Ep. 313 - Are You Limiting Yourself? PLUS Top 3 Worst Partner Play Stories

Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement, the only podcast with you in mind. My name is Tony Roig. I am your host of the weekly podcast. This week it's a three-parter. Sometimes we get three-parters because multiple things are happening out there. One is we're going to be talking about an idea of partner play. We have a partner play series coming up and I want to tee up an idea with you there. And then the other two are just conversations that we've had. One at our fairly recent Boston camp, I want to tee that up for you. It's about living in the real world. And then we're also going to talk about another conversation that I had, which is about limitations that we put on ourselves, and the idea that there should be no limitation on yourself as a pickleball player. So I'm going to dive right into the first subject that we're going to cover, which is limitation, right? It's this idea that we have limitations in our ability to move forward. And this occurred in a conversation I was having with a player who I've known for many years. And I was talking to the player about the game and, you know, an upcoming camp we had and things like that. And the response was basically, I, you know, I don't think I can basically advance in the game. And that got me to thinking, right? That if this player is sharing this with me, and again, I've known this player many years, this can't be an isolated incident, right? So I want to share some ideas from myself as a coach with you here, and also ask you to share your stories with us and with others, and I'll ask for that in a minute and tell you how to do that. But I think it's important, right, for players to not believe that there's limitations on them that really are not there. If a player doesn't want to advance in the game, that's perfectly fine. I say that again and again and again. Player wants to go out there, hit the ball around, I have absolutely no criticism of that. Perfectly fine. In fact, there was a recent video that I saw where a player came on and she was basically reacting to coaches and content creators suggesting that, you know, this shot is appropriate for this level and this paddle is perfect for that level. I think she was more upset about the paddle than about the other stuff. But basically the idea was, you know, I'm not a 4.0. I'm still going to buy a $300 paddle because I want to. That's perfectly fine, right? I mean, she's entitled to engage with the sport of pickleball in the way that she feels most appropriate. And so there's no, you know, you must improve or else what are you doing? Or you must continue your growth. That said, usually players that aren't interested in growth aren't listening to this podcast, right? So you're probably not hearing these words. So if you're hearing these words, my guess is you want more from the sport than just a casual interaction here and there with the sport of pickleball. So if you're interested in growth, what I do want you to know is that there's no real limit on your ability to grow other than your decision not to grow. Now, there are some things that can derail your growth, right? I'm going to address this in a second. But there's no actual limitation. There's no I'm too old. There's no I can't do it. There's no any of that kind of stuff. So one of the things that can, in fact, derail you, though, right? And these are all temporary derailments. That's the thing, right? So I'm going to talk about a couple, but they're just temporary, because you just need to identify them and then get past them, and then understand that if you get past them, you can do what you want. So number one that I'm going to talk about here is trying to do too many things. You know, that is probably the biggest one, right? And that's where you're trying to, like, tackle a million different things at one time. In fact, you know, the player I was chatting with mentioned that they'd been with, you know, had many different clinics, many different lessons, many different ideas, many different things, and just didn't seem to be able to move forward. My response was, I think that's where I would start. Right. And again, I know this player very well, so I feel comfortable having this conversation with them. But it's, you know, basically, that's the first thing I would tackle, is like trying to do too many things. And if you're trying to do too many things, you're probably not going to do any of them. And then you feel like you can't do it because none of it's working. You're doing too many things. So the second piece, and this is an answer to the first one, is focus on one thing, right? Find one thing to focus on. Make it your serve. Make it one volley. Make it a dink if you want to. Make it, you know, if you want to have a drive, develop a drive, right? Whatever it is that you want to focus on, right? Now, if you have guidance, like if you're a student inside our coaching, you'll know what we recommend. Now, notice what I said there, what we recommend, because you're an adult. You can say, you know what? Not interested in doing that particular shot. I'm going to do another shot. I'm going to do another strategy. Entirely up to you. What I can do as a coach is I can tell you, you know, hey, these are the things that are going to make the most difference. I'll put them in order for you. You know, I would knock down the first one first, the second one second, and the third one third, because I get the most value from that. But entirely your journey, right? But one thing at a time will really help you see that forward advancement. And then you want to lock it in, right? You want to lock in the area and then focus on it and see the improvement. And that's where you're getting the positive, I talk about this a lot in my coaching, which is this positive cycle that you want to get into, positive feedback loop. So when you focus on one area, right, and you start seeing, oh, okay, I can hit the shot that way. Then what happens is you have a positive feedback loop developing. So you work on the shot, you see that you can do it. You work on it some more. That continues to get built up, right? It's stronger. And then you start seeing the benefits of the shot, the way you're hitting it now. And you go, oh, that's pretty neat. You know, and then what happens? Your brain says, can we do more of that? Then you pick another shot, right? Once the first shot's locked in, you get another shot or another strategy and you say, oh, that's cool. And you have this positive feedback loop that keeps working, you know, keeps rotating, keeps bringing you back around to continue to grow your game. And again, this is if you want to grow the game. And if you're listening to this podcast, my guess is probably, likely, that you're looking for something like that. So, you know, lock it in, get that positive feedback loop, but know that, you know, there's really no limitation on your ability to grow as far as you want to in the game. You know, I mean, I would say like if you want to be like a pro player or a 5.0 player or something like that, okay, that, again, doable. I'm saying it's doable, to be clear. It'll take a lot more work, a lot more commitment, a lot more drilling, a lot more focused attention to the game. But let's say you said, you know, I'd love to play 4.0 level pickleball. I've been saying this for years and I have, the proof is in the pudding, with students that I've worked with over the past few years to get there. Basically, any player out there who wants to play 4.0 level pickleball can play good 4.0 level pickleball. I refer to it as benchmark 4.0 pickleball, and it comes out of a project that I started many years ago called Project 4.0 that I launched. I want to say it was like 2018 or 2019. And the premise is that if you follow a path built correctly to get there, you can become a benchmark 4.0 player, which means that you are competitive at the 4.0 level anywhere. And what 4.0 level means, just generally speaking, is that you are fluent in pickleball. In other words, you can step on any court. You can step on a court with a pro player and play a game. Now, you're going to lose against the pro player more likely than not, right? But you're going to be able to play the game and enjoy the game and transit the game in a way that the pro player will say, okay, this person knows how to play pickleball. You just are competent in the sport. That's 4.0. And so if you want that for yourself, it's doable. And there's no limitations. There's not age. It's not nothing. Nothing is a limitation to it. And, you know, the key is to lock it in the way that I mentioned. So hopefully that helps you if you're on a journey. And if you have a friend of yours who's on a journey of their own in pickleball and, you know, is feeling frustrated, is feeling whatever, share this with them. I know it's a message of hope. I've got plenty of players who we've worked with who have been able to progress in the game just by focusing on one thing at a time and keep it moving forward. Keep taking those steps. All right. The second subject I want to cover has to do with a conversation that came up during our Boston camp. And a really good group of folks up there. We're technically in New Hampshire, but it's right outside of Boston, at the 603, up there in, I'm trying to remember the name of the town now, but it just escapes me right this second. But it's a really good group of folks up there. And one of the subjects that we covered at our camp is about setting reasonable expectations for yourself when you're playing. Super powerful stuff, because it deals with your mental approach, right? It deals with, you know, what are you expecting when you're on the court, so that you don't set yourself up for disappointment, particularly when the expectations are just unrealistic. They're just fantastical, right? And so the idea here is that when you think about the pickleball rally, when you're on the serve side, okay, not the return side, but the serve side, the deck is stacked against you. And it's the way the rules are written. Basically, because of the two-bounce rule, you know, you need to wait somewhere near the baseline, right? There's no rule that says you have to be by the baseline, but that's where we wait, because we don't know where the ball is going to come and we have to let it bounce. So usually we'll stand behind the baseline and stand there and wait. Meanwhile, our opponents on the return side are just rushing up to the non-volley zone line. One's already there and the other one's coming up. And then by the time we hit the third shot, we're going, oh, man, what's this all about? Right? Why are we in that much trouble already? And it's not because we're bad players. It's not because we did anything technically wrong with our game. It's just the way the game is built. Right? So when you have that structure on the court, or that relationship on the court, where you're on the serve side, so you're at the baseline, your opponents, if they know what they're doing, they're up at the non-volley zone line at that moment of the third shot, who are you putting your money on? I assume you're putting your money on the return side, right? You're saying the return side is more likely to win the rally, not because they're better players, not because they did anything fantastic, just because the rules say you take the advantageous position. We call it positional advantage in our coaching. You have the positional advantage. The serve team has a positional disadvantage, and good luck, right? So if you understand that idea, then what that tells you is that every time that you are going back to serve, statistically, you expect what? You expect to lose the rally. And here I have to do a quick shout-out here to our friend Donna up at the 603. That's the way it is. The reason I shout out to Donna is because we were having our group session, we were having this conversation, and her reaction was priceless. The way she looked at me was kind of like, you know, when it clicked, she was kind of like, but I don't want to lose, right? Nobody does, right? Nobody out here wants to go into a rally wanting to lose. But it's the reality of the rally. It's the reality of the structure of the sport. So when you're on the serve side, try hard, do your best, battle as hard as you can, with the understanding that the way the game is played, the way the game is structured, you are likely going to lose the rally. More likely to lose it than to win it. Now, to make you feel better, you get the benefit when you're on the return side. On the return side, now you're favored to win those rallies. So consider your expectation setting when you're on the serve side not to be one of, oh, I didn't score a point, therefore I messed up. And during our camp, we shared some other ways of structuring it, some questions you can ask yourself, how to set the bar for yourself, and all of that. If you're interested in joining one of our camps, we do have some new camps that we just added to the calendar for '26 and '27. We have some in Tampa that have some spots here coming up in a few weeks. So if you want to come down to Tampa, or if you're in Tampa, you just want to drive over to Largo and join me for a camp, I would love to see you there. We have an open gender camp, so any gender, and then we have a women's only camp as well in Tampa. So would love to have you come to that. So we'll put a link in the show notes, and you can also just go to tonyroigpickleball.com forward slash camps and check those out. So, all right. So that's the expectation. Then the last one I want to share with you is I want to actually ask you to share some stories with us. We have a partner play series coming up at the end of September. That one is going to be online. So that one, it's a very low threshold to attend. There is a cost to attend the series if you want to come, but basically you register for our online program. It's a one-month registration. You get access to the series, plus you get 30 days in the course. So I think it's a pretty reasonable deal to me. But the partner play series is going to be really cool. We're going to be discussing all about the interplay between the two partners, right? Because if you're playing pickleball doubles, you're playing a team sport. The better you are, not just yourself at your play, which is important, right, how to hit the shots, how to do all the stuff, but the better you are at knowing what your partner's going to do, and letting them know what you're going to do, and supporting each other, working together as a unit, the better your chances of succeeding in doubles play. So it's part of that partner play series. Oh, and let me tell you a little. So we're going to be covering, like, Respect the X. We're covering middle fourth cover. We're going to be dealing with some scenarios in terms of, like, how do you approach strategically the game? You know, okay, so in this situation, we're going to pursue this approach. I'm going to drop across in front of you. You're going to go attack it. Or maybe it's going to be a shake and bake, a drive and finish, things like that. So we'll be going pretty deep on partner play. There are several lessons that are included in the series, and then there's a live coaching session as well with Q&A and all that, with our big video breakdown board and the coaching lab going over some real footage. So I think you're really going to like it. But as part of that, what we're doing is we're compiling some partner play experiences. We want to get a sense of what's going on out there. What are you seeing, right? What are partners doing to you? And what are you doing with your partners? And so we're starting off with the idea of sharing. We want you to share your partner play stories. And we're starting off with three, up to three. It can be one, two, or three things that your partners have done in the past, right? That really rub you the wrong way, right? Things that you're like, man, I did not appreciate that, right? I'll give you some examples, like eye roll, you know, maybe some unsolicited coaching, whatever. We're asking because we want to know what's happening out there. So the way you can do that is, if you're listening to us on a platform that has comments, feel free to go down to comments and share your story there. If you're not somewhere you can comment, but you're inside Your Pickleball Coach or in the TRP community, go into the community, share the story there. And lastly, if you are not in any of those, send me an email. Tony at tonyroigpickleball.com. Please put "my story" in the subject line so I know what it is that you're sharing about the partner play. And also, while we're at it, if you want to share your story about your improvement, and I mentioned that a little bit earlier about sharing those ideas, also share your story about your improvement, either in the comments, in the community, or to me. Again, put "my story" in the subject line. Tony at tonyroigpickleball.com. Tell me your story. In other words, maybe I was stuck for a while. I didn't think I could improve. And look what's happened to me, right? That story helps us then amplify, you sharing that story with us helps us amplify that story, so that players like the player who I had the conversation with can feel a sense of, yes, this is doable. And the reason it's doable is not just because Coach Tony, you know, told me I could do it. It's doable because so-and-so had their story, and so-and-so had their story, and so-and-so had their story. Then perhaps one of your stories really resonates with this player, that then frees that player, right, to pursue their own journey, to fully develop themselves as a pickleball player. So share. You have a choice. You can share both if you want to. Partner play stories, right, things that, the craziest thing, share with us. And or, I should say, share with us your story, if you're comfortable with sharing your story of how you've persevered, how you've improved, challenges you've faced, things like that, so that we can then interact with that and also share it with others to help them along their journeys. So that's this week's podcast. Three topics up, three topics down. I hope you enjoyed the format this week, covering more than just one or two things. If you enjoyed the podcast or didn't enjoy the podcast, consider rating and reviewing it wherever you listen to it. It gives us information about what's going on with the podcast. It also helps other players potentially reach the podcast, or the podcast reach them, because of the algorithm and the way that works. And lastly, as always, if you believe the message in this podcast would help a friend of yours, please consider sharing it with them, because that's a lot of why we do this. A lot of this is us paying it forward with the sport that we love and allowing you to do the same with your friends and your community. So appreciate you doing that. Appreciate your time listening to this week's podcast. If I don't see you inside our community or inside one of our coachings this week, I look forward to interacting with you during next week's episode of Pickleball Therapy. Until then. Be well.