So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
THANK YOU! (Note: This post’s title, “So  Long and Thanks for All The Fish”,  is of course the title of Douglas Adam’s fourth book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a great title and it almost fits so we used it! AJ and Irene After way too much thought, we have decided to shut down our website pickleball.biz. We are not playing much these days due to injuries (and C-19 concerns too, of course!). And without playing we believe we are no longer a reliable source of new pickleball information to share. Since freely sharing information was always our mission, without the ab ..read more
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My Clandestine Pickleball Self- The Mental Game Revisited
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
Usually Irene and I write our articles together. This one, however, is about my own experiences with the mental game, trying to play pickleball, and especially competitive pickleball when feeling anxious, depressed or both. Some background First things first. I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) about 40 years ago. The reality is I’ve had some disorder like this since I was a baby practicing projectile vomiting. Later my malady was diagnosed by well-meaning grade-school teachers as “nerves” – the schools called my mom more than once to come get me because I was overly “nervous ..read more
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Zen and the Art of Pickleball- A Specific Pickleball Strategy
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
(Ed. Note) We have updated and are republishing this popular post on the subject of playing within yourself due to requests under the title “Zen and the Art of Pickleball” Enjoy!) We’ve been meaning to use the title Zen and the Art of Pickleball just ‘cuz we think it’s cool and also ‘cuz we admire some books using “Zen” in their names, such as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , Zen in the Art of Archery and others. And to legitimize the effort we may be a little Zen-like. Not much, tho. Mainly this is a piece discussing one specific pickleball strategy, and also one tactic that we se ..read more
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“Cellular” Pickleball Strategy 102: Strengthen Your Strengths
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
    Understanding pickleball strategy at the cellular level only comes with experience. Last October, Irene and I went to the Huntsman Games in St. George, UT. We went to watch Susie Dougan (our houseguest and a good friend from Bend, Or.) play mixed with Bob LeRoy, another good friend and excellent player, in the 75+. My aha moment about “cellular pickleball strategy” didn’t come right away that day. To be honest, it’s a little hard for me to even watch the 75+ division. Most all of them are folks I have either known or known of, and I kept seeing myself beating them like a drum  (to use ..read more
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Partner Play: The Pickleball Divorce
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
Remember that old song by Tammy Wynette? About D-I-V-O-R-C-E? Pickleball partners we know might sometimes hum that after playing a mixed doubles tournament with their spouse. Sometimes (we’ve heard) they even take action. “Wait, what?”, you protest. “My spouse and I are close. We’ve been together for, well, forever! We know everything about each other – likes, dislikes, hot buttons —.” Ahah, and there’s the rub! We’ll talk about hot buttons and the stress pressing them causes in partner play, but for the moment let’s do some stage-setting. So…you’re on the courts with your spouse, smiling an ..read more
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Improve Your Pickleball Skills in 2020
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
We at Pickleball.Biz wish you and yours a VERY good 2020, a prosperous and healthy New Year! We wish, too, that you’ll enjoy your pickling even more this year, and to help you with that, we offer you your choice of just two pickleball-related New Year’s resolutions. Either of these could (should!) improve your skills and (probably) your game. I will pick just one thing I’m already good at, and I’ll become better at it. Working on our strengths is something that few people remember to do. We are all so concerned with improving what we can’t do, (assuming we practice at all), we forget complete ..read more
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Times Change – For Better, or Worse?
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
  For a very long time, since its first days in the ’60s, pickleball didn’t take itself too seriously, and neither did we players. Other than following the USAPA rules as created in 1984 , few players insisted we do any one thing the “right” way. There was lots of room for experimentation and adaption, and it’s axiomatic that people who came to the game from another sport would routinely transfer their skills in with them. Many of the finest older pickleball players had started in tennis, platform tennis, badminton, table-tennis, racquetball or squash. Likewise teaching pickleball was not ins ..read more
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Knee Replacement for P-Ballers
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
Like many of us, you may know people who have had their knee amputated. And then, hopefully, replaced. We’re not sure if this is the most common ailment that afflicts senior pickleball players – other candidates could be shoulder surgery and hip replacements. But of the common operations this one is the most significant. Substantial therapy is required to get through the weeks following the operation, which has a success factor of 99%. And beyond that you are mostly expected to not have that much tournament play thereafter as Medicare is not fond of doing second or third replacements on the sa ..read more
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Playing Recreationally
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
Irene has been playing a little pickleball these days, this after almost a total absence of a year. She seems, to AJ’s eyes, to be playing perhaps as well as she ever has, which is remarkably well when she’s on. She is a very steady player and big fun to watch, being pretty darn graceful and so on. (These being AJ’s words, she hastens to add, being far too modest to say those things about herself.) None of this would matter if it wasn’t for the obvious fact that she is enjoying play a lot more than in recent years. She isn’t judging herself, and frankly (my dear Scarlett) she doesn’t give a d ..read more
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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK
Pickleball.biz | Growing Pickleball
by Us
4y ago
  Mark Manson’s phenomenal book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK, has been a counter intuitive NYT #1 Best Seller and in our thinking is possibly as close to a great strategy book for competitive pickleball as there is, excepting only our own section on strategy, of course. While the title is a “Made You Look” classic, the following article, reprinted in its entirety with thanks to Mark Manson, is far more. It defines the underlying philosophy of not giving as many f*cks as we do about stuff that’s pretty trivial, really. If we want to play competitive pickleball it doesn’t make sense to ..read more
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