Ep. 312 - Optimized Partner Play

Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. It's the podcast with you in mind. My name is Tony Roig. I'm your host of this weekly podcast. A pleasure to be with you. Hope you're having a great week so far. This week's podcast, we're going to talk about partner play, partner situations, partner dynamics, and things that you can do to (a) be a better partner, and (b) understand your partner hopefully a little bit better. Been doing some calls lately, some coaching calls at Your Pickleball Coach, which is our new training platform, and we've been getting a lot of questions in there about partners, right? So, you know, we'll teach a subject, the question will be, you know, what do I do about the partner like this, or how do I handle this situation, my partner. So I thought it'd be a good opportunity to address several different areas, several different topics having to do with partners in today's podcast because, you know, the vast majority of you listening to this, if not all of you, are probably playing doubles pickleball. Doubles pickleball is a team sport, no different than any other team sport out there. Soccer, basketball, football, you name it, it's going to be the same. Obviously, only two players here per side. Still very much a team dynamic where, for your team to have its best chance of winning, you're going to want both players to play in sync. In fact, I was reminded of that a few weeks ago during the second piece of the Major League Pickleball playoffs, second stop, I should say, before the finals of the playoffs, where, and no criticism of this player, I mean, he's still the best, you know, men's player on the planet, right, Ben Johns? But I can tell you that it appears to me that he has to be very difficult to play with as a partner. And his dropping, his basically his dipping in terms of his partner support for his partner was vastly evident. I'm not saying they would have won at that stop had Ben been a more supportive partner, but I will tell you 100% that the team on the court would have played better had Ben been a more supportive partner. So it's a really important part of our game. So today I'm going to cover some different areas there with that. As we dive into the podcast, you've been hearing me say, if you listen to the podcast, that, you know, we have our program at Your Pickleball Coach. The course is available for you. Go there, register for it. It's a really, really good course. The pricing is super competitive. It's actually lower than any other course out there. Not because the product isn't amazing. The product is amazing. Delivers more than most other programs out there as well. But for us, it's very important not to optimize profitability or revenue or anything like that. Got to keep the lights on, but we want to make sure that you have access to the course as well. And last week, in the riff, I talked about the improvement journey, and if you stuck around for the riff, you heard that piece on the improvement journey. If you haven't heard that, feel free to go back and listen to that if you're on that sort of journey. The feedback we've gotten since that podcast has been phenomenal. So appreciate everybody coming in and giving the program a try. I think you're going to find it super valuable to your improvement journey. All right, let's dive into the partner play. So I want to start with the first premise here, which is about control. You know that there's this idea, you know, this is an old saying, right, but basically control the controllable, right? Learn what you can control and control that. When you're playing a team sport, you can definitely control you, and we're going to talk a little bit more about how you can control yourself relative to your partner as well, including what I mentioned earlier with Ben Johns controlling himself relative to his partner. But you can't control your partner. That's key, right? So, for instance, if you're learning a new technique or a new strategy, a new approach to the game, maybe your mind is opened up more to the game than your partner's is. You cannot control them. Now, I'm not saying you can't explain it to them. You can't communicate with them. That's perfectly fine. Right there, it's more about relationships and politics than it is about pickleball though, right? It's like, can I talk to this player about the game? For instance, I was playing in a group recently and there's 16 players, four courts, right? And I was playing with a younger player, and after the game I noticed something that this player was doing that I wanted to suggest, right, an idea. But I didn't just say, hey, by the way, you know, you did this and that's what happened. I asked. I said, you know, are you open to me sharing something with you? Now, this player knows I'm a coach, so the player was like, yeah, yeah, please, you know, let me know. I did. I explained it to them, right? But I asked for permission first, right, to give them the ability to say, no, I'm not really interested in that. And perfectly fine. But having this, I think having an understanding, a baseline understanding for yourself that you cannot control your partner but you can control yourself, I think is important because it avoids some of the, maybe some of the frustration, some of the communication problems and stuff like that, because, you know, we're trying to control somebody else. There's different ways of doing it. Like I said, you can ask for permission. You have to gauge the situation. That's much more just psychology, maybe sociology, I'm not sure. Just two players. But that type of thing, you'll have to gauge that. But don't get frustrated because you understand things a certain way and they may understand things a different way. What you can do is modify how you do things based on what you understand them to do. I'll give you an example. I was playing, a different player that I was playing with, and this player always drove the third shot. And this is a strategic limitation in terms of their understanding of the game, because you don't always have to drive the third, drop the fifth. But for some reason this player had apparently heard that, and so they were doing it every time. Now, it took me, my first time playing with this player, it took me a couple of rallies to kind of sort that out. I was like, oh, okay. So this player's always going to drive the third and then drop the fifth. And the drives weren't like sufficiently aggressive that I could crash. So I stopped looking for poach opportunities after the third, right? I did. I stopped looking to move forward on the third to see if I could find an opening to attack. Instead, I had to modify my play where I waited to the fifth. So I'd let him drive the third and then I'd wait for the fifth and then move forward. But that's what I can control, right? I can't control my partner. My partner wants to drive third, drop fifth, which again is not a thing that you should do all the time. It's just, you know, it's a good strategy, but it has its place. But anyway, so that's something to just keep in mind. Control what you can control, which is you. And don't try and control your partner. Another concept that I think is really helpful with partner play has to do with this idea of sonder. We did a whole episode on sonder, but briefly what it means is it's the realization that every other person around you has their own journey, has their own path, has their own life. And I think it's important to allow yourself to have sonder for yourself, meaning like you're entitled to walk your path, but also understand your partner is entitled to walk their path. And this one comes to mind in this idea of, you know, like saying sorry when you miss. Sometimes that, you know, rubs players the wrong way. I know that I'll say it sometimes. It's, to me, it's almost like a reflex, like sneezing or something, from my years in tennis, right? Just sorry, common, like you hit the, say sorry, things like that. I've modulated it some now, but it still happens. I have partners who apologize as well, regularly. And so the question that was brought up was, well, how do you deal with that, right? How do you basically like tell them not to say you're sorry, right? First of all, I don't recommend saying, don't say you're sorry. That's adversarial, right? But you could do something like, what I've done in the past is I've done things like I'll say, you know, nothing to apologize for, you know. Hey, that was a good try. You'll get the next one. You know, I'll tell them, I'll put it on me too. Sometimes I'll say, particularly, you know, someone's apologizing who maybe they feel like they're not at level with you, you know, so you're the quote unquote better player on the court. You know, you can help them by saying something like, if it's true obviously, but basically like, no, I did that, right? Because I put the ball there and I put you in a tough spot. Or what I'll say is, I'll say something like, hey, don't worry about it. I guarantee I'm going to miss one of those two, right? Or I'm probably going to miss several of those as well. Whatever. Something like that to kind of diffuse the situation more than just address the sorry thing. But in the end, just understand that they're dealing with life the way that they see it through their eyes, right? So having some sonder, right, having some understanding that they have their own way of going about things, will help you in those situations. And then the last topic I wanted to cover here on partner play has to do with, think about, go back to the team sport idea, right? We're playing a team sport. I'm assuming that when you step out on the pickleball court, you want to give yourself the best chance for success in that game and in every rally you play during that game. Doesn't mean you have to go out there and say, you know, I must win this game. That's, I think, too extreme. But give yourself the best chance for success, right? How do you do that? Part of that is you. You control what you can do. Part of that's going to be your partner though, right? How does your partner play? The way that you treat your partner will directly impact how they play, which in turn will directly impact your team's play, which will then impact your team's chances for success. So, going at it the other way, if you want to have the highest chance for success for your team, then you want to have the highest level of play for your team, which means you want to have the highest level of play for your partner as well as the highest level of play possible for yourself. That's not saying perfect, impeccable play, flawless play, nothing like that. But you want to try and have the highest level of play that you guys can have in the moment. So how do you do that? Well, the way you do that is by being supportive of your partner, right? By giving your partner what they need in order to feel that they can freely perform at their best, as opposed to looking over their shoulder all the time about, you know, are they going to be mad if I make a mistake? Now, I want to address this two ways, because I want to talk to you if you're the player who feels like you're letting your partner down, and I want to talk to you if you're the quote unquote better player who the other player feels is being let down. So if you're the player who is the, I'm putting quotes around these, I'm doing air quotes, you probably can't see them if you're listening on the podcast, quote unquote lower level player on the court, and you feel a lot of pressure because you're like, oh my god, if I miss, so and so is not going to want to play with me again, they're going to judge me, all these things. A few ideas here. Number one, I can tell you, as sometimes the highest level player on the court, I am not bothered by your miss, okay? And I don't require an apology from you, right, as the quote unquote lower level player. And in fact, the more of an issue that you make of the miss, the more uncomfortable the dynamic becomes. And frankly, my time on the court becomes less comfortable as well. Okay? So even though it seems like it would be like the right thing to do, or the nice thing to do, to apologize for the error that you made, it's counterproductive, because you're actually making things more uncomfortable by apologizing for that shot. Now listen, if you're the quote unquote lower level player, you don't know as much as the other player, and you want to ask a question of like, hey, next time do you think I should hit the ball over here, or something, go for it, right? That's constructive. That's great. But if it's just like, you know, oh, I'm sorry, I missed that shot. I should have made the shot. Things like that. Then you put the other player in a very awkward position. Because let's say you say, I shouldn't have missed that shot. What's the other player supposed to say? You know, like, yeah, you should have missed it. I have said to the players, because they say they shouldn't miss shots that don't make sense. They're like super difficult. But there are times that they, you know, it's a sitter. I still think they can miss it, right? It's expected. But, you know, it's a very awkward kind of conversation. Like, I shouldn't miss that shot. Yeah, you're right. You shouldn't have missed that shot. That was awful. You know, I mean, just play that out. So if you're the quote unquote lower level player, the other player probably doesn't need that. And if you are playing with a type of player who's going to look down on you anyway, they're going to look down on you whether you apologize, don't apologize, whatever. And they're going to look down on you even if you're the same level, even higher level sometimes. That's just how they're built. I know players like that, right? Everybody knows a player who, like, if you win the game, it was them. If you lose the game, it was you, right? So, them if you win, you if you lose. That happens, right? So it doesn't matter what you say to that player. Not going to help. So no reason to say it to that player either. Now, if you're the quote unquote higher level player, how to deal with that. I gave you a couple of ideas earlier, which is like, basically, you can communicate to them. You don't have to say, you don't have to say you're sorry. You can say stuff like, hey, that was a good try. You'll get the next one. Positive, right? Positive reinforcement to help the player not feel bad, for one, and two, to help the player express themselves better in the next rallies. Because going back to the premise here, how do we get our team to perform its best, to give ourselves the best chance for success? When both players on the court are able to express their pickleball as freely as they can. And that includes some, permissions, or not permissions, it's basically understanding of one player of the other, right? And allowances is the word I was looking for. Allowances for mistakes by both players. And I think that's a more positive way of doing it. Again, no criticism of Ben as a player, as a human, but I will tell you that as a partner at the MLP, in, I think it was in California, Newport Beach, I think, I think he was lacking in his role as a partner there. And it goes to show you that no matter what level you're at as an athlete or as a human, there's always something that you can improve and focus on as part of your development as a player and as a partner in playing doubles pickleball. Understanding your partner and playing better with your partner is definitely a skill that you can hone. And the better you get at that, the better they play, the better your team plays, the higher your chance for success. So, yeah, we brought it all together and it landed. Gotcha. All right. If you like the podcast, consider rating and reviewing. Actually, if you didn't like it, you can rate and review it as well. Let us know what you think. And if you enjoyed the podcast, or if you have a partner that might benefit from this, send them a copy of this podcast or a link to the podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast and got something out of it, my guess is your partner or the other player will as well. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you all. If I don't see you inside Your Pickleball Coach, I'll see you on the next episode of Pickleball Therapy. Be well.