Ep. 319 - Vital Realizations PLUS was it ok for Anna Bright to Challenge a Ruling at 11-0, 10-0

Pickleball Therapy | Ep. 319 - Vital Realizations PLUS Was It OK for Anna Bright to Challenge a Ruling at 11-0, 10-0? Host: Tony Roig Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. My name is Tony Roig. I'm the host of this weekly podcast. Coming to you today from our new studio. Super excited about the new studio. Uh it's coming along really well. If you're watching on video, you can see behind me. Got the acoustic boards over here. We're still working on some of the acoustics in front of me. So the sound will be a little bit different than you're used to on the podcast, but I hope you still enjoy the content and I hope the sound quality is also very good. Um, this week's podcast I am going to share with you two different concepts. One concept we're going to talk about is about the learning journey and about just the the idea of digging deeper, of continuing to go on the process. I'm going to share with you a quote and a book that I read recently, not related to pickleball at all, but had my coaching hat on as I always do. I saw this sentence and I thought it was, you know, so applicable to uh pickleball as well. So, I'm gonna share that with you and we're going to talk about it. And then in the Riff, I want to talk about sportsmanship. I want to talk about uh these different scenarios where sportsmanship um there's a different level the different expectation I would say of sportsmanship depending on the context in which the game is being played. I'm going to talk about a pro event where the match was won decisively and there was a challenge at the end which had some conversation with it um you know and the communities and things like that about that, about what happened and then an amateur sporting event and how that was that was handled in a different way and I think that's perfectly appropriate in both scenarios and you know talk a little bit about winning and losing and and sportsmanship right in the uh different context that we engage with the sport as we dive into the podcast. Uh right now you can join us inside Your Pickleball Coach. Uh it's open for enrollment. It's the you know A-to-Z online coaching program uh that can help you break through and really advance as a player. Uh you go to yourpickleball.coach. Y-O-U-R pickleball.coach. Find out more about the program and see if it's right for you. And if you're interested in joining one of our camps, our camps are selling out. We've sold out the one uh coming in Dallas. We have a couple next year that are already sold out. Uh, so if you're interested in joining us for a camp um in camp training in the next season, make sure you check those out. Go to tonyroigpickleball.com/camps and check those out there. Um, all right, let's dive into the uh first topic of this podcast of this episode of the podcast, which is about growth. It's about continuing to explore and continue to grow as a player. And frankly, you know, this idea, right, of continued growth is something that I keep getting reminded of whenever we're at camp. We just finished two camps here in Tampa. Uh really nice uh sessions. The players there just so interested in growing, so interested in learning. Some some of the pickleball players, some of our students were newer to the game, right? So, they're like, you know, kid in a candy store, right? Like the world's oyster trying to uh move forward with the game. Uh but they appreciated the fact that they got some good information at the beginning of their journey. And other of our students or players who been playing five years, eight years, things like that, who you kind of feel stuck or kind of feel like, well, I'm I'm not really, you know, connecting the dots anymore as well as I want to. Uh so they were able to get what they needed as well. So it's just, you know, pickleball's is such a gift to us to be able to continue to to to grow in this awesome sport. And I've said this before, I'll say it today and I'll say it again probably in the future, which is you'll never exhaust pickleball. You're never going to run. You're never going to like basically get everything you can out of pickleball because it always has something to give you. And that's a beautiful part of our sport is the fact that it's just inexhaustible. So, um, you know, as long as you're continue to as long as you continue to be curious, as long as you continue to want to grow in the sport, pickleball, I have something to teach you. Um, all right. All right, I'm going to read you this this uh sentence from this book and then I'll tell you what book it came from because you might be surprised to to see the interdisciplinary approach that we're bringing to the to the sport or to our thinking of the sport. And I'm going to read this this sentence a couple times because it's a really thick sentence. Vital realizations not only provide unforeseen clarity. So, I'm going to read that again. Vital realizations not only provide unforeseen clarity, they also energize us to dig deeper. Read it one more time. Vital realizations not only provide unforeseen clarity, they also energize us to dig deeper. Uh I think it's such a powerful statement, right? This idea that when you when you have this aha moment, this this re this realization uh about something important in the field that you're looking at. Um it gives you clarity, right? So that's number one. It gives you clarity about the thing, but it also energizes you to just keep going to find out, okay, what's around the next corner? I got that one. What's around the next corner? And that uh sentence, that quote comes from a book written by Brian Greene. He's a physicist. He's a noted author and physicist. So, you know, he has the gift of not only understanding the subject of the that he's writing about, but also being a gifted writer. And the name of the book is Until the End of Time by Brian Greene. Um, about I'd say a quarter way through this book. Really interesting book. I mean, you know, out there for someone like me who doesn't come from a science background. Super interesting concepts about, you know, the beginning of life and things like that. So I recommend it to you if you're interested in that kind of material. But that idea of just, you know, having those aha moments and how they interact with you two different ways. One way is okay, I see things more clearly moving forward. And number two, I just want to keep going. And what I would do is I would commend you to continue to be curious about the sport. Um I, you know, our students at our camps and also inside our Your Pickleball Coach community. Um ask a lot of questions and I think that's awesome. You know, um I will tell you that as a coach sometimes I will try and redirect the the the energy if you will of the student because of the areas that we believe will give the student the most bang for the buck, the most value. Uh, but I never want to I never want it to feel like the question shouldn't have been asked or um you know that it was like wrong to ask a question or wrong to wonder because I think that's that's an amazing part of the sport. Now, we'll give you let me give you some thoughts if I if I may about you know this process of inquisition in our sport. Um, I'm gonna preface I'm gonna Yeah, I'll preface what I'm gonna say with the idea with the initial idea that pickleball is a game. Pickleball is a fun activity that you should enjoy doing and you should feel that you um can grow in that you can you know develop it however you want to develop it. And so with that understanding, I I think you should always feel like exploring whatever the part of the sport you want to explore. Now, the reason I say this is because in a minute, I'm going to give you some advice that's based on my coaching hat, right? Putting my coaching hat on and thinking about the sport in terms of what's going to move the needle the most for you as a player as opposed to um what is it that you just you're just curious about. And those two things um are uh sometimes they'll be identical or they'll they'll overlap or be identical which is you know then there's no issue. And now when I say issue there's nothing to think about. Um but other times right maybe the thing that is going to give you the most value isn't the thing that you care about you know and so what wins there and so I believe that in those situations in all situations your desire should prevail what I would submit to you is that when you make these decisions about what's going to prevail uh if you want to override the coaching advice right the what a coach would recommend Just do it knowingly, right? Do it from a place of, okay, yeah, I hear it and I get that that's the thing that the coach is telling me that you're telling me, you know, Coach Tony is the thing that's going to advance me further perhaps than this other piece. But you know what? I don't care because I want to do this other piece. And I'm it's not a criticism. I think that's great if that's how you feel about it. Do it from that premise though, right? That you're clear on why you're doing what you're doing. Um, what I what I what I see happen too often is players will chase a thing on the um on the mistaken premise that the thing will move the needle for them on the mistaken premise that that thing will actually improve their ability to play the game in the way that they want to. Um not I'm just interested in this part of the game or this part of the game there's something that's been bothering me and I just want to solve it uh before I turn my attention back to other things. Um so as long as you're doing it based on a clear understanding of why you're doing it, you know, I think it's fine. Um now again, it sounds like I'm telling you not to do it just because you want to do it. You can do anything you want to do just because you want to do it. What I'm suggesting to you is going to be more powerful if you make that decision with a good framing of why you're doing it relative to the other thing. So that's one area, right? It's basically like I just I just want to learn how to hit a roll volley. I just want to learn how to spin the ball. I just just want to perfectly fine. Do that then with the understanding of why you're doing it. Another area that you might want to deviate from the course of what's the the most consequentially important or what's really going to move the needle for you would be if there's an area that's just bugging you. And what I mean by that is let's say you're playing against you know in a lobbing environment or a banging environment or some environment that's very tilted to one way. Um what you can do there is you can table those things that are maybe you know big picture more important like return of serve punch volley things like that and just say okay I want to address this thing because this thing is just it's getting in my craw right it's just it's just crawling under my skin I don't like it I want to deal with it and so you take a a a side road right and it's not a bad side road it's just a side road that you're taking but you're doing it again based on understanding based on clarity and knowledge, not you know uh not just because right you're doing it because there's something you want to specifically address and then you can come back to the main road if you will the main journey and go back to what it is that's going to help you the most which brings me back around to what what I'm going to talk to you now as a coach is that I think again asking questions I think is great right I think being inquisitive being curious is great but The risk that can arise is that you end up uh scattered and you end up uh just too many too many balls in the air, too many things you're trying to address. Um the we did an episode can't remember it was last week or the week before about the three statements or three questions that you want to ask that you can ask yourself before you start playing. And in there we recommended if you're on an improvement journey, asking yourself one thing that I'm going to focus on today when I go play. For one thing that I'm going to focus on. Not five things, not eight things, not 20, one. Same thing applies bigger picture, you know, um if you're trying to solve for all, it's going to be very difficult to solve for any of them. And so, you know, you're better off picking and then really going down that path. Sort of like, you know, not sort of the same way that this quote reads, right? So it's vital realizations not only provide unforeseen clarity they also energize us to dig deeper. The key that I want to focus on now is the first part which is vital realizations. So meaning like a big aha moment not you know a bunch of little things that I'm chasing that I never really get to because I'm chasing too many of them. And it's really just that key vital realization. And maybe after that one going after another one, another vital realization like that, that's how you're going to build a bigger um a a bigger uh understanding of the game, a a more sound foundation uh from which to continue to grow in the sport. So my recommendations are, you know, stay curious, right? And as long as you stay curious, pickleball has something to teach you. Uh, and then try and focus on on on an unless unless there's an area that you want to do just because you want to do it. Again, that's perfectly fine for you to do or unless there's an area that um that you just want to address like a lobber, banger, or just something that's really, you know, yanking your chain, you know, weird serve that you want to learn how to deal with. Um, unless it's some one of those two reasons, then I would suggest focusing on the area that's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, the biggest uh result, the big move the needle the most for you. Um, that's where, you know, if you're one of our students, you can go to the Pickleball Builder program inside Your Pickleball Coach. That's in order of priority. So, if you're not sure what to do, block one. Once you're done with that one, block two. So on and so forth until you build your PickleWall uh and have that really solid foundation from which to play the sport. So, uh hopefully that helps you with your um thinking about the game and your process as you continue to grow as a player. In a minute, I'm going to share with you in the Riff the concept of different sportsmanship sportsmanship concept depending on the context in which you're playing the game. All right, let's talk about sportsmanship. Um, I find the universe is an interesting place because it seems to juxtapose these very, you know, contrasting kind of ideas uh near each other. At least it it does that for me when I'm trying to get ready for a podcast and thinking about uh topics and ideas that are that are circulating out there in my mind. And so the first one had to do with a pro match, pickleball pro match um in I believe it was a semifinals of a tournament and um quarterfinal or semifinal but uh the number one seeds Anna Bright and Anna Leigh Waters were up 11-0. So they're in game two, you know, one more point and they move on. And there was a call. There was a question on the call and I believe it was Anna who challenged the call, right? Which was well within her rights to do as a professional player on the tour. You have that the rules allow it. Nothing illegal, nothing wrong being done there. And so um she challenged the ruling. Uh and they ended up winning the game 11-0, 11-0. So, you know, there was some uh feedback out in the communities, out in the conversations, and also in my my own ecosystem. You know, a friend of mine brought it up to me at one of our sessions that we were playing at, you know, kind of like, "What do you think about that?" And I can tell you that he he didn't think it was that that should have been challenged given the score. I disagreed and uh I think it was perfectly fine to have challenged the score. Um the reason for that or challenge not the score but challenge the ruling you know even though the score was 11-0 the reason for that for me is fairly straightforward. Um this is a professional match between professional athletes who are this is their job you know this is what they do for a living and yeah I mean statistically right if it's 11-0, you don't challenge the ruling are you still going to win the match? Yeah, like 99.9999%, right? Um, but you're a professional, so why would you change your process there? Um, in those situations, I don't think you need to change your process. I don't think you need to take into account the score. I don't think you need to take into account um, anything other than just following the process that you believe is the correct process as a professional. Um, and you know, when I when I when I work with professional players, uh, I refer to it as just doing the work, you know, and frankly, it doesn't matter in my brain. It doesn't matter whether we're up 10-0 or down 0-10. Doesn't make a difference to me. Um, uh, does shouldn't make a difference in any context, but we're focusing right on the pro context. Um, absolutely, you're just going to do the thing, the next best thing that you need to do for yourself to try and win the game. Um, and the reason I think pro would be different than amateur. Um, one is, you know, like the 11-0, maybe it's a little bit of rubbing it in, you know, if it was a if it was an amateur match. Uh, a little bit of piling on maybe. Um, you know, I also think that um, uh, that, you know, you can maybe approach the game a little bit differently in an amateur situation, even amateur tournament. Uh, but not in the pro level to me, you know. So, I think that was perfectly fine. I'm going to contrast that with uh behavior by a coach. It was a high school football game. Um I believe it was out in Texas somewhere out west. Um but uh it was a high school football game and um the it was a a division three I think. But it was a a Catholic school and the the school that was winning was like a football powerhouse I guess in their in their division and they were up like 63 to nothing. And this is at halftime. So, uh, the match ends up getting called and, um, and then shortly after the match, the coach was fired. The high school coach of the winning team was fired. And I think that's good. I think that's fine. I think that makes sense. So, why do I think that? I think that because when they were up I believe it was 56 to nothing right before the half the win that the team that was ahead the coach called an onside kick. Now if you're not familiar with football I'll give you a brief description of it. It's basically the kind of thing that you do if you're at the end of a game and you're let's say you're down by 10 points and you score a touchdown. So now you're down by three points. So you have to kick off to the other team but there's only like 30 seconds left or a minute left. So if you kick it off, they're just going to run the clock out. So you do this thing where you basically kick it like 10 yards and then your team goes and tries to grab the ball so you can try and score again. Makes perfect sense, right? In that situation where you're a minute left, you're down by, you know, three after having just scored and you have to kick off. Perfectly legitimate play then. But to call an onside kick when you're up 56 to nothing in the first half in a high school contest, clearly not uh I think clearly not uh not the right call by that coach. And the athletic director I think put it well when he said, you know, that the basically the conduct of the coach uh didn't fit the uh didn't meet the school's sporting uh identity, right? The the idea of the school in terms of its uh itself as a athletic competitor and I applaud it. Right? This to me is a totally different situation than the pro match where again 11-0, there's a ruling. I'm going to challenge it, move on. I'm going to do everything I can as a pro to try and complete the match as quickly as I can and and move on to the next round. Whereas when you think about like, you know, high school athletics, um what are we talking about? You know, are we talking about competition? Are we talking about um improvement as a human being? Are we talking about growth? Are we are we talking about just hammering our opponents and driving them into the, you know, driving them into the dirt no matter what? Um, so I think those two positions are perfectly fine juxtaposed positions from my perspective. Um, and I think it's helpful to us as as amateur players to think about that when we're making decisions out there, whether it's challenging an out call, whether it's challenging the legality or illegality of a of an opponent's serve, whether it's challenging the score and the correctness of the score. Um, any of those types of challenges that we're making when we're out there playing an amateur event against amateur players, um, who more often than not are actually our friends, you know, they're not they're not just our our opponents. Um I think you know we should be more like the high school situation uh where the athletic director was I think 100% correct in articulating the sportsmanship that that program expects of its players and obviously of its coach uh coaches um versus a professional match where that's your job and you will do what you need to do in order to win. So, give that some thought when you're thinking about how you're um navigating pickleball games and which side, you know, what are you closer to? You closer to the it's 11-0. I'm going to challenge it because we're going to, you know, I want to double-pickle my opponents or are you closer to the athletic director and the high school program where it's not to say that that the that the high school athletes don't try their hardest. Maybe you give the second or third string quarterback some reps. They're on the team, too, right? Why not? Um as opposed to just, you know, pulling out all the stops and calling an onside kick when you're already up by 50 some points. Um against a team and actually one of the details, if I recall correctly, the other team didn't even have like like enough players. I mean, it was like a crazy crazily unbalanced situation and the coach just basically piled on. So, um something to think about in uh in how you approach the sport. Um anyway, I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. As I mentioned earlier, if you're interested in one of our camps, those slots are spots are are filling up. And if you're listening to this podcast, I would love to be able to coach you if it's something that you would like to do and uh and you can do it. Be more than happy to coach you uh at one of our upcoming uh coaching camps. So, um if you enjoyed this week's podcast, uh please consider sharing with your friend. Remember, if you enjoyed it, they probably will too. And if you have a minute to rate and review it, I would appreciate that as well. Hope you have a great week and I'll see you next time on the next episode of Pickleball Therapy. Be well.