Ep. 305 - Ridiculously Optimistic

Ep. 305 - Ridiculously Optimistic

Episode 305: Ridiculously Optimistic The clip I open this one with a message from a content creator who goes by Writer's Cramp. The theme: be ridiculously optimistic about your future, aim higher than seems reasonable, and do not let other people talk you out of what you want. Worth the ninety seconds. These messages always strike me the same way. You hear them and think, well, yes, obviously. So then ask yourself the real question. Why wouldn't you live that way? What you actually control Let's be clear about the limits. You cannot control how a game turns out. You cannot directly control how the other players behave, though you have more indirect influence there than you might think, mostly through how you carry yourself. What you control completely is how you choose to interact with the events that happen to you. On the court and off it. That is not a consolation prize. That is the piece that determines your experience. On being scared There was a line in the clip about being scared being part of being alive. That one applies directly to improvement. I think of the mental side of pickleball in three parts. Perspective, which is what Pickleball Therapy: The Book covers. Play, which is the next book. And improvement, which is the third, because improving carries its own mental weight. Improvement is scary. You are leaving the thing you already do well and moving toward something you do not do well yet. That is uncomfortable by design. It is also when you feel most alive, because that is when you are growing. The story: let's just get four Last week I was playing in an eight-player group. My friend David and I partnered up for the last game against Jeff and Patrick, two good players. David had not had a great session. Before we started I told him: let's just get four points. He looked at me. Four? I was not being serious about the ceiling. But watch what it does. We score one, and we are a quarter of the way there. We score two, halfway. We get stuck at three for a while, three quarters. Then we hit four. And now think about it functionally. I have to get to four anyway. Nobody counts to eleven without passing four first. So the target was never a lowered bar. It was a real checkpoint on the way to the same destination. Once we got there I told him, let's go for six. We got six. Then we pushed it again. We won the game. Why it works Pressure comes from measuring yourself against something you do not control. The final score is not yours to control. A checkpoint on the way there is. And here is the part that makes it hold up: if we had lost that game 11-4, I still get to turn to David and say, I told you we were getting four. The metric survives the loss. The other version: time I talked a few weeks back about using time the same way. Same group, playing with Jeff, and our opponents Tyson and Scott could not miss. All credit to them, they were out of their minds. We were down 8-2 and the clock read something-25. I told Jeff, let's get to 30. On the clock, not the scoreboard. We got to 31 and I put my hands up. Victory. We lost that game. We won on our metric. If you come up with your own If you find a version of this that works for you, I want to hear it. Drop it in the comments, post it in the TRP Community under the podcast, or email me. Fair warning that my response time depends on what else is going on, but the address is open. In the riff Camp schedule is live The 2026 and early 2027 camps are posted. You have been asking, so go take a look. One principle that matters to us: if you look at a camp and the number does not work for you right now, email us and tell us what is doable. To be clear about what that is and is not. It is not a discount program. The value is there at the stated price. The signature camp includes the online course, pre-camp experiences, and the community, so there is a whole structure around the two days. What it is: a way for cost not to be the reason you don't get coached. We don't ask follow-up questions. We don't ask for a bank statement. No guarantee we can make every request work, but we will do our best. Tap Into Your Flow update The series is underway. Five weeks, one piece at a time, and it is free. Week one establishes the connection between rhythm and the sport. We have done a version of this at camps for years, where players dink with their eyes closed and hear the metronome underneath the rally. Rush it, and the sound changes. What has been interesting for me as a coach is pulling the pieces together for this series. Putting music next to pickleball footage makes it obvious in a way that talking about it never quite did. You can watch the rally move with the music. If your play feels forced, one position to the next, paddle up, paddle back, staccato, this is for you. And the name is the point. I am not teaching you to flow the way I flow. The flow is already in you. You are a human being who has made it this far on this planet. It is in there. What gets in the way is interference, most of it self-issued, our own minds handing out instructions that keep us from moving cleanly through a shot. The series includes written materials, videos, and music. You will also come away knowing more about Johann Strauss and the Blue Danube than you expected from a pickleball newsletter. Links and contacts * Camps: tonyroigpickleball.com/camps * Camp cost conversations: camps@tonyroigpickleball.com [camps@tonyroigpickleball.com] * Email Tony: tony@tonyroigpickleball.com [tony@tonyroigpickleball.com] * Tap Into Your Flow: free with the email list at tonyroigpickleball.com * TRP Community: tonyroigpickleball.com

Ep. 304 - Tap Your Flow

PICKLEBALL THERAPY  ·  SHOW NOTES Episode 304 – Tap Your Flow  What this episode is about Flow is not something you go out and acquire. It is already in you. This week I make the case for that, and then I show you what the work for finding your flow actually is. Do you already have flow? Yes. Picture yourself waiting to return serve. The serve gets hit. What happens next is remarkable, and you do it without thinking about it: •     Your brain tracks a ball spinning through space •     It calculates where that ball will be at a moment in the future •     It moves your body to that place in space •     You hit the ball You were doing that before your first lesson. Before your first pickleball YouTube video. Nobody taught you. That is your supercomputer running software that came pre-installed. So what is the work? Removing interference. Taking away the noise. Clearing out the distractions and obstacles so that you can stop trying to think your way through the rally and start feeling the rally instead. Playing by feel more than by thought. One example of interference: trying to read paddle angles Players ask about this a lot. How can I learn to read my opponent’s paddle at contact so that I know where the ball is going? It’s a fair question. To be sure, some coaches teach it. But think about what you are actually asking yourself to do. You are moving. You are tracking the rally. And now you want to also read a paddle face at the moment of contact. There is a better way. When the ball travels to one side of the court, you start to sense where it is likely to go next. Will you get surprised? Sure. Once, maybe twice. Then your brain adjusts. That is flow doing the work instead of your conscious mind. Watch the pros. It looks like they are gliding. They always seem to be where they need to be. They are sensing the rally. Pickleball is music There is a rhythm to a rally. Learn to hear it and move with it, and you are in flow. That idea sits at the center of what we are doing in the Flow Project. The Flow Project Five weeks. Five bite-sized chunks. Focused on your mechanics. Here is why it works: you have probably already tried the frontal approach to learning pickleball. You want a better third shot drop, so you watch 87 videos and take 32 clinics on the third shot drop. Fine. Let’s come at it from a different angle. That’s what the flow project is all about. No cost. To participate: •     Go to tonyroigpickleball.com [http://tonyroigpickleball.com/] and get on the email list. The written lessons come by email, so that is the only way to receive them. •     Add tony@kjbm.tonyroigpickleball.com as a contact so the emails do not land in spam. •     Join the community at tonyroigpickleball.com [http://tonyroigpickleball.com/] for the video lessons and follow-alongs. In the riff: what Tony Roig Pickleball is about It is about you. A pickleball player who wants to grow in the sport. Period. On the question of whether the pro work I’ve been doing lately means a pivot away from amateur coaching: no. Commentating Major League Pickleball and the PPA, and coaching pro players, increases my knowledge of the game and keeps me current. I bring that back here. Not a pivot. Doubling down. Free at tonyroigpickleball.com [http://tonyroigpickleball.com/] •     Four mini courses •     The TRP Community •     The Flow Project (five weeks)

Ep. 303 - Your Next 10 Years

Interested in a pickleball camp? Visit https://www.tonyroigpickleball.com/camps Check out our new website, join our Community, and get free pickleball coaching and more at https://www.tonyroigpickleball.com/ Take a minute this week to think about your next 10 years. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Ten years out. In this episode, Tony walks through a simple exercise. Where are you now, and where do you want to be a decade from now as a pickleball player? It's a kind of audit. A way to check in on your journey and remind yourself that the path forward is still open. Here's the thing: if you want to keep learning, you will. And as long as you keep learning, you'll know more about this game every year than you did the year before. Learning and growing are not the same. Learning is acquiring the knowledge. Growing is putting it into practice. Do both over 10 years, and you will be a different player by the end. That's not a promise about becoming a pro. It's a fact about the direction of travel. Tony also shares where he's headed. Why coaching the amateur player is still his focus. Why the pro commentating and the pro coaching feed that work rather than pull him away from it. And why finances should never be the thing that keeps a player from getting good coaching. Pickleball is a canvas. The game is worth working on. But the bigger thing it's really working on is you. New free courses are live at tonyroigpickleball.com. Next week: the flow state.

Special Episode - The Next Phase: What's Tony Roig Pickleball?

A special episode. This one's a little different. I'm sharing something I've been building: Tony Roig Pickleball, the next phase of my coaching journey. In this episode, I walk you through what it is, where it came from, and what it means for you as a player. If you're a player who wants to genuinely know this sport, this is for you. Mini courses, coaching playbooks, camps, one-on-one coaching, a newsletter. All of it pointed at one thing: helping you grow. One more thing worth saying. Finances should never be an impediment to your growth as a player. If cost is standing in your way, reach out. We'll do what we can to make it work. The Pickleball Therapy podcast continues, same as always, now under the TRP umbrella. Nothing changes for you here. Come find us at tonyroigpickleball.com. Free mini courses are loaded up and waiting. Be well, Tony

The Best from our Archives Part 8 - Stop Chasing Winners and 2023 Open Notes

Thanks for joining us on Pickleball Therapy - the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. If you have not yet subscribed to the podcast ... wait what?? you haven't subscribed? ... you know what to do. If you can STOP chasing winners, you will win more. What??? Yes. When you chase winners, you make more mistakes. When you make more mistakes, you lose more points. Simple as that. Stick with the program: make less errors - and you will win more rallies (and games). One powerful way to do this is by going for less winners. Stop playing high risk pickleball and you will play better. If you like the podcast, please give it a rating. And share it with your friends. If you like it, they probably will too. Stay well, Tony