Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Newsletter!

Are you ready for 2024? Today, we’ll give you some pickleball-themed New Year’s resolutions, propose a different way to find love, look at three mistakes hurting your serve, and a whole lot more!

Let’s go! 👇

2024 is right around the corner — and you can't get ready for the new year without some New Year's Pickleball Resolutions! 😃

Can't think of any? Here's a list of ones to consider...

1. Don’t be obnoxious to your partner — eye rolls, blaming them for hitting out balls or not covering a shot, etc.

   → It's not nice!

   → It's counterproductive — when people are sad (down on themselves for playing poorly) or mad (at you for being obnoxious), they don’t perform better, they perform WORSE!

2. Don't make too many excuses

   → One or two legitimate excuses about the wind or a nagging injury you have is fine. But no more than two! 😄

   → If you do use an excuse, make sure it makes sense — see example below.

   → Blaming your past experience with tennis for opening up your paddle face on groundstrokes (resulting in high, weak, slice shots) is not a good excuse — because that same technique would result in horrible tennis shots too! 😃 

3. Wear goggles

   → The risk of a serious eye injury is simply not worth the slight inconvenience of using eyewear for protection.

   → Even if you have fast hands, no one can protect against certain things like deflections off the net or off your partner’s paddle.

   → It feels like it’s going to take a high profile player losing an eye for goggles to be enforced — and it’s a shame because logic tells us that we don’t need to wait for that to happen.

   *P.S. If you can’t imagine yourself wearing goggles on court, then try imagining yourself wearing an eye patch — both on and off the court.

4. Thank the person who got you into pickleball

   → We know this sport has brought you tons of joy, so if you haven’t already, thank the person who introduced it to you.

   → Pay it forward and introduce the game to someone else!

Pickleball’s greatest of all time player, Ben Johns, answers the question: What can people do to stay mentally tough in tournaments?

“Hey Bulletin Readers!

To stay tough mentally during tournaments, there are a few good things you can do:

1. Stay positive. This doesn’t need to be over the top positivity, but negativity very rarely helps you or your partner.

2. Try not to think about too much. Overthinking can be the death of mental strength. You’ve played plenty of pickleball, trust that your body knows what to do, and stop thinking so much about it.

Ultimately, which mental strength techniques work definitely vary from person to person, so find out what is helpful for you. Also, the simple truth of the matter is experience will lend itself very well to mental strength and sometimes nothing can replace that.

Until next time,

Ben”

He’s Baaaaack!!

Do you remember Coach Ray and his tips on dinking your balls up and down and side to side?😂 Well, he’s back with a new cast of characters in “Talking Pickleball: Part 2.”👇

Respect a good third shot drop.

If your opponent hits a great third shot that bounces in the kitchen, is low, or is difficult to attack, it’s sometimes better to “concede” the third shot and hit your fourth shot in the kitchen so that they can’t go on offense. If you’re trying too hard to keep your opponents back when they hit a great third shot, you’re likely to give them a pop up that they can put away.

It’s better to allow them to get into the kitchen and start dinking than to give them an opportunity to end the point. This is especially relevant for advanced players trying to reach a 5.0+ level. I find that 4.0s and 4.5s struggle with this decision making a lot.

Go Ape with Pickleball Apes!

The Pro Line Energy paddles from Pickleball Apes have been called some of the top all-court paddles of 2023. That’s probably because they use an innovative combination of kevlar and carbon fiber that enhances both performance and durability.

Plus, their paddles have a cool ape on them! For the holiday season, Pickleball Apes is offering a $30 gift certificate with every paddle purchase + a 10% discount.

Resets? Yes. Speedups? Got’em. Put-aways? You bet. Sweet point? Oh yeah! 💪

A Match Made in — Kitchen

These days, it seems like the main way to date is by meeting people on an app. But what about meeting someone in person — like on a pickleball court?!

Admittedly, this concept first came to mind as a joke. But upon further thought, pickleball speed dating or simply a pickleball singles event, where you play with different singles and then have some drinks afterwards, actually seems like a good idea.

PROS:

• Fun, laughter, being active — what a great backdrop for meeting someone for the first time.

• Working together as a team to accomplish something is a great way to see if you can be a team in real life.

• You get to see how each other’s bodies work and move around. 💪😘

Why wouldn’t you try meeting people through pickleball? Well, we can think of a few reasons...

CONS:

• Body odor — getting introduced to someone’s BO the first time you meet them may not be the best idea. 👃

• Bad qualities — what if the person is a bad winner or a sore loser? Or what if they cheat?

• Accidental injuries — you could knock your partner over or give your opponent a big welt from an inadvertent body bag.

Yes, there are some cons, but accidents are a part of life (so is BO), and revealing the bad qualities of a potential suitor may actually be a pro rather than a con because seeing someone’s negative character traits right off the bat can save you months of dating — before you see those bad traits later on.

To us, the pros really outweigh the cons. So if you've already thought of organizing a pickleball dating event, go ahead and do it.

And if we just gave you the idea, then still go ahead and do it — just maybe give us a cut of your profits. 😃

Wait. What? Did that just—? Is that —? OK, I think I get what I just saw. 😲😂

A Pro Year for ProXR!

If anyone had a year worth mentioning, it's ProXR Pickleball — a new logo, new paddle designs (with Zane Navratil and Connor Garnett), signing more professional athletes, MLP collabs, and a whole new color scheme!

Those achievements are great, but ProXR Pickleball isn't stopping any time soon with many new developments in the works. Use code “clinic20” for $20 off.

Want to serve like a pro? Or at least not like a beginner? 🙂

Then check out these three serving mistakes that may be holding you back👇

Key takeaways:

• Don’t stand sideways — face your target instead

• Don’t drop the ball from awkward positions

• Don’t hit the same serve every time — vary it up instead

Macon Mall in Macon, Georgia just became home to the largest indoor pickleball facility in the world. With two floors and 32 courts, the facility is not only massive, but it represents an attempt to establish Macon as a major pickleball destination.

Thanks for the read. See you soon!

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic

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