Dear Pickleball,
I missed you terribly yesterday. I didn’t do anything active, unless grocery shopping counts. I just sat at home and watched Season 2 of Alone, something I’ve already watched. I guess I can’t resist Larry yelling at the mice in his shelter.
I was ready to get playing today and had a good, fun day. I played with everyone and had some decent shots. I still tested out the serve I’ve been working on and it went well. Some of the guys that played today have really big serves so that was a nice challenge. I didn’t struggle too much if I was on the non-bubble side but when I had to receive the serve with the bubble to my back I have to bend over to not bump my head into it. For some reason I didn’t do as well with the returns when I was in that scenario.
One of the guys loves to work my backhand, especially with speed ups, but I’m ok with how I managed. He won a bunch that way, I held my own a bunch of times. I got schooled more than once by one of the fellas when I thought I had a winner on the corner he somehow managed to find a way to get it and zip it past me.
I landed my first ATP of the year and it was a winner.
I went to my favorite local rec center for some Friday night pickle. It is almost all beginners but Friday night is my social night so I don’t mind. My bpf (best pickleball friend) was there and we were able to catch up a little bit.
There were no games to really speak of but our conversations were healthy. We discussed AED machines in facilities, the perfect pickleball paddle for the price, a potential new partner for me and learned that the guy who teaches pickleball at that rec center doesn’t have enough paddles for people to use when they come to be introduced to the sport. I offered to sell him some Diadem beginner paddles but he wants the whole world to use Franklins; and I don’t think he makes the decision on what the facility can buy. He also told us that the newest class he is teaching is the first time the majority of his students are younger than him (he’s 51). They are learning it quickly and he seems to like that new clientele.
After everyone left he stayed and fed me serves to my forehand, helping me try to figure out how to return a powerful serve deep. It’s a little tricky to evaluate because I’m just receiving balls to hit. What I mean by that is, in a game I’ll naturally follow a return towards the kitchen. In practice, I don’t. So I have a tendency to not step into it, not follow through properly and the worst, I stand up rather than staying in a nice, low, athletic position. As usual, he gave me a ton of pointers and helped me understand what I’m doing wrong, which will only help me when I face power servers in the future.
