Ep. 289 - Recognition SuperPower

Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickable improvement.

I hope you have a great week.

This week's podcast, I'm going to dive into a kind of a mushy subject, but it's extremely

powerful.

It's like a superpower, as I said, in the title to the podcast.

It's just recognition.

It seems like a simple little thing.

It seems like a nothing burger, if you will.

But if you get good at recognition, right?

If you get good at understanding its uses and get good at applying it at the levels,

at the three different levels that we're going to be talking about, I think it'll really

help you improve your play.

At the end of the podcast, I give you an invitation to connect.

If you want to connect, I'll put the email address of being the show notes.

If you want to reach out, if you're interested in having us coach you, we have different

coaching experiences that you can engage with us on.

I'll put that in the show notes and you can send us an email if you're so interested.

Put it in the subject line, coach me, or please coach me, or I like for you to coach me,

whatever you like.

Something in the subject line, so we know how to respond to it.

We can put it in the right bucket of emails.

All right, let's talk about recognition.

As I mentioned, that seems like a kind of mushy recognition.

What does that mean?

When I looked up the definition of Merriam Webster, it was to acknowledge or take notice

of in some definite way.

Very vague, very broad in general.

How do we use that?

This consider recognition within our pickleball space.

Frankly, you can use it in your personal life as well, but I'm focused on pickleball

here as our canvas that we're working in.

I'm going to basically break it up into three different areas that we're going to look

at.

Let me set it up right now for you.

Let me get you going, get your brain going on recognition, and maybe some areas of recognition

where you could use some improvement.

Let me give you three different ideas, three different situations.

One is you just finished playing a rally.

Do you remember if you hit the third shot in that rally, would you remember that at the

end of a rally?

If you do remember that, do you remember where you hit it?

Or the type of shot you hit?

Do you remember any of those characteristics from at the end of a rally when you're on

the serve team, whether you hit the third shot, and if so, what type of shot you hit?

Another one is you're getting locked.

You're in one of these games, you just keep getting locked and you're like, oh my god,

another lock, another lock.

Are you recognizing the player who's doing it?

Are you recognizing the side the player likes to do it from?

Four-hander backhand.

The third area that I'm going to tease for you is you're feeling a little bit stuck.

You're feeling a little bit, maybe that's stuck, maybe that's a big word, but maybe you're

feeling like you're wandering a little bit in Pickleball and you're not really sure what

to do next, right?

How can you possibly move forward in your game or anything in life, right?

If you don't recognize the thing that's holding you back, if you don't recognize the obstacle,

that's another area of recognition.

We're going to basically look at each one of those three scenarios that I set out for

you in the sphere of recognition that it works in.

Let's start with the smallest one first, which is little picture recognition.

The idea is recognizing inside the little picture that may new shot if you want to think

about it that way.

This is where we go back to the third shot.

You're on the serve team.

A third shot was hit, because the start was made, the return was made presumably.

We hit a third shot.

The rally ends and the question would be who hit the third shot, what kind of third shot

was hit?

Particularly if you're trying to work on your third shot, right?

You're trying to improve your third shot.

Let's see, you're working on a third shot, hitting third shot drops to the middle more or

third shot drives to the movie player, whatever technique you're trying to add to your game.

The first step would be like, who hit the third shot?

What kind of third shot was hit?

Did I hit the third shot?

We're going to hit the third shot and then what kind of third shot was hit?

Because then we can make adjustments based on that.

I want to be clear here, there's no criticism, folks.

This is a very normal thing for players not to be sure as to who hit the third shot or

what type of third shot was hit.

The rally starts going, boom, boom, boom, boom.

We're not really sure exactly how it played out.

This happens very commonly in our coaching where we'll have coach play sessions.

I come on under the court at the end of a rally to have a conversation about the rally.

I'll ask questions different ways, but maybe I'll ask the question in this sense of like,

okay, so let's talk about the third shot and where the third shot was hit.

Now I'll have all four players, frankly, even the return team will look over and say like,

they're trying to figure out who hit the third shot.

In terms of like, did they hit it when they couldn't have hit it?

Again, not a criticism, guys.

This is very natural.

I want you to understand how natural this is.

It happens all the time.

Eventually, they'll sort out, okay, we're the serve team.

Then they'll try and remember who hit the third shot and then where it was hit or how it

was hit and things like that.

Very difficult, very difficult process.

The reason I point this out is because I want to make sure you understand that there's

perfectly natural for this to happen.

This is because the recognition skill, the recognition muscle just hasn't been exercised.

It hasn't been worked.

It's natural for the players not to know what's going on.

They're so worried about other things.

They have a million things going on in their mind.

They're not really paying attention to the steps and the rally, to the things that are

happening in the rally.

Now, if you're working on your third shot, then the first step is going to be recognizing

what you're doing.

Let's go back to trying to hit more third shot drops in the middle, let's say.

If you don't know that you hit the third shot, you can't even answer the next two questions.

If you know you hit the third shot, then you need to know whether you hit it as a drop

or a drive or a log or just a shot where you didn't really think about it, you just made

contact with the ball.

Again, no criticism.

It happens, but you need to know that.

Then you need to remember where you hit it.

Did you hit it toward the middle or did you hit it to the size or did you not have a target

in mind?

Until you can put those pieces together, you're not going to be able to put in the work.

You're not going to be able to remind your brain about, or tell your brain, I should say,

about what happened so that then you can make a correction the next time.

I'm going to give you a way to work on this.

I'm not going to recommend you doing the third shot.

Use the third shot just as a way to explore it.

I'm going to recommend you do it with your serve.

The reason I recommend the serve is because the serve is the time that you have complete

control, right?

Balls in your hand.

Take your time on the serve.

You can do what you want with it.

What I want you to do is if you want to work on this recognition, the exercise you're

going to do is you're going to basically have a clear picture in your mind of what you

want your serve to do.

How do you want it to travel?

Where do you want it to go?

High over the net.

We're on the court, right?

You're aiming.

Then after you serve, after the rally ends, don't do it in that moment.

After the rally ends, you need to go back to your serve and connect the serve that you

actually hit with the serve that you wanted, right?

Do those two match.

They don't match.

What's happening is, that's all you got to do about it.

You have your visualization of the serve that you want.

And a recognition of whether the serve that you hit was close to that or not close to

that.

Here's what's powerful, right?

Just doing that alone, right?

Will build this recognition muscle where you're starting to work on like recognizing what's

happening during a rally, starting with the serve.

And another thing is going to happen that's super powerful is you're going to get this

like indirect correction because what will happen is your brain wants to deliver what you

want if you tell it, right?

So you have the visual of what you want to have happened, right?

This is how we're all much more to look.

And then you have feedback that you're giving to your brain saying, yes, it did look that

way or no, it didn't look that way.

Your brain will try and make those two match by itself, right?

You don't need to fret about paddle angle at point of contact, your foot positioning,

whatever your brain will do a lot of work in the background to solve for that.

Again, without you having to fret about the little details of it, just by giving it

that feedback loop, right?

Where you're like, I recognize the serve was what I wanted or the recognize the serve

was not what I wanted.

And then the next step would be okay, it wasn't what I wanted because.

And you just give it the visual, right?

Meaning like it went, let's say you want to have like a high, let's say you want to

do a system serve, what we call a system serve.

So you're aiming three or four feet over the net, you're aiming middle of the serve box,

you know, forfeiffer from the baseline, three forfeiffer from the baseline, something like

that.

Boom.

And then you have visualization of the ideal serve.

And that's that you hit a serve and the serve went like, you know, it was just two feet

behind the non-valley's online, out toward the sideline and really low, like, you know,

a foot over the net.

And you're like, yeah, that's not what I'm looking for, right?

So you feed that to your brain and your brain says, uh, that's not what we want.

One is this other serve and you feed, you know, so it has that serve as the ideal and

then it has these feedback loops of these serve that aren't what you're looking for.

What happens is your serve starts to move more and more toward the serve that you want.

Automatically, that's how powerful your brain is.

As long as it has the correct information, the pieces of information that it needs to

put that process together, put that work together.

So that's the work that you'll do on little picture recognition.

And if you do the work on it and it does what I suggested it will do, let us know.

Send me an email.

Send me an email.

Send it to send that one to, I think we have an email, a pickable therapy.

A better pickable?

I don't remember exactly.

I'll put it in the show.

But let me know.

Excuse me.

Let me know that worked out for you.

And the next one we have is medium picture recognition.

So this is the one with the logs, right?

You're playing in this game and you're just getting a lot of like, man, I mean, it's just

again, again, a lot of after a lot, right?

Absolute nightmare.

Um, what I want, you know, the, the, the, and I give you a real world example, actually.

So this happened yesterday in a clinic I was giving.

So I basically, I was pairing up with the players in a rotation.

And when I was partner up with Tom or two opponents, uh, uh, Mac and I go are good lovers

from the baseline.

They're very good lovers.

And so, um, I returned, I think I returned in the middle and, uh, um, Mac, she's left

handed.

She hit a good lob, right?

So we poked her back in the middle.

Good lob, poked her back again.

Good lob.

The, the, this one I actually then moved the ball to the outside.

So I moved the ball towards her, her back end towards her right side.

And, um, no ball, no ball up, you know, because Mac likes a lot from her forehand.

Now from back in now in the middle of the rally, I'm analyzing that.

That's that medium term recognition.

I'm, I'm recognizing, okay, she's loving from that side, send it to the other side.

Once I'm done with that game, that goes into my little book, goes into my little, my

little stats for the players, right?

Where I had no now next time I play against Mac, that if I give her ball deep to the forehand,

probably going to be a lot.

If I go to her backhand, less likely, it's going to be a lot.

So that's how I can solve for that lobbing situation in the medium term recognition,

right?

It's a bigger picture than the minutiae.

It's more like I'm looking at the whole game and I'm seeing what's going on.

Our medium picture, I should say.

And, um, and, you know, I'm going to give you some work that you can do here.

So, um, you're going to do the exact same thing, okay?

And I'm going to give you, um, way to work on it with your playing bangers or lovers,

okay, depending on what it is that most affects you.

I would start there.

So if you're like just tired of getting banged by a certain player or starting to tired

of getting a lob for a certain player, just pick one work on that first.

So you're looking at a type of shot, a bang or a lob and you're looking for a particular

player.

It's got to be a player who you play against frequently who's a player who just you go,

my man, I get it right.

Because I'm going to get a lob like crazy or I'm going to get banged like crazy, right?

And here's the steps you're going to do.

So look at, look, try and see if you can figure out what shot do they like to bang or lob

from because players have preferences, right?

Players or pattern players.

So what you'll find is you'll find a certain type of shot that the banger likes a lot or

the shirt and type of shot that the lobber likes a lot.

See if you can identify a preferred side, you know, uh, do they like to do it more from

the forehand or more from the backhand?

Like I did in, in the example I gave you earlier.

Uh, and then are there any tells you can sometimes you can sus out some tells.

This is, this is more of a detail, but see if you can sus out some tells.

So sometimes what you'll see is you'll see when they're getting ready to hit their magic

shot, bang or a lob, you'll see them act differently with their body.

Sometimes they'll squat down a little more like they'll get down a little more

intently with the shot.

Um, for bangers, what you'll see is you'll see the paddle pull back more, right?

Obviously generate more power.

So the pull the paddle back more than they would for a dink, let's say, um, or a drop.

And then the lobber a lot oftentimes sick and then MVZ lob, non-balley zone lob,

which you can see as you can see them open their paddle more.

So you'll see them, they'll squat a little bit, they'll open their paddle more, probably a

lob and then you can make adjustments based on that.

Um, and I like to think about yourself becoming the, you're like the Sherlock Holmes of

the courts, if you do that.

So you basically like, you're, you're able to see what's happening before it happens,

like in Sherlock Holmes stories or movies.

Um, and that helped you out on middle, um, on, um, middle picture, or medium picture

recognition.

All right, big picture recognition.

This one is, um, this one is the biggest in terms of, uh, scale, but also in terms

of impact on you.

And this is the one where you're, this stuck in the game, you're kind of like

wandering a little bit, you're not really sure what to do next.

Um, and, um, you know, if you want to advance, you want to continue to grow, you need

to recognize what it is that's holding back, what obstacle, what, what is it?

I'll help you.

Um, now I will tell you, this is the hardest one to master because this one, um, requires

additional knowledge that you by definition don't have.

All right, if you had the knowledge, then you wouldn't need the knowledge.

So you're kind of a little bit, a little bit stuck here in terms of like being able to

move forward.

I'm going to be some steps on what you can do, but it is the most difficult one because

again, you're lacking that knowledge to help you break through.

So I give you three tips to help you improve in this area.

Number one is avoid quick tips.

So this is those quick hitters, um, you know, a lot of YouTube videos and things

like that are built around, uh, quick tips right around like, you know, quick

satisfaction.

Those generally speaking are not going to work.

Um, and if you think about it, think about, you know, you're playing like, we're

late with your pick about that's what you're doing.

You're just spinning a wheel and hoping that the ball lands on what you need.

Um, more often than it's going to be wrong.

Um, focus on fundamentals.

It's a dirty word, guys.

I know it because I, I don't, I don't try not to use the term fundamentals with folks

who don't know me.

I'll use it on his podcast.

Cause then you know me, but, um, as soon as it turned fundamentals, you know,

if someone's been playing for a year, they turned it off because they think I'm

talking about beginners or basic.

And I'm not.

I thought I'm a fundamentals.

Um, you know, the best player on the planet, her name is Analy Waters.

Um, and I mean, best player, not best male or female player or best female player.

I mean, or best woman player should say, uh, not the best woman player.

The best player period is Analy Waters, Analy Waters excels because of fundamentals.

Yep.

She has a great, great shot.

She has beautiful shots, great athleticism.

She can do amazing things, soaking a lot of players.

You know what?

Analy has a lot of players don't has don't have, um, fundamentals is just just a,

just a total dedication to her fundamentals.

So stick to the fundamentals.

The fundamentals are keys to amazing play.

Um, you know, if you're unsure what you need, stay away from fancy stuff.

You know, extra spins, ATPs, uh, you know, fancy putter, you know, extra putaways,

those videos, I say 99% of, you know, players can handle this.

Forget about all that stuff.

Um, focus on fundamentals, focus on your serve, your return, footwork,

your, the volleys that you need to execute your play.

That's what's going to get you good play.

And the last one I'll give you is to get a guide.

I mean, you know, find a guide.

You need a guide.

You need, so you need someone to guide you and teach you the sport.

Uh, you can find, you know, some local pro, um, not, I was just a some local pro.

You can find a local pro.

There are pros out there who, um, I'm familiar with who teach the game.

Um, I would say correctly or in a way that is most helpful to you, I should say,

in order of the priority that's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck,

and who can also coach.

So they're out there.

Um, unfortunately, you know, the reality is that there are also coaches out there

that either don't really understand the game, um, have been put in the time to,

to figure it out well enough to be able to coach it, uh, or, or, or, are unable to coach.

And that's just the reality.

So, you know, if you can find a local pro great, get yourself a guide.

Um, otherwise I am happy to be your guide.

This is what I do.

I, by coach pickable, uh, I believe I'm pretty good at coaching pickable.

And, uh, I've had good success coaching pickable.

Uh, and this is my full time career.

So do this.

Uh, if you're interested in finding out how, uh, I can coach you in pickable, uh,

send me an email again.

I'll put it in the show notes, um, and send me an email and let's connect and, and see what, uh,

what type of coaching or guiding is available to you.

But I will say, you know, whenever you choose whether you choose to work, uh, with me or with

somebody else, uh, you know, recommend that you find a guide, you find a way to continue

to grow your knowledge because with that knowledge, you gain the recognition that you

need for this big picture, uh, part of your, uh, relationship with the sport of pickable.

Um, so that's a sweet spot.

Guys, I hope you enjoyed it.

Recognition.

Don't, don't sleep on it guys.

Super powerful.

Um, work on it.

You can develop better recognition.

The more you do it, the better you get at it.

And then next one becomes easier and so on and so forth.

Um, I will be back with you next week for a regular episode of pickable therapy.

Until then, be well.