Episode 309: Use the Force Luke (and Leia) A floater comes at you. It's just hanging there in space, waiting. Game point. Everybody on the next court has stopped to watch. You bring the paddle up, you swing, and the ball goes straight into the net. You have to be kidding me. So what happened? The natural response of any athlete is to go to mechanics. I mishit it. Something in my swing broke down. Something in my grip, my footwork, my paddle face. I'm going to suggest to you that more often than not, that miss was not mechanical. It was mental. And I don't mean mental in the way we usually mean it. I'm not talking about focus, or nerves, or staying present. I'm talking about your decisions, or the absence of them, about the shot you just hit. Run through three questions. One. Did you have a clear idea of where you wanted the ball to cross the net? A target. A specific space over the tape. If the answer is no, or I'm not sure, then you did not hit an intentional shot. You hit an unintentional one. You swung the paddle forward, and whatever happened, happened. When the ball lands in the net, it's hard to be upset about it. Where were you sending it? Two. Did you pick a spot with enough cushion? If you're aiming a quarter inch over the net, you have already baked the net into the shot. It sits inside the range of outcomes you selected. Give yourself paddle width over the net, at minimum. You'll still catch the tape once in a while. It will be much rarer. Three. Did you feed that information to your processing unit? Your processing unit is your brain. The decision only helps if it gets delivered before you swing. Miss any one of those, and the error was mental. Do all three, with real margin, and still find the net, then yes, now we can talk about mechanics. Footwork, swing, grip, something. But that's the second place to look, not the first. Here's where the Star Wars part comes in. In the movies, the Force is telekinesis. You move an object with your mind. You don't touch it. You just decide, and it goes. You can't do that on a pickleball court. Not directly. But you can do it indirectly, and that's the whole idea. Your mind makes the decision. Your mind hands that decision to your body. Your body sends the ball. If that connection isn't there, the ball goes wherever it goes. So if you want to fix the shot, start with the mind. — The Riff: Gratitude Most of you interact with this sport as a player. Some of you also interact with it as a student of the game, which is a different thing altogether. There are players who just want to go out and hit the ball, and that's perfectly fine, but they usually aren't listening to this podcast. There are other ways in, too. Fan of the pro game. Organizer. Referee. Tournament volunteer. The person who texts three other players on a Thursday to make sure Friday morning happens. That last one matters more than it gets credit for. I'm thankful for the people here who organize our play. David, Paul, Tyson, Stephanie. If I'm forgetting somebody, forgive me. It's been a long day of content creation. Because of them, I get to play on a Wednesday, or a Friday, or a Saturday. I'm thankful for the facilities, too. Pickle and Pint in Largo, Florida lets me shoot my videos there and cooperates with every project I bring them. None of that happens unless somebody decides to build courts, operate them, and pay for them. And I'm thankful for you. My coaching would be for nothing without players who listen, who watch, who read, who came in early and founded the community. All of it is what lets me do the thing I love doing with this sport. I like playing. I love coaching. Thank you, from me and from the whole team here at Tony Roig Pickleball. Be well, Tony
