of what's been helping. I am definitely not done yet. I still have to be very careful how much I can play. You guys are probably gonna get a lot of first impressions from me and less full reviews until I feel like I'm fully back to normal, which hopefully won't be too long. Like I am feeling really good, but I'm

[00:13:13] still a little hesitant to, you know, start doing my normal schedule, like playing five days a week and then hurt myself again. Yep. So yeah, that I guess that's what I'll say for now. We can get to the pickleball stuff. Get to what you guys actually came here for. Yeah. All right. First thing we're going to talk about is so flat top hybrids have probably been, you know, the most trendy topic this year, I think, along with durable grit.

[00:13:37] Flat top hybrids have probably been one of the more requested things that people want to see, which I think is understandable. I do think they have in terms of stability. I think they are better. You lose some maneuverability, but there are probably a lot of people who would take that trade. I know you obviously would take that trade for sure. So one of the things that's been interesting is you got to give credit where credit's due here. First of all, no one cared about flat top hybrids until Yola made one. And then everyone was like, hey, hey, hey, we got to do that.

[00:14:05] And this happens like every time Yola at like, okay, let's let's rewind here a little bit. So the first Yola they released, everyone starts doing the edge foam not too long after that. Yep. The second one Yola was actually a little later on the Gen 2. So I don't know that there was a big thing that was copied with the Gen 2. But then the Gen 3 was like Legacy 6-0. Vatic. Vatic. Carbon. Yep. They kind of all had that before Yola did. For sure. Gen 3. We all know how that panned out. Everyone copied the Gen 3.

[00:14:35] Well, yep. And then they also all copied the gradient edge guard. Yep. Yep. And then the Pro 4, less copied, but people did copy that throat filler foam. For sure. And now with the Pro 5, no one's really copied that. But what they have copied is the flat top hybrid. Yep. Which I'm not mad about. Yeah. But like. They definitely like, I mean, they are trendsetters in the industry. People will follow and copy what they do.

[00:14:57] Yeah. Like I'm convinced. I feel like they could do something kind of weird and people would all end up emulating it, you know? I can see that. Credit where credit's due. I don't think we'd have as many flat top hybrids this year if it was not for the Cosmos. I'd agree. Now, what I will say is all of the flat top hybrids that have existed to date, except for maybe the GX2 Power, I've actually not been a huge fan of most of them because for whatever reason, they all go for a slightly shorter handle.

[00:15:27] It's like in a weird range of like 5'3 to like 5'4. It's not as bad as like a Magnus. That shape. It's not that short, but it's just enough to where I'm like, okay, I could play with it, but it's not comfortable. Yeah, it's uncomfortable. So that includes the Ultra. Don't think it's a bad shape. I just, for me, the handle length, like I'd rather take a vapor or something. It's just kind of in an awkward place where it almost doesn't know what it wants to be. Right.

[00:15:54] Is it going to be a hybrid or is it trying to be an elongated? The handle's just slightly shorter, not quite as comfortable. And this applies to the Cosmos as well. Absolutely. I was not a huge fan of the handle length on that one as well. And they're totally fine paddles, but I just think for a lot of people, it's just in an awkward size range. Yeah. And then, so the reason I bring all of this up is because I bought the RPM Friction Pro V2 hybrid.

[00:16:21] These recently came out and I just assumed it was going to be like all the other ones because everyone just keeps doing the same exact thing. And we were talking about this this morning, but this is basically an elongated handle shape. The taper is a little tighter. Like you were mentioning, like it's not quite the same, but to me, this shape is like perfect. Like out of all the flat top hybrids, if I had to pick which one to use, it would for sure be this one. Out of all the shapes, this is the best one. I agree.

[00:16:48] Like I hope if we settle on like a, you know, kind of a normal definitive flat top hybrid, this is what it should be. Yeah. It's not that the others are bad, right? It's obviously all personal preference. Some people want a shorter handle length, but this to me is like perfect. So I hope that if moving forward, companies keep doing flat top hybrids, let's copy this one. And I'm shocked other people weren't doing this. I don't really know why the shape we landed on is the one we have continued to go with.

[00:17:15] Um, I really don't see any benefit in extending the face from the throat down and losing handle length. I'd rather sacrifice some of the bottom of the face for more comfort with my hands. Yep. Cause when am I ever using any of this? Yeah. Right. You're like, you really shouldn't never. Yeah. You shouldn't be. So I, I actually appreciate this shape for, for the flat top hybrids or just hybrids in general out of probably any hybrid in the industry. This would be the one I'd pick.

[00:17:45] The only thing I guess I'd say for that though, is like, you know, we do have some friends like, uh, one of the guys you hang out with all the time where like, they just want a short handle. So for that crowd, like maybe they're not using this part of the face, but they also don't want the handle bumping into the wrist. Right. But that's such a neat nowadays. I feel like the, the crowd of people that want a shorter handle is a pretty niche, small group of people. Not that they don't exist. They're out there, but it's, it's definitely not the majority. Totally. Anymore.

[00:18:12] So yeah, I just, I want to say, I think that flat top hybrid is really good. So if you haven't been a fan of flat top hybrids because of the handle length, then this might be it. Obviously that still means you have to be a fan of like a gen three. It's not in a lot of other, um, paddles right now, but if you are, then there you go. Yeah. Uh, which speaking of that, we might as well just move on to this. Cause I know people are going to ask, uh, if we have a Jade, don't have a Jade yet. James claims he texted me and he was like, look, I'll make sure I get them to you

[00:18:38] early, but James has also said that about every single paddle launch that they've released. And I have bought every single one of them myself. So we'll see if that actually shows up. If it shows up today is the eighth. When we're recording this podcast based on the text he sent me, it's probably here within the next seven days. So we'll, we'll see if that shows up or not. But obviously everyone is curious about the Jade. I'm sure if you guys saw the whole Instagram thing, this was to me, probably one of the funniest things.

[00:19:06] And I did not expect it to take off as much as it did across the industry, but pretty hilarious. And so we might as well just explain this really quick if people didn't see this. So when the Jade got announced, James did this little like marketing thing for it where he's standing inside the court and he hits it around the post to the other side of the court. And everyone was like, oh my gosh, that spin has got to be bananas. I went through the comments. One, it was getting posted everywhere, reposted all over.

[00:19:34] Like it was just going kind of blew up a little bit in the, in the, if you were like in the paddle, in the paddle industry. And I was like watching it and I go, this is not that special. One, you can tell he moved the net over. Yeah. Two, this is not a special thing to the Jade, which everyone in the comments is like, oh my gosh, the spin on that's insane. I need this new paddle. Yeah. And I'm looking at him like, guys, you can do this with anything. So I said one day I was like, I'm going over to our court and I'm going to do exact.

[00:20:03] And first I recorded it one day where I didn't move the net. Yeah. And I hit the shots, not quite exactly the same. Cause they were, they were still going around it, but they were just higher than his was. And then you point out like, well, let's just do it exactly apples to apples. So nobody can complain. Yeah. Which there was pros and cons to that. Yeah. Because then people are like, well, you moved the net too. I'm just trying to copy exactly what he did. But I, my point in that whole video of me making that and showing that was not to rag on the Jade. I'm sure the Jade will perform great.

[00:20:33] Yeah. Nowadays it's hard to make a bad paddle. So I'm sure it's going to perform amazing. But the point was so many people were falling for a marketing gimmick that is not special to that paddle. I did that with a Frisbee. Yeah. I did it with a wood paddle. I can do that. I did it with a shoe. So this is the part that, this is the part that kind of like why this whole thing blew up. So Isaac, first he did it with a handful of paddles, did it with a used or pro. Then he did it with a prism. Then he did it with like a thrive.

[00:21:01] Like he kind of went down the, you know, normal paddles that you could do this with. And then we, at that point we were like, well, why don't we just see how ridiculous we can get with this? So the next day I was, I went into my garage and I had some paddles that were cut in half from a metal bone. So I did it with a cut in half vatic pro prism. So like the point was just guys, look, you can do this with literally anything. We did it with an onyx Z five. Yeah. A wood paddle, a wood paddle.

[00:21:28] So yeah, it's just the whole point was like, that's not a special thing to that paddle. I'm sure it spins fine, but lots of paddles spin the ball well. Yeah. So it's just, it wasn't, I just hate it when people fall for, for marketing gimmicks. And some people point out in the comments, so like, wow, you guys just really hate hyped paddles. And it's, it's not that we hate hyped things or hype paddles. It's that we hate when people fall for false hype where you're getting hyped over something that's not special. Right.

[00:21:57] And that's the problem because it's all a marketing stunt that clearly can be done by any paddle out there. And so that was really the whole point. It's more allergic to marketing than it is allergic to hype. Yeah. And it's not that we were picking on RPM. I have no problems with RPM. They just happened to be the company that did that. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yola did it. If enhanced did it, any company did it. I would have done the exact same thing. Yeah. So that was the whole point. We poked fun at Yola too with the profile.

[00:22:25] Remember their whole tagline was like, because of they were claiming with the, you know, like the launch angle and it's more consistent now. And the tagline was like the difference between in or out. I mean, like in my review, there are times where like, you can hear me on my mic and I would hit a shot and I'd be like, difference between in or out, you know, like it doesn't matter who it is. Like I, and it doesn't matter who the company is. It's just silly marketing that we, we poke fun at. Yeah. And like, no. And what I thought was funny is people be like, man, you guys like really hate RPM.

[00:22:53] And I'm like, I literally just made a video like singing the praises of the V2, which if people recall the V1, we were both pretty critical of, we're like, this is kind of just feels like a Yola. Like it even looks like a Yola. Yep. The V2 to me, this is not going to apply to everyone. I think it's the best gen three that is on the market. Like I would take that to a tournament and I am, as everyone probably knows. Even for the, like for the, for value as well. Like if you were to buy any gen three, that's what you're going with? Purely for performance. Yes, I would.

[00:23:23] Like if I was like, I want to perform well in a tournament, that's the gen three I would pick. Valid. Yeah. I can see that. I do think that the price point it is and gen threes and how they tend to break. Like if I had to choose between foam and gen three and I'm buying, that would be more difficult. But like, if I only could choose from a sea of gen threes, I would choose the V2. Gotcha. Yeah. So that's, I just thought it was funny because it's like, I literally just made a video talking about how good this paddle is. I definitely think it feels probably the most different amongst gen threes. I agree.

[00:23:49] Just a much softer feel than most, like we were talking about today compared to the Canon, which I was hitting with recently. So stiff. Canon is super stiff. It's a really rigid, stiff paddle. So it definitely stands out amongst gen threes. Yep. And I, look, I can kind of understand why some people think we, we dislike a rag on RPM because when the V1 came out, I was out there saying like, guys, this is not that special. Yeah. People were like losing their minds over it saying is the best paddle of all time.

[00:24:18] I'm like, it's just a copy of any other gen three. Yeah. And when I made that video and posted it that night, James called me and we were talking about it. And I even said, I was like, yeah, one of the only things I've really ragged on you guys for is the V1 just not really being special. And he even said, yeah, that's valid. Like we weren't like he even admitted it wasn't that special. Yeah. So I said good things about the Q2. So it's, it's not a particular thing to RPM. I have no issue with them.

[00:24:47] I mean, yeah, you guys can look through the channel, look at all the reviews. Like I've said great things about Vatic. I've also said very bad things about Vatic. If anyone remembers the Oni. Ooh, that one was, that's worse than anything. I've ever said about a RPM. That was bad. So anyways, yeah. So we'll see when we get a Jade, if we get a Jade. If I don't, you know, I'll just buy myself again. That's fine. But let's move on to some other paddles here. So the Yola FX, not a lot is known about this paddle other than that. It launches September 30th. It'll be foam.

[00:25:16] I think some of the little posts have said, it kind of implied that it would be more grit, more gritty. I don't know if it's going to be a durable grit. I've heard rumors that it's probably going to be priced around like 180. So it's going to be very interesting to see if that's true, how this paddle ends up performing. Because I'm wondering, like, okay. First of all, it's very weird for Yola to release a paddle in the middle of the year.

[00:25:40] Like if anyone knows their launch cycle, it's pretty much always in like the spring or kind of like very early spring is when it gets announced. So, and when we were at the event this year, they were like, yeah, you know, we're not going to do foam right now. Maybe when we feel like we have something innovative to do, then we'll do foam. So I'm like, was the market so into foam now that the Pro 5 sales suffered?

[00:26:05] I mean, I personally have not seen as many Pro 5s as I feel like I have seen Pro 4s or like the 3S when they came out. Same. So I'm just curious if they felt like they had to do it. And then on top of that, even more interesting is that they are deciding to do it as like more of a budget option. So will it be nerfed in any capacity to not compete with the Pro 5? Like I just have so many questions about like how it will be positioned and how it will be received. Yeah.

[00:26:32] I definitely think foam paddles hindered the sales of Pro 5s this year. And durable grit. And durable grit. The people locally here of the higher level groups, there's a lot of people that use the Pro 4 and were very loyal to it and loved that paddle. Then when the Pro 5 came out, now the only people I see using it are either people are really particular and just don't want to switch or people who like work for lifetime and get them for free. Yeah, get them for free. That's it.

[00:27:01] Otherwise, people who were really loyal to the Pro 4 have switched off to other foam paddles or whatever. And I feel like now, I mean, you've been around the higher level group a little bit more recently than me because you've still been playing. But I feel like, I mean, I was at one of the tournaments recently. To me, the big ones that I've been seeing like in our area, it's like boomstick and RPM. I feel like are pretty amongst the high level players. Well, a big part of that is the emerging pro thing.

[00:27:29] A lot of the emerging pro program for Selker. A lot of the higher level guys here just decided I'm going to sign up for that and get the boot. But they still like it. I've been seeing Omnis all over the place. That one's become really popular amongst the higher level group here. And then, yeah, boomsticks are still everywhere. And people like playing with them. Yeah. Yeah. So it'll be very interesting to see what we get from Yola on the FX. And especially then, what does that mean coming in the spring?

[00:27:58] Like I feel like if this is going to be kind of a lower tier for them, my prediction, I guess, would be that this won't have durable grit. And the durable grit will come on their flagship come spring if they wait that long. Yeah. I just feel like it'd be very surprising for Yola to go, hey, let's put like the best grit on our not flagship paddle. That feels very opposite for Yola. So I'm super curious to see that. Probably going to have like a late review on it. I'm guessing I'll have to buy that. And I don't know how long it'll take to get.

[00:28:27] Actually, they're in a lot of stores. So maybe actually that might be kind of easy to get. But yeah. Yeah. I'm sure they'll get into lifetimes and we'll be able to snag one. Yeah. So all right. Next one. Another paddle that we really don't have any information about, but we'll talk about it. The Franklin question mark paddle that Annalie's been using. Yep. Presumably it is foam is my guess, just kind of based on how it sounds on some of the audio and just some hints from Franklin, I feel like, which that'll be very interesting if

[00:28:55] it is foam, because this is the whole this debate is very funny. I was thinking about this this morning. The whole Gen 3, Gen 4 debate is kind of funny to me at this point, because, you know, initially it was like when Gen 4 came out with like the Carbon and the 008. And I wouldn't say it was a very definitive upgrade. In fact, maybe in some ways it could have even been a little bit worse than a Gen 3 in terms of performance. It was just that durability was better. But now I'm like, why do we really care what people use?

[00:29:24] Why does it matter if it's Gen 3 or Gen 4? Like, if you like what you like, use what you like. It doesn't really matter. But I feel like if Annalie is going to use it, I'm curious to see how everyone responds now where it's like, OK, you've got basically what everyone calls like the greatest pickleball player of all time in pickleball right now, now using foam. So what does that say about your well, pros only like Gen 3s? You know, like what does that mean? But we're seeing more and more pros switch over to foam. Yeah, it happens all the time. But it just like to me.

[00:29:53] I just don't even think it really matters. Like, why? Why do we care? You know what a pro can use and what an amateur can use doesn't really matter. And even amongst amateurs, I'm like, look, if you like a Gen 3, like the V2 kind of got me changing my mind about it a little bit. It's just what do you value more? Yeah. How long the paddle lasts or purely the performance of the paddle? Well, we're going to get into that a little bit later with terms of grit and spin. But what amateurs use and what higher level players slash pros use matters way different. Yeah.

[00:30:22] Like for people pros or higher level, it really doesn't matter that much. Yeah. Yeah. Or, but I think in some ways, certain things will also be more noticeable to a pro than like an amateur. You know, so a small thing could matter more to them than it would an amateur, but we'll get to that soon. All right, let's talk about this quick. So I was going to make a video about this. I still need to just shoot this video. I made a whole intro for it. And then for whatever reason, I haven't made the actual video yet. Spent like a whole day making an intro to not have made the video yet.

[00:30:52] Yep. Let's talk about the Selkirk backpack. Yeah. So I'm going to talk about how this whole thing came about for me. Just walk everyone through my experience because obviously this summer, I really wasn't paying attention to a lot of stuff. I kind of stayed out of work. I stayed out of pickleball, but I would still get the products and I would open them and kind of see what's going on. And so I'll just put this on the table here. Here's one of the three new Selkirk backpacks. I'm sure many of you at this point, you're already familiar with it.

[00:31:19] I'm sure all the other reviewers have talked about it, but I get these bags and I open them and I'm going through all the features and I'm like, oh, wow, like some really nice stuff on this bag. I was like, this is especially coming from Selkirk because to me, their bags have always been pretty crap. In my opinion, I, this bag, I was like, okay, this is legit. Like this is in terms of premium. I think this is one of the best bags you can buy.

[00:31:44] I was like, if they nailed the price on this, this bag is going to sell like hotcakes. And so then I was like, okay, used it a little bit. Then I was like, okay, let's go look up at the price. I was like, man, Selkirk, come on. This bag's 200 bucks. That's fine. That's fine. The small backpack, 250. I about fell out of my chair. I was like, no, Selkirk, come on. What are you doing? And then this is the big one, right? No, this is the small one. This is the small one. So there's a smaller backpack and then a really large backpack. And I was like, no, what does that mean? The large backpack.

[00:32:14] This is 25. Yeah, 25 and then 30. I think 40. I think. I'll look it up quick. No, because I thought the duffel was 45. I'll look it up quick. Yeah. Maybe it's 35 for the bigger one. But then the big one, $300. And I was like, come on. I was like, why? It's just a really tough, tough price point for pickleball bags in particular. And I said the same thing about the court caddy when that came out. $300 bag.

[00:32:42] I was like, look, it's an awesome bag. If you've got the money and don't care, like if you just have expendable money, fine. But it's $300 and I wouldn't recommend it that often. Exactly. Now I will say the materials of these new bags, extremely nice. Zipper tabs, probably some of the best. Like these aren't breaking. These are very nice. I very much appreciate a lot of the magnetic features. Those are really nice. Some of these pockets, you just don't have to zip it up if you're playing or whatnot to keep it closed.

[00:33:10] The top has the same thing, zipper and magnets to keep it closed. I think it was very well thought out and designed. But the price is unfortunate. I also really appreciate that it doesn't make you look like a walking billboard. There's not a ton. Like there's a little logo here and here, but it's all blacked out. It's just not that flashy, which is nice. Yeah, I will say. So in terms of some of the features, first of all, definitely the ball pocket.

[00:33:39] That is the best ball pocket I've seen. Like the court caddy with their magnet system for their ball was very nice. The problem was it went inside the bag. So you lost space. And now with this, just one finger, I'm not going to do it because I'll launch it over there, but like one finger and you can pop this ball right out of here. And the other thing is if you don't use this at all, it collapses towards the bag and gets much smaller. So you don't have to have it sticking out all the time. So I think in terms of like ball tube, super clever. Yep.

[00:34:06] Um, I will say, so I love the magnet on the phone compartment because that one, I think that's just like perfect. That's awesome. Love that feature. And I do like it for the main paddle compartment. But what I did notice, uh, having used this bag a little bit now is if you're going to get up and move somewhere and there is a decent amount of stuff in your bag, the magnet obviously can't hold it. So then the whole bag just kind of opens a little bit. That's one thing I noticed with the duffel bag. That'd be one of my small complaints about it. So it's like, if you're at the court, you can just use the magnet.

[00:34:36] But if you're going to go up and move, then the magnet is not really like you have to zip the bag. When you're moving. Yes. It's just nice to be able to quickly close it and walk away without having to zip it. Like if you're going to go play and not worried about your bag, just being completely open for everyone to see what's in there or just grabs like, you know, take your phone or something out of there. I agree. It is. It is nice to just quickly close it. And then I think so. Largely, I like the bags. I think I have two big criticisms that apply to both backpacks.

[00:35:06] By the way, I forgot to say this. The bigger bag is 35 liters. Okay. 25, 35, 45. Yes. Correct. Okay. So first of all, I think the cheapest part of the bag to me are these, the straps. I have a lot of backpacks. I don't like these straps. The way they're connected to, I don't love that. Yeah. I think this to me feels like a pretty cheap bag for the strap, which is an important part of a bag because you're going to be wearing it on your back.

[00:35:35] So I have worn this around and walked around with it. Don't like the straps. Not a fan of those. Okay. Then the only other criticism I really have about the bag aside from the price is I just wish it had more areas for pockets. I understand why they didn't do it on the inside of the big main compartment because as we've seen with a lot of bags, as it fills up, it's very hard to access them. So what do you feel like it's missing in terms of pockets? What would you want? I think just a couple other small areas where I could put some stuff because this one, which

[00:36:03] actually another feature I love, I'll turn the sideways. I love that this kind of canopies out and doesn't just flop over. It kind of holds itself. Yep. But to me, I guess it just feels like the only area you can organize stuff is like, okay, keys, phone wallet go up here. And then you've got a little pouch here. And then these four pockets. Like maybe that is enough, but I just feel like I'm used to more bags where I have more small pockets. And I don't feel like this bag gives me as much organization as I'm used to. Probably not that important to a lot of people, but it was just something I noticed where

[00:36:33] I was like, man, if I'm spending $250, $300, like I'd like the bag to have a couple more organization options. Okay. Yeah. Because really the big area where you're going to put your paddles, you put your paddles in there and then it's just a bottomless pit. Yeah. Which is not the end of the world, but I'm just like, I, at that price point, I would like a little bit more. I'm usually probably just throwing extra clothes in there. Yeah. I mean, I toss a whole bunch of other small things, but yeah, I mean, those are my two biggest things.

[00:37:02] I think it's a good bag, but I'm just like, at that price, like you are definitely competing with ADV. You are competing with forward. I don't think it's as cut and dry as, Hey, this is the best bag in pickleball. For sure. You know, some people I could absolutely recommend this to the bigger bag, the straps, the same design attach like how it's attached. I think it's similar. It's upstairs. Um, it might be a tiny bit different. I only put time and experience on the duffel bag. That was the one I grabbed and I just like duffel bags more.

[00:37:31] Which by the way, I will let Isaac talk about the duffel. Cause he, as soon as it came, he's like, I want that duffel. So I gave him the duffel. I want to know if you guys are team duffel or team backpack. Cause I am very much team backpack. I am not a duffel guy. Okay. So, all right, go ahead and go into your duffel. I'll take this off. All right. We'll swap over here. Boom. Big old duffel bag. So like we said, 45 liters, same materials. Um, it doesn't have backpack straps.

[00:38:01] I think the handle straps and the shoulder strap are very nice, high quality, thick material. The shoulder strap actually unclips and comes off if you don't want to throw it over your shoulder and you just want to carry it, um, from the side handles, which I think is a nice feature. Um, but yeah, it's, I have beat up on this thing, put a lot of hours of bringing it to places, using it as a gym bag, pickleball bag. Um, I have not been nice to it and it is held up. It looks really good. It's held up great.

[00:38:31] Yeah. I mean, it's, it looks awesome. Very easy to clean. Again, I really like that there's just not logos plastered all over it. You could bring this anywhere and no one will know that it is a pickleball brand bag. Yeah. Uh, which I think is great. My favorite features are definitely this accessory pocket with a magnet, um, to be able to put sunglasses, keys, wallet, phone. It's pretty big and has two small organizing pouches in here. And I mean, it's very deep, so it can hold actually quite a bit of stuff compared to some

[00:39:00] of the other backpacks with this type of pocket. The only thing that does get annoying is because it's a duffel bag and it's not really structured. These lips, I wish there was more magnets across rather than just in the center because they'll kind of lift up like this and I just don't think it looks great, but that's a really small complaint. And then, like you said, same thing with the top pocket magnets across. If I fill it with a ton of stuff and I pick it up, it will open.

[00:39:27] But again, that's really not, it doesn't bother me that much. It's not a huge issue. It stays closed when it's on the ground and that's really all I need it for. Has another organizing pocket right in the front, uh, with more, uh, two more pouches. And then this is pretty big. So usually I'll put like my phone and sunglasses in one and then keys and other stuff in another. So they don't, they don't scratch, uh, other things.

[00:39:51] The shoe pocket on the side, I'm not a huge fan of because it takes up quite a bit of space on the inside of the bag. And I just don't, I just don't use it. Also, I don't have huge feet. I wear like 10 and a half, 11 sometimes. And putting my shoes in the shoe pocket was a bit tight. So if you wore like 12 or 12 and a halves, I'd have to test it, but I don't even know if they'd fit. So I'm not a huge fan of that.

[00:40:20] I usually just throw them inside and then it has another organizing pocket on the end. Yeah. So that's kind of my complaints about the bag, but everything else is awesome. The center compartment's huge. It has four dividing sleeves for paddles to stay on the side. Yeah. Which is great. Very difficult for me to show you. So I probably won't. Maybe I'll take pictures and put it up. Uh, and then there's just tons of space throughout the center of the bag. Yeah. I'll throw clothes, shoes.

[00:40:46] I've probably fit 15 paddles inside of this bag and it carries everything I need. So I'm going to do some flying and traveling with this bag more than likely. And I, I have no doubt that it will hold up to all the abuse that I put bags here because I am not nice to bags. And this one is the cheapest one at $200. That's what's crazy to me. I think, but I think that makes sense because I think Selkirk knew that the duffel would sell less. So if you're going to make this $300, you sell it to even less people.

[00:41:14] I just, this is like the fourth duffel bag I own. I love duffel bags. Selkirk is literally telling everyone that they should be team backpack and not team duffel. They're trying to make people team duffel because to make it cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see if it works. I, yeah, I'm, I'm a big fan of the extra space and how I can carry it around. I don't need to sling it over my back. You know, uh, that's, that's really all I have. I think, uh, materials are awesome.

[00:41:41] It's not, you know, I saw somebody comment this on a, on a post and, and I actually agree with them. It's very, uh, peak design inspired, you know, and peak design makes really high quality. Your camera bag is, is, is peak design. We love their products. And I think, uh, Selkirk, Selkirk did a pretty good job with the design. I'm glad you mentioned the shoe thing. Cause one thing I do have a note on the big bag, which I actually have two notes.

[00:42:07] I probably have slightly more criticisms about the big bag because to me, the only thing that you got more of with the big bag was you got, um, you can hold more paddles and then I just had, Oh, you can hold more balls on the side. You have a second ball tube sleeves. You can hold like eight balls, which, okay, that's nice. And then they added a like shoe sling front pouch. It kind of like connects to the front of the bag and then you can slide your shoes in the problem with it.

[00:42:34] To me, this is like the least thought out part of the bag to the point where I'm like, am I using this wrong? Because it's feels so poorly designed. So pull this off the table quick. Yep. Actually one quick thing that I will say is I kind of wish there was a, a dedicated spot in the bag to hold balls because I just throw them in there and they just kind of roll around the bag. So that's one other small complaint. So, okay. So basically see this front area on the big bag. There's like two loops up here and then a pouch that can sling up and then you're basically

[00:43:04] just supposed to slide your shoes in. Yeah. But the problem is, okay, if you unzip this and it does this, the shoes will literally just fall out of the thing. Like, and I've tried tightening it and my shoes, I'm even smaller than you. I'm like a nine and a half. And it felt like it was, my shoes were almost too big. So I'm like, if you're like a 13, like there's no way this is fitting. So I had probably more gripes with the really big bag. If I was going to push people to one of these bags, I'd say just get this or the duffel.

[00:43:32] When everyone, everyone listening, if you've been a listener for a while kind of already knows my feelings on carrying shoes around. Yeah. I just like to have a separate bag specifically for shoes. And then you're a psycho that likes to just wear your shoes. Wear them to the court, bro. They're meant to be worn. Crazy. Is going to wear the grid out on your shoe or taking. No, that's not the reason. If you think that me walking from my doorstep to my car does more damage than me sliding on the court. It's not the damage.

[00:44:02] What is it? It's the grime and crap all over public streets and sidewalks and roads. Bro, if you're walking around, you'll say you just bought a brand new pair, $160, $70 shoes. And you're walking around because whoop-dee-doo, I wear my court shoes everywhere. And you step in some gum. No, I don't wear them everywhere. I wear them outside my door 20 steps to my car. You travel with these things. You'll wear one pair of shoes for a tournament. If we go out to dinner and you step in some gum and you got to go play a tournament tomorrow, have fun scraping that off in the middle of the night.

[00:44:32] Just watch where you walk, bro. Use your eyes. Crazy. I don't know. That's true. I do. Sometimes when we travel, I will just bring my court shoes. Yeah. But I don't know. My feet don't sweat that much. I'm not the guy that has to swap his socks out all the time. Dude, you play a tournament and it's like this last PPA, 100 degrees outside. Your feet just get soaked and they're wet. And you go out to dinner and you're wearing wet, slimy shoes out to- That doesn't happen to me. Get good. Get good. That's what I have to say. Just don't sweat. So I have one joke I want to make about these bags. Yeah.

[00:45:01] I was like, you ever seen that meme that's like, you know, tell me you're blank without telling me you're blank. So in this case, it would be tell me you're rich without telling me you're rich. Yep. Okay, guys, I'm going to list off some items because if you ever see this guy at a pickleball court, I promise you he's independently wealthy. If he shows up with the $300 Selkirk bag followed by eight lifetime balls in the ball pack, that already is a sign that you're like, this guy has got some cash.

[00:45:27] But to wrap it all up, so that already is like, you know, $300 for the bag. But then if he's got a Boomstick, an Omni, and a Pro 5 in that bag, $300 plus a pop. All right, this guy's a big ball. Up to $1,200. Top it off. Add some Yola shoes in there. $180. Then you want to go top of the line Pila sunglasses, which we're going to talk about. You want to know what a top of the line three kit lens from Pila costs? $1,800. Yep. Pop those in there. You got to protect your eyes. Why wouldn't you?

[00:45:57] Protect it from the bangers from some of the paddles we're about to talk about. Then pop a Theragun Pro Plus in there. $649. Bro, this comes. I can't even remember. Maybe bring some melons with. Yeah, sure. Toss some melons in there. Why not? $80 hat while you're at it. That right there, that's like almost a $3,000 bag of items. So if that guy ever shows up at the court, just know that I promise you he's either into Bitcoin, worked really hard in his life, or won the lottery. Finance, bro. Finance, bro. I don't know. Something.

[00:46:26] Dude, so much for pickleball being the cheap sport. Dude, I mean, it can be. It still is. Like any sport, anything can get expensive. Yes. But it can also still be cheap at the same time. Totally. But that is really funny. Yeah. I was just like, oh my gosh, this is, I don't know. There's going to be some characters out there. All right. So let's move on to our main topic, which is we're already almost like an hour deep, and this is probably going to be even longer. So as I've been coming back to pickleball and catching up on all the content, listening to

[00:46:54] everyone's podcast and kind of just seeing what's happening in the community, I noticed there's like a lot of trends in just certain things people are talking about. And obviously the big one right now is grit because some companies have a really durable grit and other companies are claiming they have a really durable grit when they really don't. Okay. So, and now there's this tier system, which didn't exist before we took our break, but basically it's like tier one means it's really durable, less than 5% loss after the various tests, tier two, tier three, and tier four.

[00:47:22] Tier four is basically the equivalent of raw carbon fiber. Just for context, if any of my listeners don't know that, I'm sure most of you do. So I saw a lot of this and I've seen that there's also a lot of debate about, okay, well, hey, something tests in tier one for Brayden, but then for John, it's in tier four. So who's right? Who do we trust? And all of this. And I think there's a lot to unpack with this.

[00:47:47] So I want to unpack everyone's testing methodology, what they're doing and how I think it applies to the real world. So you can all make sense of what all of these different things mean, because I think people have gotten so caught up in just the word like tier one, but they're not thinking about what does that mean in the context of the test that the person is actually doing? Because Brayden, John and mine, there's some overlap in what we're all testing, but there

[00:48:16] are differences that I think are important to mention. So we're going to go over that. And then we're going to talk about some of the paddles because I was testing paddles very recently. And some of them with these new durable grits that are, you know, tier one and really rough are not actually getting good spin. They're actually getting worse spin than their older models. And I think this is really important to talk about. So we're going to have a lot to unpack about grit here. Okay, let's get into this.

[00:48:43] So like I said, people are kind of confused over the methodologies and what's actually happening. I think people need to understand, like, what is the thing we care about? We care about spin output. We care about how much spin you can generate with the paddle and how long you can generate that spin for. We do not care about how long the grit lasts. Yes, generally speaking, grit is a proxy for if it lasts longer, your spin probably lasts longer, right? But we don't actually care about the grit.

[00:49:13] We care about does the paddle spin the ball well and does it do it for a long time? So I think that's important. And then durable grit doesn't matter if the spin starts low. If you have durable grit, but you have 1600 RPM, does anyone care? I would argue no, you don't care. 1600 RPM is as bad as really used raw carbon fiber. Or worse. Or worse. So it's like, no, we don't care if it's low. So now that we've established that baseline, here are the three tests.

[00:49:42] So Braden's is an abrasion test. So basically he has a little device that takes a small disc. I'll grab a paddle here. Unless this has changed over the summer, but I believe this is still the same. It's a little device. It takes a disc with a hard material. I don't know what material he's using. I'm going to say sandpaper right now. I know it's not sandpaper, but just so people understand. An abrasive material. Yes. So he takes it and he'll usually spin it, I think, around the throat.

[00:50:11] And it spins for however many cycles. Highly repeatable. Very consistent. Very fast. To get results, right? The issue with that test is that, one, it's only measuring the grit loss. It's not measuring spin loss. So if he was able to do it in the center of the paddle with a pretty big patch and then do before and after spin test, I think that would make the test really good.

[00:50:36] And that doesn't mean his test is bad because if the grit does stand up to abrasion, I do think that can tell you that the grit might last a long time. So I think that can be helpful, right? But otherwise, very fast to get the data and it's highly repeatable, which is extremely valuable. John's is extreme impact of the paddle's grit. 70 miles an hour is pretty fast.

[00:51:01] Like, I'd say that's probably the equivalent of how you are hitting an overhead. And even then, I would be very curious how fast you're swinging the paddle. I did some like very quick research this morning. I did not do as probably much of a deep dive as I should. But like even some of the tennis players, like on their forehand, pro tennis players, they were making it sound like racket head speed was like 60 to 70 miles an hour. And these are pro athletes. So I'm like, okay, what's the average person swinging on an overhead?

[00:51:31] And on an overhead, the ball is not coming to you very fast, right? So John's test, 70 miles an hour, extreme impact. Might even be overkill. But it is trying to measure how a paddle would withstand a significant beating. He's trying to accelerate the wear so that maybe we're simulating, I'm going to make up a number here, 500 games. So that you have an idea of, hey, if it survives this, it's probably going to survive anything you do on the pickleball court. Yeah. For a long period of time, right?

[00:51:59] Well, and the thing is, like you said, it's extreme impact. But rarely are you ever hitting a ball that's coming at you that fast, that consistently. Plus, it's in the same exact spot on the paddle. So way more consistent than any person's going to be hitting. Or, you know, let's say amateur, because obviously pros are pretty consistent. Yeah. But even them, they're not going to be hitting the exact same spot every time. Yep. So it's just not as close to real world. It doesn't correlate quite the same. Right.

[00:52:27] And but what's great about John's is he's measuring grit before this. He's measuring spin before this with his cannon. And that is like a very good. He's measuring the thing we actually care about, which is spin output. But grit is just kind of helpful to see like, hey, did the grit last but spin still went down or did the grit go down and that correlated with spin? The whole grit thing with like a stare at to me is a purely secondary point. It's only there to back up the spin claim as the only reason I think the grit stuff exists.

[00:52:56] OK, so but again, John's is very fast to get data, which is awesome. And it's also highly repeatable under the same conditions, which is also important. Now, my test is normal impact. I'm playing like 100 games with the paddle to see how it plays. But there are things within that that are not consistent. Right. I am not hitting the same part of the paddle every single time. The speed at which I am hitting a ball. Maybe there are some games where you're dinking more. Maybe there are some games where you're driving more.

[00:53:26] So you're kind of getting an average there. Playing outdoor versus indoor. Balls picking up. Debris. Debris versus John's is all in a lab. Clean balls. They're not being, you know, picking up dust or rocks or crap off the court. So it's very it's just very different. Yep. And then also mine is extremely slow. Like if we were only doing it, if everyone was doing it the same way I would be doing it, you'd be waiting like a month after the paddle review to know the data. Right.

[00:53:53] So but probably the closest to being realistic because it's being used in its intended purpose. Correct. But the one I think the the flaw to mine as well is that a human is doing the spin test. Now, there's always criticisms of like, you know, how accurate are these things? I've been doing this long enough that I actually think it's a lot more consistent than people give it credit for. But it's true. Maybe you're super tired one day and maybe another day you're just like having the best day of your life.

[00:54:21] So I think that is a very valid criticism. And I think that the like probably perfect combo would be playing in the real world, the same person every time, and then taking like John's cannon and combining those pieces of data. Like I think that would probably be the the best of all the worlds here. But my point is, I want to make this very clear. I am not saying my test better than John's or that John's is better than it's like they're all different. And that's the point that I'm trying to get across. They all have tradeoffs. Exactly.

[00:54:49] And what is tier one for Brayden could be very different from John and could even be different from me in the real world. So I think people need to get a lot less hung up on the the whole tier idea because it's just different. Like what is tier one for Brayden is not tier one for John because they're doing different tests. Yep. Right. So again, not criticisms either of those guys. I consider both of them really good friends and I think it's really good what they're doing and I think we need these tests.

[00:55:18] But for the people listening, you should understand what the test is actually measuring so you know how much like, oh, okay, well, this is why they line up different. You know, that's kind of my whole point there. So let me go on and look through the notes here. So I think another thing too is with some of these grits, I think some of them probably will be built in a way that is better for abrasion or better for impact. Like I think there could be a paddles grit that would withstand abrasion really well, but

[00:55:47] then fail really poorly under impact. Yep. I was talking with John a little bit about this the other day. We had a phone call and basically, you know, we kind of came to the same conclusion. Like, yeah, some of these grits, like once it breaks, like it's done. So if you have like abrasion, which is not hitting the paddle really hard, it's just spinning in the same spot. Like maybe you're not breaking it to the point where then everything kind of falls apart. Right? Like I think the example John was, you know, giving me is kind of like with an egg, you

[00:56:15] know, in some ways it can be kind of strong, but the second you crack that shell, like it's useless. Yep. You know, and I think there are a lot of other things that can be similar. Like think of a phone screen right now. For the most part, they're highly scratch resistant, but if you drop it, it's going to shatter. Yeah. Yeah. Some of these grits on the market could be better at withstanding abrasion versus withstanding impact. And some of them might have the best of both worlds. Like hex grit seems to kind of have the best of everything. Right? I believe that did pretty well in Brayden's test. It's done well in John's and it's done well in mine.

[00:56:44] So some of these can kind of do them all is kind of what I'm seeing. But yeah, I just think the context is important of what the tests are. Hopefully that gives people a better idea of exactly what the tests are and how you want to view the different tests. And then let me see here. I'm just I wrote so many notes, guys, just for context. When I wrote this out, this is a 2000 word note document. So I'm like, I should have been a little bit more brief because some of these are really

[00:57:14] long. I guess the only other thing I wanted to say was, and I might have said this earlier is with Brayden's test. I think what's interesting is that I don't think we've really had a paddle yet where grit retained really well. And then the spin got worse. The only one I can think of was the Spartus P1. My grit never went down like it held the exact same number, but I was starting to lose spin. And who knows, maybe there's some human variance in that on me.

[00:57:42] So hard to say there, but that's the only paddle. So that's why another reason I think the abrasion can be valid is generally speaking, grit goes down, spin goes down, grit stay up, spin stay up. So I don't think that means it's a bad test, but you know, we're just missing the spin component from that. Now we're going to get to some of the paddles here in a second. But I guess my whole point is, well, yes, there are some paddles out there that have tier one grit and it's performing really well. And some companies are probably going to have tier one in the future.

[00:58:12] I think it's very important that we classify what we want tier one to be. Does tier one means it just never wears? Because I'm probably, I'm about to talk about some paddles that if these paddles never wore out, I still wouldn't play with them because the spin is that low. Yep. You know, so it's like, maybe we've solved it, but I think it's going to, it's going to get a lot more nuanced over time here. I think we've got a bit before people really nail this home. Yeah. Just because something's in tier one grit does not mean it is end all be all best performance.

[00:58:41] Now I will say so far the paddles that have been tier one, I would say the main three to my knowledge are Spartus's perma grit, hex grit, and then I just completely slipped my, oh, Honolulu's blue grit. We haven't used that as much, so I can't chime in on that. I've actually been putting some hours on the J6. Oh, okay. Nice. How's it been? Been fine so far.

[00:59:07] I mean, the spin and durability has shown very little signs of wear. Not my overall favorite paddle. I think it is good, but wouldn't be my first choice. But I think for grit, we're just talking about that. It's performed good. It's performed good. Yeah, I'll show it to you later. Gotcha. Okay. So like of those three tier ones, they've all seemed to not have some of the issues I'm about to talk about, but I think there could be some in the future that might. So now I want to talk about just some of my testing methodology when I do grit tests or

[00:59:36] spin tests, because it'll be important for these paddles. Sorry for the long disclaimers. I just think it's very important so people don't get confused here. Yep. So when I do my spin tests, I do it like I am playing pickleball and I am trying to hit a serve that would like ace this person with a lot of topspin. Like I am not, I've seen some spin tests where people are basically just lobbing the ball straight in the air, trying to like, there's ways to kind of game it. Exactly. You know, you can kind of cheat the system.

[01:00:03] And I'm going for real world what you would experience in a game if you were trying to play like the highest level of pickleball you could. Okay. So I'm not lobbing the ball. I'm like actually trying to hit an aggressive serve. Typically doing these indoors, I would say actually the test I'm about to talk about, this is the first time I've done an outdoor in a really long time. Cause I think outdoor, if there's wind or if it's humid, like there's just too many variables. So I prefer to do it indoor just to take that variable out. So usually indoor 10 serves.

[01:00:31] And then I average those 10 RPM numbers. I don't take like the highest number. And if there's like an extreme outlier, like let's say everything's averaging 2200 and there's one random one that hit 1400 and one that hit like 2900. I'm like, okay, that was probably a fluke. You know? So we take those out and then average, average the rest using a stocker 3S pro radar gun. Uh, and then if it's longterm grit testing, like I'm testing durability, I usually up that to 20 serves just so the data is tighter. Yep.

[01:01:01] Uh, and to be more sure. And so, yeah, that's how I do my testing. Let's talk about some paths. And if something is an extreme outlier where you're like, okay, was I just having a really bad day or is this either really bad? We will fact check it and do a whole new spin test again. Which is what we're about to talk about. Yeah. It's not like we just did it once and then we're like, this was terrible. We do it multiple, multiple times to confirm our suspicions. So, all right.

[01:01:28] We're going to start with the armor turbo here because this is what kicked everything off. There's two paddles, main paddles we want to talk about today. The MPP turbo and the pickleball apes and S. Yes. So, I took this paddle out when I got them and I've just been doing a lot of serves lately. This has been something for my back just to kind of get used to the motion again. And so, I went out and I was doing some serves and drives and just on my own. And I kept like all my serves were going into the net. And I was like, what is going on? I was like, for a second, I was like, am I just terrible at pickleball?

[01:01:57] I was like, what the heck is going on? And so, I was like, that's really weird. And then I was like, okay, well, you know, I'm warmed up now. Let me go do some spin tests. And I started doing the spin test and the RPM is terrible. I'm getting like 1600, 1700. The highest I'm hitting is 1900, like a single result. And so, I'm like, dude, am I so washed up that I can't even do this testing anymore? Like I'm just, because I'm touching this paddle and it's so rough. Yeah. Like it's, this is not a smooth paddle, right? And so, I'm like, dude, this is insane.

[01:02:27] So, then I went inside. Then I started thinking, oh, it's my radar gun. My radar gun must be broken. Like it can't be this bad a spin, right? So, I go and do it the old way I used to do it, which is you take a high speed camera, you mark the ball, you do the spin, and then you count how many frames it took to complete a revolution. And it was still really low. So, I was like, okay, well, it's not the radar gun. That's good. So, I was like, let me get some other paddles. So, I think the first one I busted out was the VATIC Pro V-Soul Tour. Immediately 2300 RPM. So, I'm like, okay, that makes sense.

[01:02:57] So, I go back to the turbo again. Really bad spin. So, then I start busting out all these paddles. I'm like, let's just knock out all the spin tests. And lots of paddles. Like, let me read off some numbers from some other paddles I did. The Rhombus Quanta Pro, 2325 RPM. The Thrive Pro Ignite Elongated that just came out, 2444 RPM. RPM Hybrid V2, 2392. Inferno V2, 2305. Like, literally all these numbers. The Spitfire, 2327. All over 2300. So, I'm like, okay.

[01:03:27] So, it's probably not me if it's happening on these other paddles. So, then I do a full spin test on the Armor Grit, and I get 1698 RPM. That's really bad. So, then I'm like, okay. Something's got to be wrong. So, the next day, I go to do another batch of paddles. And I'm like, I'll do the Armor again. 1852 RPM. Right? I'm like, okay. That's still really bad. Improvement, but bad. Anything under, like, anything under 2000 nowadays.

[01:03:57] Not that great. Not great. So, then I was like, let me test the other paddles. And some of these were kind of all over the place. So, the wide body, I got 2015. Not that great for what I would expect for how rough this paddle is and the other competition. Then, the hybrid was the best one and felt more normal. That was 2235 RPM. Yep. Then, I tested this elongated. Actually, that was today. So, then I had you come over. That's when I can't, yeah. Actually, wait. Before that, I busted out the OG Turbo. Yeah.

[01:04:26] Because I was like, the OG Turbo didn't spin this bad. Yep. So, I took a slightly used MPP Turbo with smooth grit and got 2169 RPM. And immediately just serving, I could see the difference. Yeah. Like, you can feel it. I was like, okay. I can shape the ball way better. Then, I was like, am I insane? So, I had you come over. And I didn't even tell you what we were doing. Yeah. I had you hit both the original and the armor grit. And then, I had you do a spin test. Didn't inform you why we were doing it.

[01:04:54] And your result with the armor Turbo was 1810 RPM. And then, the OG Turbo, you got 2057 RPM. Okay. Then, today, I was like, let's be completely positive that something is up. We went indoors because those ones were outdoors. And then, I was like, you know what? Maybe I should make sure it's not humidity or something. We took it indoors, 1634 RPM. So, like, the armor Turbo, I gave this every chance I could. I tried multiple units.

[01:05:24] I tested it across different days. I did it with you. I did it with me. I did the old Turbo. I tested other paddles alongside it on the same day. Every result pointed to this does not spin well. Yeah. And then, I even, like, when I was having you test them, not in a spin test, but just hitting drives, I was like, okay. I'm going to watch him and just see which one he's hitting better drives with. And on the armor, you just kept hitting him in the net or your drops would go short. And then, I would notice you would start lifting the ball more to get it to go over.

[01:05:52] And then, you go to the OG Turbo. And suddenly, you were hitting it, like, much more aggressively with the face closed. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. And then, obviously, eventually, I told you. And then, you were like, yeah. Like, this does not spin as well. So, I don't know if you want to just talk about your side of it real quick. And then, we can kind of get into all of this. Yeah, totally. Just comparing them side by side and hitting them the day you didn't tell me what we were doing and what was going on. And then, now, more testing indoors today, hitting them side by side and with some other paddles that we'll get to.

[01:06:21] So, yeah, I had to completely change technique on how I hit shots. I wasn't able to hit with as much pace. I had to – drops were not dipping as much. It was much more difficult to get drops to land in the kitchen with the armor grit versus the OG. So, there is a drastic difference. And the OG one has been used. Yeah. Like, this is not a brand new one that we're comparing. It is a new armor grit to a used raw carbon fiber MPP turbo. Yeah. Massive difference. Yeah.

[01:06:51] Particularly on serves. Yeah. Serves and drives are the two biggest. And for the other area for you when you were hitting against me. So, I went in the midcourt to hit some resets. You were hitting rolls at me. And your rolls were way more aggressive. Forehand flicks and rolls and backhand rolls. is so much easier to get the ball to dip and bounce versus with the armor grit. I could try and hit the same shot, but I had to get under it a lot more, which caused the ball to float.

[01:07:19] And you were hitting volley resets, which is much easier than these spinny off-the-bounce like kicking into you. Half-volley resets. You were missing way more resets off the bounce than out of the air. Completely agree. Right. There was more pace with those rolls with the OG than the armor grit. Mm-hmm. So, just overall around the court, it made a huge difference. Yeah. Like if I had to pick one to go play a tournament with, I'm grabbing the OG. I completely agree. I would not.

[01:07:48] For me, what I have seen with the armor grit that we were testing, I wouldn't take this paddle. And one thing, let me see the paddle. One interesting thing that I noticed, if you look at it in the light and kind of move it around, and same thing with the next paddle we're going to talk about, it's like slightly glossy. Yeah. And so, I think, I don't know exactly what coating or what they're putting in the resin

[01:08:12] to make this a new texture or a rougher texture, but it feels slippery. Like, it's rough, right? But it is a much more slick texture to it. And so, I can genuinely, particularly on drives, just feel the ball slipping across the face. As if I was hitting, now this is extreme, like a wood paddle. Yeah. Or a Z5. Yeah. Obviously, it's not as bad as those. Yeah. But it's a similar feeling off the face on drives and serves.

[01:08:42] Yep. And so, I kind of just have to guide the ball and almost baby it a little bit more. Yeah. And the other thing, so, I'm glad you brought that up because one of the other tests I started doing, this was after I started hitting the Pickleball Ape Zen a little bit, is I was like, let me just take a ball and I'm going to just press into the face really hard and just try and slide it across the face. And if you do that with the turbo, or the armor grit turbo, the ball will kind of slide across. There is a little bit of resistance.

[01:09:09] But then if you go to an OG turbo, I'll put some videos on screen and you guys are just going to trust, have to trust how hard I'm pushing into these paddles. But like on the OG turbo, that ball does not want to move. Like it is like sticking to the face as I'm trying to slide it. Yep. Whereas on the armor, like it goes across way easier. Yeah. So, that was kind of a hillbilly test to see friction. Not super scientific, but there's still some correlation there. And one interesting thing that's been going around a little bit is just because it's

[01:09:39] super gritty doesn't mean it spins well. Well, this is the first time we've seen that. And the only variable that's changed is whatever additive they're putting in. Or coating. Or coating or whatever they're putting on the paddle to try and make it a more durable grit. If we go exclude new durable grit textures and we just go to original peel ply raw carbon fiber. The test of, I have, we have had smooth paddles spin well, but we've also had smooth paddles

[01:10:05] not spin well, but I have never seen a really rough texture raw carbon fiber paddle not spin good. I agree. So, the only thing that's changed is whatever they're adding to this to make it a more durable texture, which in my opinion is, it's adding a level of gloss to it that makes the ball slide. Yep. And that's the issue. So, it can still be rough. It is a rough to the touch texture, but that glossiness is changing it quite a bit. Yeah.

[01:10:34] And we'll see that with the next paddle as well. Yeah, I completely agree. So, this is going to be, you know, this whole section of the pod is kind of a conversation about these different grits. This just happened to be one that wasn't performing particularly well. And I am a little bit confused, right? Because if I look at my spin test, there was the Armor Hybrid, which was getting normal spin. It was getting like 2235. So, I'm like, is something wrong? Is there something inconsistent from batch to batch?

[01:11:00] But like, if the reviewers are getting paddles, like John, the durability on this landed in tier four for him. Now, I have no durability. I can't tell you anything about that because I haven't hit it enough. I'm just talking purely from a performance standpoint. We have done actual testing to measure spin output. We have played with it in games drilling. And then, you know, the hillbilly test of sliding a ball across. And in every single one of those metrics, it didn't perform well.

[01:11:28] Like, it's not like, oh, we saw a number. But then in a game, we're like, oh, no, this actually spins really well. It's like every step of the way, it didn't perform well. Across multiple players. Yeah, across multiple players. So, I just think that's really interesting. I hope they figure it out. I hope it is something as simple as, oh, hey, something was wrong. But like, I don't know. It is really unfortunate because I think the turbos are great paddles. Very good paddles. Like, the original MPP and EPP thought those were awesome. Especially for the price. They're great paddles.

[01:11:57] So, it is really disappointing that what's supposed to be an upgraded version is actually worse. Yeah. And like I said before, these are super rough. So, like, we are now getting to the point with roughness won't always equal better spin because of the coating. Something that is the equivalent roughness texture. Now, I don't have the exact numbers off of Staret to confirm that they're, like, identical.

[01:12:22] But I would say, like, the Facolos, crazy rough peel ply raw carbon fiber paddle. They're probably very similar. And that paddle spins like nothing else. Yeah. Insane. Yep. And the only difference is one has a special coating. The other doesn't. Yep. So, now let's talk about the Zen. Because, again, when I was doing all the spin tests, this one came up. Yep. So, I do a spin test on this and I'm like, huh.

[01:12:46] Actually, before we get to this, one thing I do want to say about the turbo is whatever they're adding to it actually does affect the play of the paddle just a little bit. Not a lot, yeah, but a little bit. But we did kind of agree that the armor grit turbo feels slightly stiffer than the original one. The original was a little bit more plush. Yep. So, they do play different even though they are the same core and same paddle. Which makes sense. You're putting more material on there. Something's going to change, right? Yep. So, but they're just, no, they're not exactly the same. Yeah.

[01:13:16] So, okay, with the Zen, my first RPM test with this, which was outdoors, was 1873 RPM. Then I tried it on a second day outdoors, 1891 RPM. Then we brought it indoors today because I was like, maybe it's the humidity or something with the weather, right? Like, let's be fair here because I think if we're getting a really bad result, like you got to be fair, right? You want to make sure you're doing your job properly. Indoors, the worst result, 1805 RPM.

[01:13:42] And this one to me, looking in it in the light, first of all, looks even more glossy than the armor turbo. And then the same test with the ball or even my hand. I mean, it's slick. If you guys watch, like I will press my hand into this and like my hand goes straight across. Let me grab the turbo down here. This is the OG turbo, not the armor grit. My hand is literally not moving. Like I, if I press really hard, it'll slide up. And then I go back to the Zen.

[01:14:11] What's interesting is, is this texture and just the look of it, especially in the light, how glossy it is. Like you said, there's two paddles that this reminds me of. Both spun very poorly. The Franklin STK and the old Engage Pursuit Ultra. And it's a very similar level of like glossy finish as those were. But again, this paddle, like you touched it. This is a rough paddle. Yeah. This is not smooth. Yeah. This is definitely rougher than the OG turbo. And so there are a couple of things along with this, right?

[01:14:41] So, you know, we don't really need to repeat the whole thing with the armor turbo because we basically had the same exact experience on this, right? Like it was very noticeable on drives, serves, rolls that the ball was just slipping. Like one of the other paddles we tested a lot today, which we'll talk about in a minute, was the mark unmarked. And that thing just rips spin. Like you go from the Zen and the turbo to that and you feel like you can do anything you want on the court. I had to change how I hit the ball so much. Yeah. So drastically. Yeah. Like it was insane.

[01:15:10] I feel like when I started hitting drives, he was like, oh, I'm actually like getting these to dip right over the net and like kind of below your waist. Whereas the Zen, it just felt like I had to hit very flat to get it over the net. Yeah. Or if I tried to hit it the same way that I hit with the mark unmarked, the V-Soul Tour, a Spitfire, any of those, like it's going into the net. Yep. I mean, we were even laughing because as soon as I went from the mark unmarked spin test indoor to this, like five of my serves went into the net. Yeah. Because I was trying to hit it the same way and I'm like, I can't. It just doesn't work.

[01:15:40] You have to change. Unfortunate to me is the performance of this paddle aside from the spin, the way it feels, how hard it hits. Like this is Pickleball Ape's best paddle minus the spin. Yeah. Like if it had raw carbon fiber on it, which obviously would get dinged because it's not a durable grit, the performance would be exceptional. Like if it literally just had hex grit on it, this is probably one of the best foam paddles you could buy right now. Elite power.

[01:16:10] Feel is nice. Very, very thonky. Super thonky. Yep. Soft, hollow kind of feel. Like it's not stiff. Like in my opinion, it's actually probably too powerful. I agree. For what my preference would be and what I would recommend for most people. Well, if you just wanted something that was fun and hit really hard, awesome. Yeah. But what I recommend for what you're going to play the best with, probably not. Well, so that's interesting. I'm curious if we'll agree on this or not, but because we tested a couple paddles today,

[01:16:38] you know, the V-Soul Tour, the RPM, the Zen, and the Unmarked, and the Armor Turbo. These were the only two paddles that I actually felt scared playing against you with was the Zen and the Unmarked. Yeah. Like I have not actually felt scared on a pickleball court in a long time. You were flinching a lot. Yeah. Like, look, I'm not trying to say these paddles are illegal. They pass their certification or whatever.

[01:17:08] But like these were in the territory of power that I haven't experienced in a while. Like I was even just telling you the other day because someone came up to me and complained about the Unmarked. I've had multiple DMs, people complaining about that paddle. Yeah. Like someone in our area played against it in a tournament that I was at and said, dude, like that paddle is insane. Like, how is it legal? And I hadn't hit it yet. I didn't know anything about it. And then today, I was actually even joking with you. I was like, you know, no one's complained about paddles being illegal in a long time.

[01:17:35] Like even me, like, you know, all these hot paddles that have come out, they felt fine. Well, you know, it wouldn't have been our first podcast back if we didn't have an issue. We had a camera die. So if you're wondering why there was a weird cut there, it's because our camera died. Yep. But we're back. I don't remember exactly what it's saying, but basically this is the first time in an extremely long time that a paddle has been so powerful that I was actually flinching and being like, oh my gosh, I actually don't like how hard this hits. Yeah.

[01:18:02] I mean, I don't know if I'd say I was surprising myself, but I can tell you I have not hit drives that hard with anything recently. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah. So it's just weird to me that power has been in a pretty stable spot and then all of a sudden both of these paddles are hitting like nukes. Yeah. To the point where it was like worrying to me. And that was both indoors and outdoors. Yep.

[01:18:27] So I'm not sure exactly what's going on there, but that was my experience. Like I, and it's interesting because both the unmarked, we'll get to the unmarked. We'll start. We'll just stick with his end. I mean, I bagged you from the baseline with this one. Yeah. I didn't feel great. Yeah. But also what's even crazier to me is the swing weight on this Zen is 107. If you loaded this up to like 118 swing weight with weight, I don't want to know how hard this would hit.

[01:18:55] I actually, I don't know. You should go test that. We, I mean, we will have to test it, but like he probably couldn't keep the ball in because it doesn't have enough spin. Well, it was already difficult enough to keep the ball in with the Zen today. Yeah, I agree. And it could have had even more. So very light is a really interesting option, especially as a hybrid. I mean, 107 is nuts. Like that's a pretty crazy stat. But yeah, I, uh, I think the paddle performed really well. I haven't got to play high level games. I've played two games with it.

[01:19:24] And then when we drilled and in the games, I felt like resetting actually wasn't a problem. I felt like I could go from defense to offense pretty quick drilling with you. I definitely noticed it being more difficult, probably just because you're hitting harder at me. But I would say for the amount of power it has, I was shocked how well I could still reset the ball. I'd want some more time to like really flush that out. I'm not going to say like, oh my gosh, guys, it's so easy to reset. I would say for a lot of people, this is going to be a hard paddle to use.

[01:19:51] It kind of struggled a little bit with resets at the beginning and then quickly adjusted and got used to it. And then I had no issues. Yeah. It just took me a second. It just felt like if I wasn't swinging a lot, I wasn't getting a ton of not that, not that I wasn't getting power out of it, but it was like, oh, it's not too bad. It wasn't like super poppy all the time. Yeah. You know? Yep. So that was kind of interesting. But I guess outside of that, did you have any other thoughts just on how it played besides the grit?

[01:20:16] Uh, yeah, just very satisfying, really satisfying feel off the face, very springy feel, not like really harsh. It wasn't as stiff. Uh, I had a lot of fun using it. And like you said, super light. So like doing hands and stuff, I felt like the second I had a ball that was just floating a little bit, I could put a little punch into it and it was over. Yeah. So really fun to play with.

[01:20:41] I just don't think I'd recommend it to most people because I don't think there's many people out there that's going to be able to really be able to control this paddle. If you can't put an overhead away with this, you can't put an overhead with any paddle. There was an overhead I hit when we were playing skinny singles that, I mean, I'm still dealing with some shoulder stuff, so I'm not going all out. And I maybe swung 70% and I hadn't seen an overhead move that fast in a while. Yeah. Like that thing was moving. Yep.

[01:21:08] So it's, it's definitely in an elite tier of power amongst other power paddles, uh, which was pretty, pretty surprising. Totally. So just before we move on from this paddle, I think there's a couple of things I wanted to point out. So since I got to play some actual games with this, when I was playing games with it, I didn't immediately go, Oh my gosh, this is the worst spinning paddle I've ever hit. I can't get anything over the net because I think one thing that people need to understand

[01:21:33] is that when you are playing, you will just adjust your stroke to make it go over. So let's say you picked up the Zen and you hit a serve and it went in the net. The next ball, you're probably going to make a small adjustment because you're like, Oh, that didn't work. So let me just fix it. Like your immediate thought isn't always, Oh, that was just terrible spin. Right. And so I noticed that as I was playing with it, I was like, okay, I can, I mean, I can hit drops and dinks. They're just not as aggressive as I want, or I can't attack from the position I want.

[01:22:03] Like if I could attack some balls from like knee height before now, I have to do it at like waist height to be able to roll. Like I was saying while we were, we were drilling earlier today, testing paddles, I had to be much more picky on the drives I would hit in terms of how high it was bouncing. Yes. If I had a ball coming at me a little quicker and it was maybe knee height, I couldn't hit

[01:22:29] it as hard as I wanted or hit a drive in general versus with the mark. I could pick that thing off the floor and shape it over the net. Yeah. So it just had to be a lot pickier. But again, if you're not hitting them side by side, I could get used to this and go play a tournament and realistically be fine. I would just not be able to hit some of the shots I want. Yeah. And I think where it becomes a problem is like, if you have, like, I'm telling you, if you took two people and you had our mark in this Zen, no one is choosing the Zen for spin.

[01:22:59] A hundred percent. You would immediately be like, oh my gosh, the shape I can get on this ball. And we keep saying the mark, but like this applies to literally all the other paddles I talked about earlier. That was just one of the grittier, spinnier paddles we had with us today that we were using. Exactly. Quanta Pro, the Thrive, the RPM, Inferno, like all of those were like crazy spin. Like they were so good. We just didn't have them with us today, which is why we keep referencing the mark. But yeah, I think it's, it's one of those ones where look, if you're happy, if you already

[01:23:25] own a Zen and you like it, you shouldn't let this change how you feel about it. Right. Because the other thing that I think people don't understand is that when they hear like reviews and they hear, oh, this paddle gets 2,400 RPM, everyone obviously wants the one that can generate more spin. Right. Why would you not take more, you know? But the other thing people don't think about is not every level of player can take advantage of that spin. 100%. I have played a decent amount of like lower level rec games as I've been healing my back.

[01:23:55] I've been playing in some three, five groups and four groups just because it's a little more gentle for me. And watching a lot of these people play, they, some of them just aren't even putting spin on the ball. They're hitting it extremely flat. And like, I just don't think everyone can take advantage of that spin. Right. If you put a really spinny paddle in Hunter Johnson's hand versus mine, I promise you he'll do more with it than I can do with it. And that's extreme. I mean, we could be just saying you and me. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's calm down here.

[01:24:25] I taking, we just came back, but I'm taking co-host applications in case, you know, I figured I'd give him one more chance, but, uh, but no, seriously, like, I mean, that is a good example. Like, I think people should understand that. Look, not every level can take advantage of spin in the way they think they can. Yeah. Well, and I even think going back to just durability and where you and I 20, 20 hours of use on the same type of paddle is going to be completely different where. Yeah. I'm going to spin it more.

[01:24:55] I hit drives harder, overheads harder. It's just going to be different where patterns from player to player. And now you go to the extreme of say a three Oh or three five to a five Oh, then yeah. Like you said, three Oh's and three fives. A lot of times I've been going to some public parks and kind of just goofing around with people almost no spin. Yeah. So like they could play with this and it would not affect them in the slightest. I could give them this versus the facalos. And I bet they wouldn't be able to tell me much of a difference. Yeah.

[01:25:24] Just because they don't know how to take advantage of certain things. And that's not. Yeah. We're probably about to say the same exact thing. Yeah. Just to be clear, we're not like ragging on. Oh, if you're a three Oh, you just don't know how to hit top spin. It's like, yep. The reality is just that at a higher level, your mechanics are generating a lot of that spin. So if you are someone who doesn't utilize those mechanics, you don't actually need that much spin. Exactly. So like the point is just that there are probably a lot of you that could play with the Zen and be fine. I love it.

[01:25:54] But if your goal is pure spin, then no, I cannot recommend this. Yep. Like I, I mean, even with how it is right now, as much as I liked how it played, I don't know that I'd probably recommend this a lot unless they can fix this grit. Yeah. Like unless ours is a dud or something like I wouldn't recommend this a ton. Same. What's the price point of this one? Ooh, I don't actually know. I mean, it's probably somewhere between after code, probably between like one six. I think it's about one 80. I think it's one 99 before code under 200. Yeah.

[01:26:21] If it did, if it even just had regular peel ply, it would have been great. Think about this too, going back on the different levels and how people might abuse a paddle. The difference between tier three, tier two and tier one for the different levels of players. Like if we take a three, five and a five Oh, that five Oh is probably going to be a lot more dependent on tier one grit, but someone that's three, five tier three grit or tier two, let's just say could feel like it's lasting you a really long time because you're just

[01:26:51] not wearing the, the paddle as heavily. Right? So obviously we all want to have tier one grit. I don't want to tell companies, Hey, you don't need to make tier one grit, but I do think maybe there's a little bit of an obsession to where it's like, you might not be wearing the paddle out as fast as you think. And I, the problem is I think particularly like we're seeing with the enhanced turbo and the Zen companies are in a race right now to push things out as quickly as possible with maybe not quite doing as much or proper testing needed.

[01:27:21] And as a result, we're going to get products that are not up to standard. I mean, Luz, Luz is what released like three different versions of grit and all of them have sucked to what I understand, you know, like, yeah, it's just how it goes. I guess for sure. So, okay, let's move on to the Viesel tour. I've actually been pretty excited about it. I've been putting some hours on this one. Yeah. You've, you've really been enjoying it. Let me talk about one other spin thing related to this, because I think it's another thing

[01:27:50] that people have been a little confused about. So I got a lot of DMS when I asked about what do you want us to talk about? And some were saying, Hey, like John got really low spin on the Viesel tour. So even if it's tier one, why would I buy it? Kind of like what we were saying earlier. Right. And so I went and listened to John's podcast. And I think something that people often maybe miss with John is that John has two tests. John has the cannon and John has his arm.

[01:28:16] And oftentimes there are some paddles that get low spin on the cannon, but might not be bad on your arm. Or some paddles are hyper optimized for the angle that John has the paddle at for the cannon. And they'll get crazy spin. Like, I think I heard that the mark was getting like 2,600 RPM from John's test, but then the Viesel tour was getting 1,800 in his test. So the reason I bring that up is because I tested the Viesel tour in the real world, 2,300 RPM.

[01:28:46] And I also feel like I can shape the ball on the court like crazy. So not a criticism of John's test, but just people should understand that there is a difference between the real world and the cannon. And I wouldn't look at the cannon so much as like, oh, wow, it was terrible spin. Like you should probably look at the cannon plus the arm test. Well, and there's, again, there's ways to game both. Companies can figure out how to game the cannon test. Yeah. It's like, hey, let's make it really good at 30 degrees. Yeah. But maybe it's really bad at 40 or whatever.

[01:29:16] And then there's certain people out there who might try and do an arm test and really just lift the ball and shoot it, lob it up and get a ton of spin. Mm-hmm. There's ways to game both. Yeah. So I just thought that was worth pointing out because, you know, if you're going to hear me get 2,300, you're like, how did John get such low spin? And it's because one was the cannon, one was the arm. I think I did check John's website and with his arm, the Viesel tour was 2,200 RPM. So I say all of that to say the Viesel tour gets great spin. Yeah. That was my whole point in saying all of that.

[01:29:45] I've had maybe not no complaints, but few complaints. So you've had way more time on the Viesel tour. You've actually played a lot of games with it. I gave it to you a while ago and let you kind of just hit it around. So I'll let you talk about it first and then we can dive into some of my thoughts. Yeah. So initially when I started playing with it, yeah, spin is great. No complaints there. I don't know the exact swing weight, twist weight measurements on the one I've been using. I think we've got it around here somewhere. Maybe we should have grabbed that. Yeah.

[01:30:16] Power's really good. Counters are awesome. Very satisfying feel. The one thing that is a little strange, I didn't put no weight on it. I've been using it like completely stock. That's crazy for you too. You don't do that. Yeah. Cause I've just been wanting to, to use it completely normal. And to be honest, I've just been kind of lazy. So I just used it stock. I probably will put weight on it. Um, but it has almost, uh, and I, I know people hate when I say this. Okay. But, and it's a little bit, a little bit different.

[01:30:45] It's not quite the same as some other paddles where I've said this, where it has a slight vibration feel. It's, it's very interesting. It's, it's like a, a post impact feel where I can kind of feel the core shake a little bit. It's really not that bad. And it kind of threw me off at first. Um, but I got used to it and I think, uh, tops and drops have been super easy to hit. Um, drives are awesome. Sweet spots as good as anything else. Yeah. So I've had very few complaints.

[01:31:13] I'm even potentially thinking about using this at worlds. Yeah. So it's, it's up there as one of the, my current contenders for sure. They're all 16. They don't make 14, right? Yeah. All 16 millimeter. Their shapes did change by the way. Yes. So this one in front of me is just called elongated. They don't have V seven anymore. Short handle, long handle. They had like a million different skewed, you know, skews. So this is basically just a standard elongated paddle with a long handle, five and a half inches.

[01:31:41] Then they do have two hybrids, the long handle and standard handle, and then the bloom, which is just the wide body. So they simplified their lineup a little bit. Yeah. But yeah. I, anything else? The only thing I will say is just off real world playing and feel. I, I, I wish we got the actual spin numbers from when I was using it new to now. I do feel like it is dropping. Yeah. I wish I had done the testing on that one before I gave it to you. So this new one right here, I did the grit test and spin test on.

[01:32:11] So I'll give you this one after so you can start working on it. But we probably would have had some data by now if I had done that. I just was occupied with other stuff. Yep. So that's, and it's not like drastic. Like I still feel like I can go out, play with that one and be just fine. And maybe part of that is I'm just adjusting to it. Right. Maybe if I hit this one to the one I've been using, which we probably should do, I'll notice a bigger difference. So I just don't feel like the grit on this has been holding up as well as say Spartus's

[01:32:38] P1 hex grit or the blue crystal blue grit. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. We'll keep you guys posted. I am going to probably give this one to Isaac and let him beat it up and then we'll get some actual numbers on it and kind of see where that one's going. But yeah, I mean, I think these battles for a hundred bucks, you know, it's the classic Vatic thing. Everything's a hundred bucks. One of the best values. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's so good. It's really good. Like I think the a hundred dollar area is really competitive. Even if we take the armor grid out and we just go the OG turbo with a raw carbon fiber

[01:33:08] thought that was really good. You have the V soul. Now you have the spitfire, which is another really good paddle. I'm really looking forward to when they make that in a wide body and testing that some more. But I just feel like the a hundred dollar area is like you can get, look, we've said this for a long time, but price is not the problem restricting you from getting a good paddle. Yeah. Have we gotten, do you know the swing weight number on this? Okay. The one interesting thing is a lot of times recently when companies, unless they come out

[01:33:35] with a, a well-performing durable grit, newer paddles to older versions haven't been that big of a jump in my opinion. Say the soul pro to this, I actually feel like there's a bigger difference. I still think the visa pro is great, but that one I probably wouldn't use unless I put weight on it. I've been using this without weight and I really haven't had that many complaints. Like it's totally fine. Yeah. Again, I probably will add weight to it, but I don't feel like it's necessary. Yeah.

[01:34:03] And so to me, that's, that's a, I would just wish I knew the exact, like maybe it's just heavier and it doesn't need weight because it's, it's heavier stock. Well, I think they did change, make some tweaks to the core. Yeah. So I, I prefer this over the, the visa pro. Okay. I haven't gotten to hit a visa pro in a while, so I can't really give a comparison on that, but I have been hitting the, the bloom shape and I've really liked it so far. We've drilled a little bit with it. And again, I don't really have any complaints either. Like I don't, the only thing that I feel like someone could say bad about it would just

[01:34:33] be personal preference things. Like if you don't really like a stiff and hollow paddle, then it's not for you, but like it spins really well. It's cheap. It comes in all three shapes. Like, I don't really know what more you could ask for. You know, I think a lot of it just comes down to what feel are you looking for? Like maybe you want to spitfire because I haven't hit that one enough to say for sure, but it kind of strikes me initially as like a soft hollow ish paddle. And that would be the reason like, okay, if you don't like one or the other, you'd pick it over that.

[01:35:03] But I've had not a complaint with sweet spot again, similar to you. I don't even know if I would need to add weight, which is pretty abnormal because I kind of add weight to everything. Yeah. Yeah. I literally, it just comes down to if the grit is really good, if it's tier one, like it came back in John's test, that's elite. Yeah. For a hundred dollars, there are $250 paddles that don't have that. You know what I mean? I'll tell you right now, I would take this over a pro five. Sure. All day long. But would you take it over, like, let's take some other ones.

[01:35:33] Like a boomstick, an Omni, like other expensive paddles. Yes. Okay. The only things that are coming into question is like P1. P1 would be the biggest contender of like a more expensive paddle that I'd probably pick over this. What about Aura Pro? Aura Pro. That one, the only thing is it doesn't have a durable grit. I don't know if they're working on that. What if it did? If it did, then I'd probably prefer the feel of the Aura Pro. That is one of my all-time favorite paddles. Okay. That paddle's so good.

[01:36:02] Yeah, that's why I asked. I was just curious how much of it was like... Feel. Yeah. Yeah. I just, the way I play, it's so easy to reset. Plenty of power on drives. That is one of the best paddles in my opinion. It was a good paddle. So just, if it had a well-performing durable grit, let's just say it had hex grit, P1's grit, blue grit. I would take that over anything on the market. Okay. All right. Dang. That's high praise. Yeah. All right.

[01:36:29] I guess last thing I'll wrap up, because I don't think I said it, on my bloom, I got 2320 RPM and then 2249 on the elongated. So yeah, spin was plenty good. Not a problem there. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about this marked paddle. Yeah. This will be one of the last paddles we talk about here. Yep. All right. Kind of looks like a popsicle, the shape. Yeah, it kind of does. You know what shape does this remind you of? There's one particular pad. It's slightly different at the top. 006? Nope. Really?

[01:36:58] Taper at the throat. Think. Honolulu? Yes. Yeah? And I hate it. Okay. I don't hate it, but I just, I do not prefer when the taper of the throat flares out more than 90. Like sideways. Yeah. Just because you lose real estate for, it's just less comfortable for twoies. Well, and I feel like for you, like this, you know, again, comes down to a lot of the nuance that I think paddles have come to at this point. There are going to be people who would rather have that stability, but for you, you're like,

[01:37:26] as someone who is a higher level player, that stability might matter less if you would rather have the handle length, right? For sure. Yeah. And again, I'm not saying this is bad just because of that. I actually think performance of the paddle is great. It's just a small preference that I have. Yeah. There's going to be people who don't care at all. Yep. But it does remind me, if you just chop the corners a little bit, it would be the same as, actually, I mean, I have it. Oh, in your bag, the Honolulu. Look at the throat taper. Yeah. I mean, put them up and hold them up. Very, very similar.

[01:37:55] It's just that the corners at the top aren't cut. Yeah. They are really similar. So it's a J6 shape. Got it. Just without the cut corners at the top. So, okay. Let's talk about this. 110 swing weight, which is crazy for an elongated paddle. Wildly low. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but okay. Okay. I mean, we've been alluding to because of talking about it through all the spin stuff, but like, you know, spin was really good, just like it was on all the other paddles we mentioned that tested well.

[01:38:23] And it just hits very hard. Like it, a very different feel profile from the Zen, which just feels very like cushioned, is super thonky and loudest. A little stiffer. Yeah. Definitely a little stiffer, more thonky, stiff hollow. So, uh, I, I mean, I, I don't really have a complaint about this paddle. It's again, like you want something that'll launch the ball and you want it to be low swing weight. Cause again, think about this, put some weight on this thing. What's it going to do to the ball? I hit one with weight on it. Oh, you did?

[01:38:53] Yeah. We have a player here who's like sponsored by Mark. Oh, okay. Gotcha. So you've hit it. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it just like, I had not a complaint about this paddle. I don't think I had anything bad. I can say the only thing is if I am recalling correctly, I think the grit was like around tier four for John. Obviously I have no idea on the durability. I haven't gotten to test it yet, but like it's spun very well and it hit the ball very hard and it's light. Yeah. Those are all good things. Yeah. Depending on what you want. Depending on who you are and what you're looking for, for sure.

[01:39:23] But yeah, it being light, customizable, uh, plenty of power. Four, I had no issues resetting with it. Uh, but yeah, serve dude, comparing to the Zen. Oh gosh. It wasn't even close. My serve dude, you missed so many returns. I felt like I was, dude, I was hitting my serve harder than I've hit in a while with this because I could just swing more freely than with the Zen. With the Zen, I had to guide it a bit more to keep it in this. I just swing as hard as you want.

[01:39:50] I was putting so much into that serve, but yeah, it was great. Yeah. Yeah. I, it's one of those ones where I'm like trying to think of like something interesting to say about it, but it's just like a, not that there isn't something interesting. It's just good. Like a lot of other things are good. What I will say that I think they did a really good job with this and you know, maybe some people disagree with me, but I like that there's almost nothing on the face of the paddle. Mm. Graphics wise. It's just simple. It's super simple. You don't have any graphics getting in the way of, you know, spin or is it going to affect

[01:40:19] the spin texture or whatever. I like that it's blank. Yeah. I think that's actually great. I wish more companies would do that. I think the thing I'll say, this is, I guess, more about their Mark's older paddles than it is about the unmarked, but not only is this their best paddle, but I just think the old paddles they had were always extremely mid, very average. Like they're not bad performing, but nothing special. Kind of behind. Yeah. With, with things.

[01:40:47] It was just always late and it was like, I don't think this brings anything new to the table and they weren't super expensive, but they were more than some of the other competitors. This is the first one where I'm like, yeah, a lot of people, this would probably turn a lot of heads. Yeah. Like if someone faces at a public court, I could see people being like, oh, what is that? Or if you played against an old unmarked or Mark paddle, you'd be like, okay. Yeah. Whatever. You know, this is like hits hard enough and has enough spin that you'd be like, whoa, hang on. Like what is that thing? Yeah.

[01:41:14] I mean, there's a kid at a public park that I go play at who, who got two of these and he's having a really hard time adjusting to, he's like, dude, it's too powerful. I can't control it. Yeah. I think that is the downside. It's like, you know, you're someone that can't handle a lot of pop. You probably don't want this paddle. Like it'd just be too much. Dinking is going to be difficult. Drops are going to be popping up. But if you get a high ball, it's going to be put away. You need to have a very well-developed soft game. Or I guess if you're just a big banger and that's what you want to do, well, this and

[01:41:44] the Zen will do that. This just has way more spin. Yep. You know? And that's why like, if I was comparing the Zen and this, I'd be like, yeah, go buy this over the Zen because like you can keep the ball in, you know, but who knows how long it's going to last, the grit. That'd be the kind of biggest asterisk. And at the moment, these are only USAP approved. Correct. Yep. Yep. Yep. So no UPA there. Same thing with the Viesel Tour. Yes. Only USAP. Just USAP. Some of that might start, we'll probably talk about it on another podcast episode in

[01:42:14] the future about, you know, USAP is developing a spin test and I have some thoughts on that as well. And I think that'll kind of balance out the, does it need to be UPA or at that point, it'll purely come down to what league do you play in? And less of, I would say this whole summer, it's been UPA paddles are better because they get more spin, you know? Now, potentially with USAP's test, it'll be a more even playing field. Yeah. So. All right. That is that. The last pedal I'm going to talk about, which we don't actually have yet at, it just kind

[01:42:43] of goes to show where I think this is a very smart move is Volair licensed hex grit from 11.624. So the next paddle that is coming out, we'll have hex grit on it. And that is smart for a lot of reasons. One, everything we just talked about, you, do you want to be like one of these and have this problem where you spend a lot of time and then maybe it still didn't turn out? Time and money. Time and money. And then the other thing too is hex grit is probably the most well-established grit

[01:43:12] that does really well at this point. And so if you license it, you gain all of that clout with it. You don't have the time period of have reviewers test it, have the general public learn what it is and then also go, is it good? Do I believe this is good? People just see the name and know. Yeah. So to me, I'm like, man, how many more companies are going to start licensing hex grit? That might be a really smart move. Well, great smart move on Volair for that, but also smart move on just 11.624 and opting

[01:43:40] in to start that process with one company. Because once one does it and succeeds, it's going to start spreading. Well, think about this. Another reason that I think it's probably smart for 11.624. You're sitting there going, okay, I don't want my competitors to beat me in long lasting grit, right? That would kind of suck. But you have one of two options. You can make money by giving it to them and they have to pay you for it, or they can eventually figure it out and you make no money and they're still competing against you. Yeah. They're competing against you one way or another, but at least one, you make money. You're profiting.

[01:44:09] So I'm curious to see if we see a lot more companies do that because after experiencing what we did on the armor turbo and the Zen, I'm like, I mean. Imagine this. Imagine a world where Yola, because we've been seeing acquisitions. Yeah. Okay. Selkirk bought bread and butter. Imagine Yola buys 11.624 and throws hex grid on the Pro 5. Or whatever they come out with. Or whatever the next. The Pro 6, the FX, what's coming out. Whatever their next paddle is. Imagine that.

[01:44:39] I mean, it'd probably be good. And then they stop licensing it to everyone because that's what they would do. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, naturally, I think that can also be smart too if you keep it to yourself. That'd be interesting. So, yeah. I just think that's a very smart move, a very interesting move. I know nothing about how the paddle performs. Not going to say anything there. But, yeah. I just think that's incredibly smart. Yep. You just gain all of the work that's been done for the last six months in terms of testing. You just gain all of that with your paddle. Yeah. That's awesome.

[01:45:07] Without having to spend time or money on testing new things, communication back and forth with China, which is a very long process unless you go over there yourself and do all that. And if you're not an engineer, then you're just relying on the people at the factory. Yep. So, yeah. If you just spend the licensing fee, you lose a little bit of money, but you know you're going to get a better product. Totally. So, okay. Let's see. I don't even know how deep we are because that one camera reset.

[01:45:34] Well, about a little under two hours. Let's freaking go. Yeah. And we still got more to go. Yes, sir. All right. We maybe got another 15, 20 minutes. Okay. That's what you think. Yeah. That's what you think. We're yappers. Hope you guys are enjoying. So, all right. We're going to talk about the Pila sunglasses. So, I'm sure if you watch Pro Pickleball, you have seen so many pros wearing these. And I want to kind of walk you through my journey of these glasses. So, first of all, I bought these myself. I don't even have a discount code. Yep.

[01:46:02] I spent $1,800 to buy two sets of these. The question is, man, how much are your eyes worth to you? Well, they're worth a lot more than $1,800. More than $1,800. I will tell you that my eyes are worth more than $1,800. As someone who almost lost his left eye vision. Oh, dude. I will tell you it's worth more than that. That was bad. So, yeah. Just wanted to say, did buy these myself. These were not sent to me. So, let me walk you through my journey of when this company first came into Pickleball. They first came into Pickleball. I didn't know anything about them. Right?

[01:46:32] I just saw them. I saw the glasses. And my first thought when I saw the glasses was, holy crap, those are extremely ugly. I was like, those are the ugliest glasses I've ever seen. Bro, that's so funny because on one hand, I'm like, okay, I get why people would think they're unattractive. But, bro, I kind of like it. Well. It's like, you know, a little sci-fi. I also love the fact that frameless. Like, you don't see a frame. It doesn't obstruct my vision at all. Do I look a little silly?

[01:47:01] Maybe in some people's eyes, I kind of like it, you know? Well, we'll get to all of that. We'll get to that. But my first thought when I saw these on Pros, I was like, those are the ugliest things I've ever seen. I was like, you ain't going to catch me dead with those. There's just some people, it doesn't fit their face. Yes. I agree. So, I thought that. Then I saw the price and I was like, so hang on, you're going to pay $500 to look stupid? I was like, no, you ain't catching me looking stupid for $500, right?

[01:47:30] So, they have a lot of different models and they vary in price. I think the cheapest ones, let me check here, are $399 for one lens. Yep. But we'll get to all that in a second. Okay. So, then I was like, okay, you know what? So many pros are wearing these and I am starting to get questions like, hey, what do you guys think about these? And a lot of the pros are buying them themselves. Yeah. Yeah. They're not being sent them either. Yep. So, clearly they believe in the product. Yes. So, I was like, let's check them out. Okay.

[01:47:59] So, I get them and I try them on and I will admit, I put them on and I was like looking in a mirror and I was like, you know what? Honestly, these don't look anywhere near as goofy as I expected them to. Yep. And I have worn tons of glasses in the past where I'm like, you couldn't catch me dead with these, you know? So, I will give them credit for that. I definitely changed my mind on that. I don't think it looks that bad. Maybe I would still prefer myself in more of like those normal sunglasses you have there. These are just some standard sunglasses. I think I look better in those. Yep.

[01:48:29] But I wasn't that worried about it. Like, honestly, there are some glasses where I would probably be self-conscious enough about them that I would not wear them. Yeah. These don't fall into that category after trying them. So, I was wrong there. Let's kind of go over just, they have, their website's extremely confusing. It was even more confusing when I bought these and I'm going to try and make it a little more simple for you. The big thing with these is the amount of customization is overwhelming. Yes. But it's also a benefit.

[01:48:55] One thing with sunglasses in particular is it is not always a one size fits all. Yes. I think you and I have pretty narrow, small heads and some glasses just don't fit well. We have one friend. She's very small, very petite and very few glasses fit her face when she was looking for protective eyewear and really struggled with that. So, the benefit of these is there's so many different ear pieces, nose pieces.

[01:49:21] The customization to actually get a comfortable fit no matter who you are is like endless. Yeah. And I think that's a big benefit, but it's confusing when you first get into it. Yep. So, they have like six or seven different shapes of the glass in front of your eye. Okay. So, the one eye I'm holding right now is the Neptune. This is what Annalie Waters wears. Yep. I'm not going to go through all the options, but they have the Azure, which just recently

[01:49:48] came out, which is my understanding is it fits much smaller faces and it also doesn't have quite as big of a visor look. It still has a little bit of a visor look, but it's less. So, I think if you were looking for one that didn't have that look, look at the Azure. Then they have the Razer and Razer Max. Honestly, couldn't tell you the difference between those. I don't know because it's that confusing. And then the Zeus is their like premium, top of the top, most expensive. If you buy a three lens kit for that, that is $1,800.

[01:50:17] If you buy one lens, that is $749. So, we are talking pricey, super money. I had someone helping me a little bit and he was like, I would not buy the Zeus. He was like, it's just too big on most people's faces. He's like, I wouldn't bother. And so, I was like, okay, I'll buy the Neptune and the Azure. Now, and I could be saying that wrong. Azure, Azure, I don't, you know, whatever. I was expecting the Azure to fit my face better. And so, I bought the regular three set lens that they recommend with that one.

[01:50:46] And then the Neptune, I was just less convinced would fit me. Turns out it was completely flipped. So, the Neptune fits my face like a glove. It is awesome. So comfy. Same here. The Azure was a little tighter on my head, but also I bought the adjustable nose piece, which only goes up and down. It doesn't go wide. The only thing it needed to do to be better for me was if I could just widen the nose piece because it would sit too high on my nose bridge. And that's the purpose of that. It's meant for people like Asian fit glasses.

[01:51:15] So, there are a lot of people to be awesome for. But it did not fit me or you or another friend of ours who is more Asian than both of us since we're mixed. And for her, it was still too narrow and sat too high up. It's just really tough because there's no place you can go and try these. So, you're kind of just gambling when you order them. Yes. So, Neptune has been perfect for me. Personally, the one I would probably recommend. If you know you're someone with, what do they call it, like a low bridge or high bridge, then you may want to look at the Azure.

[01:51:43] The forehead padding here, I actually didn't think I was going to like it very much. Love that. So comfortable. Now, that's really good. Amazing. Yeah. This is awesome. Yep. I wish I could have that on every pair of eyewear for pickleball specifically. I agree. Not day-to-day use. But for pickleball, love it. I think what's nice about it is it prevents it from getting too close to your face to where then sweat can get on the lens easier. And the Neptune, by the way, also does, I think it might be the only one.

[01:52:12] Not 100% positive. It might be one of two. Has a couple vent holes in the corner. I mean, they're pretty small. I don't know how big of a difference that's making. But because of the forehead band, it makes a bigger separation. So if you're someone who fogs glasses a lot, which I'm not, but there are people that happens to, it should let more air out and hopefully not fog. I've had zero fogging issue with these. Yeah. I've worn these ones and the other ones we have and haven't had any issues with them fogging up. Yep. So the Neptune, my opinion, awesome. Gonna come down to your face and what shape you're looking for.

[01:52:42] But I do think this shape is very good. The Neptune, if you buy it with just a single lens in the frame, it is $449. And then the three lens kit is $899. Look, guys, I am just as appalled at the price as you are. I'm not saying that is a steal. We'll get to that. But we're talking about the good things now. We'll get to some of the bad things later. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have something to say? Well, I was just going to say like, yes, I'm well aware. This is a, these are crazy prices for eyewear.

[01:53:12] But at the same time, like I said at the beginning of this, how much do you value your eyes? These have an element of protection and safety standards. They come from shooting sports. Pila was a originally, they were built for shoot and still is for shooting competitions. Yes. I actually know somebody who did trap shooting in high school and he owns a pair of these for shooting. Yeah. Not the pickleball ones. So there's an element and there's Zeiss. I'll just put on them.

[01:53:42] People can see how they look on me. It's Zeiss glass, right? Yep. And for those that don't know, Zeiss is like a glass company. They make camera lenses. They're just very well renowned for extremely high quality glass. And so if you get hit in the face with those, you're not going to have any worries about damaging your eyes or getting injured or anything. There is an element of safety to them. So it kind of comes down to how much do you value your eyes? Yep. Totally.

[01:54:07] But we'll also come back to that because I don't think you need to spend $500 to get protection. Yep. So let's talk about the lenses a little bit. This is something I'm going to go slightly less in depth on. I guess I should pull up their website and it'll make it a little easier to talk about this. But basically they have, this is one part of the thing that makes it very overwhelming to choose what you're going to buy from Pila is they just, it got a little better, but it was so confusing when I was buying. Let me pull up their website.

[01:54:37] Neptune lenses. And again, if you are buying these or looking at buying them and seeing the different colors of lenses, because there's so many different options, like the two that we have, these versus the other ones, they're just very different. Right? So like the lenses you have on right now kind of just are more normal. They make everything look pretty saturated. So these ones are actually more of an indoor one. This is the indoor ones? Yeah. The other lenses you have. Yes. Make it very saturated. Then there's the other frames that we have.

[01:55:07] It's very blue. Turns everything blue except for the ball. So it makes it stand out more, but it's just different. So if you're looking at buying them, it's hard to tell what you're going to prefer without seeing through them. Yep. And so it just gets tricky. So, okay. On mobile or my iPad here, the website is not quite the same on desktop. So they have a slightly better way of explaining their lenses now, but I'm going to walk you through the ones that I think are relevant for most of you.

[01:55:35] The other ones are a little bit more niche. So first of all, their naming scheme is a little confusing. The first one we'll talk about is the 26 C-I-E-D. There's all codes for what these things mean. Like the 26, I think is 26% of light is transmitting through the lens. And then all the other letters mean, you know, something. These would all make sense if you take the time to learn it, but it's just really complicated. Yes.

[01:56:01] So the 26 C-I-E-D, that is like their outdoor recommended lens, bright sunlight. Those will saturate everything. Like saturation just gets boosted through the roof. So everything becomes more vibrant, including the ball, but then so is the background. One of the other lenses I bought is the 30 HIR. That is what Isaac was talking about. That turns everything blue. It's funny. The way they describe it on the website is that the idea is it desaturates everything except

[01:56:31] the color of the ball. But as someone who does a lot of video work and has worked with a lot of color, to me, it's like someone took the white balance and just shifted everything blue. Yeah. Like the ball maybe mildly stands out more, but not so much more that I'm like, oh, wow. Like I can really see. I really just think it takes like preference of what your eyes like to see for color. Cause I actually liked those lenses quite a bit. Same. I think they're good. If I got used to it, it's just weird. Yeah.

[01:56:58] You know, it's just different, but if I could get used to it and I probably would really like it. Mm-hmm. So then the next one is the, I guess, I think on their website, they call it like the watermelon lens. That's the 62 CIHW and that is meant for overcast. And I believe also saturates kind of everything, but it's built to let in more light on days where you don't have full sunlight.

[01:57:21] Then the next two most popular from my understanding is the 92 CIL. So 92% of light is coming through. That is the indoor lens. That is meant to be played indoor at facilities. It's not meant for outdoors. And then the other one is kind of an indoor overcast lens. It's the 82 CIRG. I believe that'll saturate more than the 92 CIL, but it's not going to let in as much light. So kind of depends on the venue you're playing in.

[01:57:51] You'd probably need a venue with brighter light. So the ones they try to push to most people from their website is the 26 CIED for outdoor sunlight, the 62 CIHW for overcast, and then the 92 CIL for indoor. So that would be your like cover you in every scenario that you would play pickleball in. But there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven other lenses you could do between overcast indoor.

[01:58:21] And then there's one that's like 9.5% of light comes in. So if you were in, I don't know, the desert, maybe you want that. Or if you have sensitive eyes. Some people with like blue eyes are, you know, kind of sensitive. Yep. So I know all that's really confusing. Also, the lenses are expensive. They're like $2.75 a pop. Crazy expensive. That's a lot of money. It's nuts. I mean, it's just insane. It's so much money. And then they do have different ear pieces that go back. And I'm not going to go over all those.

[01:58:49] I just got the standard like straight ones because there's ones that flare out and all these other things. Kind of hug your head a little more. I just went with a basic one because I was like, I don't really want to mess with something weird. I know I like this. Yep. And it fits on. I like how light they are. They're very light. Like you'll forget they're on your face. Yeah. I've forgotten these are on my head multiple times. So comfy. So that's the lenses. You're probably going to have to do a little bit more of your own research. At some point, I want to do a review of these and I'll cover all of it more in depth. But these are my initial thoughts after having these for about a week and a half.

[01:59:19] Yep. So, okay. That's the lenses. I want to talk about some of the pros and cons. So I'm going to start with the pros. The full wrap around. There is no spot. Like because there's no rim or anything. All I'm seeing is normal vision. There's nothing in my vision that is blocking me from seeing anything. Yep. That is the advantage of this like visor look. Big benefit. Nothing is in your way. So I think that's a big pro. We talked about the sweat bar. Big pro. The vented holes.

[01:59:47] And then with this company, you get a lot of options for lenses, which depending on what you're playing in, that can be awesome, right? Yeah. So those are mostly the pros. Oh, and light. You know, we just talked about that. They're extremely light. Don't really notice. They're on the face. Having the option to be able to play indoors and have them. And then maybe it rains out and you have to switch to indoor and being able to wear the same thing, just swap out the lens. Huge. Because these regular sunglasses, they're pretty dark. I can wear these outside.

[02:00:17] The second I go indoors, I can't wear these anymore. Yep. Totally. Now the cons. Very hard to understand who each shape is for. I really think Pila needs to do a way better job, like different models or a video explaining on different people what each of them are for and how they look. That'd probably be the easiest way to do it. As a video. Yes. They really need to do that. If it's on their website somewhere, I thought I looked everywhere and I couldn't find it. Yeah. Maybe it is and I just don't know. The lenses can be confusing, but once you understand it, it's really not that confusing.

[02:00:46] The price is insane. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. It is just insane. Wild. Uh, in my opinion, I'm going to do more in-depth testing and maybe I'll do a comparison video at some point. I wouldn't say that the clarity compared to other companies that produce performance eyewear is that much better. Like it's very good. I don't have any complaints optically, but other companies, I have bought my own pair of Rhea eyewear. Briody has sent us lenses. They actually just sent us some new ones.

[02:01:15] So we'll have to check those out. And I have been wearing Oakley's for a while. None of those. I have ever looked at the ball and pickleball and gone, optically, this was better. And I don't feel wearing these that suddenly optically, I'm like, Oh, this is, I'm at an advantage now. Sure. You know what I mean? Yep. So maybe it is a little bit better, but I wouldn't say it's worth 300 extra dollars better. Right. You know? So I do think that I would put that in the car. Well, and you know, at your level, like you were saying, maybe you're just not quite the level where you can take advantage of the benefit.

[02:01:45] I mean, I do have bad vision. So maybe that's part of it. The other thing I'm going to say, so this is actually kind of funny because I don't get to experience this very often since, you know, a lot of times products are getting sent to us for free. I don't have to test customer service, but I am going to return the Azure lenses because they just don't fit. So I'm just going to buy another pair of Neptune and the other lenses. Their customer service is not very good. But I emailed them, got no response after a couple of days.

[02:02:15] And I was like, OK, that's weird. Then I called them, got a voicemail. OK, nothing. Then I waited a couple more days and called them again. Nothing. Left a voicemail this time and was like, hey, you know, here's what I want to do. If you could give me a call back, that'd be great. And then still got nothing back. And then I emailed them a second time and then they finally got back to me. Yikes. And so I was like, I had to contact you four different times and leaving you a voicemail wasn't enough to get back to me. Get a response.

[02:02:42] And to me, if you're going to be a premium company charging me, I spent $1,800 on sunglasses. I would expect, you know, I'll give a grace period on like you missed one. Yeah. But the second one and then third and then fourth, I'm like, OK, it is pretty bad. I'm a little less graceful there. And then the other thing, too, is that returning them, I still have to pay the return shipping, which like, OK, it's not the end of the world. But I'm like, I'm spending a lot of money.

[02:03:10] Like, I think you could eat the margin on the return of the glasses at $500. Make it up pretty quick. Like Selkirk, to my knowledge, if you return something, I don't think charges you a restocking fee. They might. I could be wrong on that. But I know like for warranties and stuff, they don't charge you shipping. And maybe because mine's not a warranty, that's why I have to pay for it. I don't know. I was just a little caught off guard, like, oh, I spent a lot of money. Not the end of the world, but just odd. Yeah. So I don't know. I think their customer service is pretty mid from my experience. Gotcha.

[02:03:40] And then the last thing like I was going to say is I think the reality check is, look, you don't need $900 glasses to play Better Pickleball. Let's be real here. You just don't. It's like the bag. If you have the money and you value like you maybe you've been hit in the face and that's been a problem for you, then then sure, of course, they're going to be amazing. Yeah. But completely unnecessary at that price. Like you. I think you'll get from the other lenses we're about to talk about.

[02:04:09] So Briody is a pickleball eyewear company. Ria makes pickleball eyewear lenses. And I've also worn worn the Oakley Flak lenses, which is what Annalie used to use before these. Yep. And so like, look, if the Oakley is at $200, we're good enough for Annalie Waters. They're probably good enough for you. And don't get me wrong, that's still expensive. Yeah. Right. For eyewear, that's still a lot of money, but much more tolerable than $1,800. Yeah. Right now. Obviously, mine was extreme. I was trying to review multiple lenses and I was buying like kind of, you don't have to spend that much.

[02:04:39] Like if you wanted to do it the cheapest way. Four to five hundred. Yep. Four to five hundred bucks. So it is more than the competition. But yeah. Briody, $199. Ria is around $199. Oakley Flak is around $210s. And there are gearbox glasses for $45. Personally, I do think those are really not that great. They scratch kind of easy, but my wife wears them and she likes them. So again, you can do it for cheaper if you want. Might have some fogging issues. Yeah. Might have some fogging issues and stuff like that.

[02:05:07] So it's like, look, I would say so far in my early testing, the pillows perform awesome. Yeah. I have really no complaints about that, but I don't think people need to spend this much on glasses. There are other options. Totally agree. But if it checks every box you want, go for it. Well, and one thing I wanted to get into and say, these glasses right here, these are some Oakleys, not meant or specific to Pickleball. These are the, I believe it's Houston Squared. These are like a MotoGP edition glasses. Super light.

[02:05:37] Whatever these lenses are in these is the greatest lens I've ever used for Pickleball. I have never put sunglasses on that make the ball stand out more than these. Even the Pilas. Yeah. It is saturated like to the moon. Crazy. But not even just saturated. Like the way it makes particularly greens saturated. Sure. Like everyone knows I hate the color of the Lifetime Ball. I have ragged on that so much.

[02:06:03] And this makes a Lifetime Ball stand out so much to the point where I actually feel like it makes a huge difference and I benefit drastically from wearing these. The downside is they're super light and they're not meant for protection. So if I get hit in the face, I could see these cracking or breaking, which is a bit of a bummer. I just wish I could take these lenses and put them- In the Pila. In the design of the Pilas or a different frame or something else.

[02:06:31] And they're comfortable, but I do see a frame around here and they do slide around a little bit. So I kind of have to think about it and adjust it versus when I was playing with the Pilas. I never even had to touch them. Yeah. But yeah, these Oakley lenses, man. The best lenses I've ever used for Pickleball. It's insane. Yeah. So that's kind of some early thoughts. We'll have more thoughts as we get to play more and I get the other lenses and I get to kind of try the whole gamut.

[02:06:58] But I do think that with the different lenses, like the blue or the saturated ones, I think if you've never experienced that from sunglasses, it'll be a very like, oh, wow, like this looks really cool. But I think because I've had so many different types of eyewear and sunglasses, it just didn't catch me off guard as much. So I can see how people say things like, wow, I feel like I'm seeing an HD or whatever. But if you've already experienced that through other stuff, the Pilas don't do it way better than the competition.

[02:07:25] I just think it's a if you're new to it, you're going to be like, whoa. Yeah. You know, right. So that's that's what I have to say about those for now. And we got one more thing I want to talk about. I think it'll be kind of quick. This is more of a you thing. I've actually thought this before, but I thought it was a really good question. So Kevin Dong, who is a pro pickleball player, he responded to my story and he said he just had a pod topic. And he said, if people choke up on an elongated paddle, you know, like how Hayden, Gabe, all

[02:07:53] these people are doing these days where they don't use like that bottom quarter of the handle. Why not just use a hybrid and wide body where you hold at the bottom, but then you get the extra width because by choking up, you are effectively turning your paddle into a hybrid like you're losing the reach. So I'm curious what you think about it, because you've started choking up on your paddle more. Yep. So I guess I'm just curious what your thought is because now the argument isn't reach anymore. A decent point. I mean, I used to be like how Jay DeVilliers would hold his paddle and like my pinky was off.

[02:08:23] It was crazy. I had so much handle to work with to the point where I didn't even have to put a finger on the back of the paddle for a two-way. Now I've started to shift and hold much higher to the point where, and I kind of push my pointer finger up like this, where I'm almost touching the face of the paddle with my pointer finger. Uh, I lose a little bit of comfort on twoies, but I've, I've learned to sacrifice that. I think the reason why is the, the actual shape itself of an elongated changes where the sweet

[02:08:52] spot and how it affects play quite a bit over a hybrid. It shifts the sweet spot much higher. And, and that is a huge benefit for flicks rolls, not necessarily on dinks or resets, because on those shots you do on slower shots, you are hitting more towards the center on resets, dinks drops, uh, unless you're hitting like a really aggressive topspin drop. But for those tops and drops overheads flicks out of the air speed ups, I want to hit everything

[02:09:21] up here is kind of as close to the top as possible. Uh, the sweet spot on elongated is just shifted higher. Now, if I use in a long or a hybrid, okay, maybe I can move my hand back down and have the similar maneuverability, but I also, and the same reach, but now I also have to shift my impact spot down. I see. And so you are still losing some reach. Maybe it's not a ton, but enough to, at least for me. Reach, but effective.

[02:09:48] Where you normally hit the ball, you are getting a different amount of energy out of it. Yes. And the usability changes. So I can't speak for other players like Hayden or Ben, but for my personal experience, it has changed how I've had to play pickleball. And so that's why I gravitate still towards elongated and just shifting my hand up a little bit. Cause yeah, the more you move your hand up effectively lowering the swing weight and maneuverability in your hands, but you still get the benefit of the sweet spot being higher.

[02:10:17] I see that for me, what it's been. Okay. Yeah. That, I mean, that makes sense. I, I, when he asked that question, I was like, Hmm, you know, I never thought about it that way. Cause I was just never really thinking about people choking up that way. Cause if you think about it from the way he asked the question, you're like, why would you not take the extra with, why would you not take the extra stability? Yeah. You know? Yeah. No, it's, it's a good question. I'll have to, maybe I'll start putting some time on the, the RPM hybrid shape and see how that one plays. Cause it's a little bit different with that handle.

[02:10:47] It's the longer handle and it's a flat top. So it's like a lot closer to what you're used to. Yes. So yeah, actually maybe you should try that out for like the next pod. I'd be curious to know if you, obviously it's not necessarily the type of paddle you've been using, but you'll still probably know like, Oh, well my sweet spot feels way off. I can go back side by side with different paddles and compare it. But yeah, that's, that's a good question. Um, I think it was a good thing to explain to people again, I can't speak for, for others, but for, for my experience, that's been the reason why I still gravitate towards elongated. Okay.

[02:11:16] Makes sense. Well, dude, I don't know how long this was, but I think we delivered on a gigapod. Definitely over. It's gotta be close to over two hours. It has to be, it has to be crazy. I mean, I cracked open my second energy drink, so that's a first. And you know what? This time our first pod back, we actually had a word. We did. We wrote it down. If you made it this far, you can just comment. We're so back. We are so back. We are so back, baby. One thing I probably should have put this at the front of the pod, but you know, we'll

[02:11:46] put it at the back of the pod and the real people who made it to them, they'll hear this. But I was going to say, there's a possibility that we may do bi-weekly for a little bit just as I continue to make sure that my back can handle the load I'm going to be putting on it. Because I think every week I'm going to be really tempted to hit a lot more. And if I do bi-weekly, I can. There's just no reason to rush back into things and reset us back further. Yeah. Like let's just ease into it and get back to where we used to be. So could be weekly, might be bi-weekly.

[02:12:16] So if we miss one, we're not gone. It's probably just waiting for the next one. But ideally, we eventually get back to full weekly. So yeah, I hope you guys enjoy the podcast. We missed you. We missed doing the podcast. It feels good to be back. It does. This is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And hopefully you guys did too. Cool. Catch you later. Peace.