174. Let's Talk About Paddle Grit...Enhance MPP Armor Turbo, Pickleball Apes Zen & More

Alright, what's up guys? We are finally back. After months, the longest break that we have

ever had from the Pickleball Studio podcast. I actually don't even feel like I'm doing

a podcast. This like feels really weird. We need bear, bear, bear, bear, the air horn,

smoke machine lights are flashing. We're back, baby. We even just setting this pot up.

We kept joking. We're like, do we even know how to do this anymore? Like are we gonna

do something wrong? Like not record our audio or something ridiculous. I mean, this is

what? Episode 175. Yeah. So after 175 times, I'd like to think that I could do this with

my eyes closed, but it was weird after that's the longest break we've ever taken.

And hopefully we'll never have to take a break that long again. That would be great.

I mean, we do it. If you guys, there have been a lot of you messaging me being like, man,

when is the pod coming back? And I hope you are ready for a long pod. Because let me tell

you, I had way more I wanted to put in this podcast. And I was like, we're gonna be four

hours long. Look for our California audience. Be ready. Look, I'm, yo, I've got two energy

drinks stock just in case because this is gonna be a marathon. Okay. I be, I came ready.

Oh my gosh. Okay. I mean, it's, it's almost hard to figure out where even to start. I mean,

first of all, for those of you who don't know, because I think there were a handful of people

just I was getting messages or emails like, Hey, where's the pod? I just took a long break

because of my back pain, which we're gonna talk about in a minute, just kind of where that's at.

What happened exactly? But yeah, like my back was super messed up over the whole summer,

like playing pickleball was very painful. I could, you know, do some day-to-day stuff,

but it just pickleball was off the table. And I've said this many times, like, I probably could

have still reviewed paddles or made content about paddles, but one, it would have slowed

my recovery down. And two, I just feel like it's a disservice if it's like, Oh, I'm hitting

every paddle for only an hour. And then that's the best I can do. You know, maybe that is better than

nothing, but to me, I just feel very strongly about the way we make our content. And I was not

willing to really budge on that. Well, we have our, our set ways and methods and deviating off

that just feels wrong. Yeah. You know, plus it's just not worth the risk of re-injuring yourself,

taking a couple weeks and then hurting it again. And then you take a couple weeks. It's just

better to take one block fully recover and be back strong. Totally. So yeah, we'll talk about my

back pain really quick because a lot of you were curious about, you know, what has helped, what's

been going on. And so we'll just kind of dive into all of that. So this will probably not be

every single thing I've done, but probably the things that have helped the most. So some of you

might remember that I got an MRI back in like beginning of June, late May, and there was no

spinal damage. So I had no slip disk. I had no herniated disk, which is what I kept thinking it was

because this back pain has gone on for years. So I was like, it has to be something that was my

spine's got to be messed up, right? So nothing was wrong there. So that was good. And then just as

time has gone on, especially this last like month or two, basically what I've learned about my

specific injury is that my right spinal erector, which is, you know, one of the muscles that helps

hold you upright. Anytime it would think my back was in danger, which would be, it could be from

a lot of things. It could be bending over. It could be picking something up. It could be standing

for too long. Like it could be the most ridiculous things when my back would think it was in danger.

And then that right erector would just like lock up. And the whole purpose behind it doing that is

if it thinks it is unsafe for your spine is trying to stop you from doing something that is going

to injure your spine. The problem was I wasn't ever in danger. So it was like overreactive. It was

doing something it shouldn't have been doing anymore. So a lot of the work has been figuring out

how do I calm that down and get it to chill? Because some of it I'm actually convinced at this point

is even less of a strength thing. And a lot of it was learned behaviors like I've been in pain

for so long that I've taught my body to move in specific ways to avoid pain. Like anytime I would

pick something up off the ground, I would brace my entire body. My core would get super tight. I'd

tense my back and I would like kind of move like a robot, which is in some ways good. But the problem

was I was basically just teaching that erector. Hey, we have to be tight all the time. So it just

couldn't loosen up. So that was kind of my problem, which led to a lot of pain of like when I was

really tight rolling over in bed would be really painful. Sometimes I couldn't even do it. Sometimes

I couldn't even really walk. I mean, there are days you just couldn't even get up. I didn't get

off the couch. You like I call you and be like, I can't move. Yeah. I mean, it was terrible. So

that is the main thing. So if you know people out there who have herniated discs, that was not

quite my issue. I think there is some overlap in what worked for me would also work for people with

herniated discs. But I just want to be clear that my injury is very different than something like a

herniated disc. And also I learned a lot that like back pain is usually not just one thing like

everyone online is actually one of the most annoying things about the fitness world. If you guys

think paddle, the paddle review world can be annoying. Do go to some of these other industries.

The fitness world is like, here's the one stretch that'll cure your back pain. And like as I've been

in this for so long, all of that is a load of crap. It is infinitely more confusing. Yeah, it's like

it's going to be more than one thing most likely for you. Like all these stupid stretches that are

like, this is a cure back pain. I'm like trying these things. I didn't do anything. If anything,

I made it worse. Yeah. So that was a whole mess. All right. Let's get into some of what worked

because I know people want to hear about paddles and not my back. So like I said, back pain is

often more than just one thing for me at times. I would be like, Oh, it's my core. I'd be like,

Oh, it's my glutes. Oh, it's my erector. Oh, it's like my quads. I'd be going through all

these things. And it's probably all of them. Like all of those things needed to get stronger. My glutes

need to get stronger. My hips need to get stronger. My corny to get stronger. So I've been working on

all that. But I kept believing for a long time. Oh, it's this one thing. If I fix this, it'll be done.

Yeah. And then I'd find another thing. Oh, it's this. And so I learned that it wasn't just one thing.

That was a big thing. The probably the number one thing that helped the most was very gradually

loading my back. And I early on, I would be like, Okay, well, I can still play pickleball. That's fine.

Then I would learn, Oh, that's still too much. And so I kept having to regress. And basically,

I got to the point where I regressed so low that I was literally like bending down just to touch

my knees and then going back up. So I would hinge touch my knees go up, do that 10 times,

do that like two sets. And that's all I did that day. And along with walking, you know,

I've been doing my 10,000 steps every day, whatever. And so, but that's just to give you an idea of

how little load I could put on my back. And so I was doing these things literally thinking to myself,

this is so stupid. There's this is so little load that it can't even be helping. And then I would do

that a couple days in a row. And then I would notice, Oh, hey, I can like go to my shin now. Like,

that's different. And then a couple more days. And I'm like, Oh, hey, I'm on the ground.

Like touching, you know, my toes. And I'm like, Oh, I couldn't do that before. So I'm like, Okay,

I'm going the right direction. Then I would pick up a five pound ball off the ground and do that for

10 reps. And like, this is how slow it was progressing. And sometimes I'd go a whole week and be like,

I didn't improve at all. But then the next week, I'm like, Oh, that's weird. Like I feel better now.

And so from there, worked my way into the gym and was doing, there was a cable machine for any of you

who are familiar with like basically a pile off press and what that is. You just hold the cable out

in front of you and kind of twist. I literally started with five pounds. That five pounds. I

guarantee you every single person listening to this podcast could probably do at least 20. Like,

I don't think there's one person who couldn't do less than that. That's the one thing about like

recovering from injuries and stuff is it is so humbling. Like you just think, Oh, that red

exercise band so weak. Not when you're recovering from injuries because that thing's going to hurt.

Or yeah, like five pounds sounds wimpy, but it's going to feel like a lot of weight. Yeah,

but because particularly, especially when you are recovering from injuries, something's weak or,

yeah, you know, you just haven't used it enough or used it properly or use it properly. And,

yeah, that five pounds is heavy. I mean, it was embarrassing to me. Like I would be like, I hope

no one's looking at the weight that I'm doing. Like this feels absurd that I'm doing five pounds.

But then I would I would log all of my workouts. And so I could see if I was actually progressing

up both in weights and reps. So like I was doing like 10 reps at five pounds and I'd do that for

two sets. Then the next week, I'd be like, Okay, let's go to 12 pounds. See if I can do the same

thing and slowly creep up. Usually I wouldn't increase the weight during the week. I would do a whole

week of one weight and maybe add a couple more reps in the next week. I'd add a little bit more

weight and continue to trend up because again, there were a lot of flare ups during this like

recovery period. This was not a straight line up. This was like, Oh, I'm doing really well. Oh,

I'm doing really bad. Oh, I'm doing really good. Oh, I'm doing even worse than before. Oh,

hey, I'm doing pretty good. Like it was very up and down. So there was that. But a lot of

glute work, a lot of single leg work exercises for my hips. I don't think I'm going to go super

deep into all of those right now, maybe another podcast. We'll do that. But just for those of you

who do have back pain or other injuries, just know that you're going to have to load probably very

slowly and you do not want to load too quick. The mistake I've made multiple times now, the most

recent flare up I had was about two weeks ago. A buddy came over and he was like, Hey, let's drill.

So we drilled for an hour. I felt great. And he was like, Hey, you want to play singles? I was like,

I'm feeling great. Let's play. So we played two games of singles. I felt awesome. So I was like,

hey, you want to play a third game? And I knew I shouldn't have been doing this. I was like,

oh, this is probably pushing it, but I felt so good. I was like, let's do it. Played a third game,

halfway through. I was like, Nope, I'm done. And I didn't feel terrible. I just felt tight. And I was

like, Oh, I should probably stop. That set me back a whole week. I literally couldn't work out for a

week. Actually, even the second week, I didn't work out because I was still in pain. So it,

don't be stupid. You know, like I'm literally at the point now. Last night I played two games with some

friends stopped. I was like, that's my limit. I shouldn't go more than that. Yep. So my warning

to all of you is load very slowly. Like I said, a lot of core and glute work has been very helpful.

Those muscles are just your back shouldn't be doing all the work. Your core and your glutes should

be doing that. Next up, a big thing that actually really helped me when I would have a flare up is

dry needling. That was helpful, but you know, I have to go somewhere to do that. It's a little

annoying. So I bought a tens unit, which is just these little like electrode pads. And I hook them

up to my back. And then I have this little device that I can turn the intensity up. And it's

basically sending little shock waves into my back to get it to calm down. And I only got that

maybe a week and a half ago. And that thing has been so helpful. I wish I had gotten that way sooner

because anytime I finish pickleball now and my back is a little tight or I'm like, I don't really

like how that feels. I'll go put this on. And I feel great afterwards. Like I feel normal. So I'm

not saying that's a cure all for people. But for me, the tens unit has been huge. So I usually

use that twice a day for like 20 minutes. Again, not overdoing it on pickleball. That was very

helpful. I also built an app with clawed to help me track my back pain. So I would log my back pain

every day, one out of 10. I would log the exercises I did. And then write a little journal note of like,

hey, you know, I walked for this long. My back kind of felt this way. So I could see patterns over time.

Like, okay, hey, that's actually making me feel good. That's making me feel bad. Because for any of

you who've been in back pain for a long time, it's very easy to lose sight of what's actually happening.

Like the amount of times I would be getting better, but it didn't feel like it was like the entire

summer. So I would highly encourage people to do that. And then one of the last things I'll say is

this probably didn't have as much impact on my back, but I'm sure it helped. I decided to lose a

lot of weight. So I was about 171 pounds. And then I was like, I need to clean my diet up. So I just

started tracking my protein, doing 160 grams a day, tracking my calories so that I would lose weight.

And now I'm down 13 pounds and I'm aiming for like another eight pounds. And I think I'll be in

the spot I want. So that was a big thing too. You know, just eating clean or not eating so much

frozen food. Like I've been eating the same things for like two months. Yeah. Chicken breast cooked

away that I really enjoy sweet potatoes and then like a yogurt bowl for breakfast. And then,

you know, some more chicken for dinner. So I'm thankfully I'm not sick of it yet. I wouldn't be

doing this if I was sick of it. But yeah, losing weight definitely helped. So that's kind of how I

am with meals and stuff. I'll eat the same thing for like three months. Then get bored of it.

Find something else. Eat that same thing for three months and just rotate totally, totally. So

yeah, that's kind of what's been helping. I am definitely not done yet. I stuff to be very careful

how much I can play. You guys are probably going to get a lot of first impressions from me and

last full reviews until I feel like I'm fully back to normal, which hopefully won't be too long.

Like I am feeling really good, but I'm still a little hesitant to, you know, start doing my normal

schedule like playing five days a week and then hurt myself again. So yeah, that I guess that's

what I'll say for now. And we can get to the pickleball stuff. Get to what you guys actually came

here for. Yeah. All right. First thing we're going to talk about is so flat top hybrids have probably

been, you know, the most trendy topic this year. I think along with durable grit, flat top hybrids have

probably been one of the more requested things that people want to see, which I think is understandable.

I do think they have in terms of stability. I think they are better. You lose some maneuverability,

but there are probably a lot of people who would take that trade. I know you obviously would take

that trade for sure. So one of the things that's been interesting is you gotta give credit where

credits do here. First of all, no one cared about flat top hybrids until Yola made one. And then

everyone was like, Hey, hey, hey, we got to do that. And this happens like every time Yola at like,

okay, let's rewind here a little bit. So the first Yola they released, everyone starts doing

the edge foam not too long after that. The second one, Yola was actually a little later on the Gen 2.

So I don't know that there was a big thing that was copied with the Gen 2. But then the Gen 3 was

like legacy 60, vatic, vatic, carbon. They kind of all had that before Yola did. For sure. Gen 3. We

all know how that happened. Everyone copied the Gen 3. And then they also all copied the

grading and edge guard. Yep. Yep. And then the pro 4 less copied, but people did copy that throat

filler foam for sure. And now with the pro 5, no one's really copied that, but what they have

copied is the flat top hybrid, which I'm not mad about. Yeah. But like they definitely like, I

mean, they are trendsetters in the industry. People will follow and copy what they do. Yeah. Like I'm

convinced I could I feel like they could do something kind of weird. And people would all end up

emulating it. You know, so I don't know. Credit where credits do. I don't think we'd have as many

flat top hybrids this year if it was not for the cosmos. I agree. Now what I will say is all of the

flat top hybrids that have existed to date, except for maybe the GX2 power. I've actually not

been a huge fan of most of them because for whatever reason, they all go for a slightly shorter

handle. It's like in a weird range of like five, three to like five, four, it's not as bad as

like a magnus. That shape, it's not that short, but it's just enough to where I'm like, okay, I could

play with it, but it's not comfortable. Yeah, it's uncomfortable. So that includes the ultra. Don't

think it's a bad shape. I just for me, the handle length, like I'd rather take a vapor or something.

It's just kind of in an awkward place where it almost doesn't know what it wants to be.

Is it going to be a hybrid or is it trying to be an elongated? The handles just slightly shorter,

not quite as comfortable. And this applies to the cosmos as well. I was not a huge fan of

the handle length on that one as well. And they're totally fine paddles, but I just think for

a lot of people, it's just in an awkward size range. Yeah. And then so the reason I bring all of this

up is because I bought the RPM friction pro V2 hybrid. These recently came out. And I just

assumed it was going to be like all the other ones because everyone just keeps doing the same

exact thing. And we were talking about this this morning, but this is basically in a elongated

handle shape. The taper is a little tighter. Like you were mentioning, like it's not quite the same,

but to me, this shape is like perfect. Like out of all the flat top hybrids, if I had to pick

which one to use, it would for sure be this one out of all the shapes. This is the best one. I

agree. Like I hope if we settle on like a, you know, kind of a normal definitive flat top hybrid,

this is what it should be. Yeah. I it's not that the others are bad, right? It's obviously all

personal preference. Some people want a shorter handle length, but this to me is like perfect. So I

hope that if moving forward companies keep doing flat top hybrids, let's copy this one. And I'm shocked

other people weren't doing this. I don't really know why the shape we landed on is the one we have

continued to go with. I really don't see any benefit in extending the face from the throat down

and losing handle length. I'd rather sacrifice some of the bottom of the face for more comfort with

my hands. Yeah. Because when am I ever using any of this? Yeah, right. You like you really shouldn't

do it. Yeah, you shouldn't be. So I actually appreciate this shape for for the flat top hybrids or

just hybrids in general. And of probably any hybrid in the industry, this would be the one I'd

pick. The only thing I guess I'd say for that though is like, you know, we do have some friends,

like one of the guys you hang out with all the time where like they just want a short handle. So

for that crowd, like, yeah, maybe they're not using this part of the face, but they also don't

want to handle bumping into the wrist, right? But that's such a neat nowadays. I feel like the

the crowd of people that want a shorter handle is a pretty niche small group of people. Not that they

don't exist. They're out there. But it's it's definitely not the majority. Totally more. So yeah,

I just I want to say I think that flat top hybrids really good. So if you haven't been a fan of

flat top hybrids because of the handle length, then this might be it. Obviously that still means

you have to be a fan of like a Gen 3. It's not in a lot of other battles right now. But if you are,

then there you go. Yeah. Which speaking of that, we might as well just move on to this because I know

people are going to ask if we have a Jade. Don't have a Jade yet. James claims he texted me and he

was like, look, I'll make sure I get him to you early. But James has also said that about every

single paddle launch that they've released and I have bought every single one of them myself. So

we'll see if that actually shows up. If it shows up, today is the eighth one we're recording this

podcast based on the text he sent me. It's probably here within the next seven days. So we'll see if

that shows up or not. But obviously everyone is curious about the Jade. I'm sure if you guys

saw the whole Instagram thing. This was to me, probably one of the funniest things. And I did not

expect it to take off as much as it did across the industry. But pretty hilarious. It's what we might

as well just explain this really quick if people didn't see this. So when the Jade got announced,

James did this little like marketing thing for it where he's standing inside the court and he

hits it around the post to the other side of the court. And everyone was like, oh my gosh,

that spin has got to be bananas. I went through the comments. One, it was getting posted everywhere,

reposted all over. Like it was just going kind of blew up a little bit in the if you were like

in the paddle in the paddle industry. And I was like watching it and I go, this is not that special.

One, you can tell he moved the net over. Yeah. Two, this is not a special thing to the Jade,

which everyone in the comments is like, oh my gosh, the spin on that's insane. I need this new paddle.

And I'm looking at my guys, you can do this with anything. So I said one day I was like, I'm going

over to our court and I'm going to do exact and first I recorded it one day where I didn't move the net.

Yeah, you did it with it. I hit the shots. Not quite exactly the same because they were,

they were still going around it, but they were just higher than his was. And then you point out,

like, well, let's just do it exactly apples apples and nobody can complain, which there was pros and

cons to that because then you're like, well, you moved the net too. I'm just trying to copy exactly

what he did. But I, my point in that whole video of me making that and showing that was not to rag on

the Jade. I'm sure the Jade will perform great. Yeah. Now it is, it's hard to make a bad panel. So I'm

sure it's going to perform amazing. But the point was so many people were falling for a marketing

gimmick that is not special to that paddle. I did that with a frisbee. Yeah. I did it with a wood

paddle. I can do that. I did it with a shoe. So this is the part that this is the part that

kind of like why this whole thing blew up. So I say, first he did it with a handful paddles,

did it with a used door pro, then he did it with a prism, then he did it with like a thrive. He

kind of went down the normal paddles that you could do this with. And then we at that point,

we were like, well, why don't we just see how ridiculous we can get with this? So the next day,

I was, I went into my garage and I had some paddles that were cut in half from the metal bone,

a metal bone. So I did it with a cut in half vatic pro prism. So like the point was just,

guys, look, you can do this with literally anything. We did it with an on XZ5,

yeah, a wood paddle, a wood paddle. So yeah, it's just the whole point was like, that's not a special

thing to that paddle. I'm sure it spins fine, but lots of paddles spend the ball well. So it's just,

it wasn't, I just hate it when people fall for, for marketing gimmicks. And some people point

out in the comments, like, wow, you guys just really hate hyped paddles. And it's, it's not that

we hate hyped things or hype paddles. It's that we hate when people fall for false hype, where

you're getting hyped over something that's not special. And that's the problem, because it's all

a marketing stunt that clearly can be done by any paddle out there. And so that was really the

whole point. It's more allergic to marketing than it is allergic to hype. Yeah. And it's not that

we were picking on RPM. I have no problems with RPM. They just happened to be the company that

did that. Yeah. If Yola did it, if enhanced did it, any company did it. I would have done the

exact same thing. Yeah. So that was the way we poked fun at Yola too with the profile. Remember

their whole tagline was like, because of they were claiming with the, you know, like the launch

angle and it's more consistent now. And the tagline was like the difference between in or out. I

mean, like in my review, there are times where like you can hear me on my mic and I would hit a shot

and I'd be like, difference between in or out. You know, like, yeah, it's, it doesn't matter who it is.

Like I, it doesn't matter who the company is. It's just silly marketing that we, we poked fun at.

Yeah. And like, no, and I thought was funny as people being, man, you guys like really hate RPM.

And I'm like, I literally just made a video like singing the praises of the V2, which if people

were called the V1, we were both pretty critical of we're like, this is kind of just feels like a Yola,

like it even looks like a Yola. Yep. The V2 to me, this is not going to apply to everyone. I think

it's the best Gen 3 that is on the market. Like I would take that to a tournament and I am,

as everyone probably knows, for the, for the, for value as well. Like if you were to buy any Gen 3,

that's what you're going with. Purely for performance. Yes, I would. Like if I was like, I want

to perform on a tournament, that's the Gen 3. I would pick valid. Yeah. I can see that. I do think

that the price point it is and Gen 3 is in how they tend to break. Like if I had to choose between

foam and Gen 3 and I'm buying, that would be more difficult. But like if I only could choose from

a C of Gen 3's, I would choose the V2. That's true. So that's, I just thought it was funny because

it's like I literally just made a video talking about how good this happens. I definitely think it feels

probably the most different amongst Gen 3's. I agree. Just a much softer feel than most. Like

we were talking about today compared to the cannon, which I was hitting with recently. So stiff.

Cannon is super stiff as a really rigid stiff paddle. So it definitely stands out amongst

Gen 3's. And look, I can kind of understand why some people think we dislike a rag on RPM because

when the V1 came out, I was out there saying like, guys, this is not that special. People were

like losing their minds over it saying is the best paddle of all time. I'm like, it's just a copy

of any other Gen 3. And when I made that video and posted it that night, James called me and we

were talking about it. And I even said, I was like, yeah, one of the only things I've really ragged

on you guys for is the V1 just not really being special. And he even said, yeah, that's valid.

Like we weren't like, he even admitted it wasn't that special. So I said good things about the Q2.

It's not a particular thing to RPM. I have no issue with them. I mean, yeah, you guys can look

through the channel. Look at all the reviews. Like I've said, great things about Vatic. I've also

said very bad things about Vatic. If anyone remembers the only, that one was worse than anything I've

ever said about RPM. That was bad. So anyways, yeah. So we'll see when we get a jade, if we get a jade,

if I don't, you know, I'll just buy myself again. That's fine. But let's move on to some other

paddles here. So the Yola FX, not a lot is known about this paddle other than that it launches

September 30th. It'll be foam. I think some of the little posts have said a kind of implied that

it would be more grit, more gritty. I don't know if it's going to be a durable grit. I've heard rumors

that it's probably going to be priced around like 180. So it's going to be very interesting to see

if that's true. How this paddle ends up performing because like I'm wondering like, okay,

first of all, it's very weird for Yolanda release a paddle in the middle of the year. Like if anyone

knows their launch cycle, it's pretty much always in like the spring or kind of like very early

spring is when it gets announced. So and when we were at the event this year, they're like, yeah,

you know, we're not going to do foam right now. Maybe when we feel like we have something

innovative to do, then we'll do foam. So I'm like, was the market so into foam now that the

pro five sales suffered? I mean, I personally have not seen as many pro fives as I feel like I have

seen pro fours or like the three S one they came out. Same. So I'm just curious if they felt like

they had to do it. And then on top of that, even more interesting is that they are deciding to do

it as like more of a budget option. So will it be nerfed in any capacity to not compete with the

pro five? Like I just have so many questions about like how it will be positioned and how it will

be received. Yeah. I definitely think foam paddles hindered the sales of pro five this this year.

And durable grit and durable grit. The people locally here of the high level groups,

there's a lot of people that use the pro four. We're very loyal to it and yeah. Love that

paddle. Then when the pro five came out, now the only people I see using it are either people are

really particular and just don't want to switch or people who like work for lifetime and get them

from. Yeah, I get them for free. That's it. Otherwise, people who were really loyal to the the pro four

have switched off to other foam paddles or whatever. And I feel like now, I mean, you've been around

the high level group a little bit more recently than me because you've still been playing, but I feel

like I mean, I was at one of the tournaments recently. To me, the big ones that I've been seeing,

like in our area, it's like boomstick and RPM. I feel like are pretty. Yeah.

Among the high level players. Well, the big part of that is the emerging pro thing. A lot of the

a lot of the emerging pro program for sell. A lot of the higher level guys here just decided I'm

going to sign up for that and get get the but they still like it. I've been seeing

omnies all over the place. That one's become really popular amongst a higher level group here.

And then yeah, boomsticks are still everywhere. And people like playing with them. So yeah.

So it'll be a very interesting to see what we get from Yola on the FX. And especially then,

what does that mean coming in the spring? Like I feel like if this is going to be a kind of a

lower tier for them, my prediction, I guess would be that this won't have durable grit. And the

durable grit will come on their flagship come spring if they wait that long. Yeah. I just feel like

it'd be very surprising for Yola to go, hey, let's put like the best grit on our not flagship

paddle. That would feel very opposite for Yola. So I'm super curious to see that probably going to

have like a late review on it. I'm guessing off to buy that. And I don't know how long it'll

take to get. Actually, they're in a lot of stores. So maybe actually that might be kind of easy to get.

But yeah, that's where they'll get into lifetimes and we'll be able to snag one. Yeah.

So all right. Next one, another paddle that we really don't have any information about. But we'll

talk about it. The Franklin question mark paddle that Annelie's been using. Yep.

Presumably it is foam is my guess just kind of based on how it sounds on some of the audio

and just some hints from Franklin. I feel like which that'll be very interesting if it is foam

because this is the whole this debate is very funny. I was thinking about this this morning.

The whole Gen 3 Gen 4 debate is kind of funny to me at this point because you know, initially it was

like when Gen 4 came out with like the carbon and the 008. And I wouldn't say it was a very

definitive upgrade. In fact, maybe in some ways it could have even been a little bit worse than

a Gen 3 in terms of performance. It was just that durability was better. But now I'm like,

why do we really care what people use? Why does it matter if it's Gen 3 or Gen 4? If you like what

you like use what you like, it doesn't really matter. But I feel like if Annelie's going to use it,

I'm curious to see how everyone responds now where it's like, okay, you've got basically

what everyone calls like the greatest pickable player of all time and pickable right now now using

foam. So what does that say about your well pros only like Gen 3s? You know, like what does that

mean? But we're seeing more and more pros switch over to foam. Yeah, it happens all the time. But it

just like to me, I just don't even think it really matters. Like why do we carry? You know, what a pro

can use what an amateur can use doesn't really matter. And even amongst amateurs, I'm like, look,

if you like a Gen 3 like the V2 kind of got me changing my mind about it a little bit. It's just

what do you value more? Yeah. How long the paddle lasts or purely the performance of the one we're

going to get into that a little bit later with terms of grit and spin. But what amateurs use and what

high level players slash pros use matters way different. Yeah. Like for people pros or high level,

it really doesn't matter that much. Yeah. Or but I think in some ways, certain things will also be

more noticeable to a pro. Exactly. Like an amateur. Yes. You know, so a small thing could matter more

to them than it wouldn't amateur. But we'll get to that soon. All right, let's talk about this quick.

So I was going to make a video about this. I still need to just shoot this video. I made a whole

intro for it. And then for whatever reason, I haven't made the actual video yet, spend like a whole

day making an intro to not have made the video yet. Yep. Let's talk about the sell clerk backpack.

Yeah. So I'm going to talk about how this whole thing came about for me. Just walk everyone

through my experience because obviously this summer, I really wasn't paying attention to a lot

of stuff. I kind of stayed out of work. I stayed out of pickleball. But I would still get the products

and I would open them and kind of see what's going on. And so I'll just put this on the table here.

Here's one of the three new sell clerk backpacks. I'm sure many of you at this point, you're already

familiar with it. I'm sure all the other reviewers have talked about it. But I get these bags and I open

them and I'm going through all the features and I'm like, Oh, wow. Like some really nice stuff on

this bag. I was like, this is, especially coming from sell clerk. Cause to me, their bags have always

been pretty crap in my opinion. I this bag. I was like, Okay, this is legit. Like this is in terms

of premium. I think this is one of the best bags you can buy. I was like, if they nailed the price

on this, this bag is going to sell like hotcakes. And so then I was like, Okay, used it a little bit.

Then I was like, Okay, let's go look up at the price. I was like, Man, okay, sell clerk. Come on.

This bag's 200 bucks. That's fine. That's fine. The small backpack, 250. I about fell out of my

chair. I was like, No, sell clerk. Come on. What are you doing? And then this is the big one, right?

No, this is the small one. This is this is the small one. So there's a smaller backpack. And then I'm

really large backpack. And I was like, No, what does that mean? The large backpack. This is 25 and

25 and then 30. I think 40. I think I'll look at it. Because I thought the Duffel was fully

on. I'll look it up quick. Yeah. But maybe it's 35 back back for the big one. But then the big one

$300. And I was like, come on. I was like, it's just a really tough, tough price point for pickle

wall bags in particular. And I said this thing thing about the court caddy when that came out.

Yeah. The bag is like, Look, it's an awesome bag. You've got the money and don't care. Like,

you just have expendable money. Fine. But it's $300. And I wouldn't recommend it that often. Exactly.

Now we'll say the materials of these new bags extremely nice zipper tabs, probably some of

the best. Like these aren't breaking. These are very nice. I very much appreciate a lot of the

magnetic features on some of these pockets. You just don't have to zip it up. If you like,

if you're playing or whatnot, to keep it closed, the top has the same thing zipper and magnets to

keep it closed. I think it was very well thought out and designed. But the price is unfortunate. I

also really appreciate that it's not doesn't make you look like a walking billboard. There's not a ton.

Like, there's a little logo here and here, but it's all blacked out. It's just not that flashy.

Yeah. Which is nice. Yeah. I will say so in terms of some of the features, first of all,

definitely the ball pocket. That is the best ball pocket I've seen. Like the court caddy with

their magnet system for their ball was very nice. The problem was it went inside the bag. So you

lost space. And now with this, just one finger, I'm not going to do it because I'll launch it over

there. But like one finger and you can pop this ball right out of here. And the other thing is

if you don't use this at all, it collapses towards the bag and gets much smaller. So you don't have

to have it sticking out all the time. So I think in terms of like ball tube super clever.

I will say so I love the magnet on the phone compartment because that one, I think that's

just like perfect. That's awesome. Love that feature. And I do like it for the main paddle

compartment. But what I did notice having used this bag a little bit now is if you're going to get

up and move somewhere and there is a decent amount of stuff in your bag, the magnet obviously can't

hold it. So then the whole bag just kind of opens a little bit. That's one thing I noticed with

the Duffle bag. So one of my small complaints about it. So it's like if you're at the court,

you can just use the magnet. But if you're going to go up and move, then the magnet is not really

like you have to zip the bag. When you're moving, yes, it's just nice to be able to quickly close it

and walk away without having to zip it. Like if you're going to go play, not worried about your

bag just being completely open for everyone to see what's in there. Or just grabs like, you know,

take your phone or something out of there. I agree. It is nice to just quickly close it. And then

I think so. Largely, I like the bags. I think I have two big criticisms that apply to

both backpacks. By the way, I forgot to say the bigger bag is 35 liters. Okay, 25, 35, 45.

Yes, correct. Okay. So first of all, I think the cheapest part of the bag to me are these the

straps. I have a lot of backpacks. I don't like these straps. The way they're connected to it.

I don't love that. Yeah. I think this to me feels like a pretty cheap bag for the strap,

which is an important part of a bag because you're going to be wearing it on your back. So I have

worn this around and walked around with it. Don't like the straps. Not a fan of those. Okay.

Then the only other criticism I really have about the bag aside from the price is I just wish

it had more areas for pockets. I understand why they didn't do it on the inside of the big main

compartment because as we've seen with a lot of bags, as it fills up, it's very hard to access them.

It's like, what do you feel like it's missing in terms of pockets? I think what would you want?

I think just a couple other small areas where I could put some stuff because this one, which actually,

another feature I love, I'll turn this sideways. I love that this canopies out and doesn't just flop

over. It holds itself. But to me, I guess it just feels like the only area you can organize stuff is

like, okay, keys, phone wall, go up here, and then you've got a little pouch here and then these four

pockets. Maybe that is enough, but I just feel like I'm used to more bags where I have more small

pockets. I don't feel like this bag gives me as much organization as I'm used to.

Sure. Probably not that important to a lot of people, but it was just saying I noticed,

where I was like, man, if I'm spending $250, $300, I'd like the bag to have a couple more

organization options. Yeah. Really the big area where you're going to put your paddles,

you put your paddles in there, and then it's just a bottomless pit. Yeah. Which is not the end of

the world, but I'm just like, at that price point, I would like a little bit more. I'm usually

probably just throwing extra clothes in there. Yeah. I mean, I talk toss a whole bunch of other small

things, but yeah, I mean, that was in my two biggest things. I think it's a good bag, but I'm just

like, at that price, like you are definitely competing with ADV, you are competing with forward.

I don't think it says cut and dry as, hey, this is the best bag in Pickleball. For sure.

You know, some people I could absolutely recommend this to the bigger bag, the straps, the same design,

attach, like I think it's similar. It's upstairs. It might be a tiny bit different. I only put time

and experience on the duffel bag. That was the one I grabbed. And I just like duffel bags more.

Which by the way, I will let Isaac talk about the duffel because as soon as it came, he's like,

I want that duffel. So I gave him the duffel. I want to know if you guys are team duffel or team

backpack, because I am very much team backpack. I am not a duffel guy. Okay. So all right, go ahead and

go into your duffel. All right. We'll swap over here.

Oh, big old duffel bag. So like we said, 45 liters, same materials. It doesn't have

backpack straps. I think the handle straps and the shoulder strap are very nice high quality,

thick material. The shoulder strap actually unclips and comes off if you don't want to throw it

over your shoulder and you just want to carry it from the side handles, which I think is a nice

feature. But yeah, it's I have beat up on this thing, put a lot of hours of bringing it to places,

using it as a gym bag, pickable bag. I have not been nice to it. And it is held up.

It looks really good. It held up great. Yeah, I mean, it looks awesome. Very easy to clean.

Again, I really like that there's just not logos plastered all over it. You could bring this

anywhere and no one will know that it is a pickable brand bag, which I think is great. My favorite

features are definitely this accessory pocket with a magnet to be able to put sunglasses, keys,

wallet, phone. It's pretty big and has two small organizing pouches in here. And I mean,

it's very deep. So it can hold actually quite a bit of stuff compared to some of the other

backpacks with this type of pocket. The only thing that does get annoying is because it's a duffel

bag and it's not really structured. These lips, I wish there was more magnets across rather than

just in the center because they'll kind of lift up like this. And I just don't think it looks great.

But that's a really small complaint. And then like you said, same thing with the top pocket

magnets across. If I fill it with a ton of stuff and I pick it up, it will open. But again,

that's really not, it doesn't bother me that much. It's not a huge issue. It stays closed when it's

on the ground. And that's really all I need it for has another organizing pocket right in the front

with more two more pouches. And then this is pretty big. So usually I'll put like my phone and

sunglasses in one and then keys and other stuff in another. So they don't scratch other things.

The shoe pocket on the side. I'm not a huge fan of because it takes up quite a bit of space on

the inside of the bag. And I just don't I just don't use it. Also, I don't have huge feet.

We're like 10 and a half, 11 sometimes. And putting my shoes in the shoe pocket was a bit tight.

So if you were like 12 or 12 and a halfs, I'd have to test it. But I don't even know if they'd fit.

So I'm not a huge fan of that. I usually just throw them inside. And then it has another organizing

pocket on the end. So that's kind of my complaints about the bag. But everything else is awesome.

The center compartment's huge. It has four dividing sleeves for paddles. Which is nice to stay

on the side. Yeah, which is great. Very difficult for me to show you. So I probably won't maybe

I'll take pictures and put it up. And then there's just tons of space throughout the center of the

the bag. Yeah. I'll throw clothes, shoes. I've probably fit 15 paddles inside of this bag. And

it carries everything I need. So I'm going to do some flying and traveling with this bag more than

likely. And I have no doubt that it will hold up to all the abuse that I put bags here because I

am not nice to bags. And this one is the cheapest one at $200. That's what's crazy to me. I think,

but I think that makes sense because I think Selkirk knew that the Duffel would sell less. So if

you're going to make this $300, you sell it to even less people. I just, this is like the fourth

Duffel bag I own. I love Duffel bag. Selkirk is literally telling everyone that they should be

team backpack and not team. They're trying to make people team Duffel because to make it cheaper.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll see if it works. I'm a big fan of the extra space and how I can carry it around.

I don't need to sling it over my back. That's really all I have. I think materials are awesome.

It's not. You know, I saw somebody comment this on a post and I actually agree with them. It's

very peak design inspired. Yeah. You know, and that peak design makes really high quality your

camera bag. I have a camera bag from them. It is peak design. We love their products. And I think

Selkirk did a pretty good job with the design. I'm glad you mentioned the shoe thing because one

thing I do have a note on the big bag, which I actually have two notes. I probably have slightly

more criticisms about the big bag because to me, the only thing that you got more of with the big

bag was you got you can hold more paddles. And then I just had oh, you can hold more balls on

the side. You have a second ball tube sleeves. You can hold like eight balls, which okay, that's

nice. And then they added a like shoe sling front pouch. It kind of like connects to the front of

the bag. And then you can slide your shoes in the problem with it. To me, this is like the least

thought out part of the bag to the point where I'm like, am I using this wrong because it feels so

poorly designed. So pull this off the table quick. Yep. Actually, one quick thing that I will say is

I kind of wish there was a dedicated spot in the bag to hold balls because I just throw them in

there and they just kind of roll around the bag. So that's one other small complaint. So okay,

so basically see this front area. Yep. On the big bag, there's like two loops up here and then a

pouch that can sling up. And then you're basically just supposed to slide your shoes in. Yeah.

But the problem is, okay, if you unzip this and it does this, the shoes will literally just fall

out of the thing. Like and I've tried tightening it. And my shoes, I'm even smaller than you. I'm

like a nine and a half. And it felt like it was my shoes were almost too big. So I'm like, if you're

like a 13, like there's no way this is fitting. So I had probably more gripes with the really big bag.

If I was going to push people to one of these bags, I'd say just get this or the duffel whenever

everyone everyone listening, if you've been a listener for a while, kind of already knows my

feelings on carrying shoes around. Yeah. I just like to have a separate bag specifically for

shoes. And then you're a psycho that likes to just wear the car, bro. They're meant to be worn.

Crazy. If you think driving your car is going to wear the grid out on your shoe or taking all

that's not the reason. If you think that me walking from my doorstep to my car does more damage,

than me sliding on the cord and not the damage. What is it? It's the grime and crap all over

public streets and sidewalks and roads. Bro, if you're walking around, you'll say you just bought

a brand new pair, a 160, $70 shoes and you're walking around because whoop to do I wear my court

shoes everywhere and you step in some gum. No, I don't wear them everywhere. I wear them outside my

door. 20s. That's not true. You travel with these things. You'll wear one pair shoes for

a tournament. If we go out to dinner and you step in some gum and you got to go play a tournament

tomorrow, have fun scraping that off and then walk for you walk, bro. That's crazy. That's true.

I do. Sometimes when we travel, I will just bring my court shoes. Yeah. But I don't know. My

feet don't sweat that much. I'm not the guy that has the swap is soft. That's the other thing.

Did you play a tournament? And it's like this last PPA, 100 degrees outside. Your feet just get

soaked in the wet and you go out to dinner and you're wearing wet slimy shoes out to not happen to

me. Get good. Get good. That's what I have to say. Don't sweat. So I have one joke I want to make

about these bags. I was like, you ever seen that meme that's like, you know, tell me your blank

without telling me your blank. So in this case, it would be tell me your rich without telling me your

rich. Yep. Okay, guys, I'm going to list off some items because if you ever see this guy at a

pickleball court, I promise you he's independently wealthy. If he shows up with the $300 sell

court bag, followed by eight lifetime balls in the ball pack, that already is a signly like,

this guy has got some cash. But to wrap it all up. So that already is like, you know, $300 for

the bag. But then if he's got a boomstick and Omni and a pro five in that bag, $300 plus a pop.

All right, this guy's a big ball. Right. But $1,200. Top it off. Add some Yola shoes in there,

$180. Then you want to go top of the line, peel a sunglasses, which we're going to talk about.

You want to know what the top of the line, three kit lens from Pila costs, $1,800.

Oh, pop those and then you got to protect your eyes. Why wouldn't you protect it from the

bangers from some of the paddles we're about to talk about? Then pop a Thera gun pro plus in there,

$649. Bro, this comes, I can't even remember. It was like some melons with. Yeah, sure. Toss

some melons in there. Why not? $80 hat while you're at it. That right there. That's like almost a

$3,000 bag of items. So if that guy ever shows up at the court, just know that I promise

you he's either into Bitcoin, works really hard in his life or like I don't want the lottery.

Finance, bro. Finance, bro. I don't know something. Dude, so much for pickleball being the cheap sport.

Dude, I mean, it still is. Like any sport, anything can get expensive. Yes. But it can also

still be cheap at the same time. Totally. But that is really funny. Yeah, it's just like, oh my gosh,

this is, I don't know, there's going to be some characters out there. All right, so let's move on

to our main topic, which is where we're already almost like an hour deep and this is probably

going to be even longer. So I, as I've been coming back to pickleball and catching up on all the

content, you know, listening to everyone's podcasts and kind of just seeing what's happening in the

community, I noticed there's like a lot of trends in just certain things people are talking about.

And obviously the big one right now is grit because, you know, some companies have a really

durable grit and other companies are claiming they have a really durable grit when they really don't.

Okay. So and now there's this tier system, which didn't exist before we took our break. But

basically it's like tier one means it's really durable, less than 5% loss after the various tests,

tier two, tier three and tier four. Tier four is basically the equivalent of rock carbon fiber,

just for context of any of my listeners don't know that I'm sure most of you do.

So I saw a lot of this and I've seen that there's also a lot of debate about, okay, well, hey,

something tests in tier one for Braden, but then for John, it's in tier four. So who's right?

Who do we trust and all of this? And I think there's a lot to unpack with this. So I want to unpack

everyone's testing methodology, what they're doing and how I think it applies to the real world.

So you can all make sense of what all of these different things mean because I think people have

gotten so caught up in just the word like tier one, but they're not thinking about what does that

mean in the context of the test that the person is actually doing because Braden, John and mine,

there's some overlap in what we're all testing, but there are differences that I think are important

to mention. So we're going to go over that and then we're going to talk about some of the paddles

because I was testing paddles very recently and some of them with these new durable grits that are,

you know, tier one and really rough are not actually getting good spin. They're actually getting

worse spin than their older models. And I think this is really important to talk about. So we're

going to have a lot to unpack about grit here. Okay, let's get into this. So like I said, people are

kind of confused over the methodologies and what's actually happening. I think people need to understand

like what is the thing we care about? We care about spin output. We care about how much spin you can

generate with the paddle and how long you can generate that spin for. We do not care about how long

the grit lasts. Generally speaking, grit is a proxy for if it lasts longer, your spin probably

lasts longer, right? But we don't actually care about the grit. We care about does the paddle spin

the ball well and does it do it for a long time? So I think that's important. And then

durable grit doesn't matter if the spin starts low. If you have durable grit, but you have

1600 RPM, does anyone care? I would argue no, you don't care. 1600 RPM is as bad as really

used rock carbon fiber. So it's like, no, we don't care if it's low. So now that we've established

that baseline, here are the three tests. So Bradens is an abrasion test. So basically he has a little

device that takes a small disk. I'll grab a paddle here. Unless this is changed over the summer,

but I believe this is still the same. It's a little device. It takes a disk with a hard material.

I don't know what material he's using. I'm going to say sandpaper right now. I know it's not sandpaper,

but just so people on a abrasive material. Yes. So he takes it and he'll usually spin it. I think

around the throat and it spins for however many cycles highly repeatable, very consistent, very

fast to get results. The issue with that test is that one, it's only measuring the grit loss.

It's not measuring spin loss. So if he was able to do it in the center of the paddle with a pretty

big patch and then do before and after spin test, I think that would be make the test really good.

And that doesn't mean his test is bad because if the grit does stand up to abrasion,

I do think that can tell you that the grit might last a long time. So I think that can be helpful

but otherwise very fast to get the data and it's highly repeatable, which is extremely valuable.

John's is extreme impact of the paddle's grit. 70 miles an hour is pretty fast. Like

I'd say that's probably the equivalent of how you are hitting an overhead and even then I would

be very curious how fast you're swinging the paddle. I did some very quick research this morning.

I did not do as probably much of a deep dive as I should. But like even some of the tennis players

like on their forehand pro tennis players, they were making it sound like racket head speed was

like 60 to 70 miles an hour and these are pro athletes. So I'm like, okay, what's the average

person swinging on an overhead and on an overhead the ball is not coming to you very fast, right? So

John's test 70 miles an hour extreme impact might even be overkill, but it is trying to measure

how a paddle would withstand a significant beating. He's trying to accelerate the wear so that maybe

we're simulating and we'll make up a number here 500 games so that you have an idea of, hey, if it

survives this, it's probably going to survive anything you do on the pickleball court for a long

period of time, right? Well, the thing is like you said, it's extreme impact rarely are you ever

hitting a ball that's coming at you that fast, that consistently plus it's in the same exact

spot on the paddle. So way more consistent than any person's going to be hitting the or, you know,

let's say amateur because obviously pros are pretty consistent. Yeah, but even them, they're not

going to be hitting the exact same spot every time. Yep. So it's just not as close to real world.

It doesn't correlate quite the same. Right. And but what's great about John's is he's measuring

grit before this. He's measuring spin before this with his cannon. And that is like a very good.

He's measuring the thing we actually care about, which is spin output, but grit is just kind of

helpful to see like, hey, did the grit last, but spin still went down or did the grit go down

and that correlated with spin. The whole grit thing with like a stare it to me is a purely secondary

point. It's only there to back up the spin claim as the only reason I think the grit stop exists.

Okay. So but again, John's is very fast to get data, which is awesome. And it's also highly

repeatable under the same conditions, which is also important. Now my test is normal impact.

I'm playing like a hundred games with the paddle to see how it plays, but there are things within

that that are not consistent, right? I am not hitting the same part of the paddle every single time.

The speed at which I am hitting a ball, maybe there are some games where you're dinking more,

maybe there are some games where you're driving more. So you're kind of getting an average there

playing outdoor versus indoor, but I was picking up debris, debris versus John's is all in a lab

and clean balls. They're not being picking up dust or rocks or crap off the court. So it's very,

it's just very different. Yep. And then also mine is extremely slow. Like if we were only doing it,

if everyone was doing it the same way, I would be doing it. You'd be waiting like a month after

the paddle review to know the data, right? So probably the closest to being realistic because it's

being used in its intended purpose. Correct. But the one, I think the the flaw to mine as well

is that a human is doing the spin test. Now there's always criticisms of like, you know, how accurate

are these things. I've been doing this long enough that I actually think it's a lot more consistent

than people give it credit for, but it's true. Maybe you're super tired one day and maybe another

day you're just like having the best day of your life. So I think that is a very valid criticism.

And I think that the like, probably perfect combo would be playing in the real world the same

person every time and then taking like John's canon and combining those pieces of data. Like I

think that would probably be the the best of all the worlds here. But my point is I want to make

this very clear. I am not saying my test better than John's or that John's is better than it's

like they're all different. And that's the point that I'm trying to get across. They don't have

trade-offs exactly. And what is tier one for Braden could be very different from John,

and could even be different from me in the real world. So I think people need to get a lot less hung

up on the the whole tier idea because it's just different. Like what is tier one for Braden is not

tier one for John because they're doing different tests. Right. So again, not criticisms either of

those guys. I consider both of them really good friends. And I think it's really good what they're

doing. And I think we need these tests. But for the people listening, you should understand what the

test is actually measuring. So you know how much like, Oh, okay. Well, if this is why they line

up different, you know, that's kind of my whole point there. So let me go on and look through the

notes here. So I think another thing too is with some of these grits, I think some of them probably

will be built in a way that is better for abrasion or better for impact. Like I think there could be

a paddles grit that would withstand abrasion really well, but then fail really poorly under impact.

Yeah, I was talking with John a little bit about this the other day. We had a phone call. And

basically, you know, we kind of came to the same conclusion. Like, yeah, some of these grits like

once it breaks, like it's done. So if you have like abrasion, which is not hitting the paddle really

hard, it's just spinning in the same spot. Like maybe you're not breaking it to the point where then

everything kind of falls apart. Right. Yeah. Like I think the example, John was, you know, giving me

as kind of like with an egg, you know, in some ways, it can be kind of strong. But the second you

crack that shell like it's useless. Yep. You know, and I think there are a lot of other things that

can be similar. Like think of a phone screen right now for the most part, they're highly scratch

resistant. But if you drop it, it's going to shatter. Yeah. Some of these grits on the market

could be better at with standing abrasion versus with standing impact. And some of them might have

the best of both worlds like hex grits seems to kind of have the best of everything. Right. I believe

that did pretty well in Braden's test. It's done well in John's and it's done well in mine. So

some of these can kind of do them all is kind of what I'm seeing. But yeah, I just think the context

is important of what the tests are. Hopefully that gives people a better idea of exactly what the

tests are and how you want to view the different tests. And then let me see here. I'm just, I wrote

so many notes guys just for context when I wrote this out. This is a 2000 word note document. So

I'm like, I should have been a little bit more brief because some of these are really long.

I guess the only other thing I wanted to say was, and I might have said this earlier is with

Braden's test. I think what's interesting is that I don't think we've really had a paddle yet

where grit retained really well. And then the spin got worse. The only one I can think of was

the spartus P1. My grit never went down like it held the exact same number, but I was starting to

lose spin. And who knows? Maybe there's some human variance in that on me. So hard to say there.

But that's the only paddle. So that's why another reason I think the abrasion can be valid is generally

speaking, grit goes down, spin goes down, grit stay up, spin stay up. So I don't think that means it's

a bad test. But you know, we're just missing the spin component from that. Now we're going to get to

some of the paddles here in a second. But I guess my whole point is, well, yes, there are some

paddles out there that have tier one grit. And it's performing really well. And some companies are

probably going to have tier one in the future. I think it's very important that we classify what we

want tier one to be. Does tier one means it just never wears? Because I'm probably I'm about to talk

about some paddles that if these paddles never wore out, I still wouldn't play with them. Yeah,

because the spin is that low. Yep. You know, so it's like maybe we've solved it. But I think it's

going to it's going to get a lot more nuanced over time here. I think we've got a bit before

people really nail this home. Yeah, just because something's in tier one grit does not mean it

is and I'll be all best performance. Now I will say so far the paddles that have been tier one. I

would say the main three to my knowledge are sparsas perma grit, hex grit, and then I just

complete my own. Honolulu's blue grit. We haven't used that as much so I can't chime on that.

I've actually been putting some hours on oh, have you the J six. Oh, okay. Nice. How's it? How's it

been? Been fine so far. I mean, the spin and durability has shown very little signs of wear.

Not my overall favorite paddle. I think it is good, but wouldn't be my first choice, but I think

for grit, we're just talking about that. It's performed good. It's performed good. I'll show

it to you later. Gotcha. Okay. So like of those three tier ones, they've all seem to not have some

of the issues I'm about to talk about, but I think there could be some in the future that might.

So now I want to talk about just some of my testing methodology when I do grit tests or spin tests

because it'll be important for these paddles. Sorry for the long disclaims. I just think it's

very important so people don't get confused here. Yep. So when I do my spin tests, I do it like I

am playing pickleball and I am trying to hit a serve that would like ace this person with a lot

of top spin. Like I am not I've seen some spin tests where people are basically just lobbing the

ball straight in the air, trying to like, there's ways to kind of game it. Exactly. You know,

you can kind of cheat the system. And I'm going for real world what you would experience in a game

if you were trying to play like the highest level of pickleball you could. Okay. So I'm not lob in

the ball. I'm like actually trying to hit an aggressive serve. Typically doing these indoors. I

would say actually the test I'm about to talk about this is the first time I've done an outdoor

in a really long time because I think outdoor if there's wind or if it's humid, like there's just

too many variables. So I prefer to do it indoors just to take that variable out. So usually indoor

10 serves. And then I average those 10 RPM numbers. I don't take like the highest number. And if

there's like a stream outlier, like let's say everything's averaging 2200. And there's one random one

that hit 1400 and one that hit like 2900. I'm like, okay, that was probably a fluke. You know,

so we take those out and then average average the rest using a stalker or three S pro radar gun.

And then if it's long term grid testing, like I'm testing durability, I usually up that to 20

serves just so the data is tighter, uh, to be more sure. And so yeah, that's how I do my testing.

Let's talk about some path. And if something is an extreme outlier where you're like, okay,

was I just having a really bad day or is this really bad? We will fact check in do a whole new

spin test again, which is what we're about to talk about. Yeah, it's not like we just did once. And

then we're like, this was terrible. We do it multiple, multiple times to confirm our suspicions.

So all right, we're going to start with the armor turbo here because this is what kicked everything

off. There's two paddles main pals we want to talk about today, the MPP turbo and the pickleball

aids and S. So I took this paddle out when I got them. And I've just been doing a lot of

serves lately. This has been something for my back, uh, just to kind of get used to the motion

again. And so I went out and I was doing some serves and drives and just on my own. And I kept

like all my serves were going into the net. And I was like, what is going on? I was like,

for a second, I was like, am I just terrible at pickleball? I was like, what the heck is going on?

And so I was like, that's really weird. And then I was like, okay, well, you know,

it's I'm warmed up now. Let me go do some spin test. And I started doing the spin test. And the

RPM is terrible. I'm getting like 1600 1700 the highest I'm hitting is 1900, like a single result.

And so I'm like, dude, am I so washed up that like I can't even do this testing anymore? Like,

I'm just because I'm touching this paddle and it's so rough. Yeah. Like it's this is not a smooth

paddle, right? And so I'm like, dude, this is insane. So then I went inside, then I started thinking,

oh, it's my radar gun. My radar gun must be broken. It can't be this bad to spin, right? So I go

and do it the old way I used to do it, which is you take a high speed camera, you mark the ball,

you do the spin and then you count how many frames it took to complete a revolution. And it was

still really low. So I was like, okay, well, it's not the radar gun. That's good. So I was like,

let me get some other paddles. So I think the first one I busted out was the Vatic Pro V-Soul tour,

immediately 2300 RPM. So I'm like, okay, that makes sense. I go back to the turbo again,

really bad spin. So then I start busting out all these paddles. I'm like, let's just knock out all

the spin test and lots of paddles. Like, let me read off some numbers from some other paddles I did.

The Rambus Quanta Pro 2325 RPM, the Thrive Pro Ignite elongated that just came out 24 or 44 RPM.

RPM Hybrid V2 2392 in Fernow V2 2305. Like, literally all these numbers of the Spitfire 2327,

all over 2300. So I'm like, okay, so it's probably not me if it's happening on these other paddles.

So then I do a full spin test on the armor grid and I get 1698 RPM. That's really bad. So then I'm like,

okay, something's gotta be wrong. So the next day I go to do another batch of paddles and I'm like,

I'll do the armor again. 1852 RPM, right? I'm like, okay, that's still really bad. Improvement,

but bad. Anything under 9, like anything our 2000 nowadays, not that great, not great. So then I

was like, let me test the other paddles and some of these were kind of all over the place. So the

wide body I got 2015, not that great for what I would expect for how rough this paddle is and the

other competition. Then the hybrid was the best one and felt more normal. That was 2235 RPM.

Yep. Then I tested this elongated, actually that was today. So then I had you come over.

That's when I can't, yeah. Actually, wait, before that, I busted out the OG turbo. Yeah.

Because I was like, the OG turbo didn't spin this bad. Yep. So I took a slightly used MPP turbo

with smooth grit and got 2169 RPM and immediately just serving. I could see the difference. Yeah.

Like you can feel it. I was like, okay, I can shape the ball way better. Then I was like, am I insane?

So I had you come over and I didn't even tell you what we were doing. I had you hit both the original

and the armor grit and then I had you do a spin test. Didn't inform you why we were doing it and your

result with the armor turbo was 1810 RPM and then the OG turbo you got 2057 RPM. Okay.

Then today, I was like, let's be completely positive that something is up. We went indoors because

those ones were outdoors. None of us like, you know what? Maybe I should make sure it's not

humidity or something. We took it indoors 1634 RPM. So like the armor turbo, I gave this every

chance I could. I tried multiple units. I tested it across different days. I did it with you. I

did it with me. I did the old turbo. I tested other paddles alongside it on the same day. Every

result pointed to this does not spin well. And then I even like when I was having you test them,

not in a spin test, but just hitting drives. I was like, okay, I'm going to watch him and just see

which one he's hitting better drives with. And on the armor, you just kept hitting him in the net

or your drops would go short. And then I would notice you would start lifting the ball more to

get it to go over. And then you go to the OG turbo. And suddenly you were hitting it like much

more aggressively with the face closed. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. And then

obviously eventually I told you. And then you were like, yeah, like this does not spin as well.

So I don't know if you want to just talk about your side of it real quick. And then we can kind of

get into all of this. Yeah, totally. Just comparing them side by side and hitting them the day,

you didn't tell me what we were doing and what was going on. And then now more testing indoors

today hitting them side by side and with some other paddles that we'll get to. Yeah, I had to

completely change technique on how I hit shots. I wasn't able to hit with as much pace. I had to

drops. We're not dipping as much. It was much more difficult to get drops of land in the kitchen

with the armor grit versus the OG. So there is a drastic difference. And OG one has been used.

Yeah, this is not a brand new one that we're comparing. It is a new armor grit to a used raw carbon

fiber MPP turbo. Yeah, massive difference. Yeah, particularly on serves. Yeah, that's serves and

drives are the two biggest and for the other area for you when you were hitting against me. So I

went in the mid course. Oh, that's right. You were hitting rolls at me and your rolls were way

more aggressive. Forehand flicks and rolls and backhand rolls is so much easier to get the ball to

dip and bounce versus with the armor grit. I could try and hit the same shot, but I had to get

under it a lot more, which caused the ball to float and you were hitting volley resets, which is

much easier than these spinny off the bounce like kicking into you. volley resets. You were missing

way more. Yeah, resets off the bounce than out of the air. Completely. There's more pace with those

those rolls with the OG than the armor grit. So just overall around the court, it made a huge

difference. Yeah, like if I had to pick one to go play a tournament with, I'm grabbing the OG.

I completely agree. I would not for me, what I have seen with the armor grit that we were testing,

I wouldn't take this battle. And one thing, let me see the paddle. One interesting thing that I

I noticed, if you look at it in the light and and kind of move it around and same thing with the

next paddle we're going to talk about, it's like slightly glossy. Yeah. And so I think I don't know

exactly what coating or what they're putting in the resin to make this a new texture or a rougher

texture, but it feels slippery. Like it's rough, right? But it is a much more slick texture to it.

And so I can genuinely on particularly on drives, just feel the ball slipping across the face as if

I was hitting. Now this is extreme, like a wood paddle or a Z5. Obviously, it's not as bad as those.

But it's a similar feeling off the face on drives and serves. And so I kind of just have to guide

the ball and almost baby it a little bit more. Yeah. And the other thing. So I'm glad you brought

that up because one of the other tests I started doing, this was after I started hitting the

pickable Ibs and a little bit is I was like, let me just take a ball and I'm going to just press

into the face really hard and just try and slide it across the face. And if you do that with the

turbo, the the the armor grit turbo, the ball will kind of slide across. There is a little bit of

resistance. But then if you go to an OG turbo, I'll put some videos on screen and you guys are just

going to trust have to trust how hard I'm pushing into these paddles. But like on the OG turbo,

that ball does not want to move. Like it is like sticking to the face as I'm trying to slide it.

Yep. Whereas on the armor, like it goes across way easier. Yeah. So that was kind of a hillbilly

test to see friction. Yeah, not super scientific. But there's still some correlation there. And one

interesting thing that's been going around a little bit is just because it's super gritty,

doesn't mean it spins well. Well, this is the first time we've seen that. And the only variable

that's changed is whatever whatever additive they're putting in or coding or coding or whatever

they're putting on the paddle to try and make it a more durable grit. If we go exclude new

durable grit textures and we just go to original peel ply rock carbon fiber. The test of I have

we have had smooth paddles spin well. But we've also had smooth paddles not spin well. But I have

never seen a really rough texture rock carbon fiber paddle spin, not spin good. I agree. So the only

thing that's changed is whatever they're adding to this to make it a more durable texture,

which in my opinion is it's adding a level of gloss to it. Yeah, that that makes the ball slide.

And that's the so it can still be rough. It is a rough to the touch texture. But that

glossiness is changing it quite a bit. Yeah. And we'll see that with the next paddle as well.

Yeah, I completely agree. So this is going to be this whole section of the pod is kind of a

conversation about these different grits. This just happened to be one that wasn't performing

particularly well. And I am a little bit confused, right? Because if I look at my spin test,

there was the armor hybrid, which was getting normal spin. It was getting like 2235. So I'm like

is something wrong? Is there something inconsistent from batch to batch? But like if the reviewers

are getting paddles like John the durability on this landed in tier four for him. Now I have no

durability. I can't tell you anything about that because I haven't hit it enough. I'm just talking

purely from a performance standpoint. We have done actual testing to measure spin output. We have

played with it in games drilling. And then we've you know, the hillbilly test of sliding a ball

across. And in every single one of those metrics, it didn't perform well. Like it's not like,

oh, we saw a number, but then in a game, we're like, oh, no, this actually spins really well.

It's like every step of the way it didn't perform well across multiple players. Yeah, across

multiple players. So I just think that's really interesting. I hope they figure it out. I hope it

is something as simple as, oh, hey, something was wrong. But like, I don't know. It is really

unfortunate because I think the turbos are great paddles. Very good paddles. Like the original MPP

and EPP thought those were awesome, especially for the price. They're great paddles. So it is

really disappointing that the what's supposed to be an upgraded version is actually worse. Yeah.

And like I said before, these are super rough. So like, we are now getting to the point with

roughness won't always equal better spin because of the coating. Something that is the equivalent

roughness texture. Now I don't have the exact numbers off a stare to confirm that they're like

identical. But I would say like the facalos crazy rough. Yeah. He'll apply rock carbon fiber

paddle. That's right. Very simple. And that paddle spins like nothing else. Yeah. Insane. Yep.

And the only difference is one has a special coating. Yeah, that doesn't. Yep. So now let's talk

about the Zen because again, when I was doing all the spin tests, this one came up. Yep. So I,

I do a spin test on this and I'm like, oh, actually, before we get to this, one thing I do want

to say about the turbo is whatever they're adding to it actually does affect the play of the paddle.

Just a little bit not a lot. Yeah. But we did kind of agree that the the armor grit turbo feels

slightly stiffer than the original one. The original was a little bit more plush. So they are,

they do play different, even though they are the same core and same paddle, which makes sense.

You're putting more material on there. Something's going to change. Yep. So, but they're just, no,

they're not exactly the same. Yeah. So, okay, with the Zen, my first RPM test with this,

which was outdoors was 1873 RPM. Then I tried it on a second day outdoors, 1891 RPM. Then we brought

it indoors today because I was like, maybe it's the humidity or something with the weather, right?

Like, let's be fair here because I think if we're getting a really bad result, like you got to be

fair, right? You want to make sure you're doing your job properly indoors. The worst result, 1805 RPM.

And this one to me, looking in it in the light, first of all, looks even more glossy than the

armor turbo. And then the same test with the ball or even my hand. I mean, it's slick. If you guys

watch, like I will press my hand into this and like my hand goes straight across. Let me grab the turbo

down here. This is the OG turbo, not the armor grit. My hand is literally not moving. Like, I, if I press

really hard, it'll slide up. And then I go back to the Zen. What's interesting is, is this

texture and just the look of it, especially in the light, how glossy it is. Like you said,

there's two paddles that this reminds me of, both spun very poorly. The Franklin SDK and the

old engaged pursuit ultra. And it's a very similar level of like glossy finish as those were.

But again, this paddle, like you touched it, this is a rough paddle. Yeah, this is not smooth.

This is definitely rougher than the OG turbo. And so there are a couple of things along with this.

So we don't really need to repeat the whole thing with the armor turbo because we basically

had the same exact experience on this. It was very noticeable on drives, serves, rolls, that the

ball was just slipping. One of the other paddles we tested a lot today, which we'll talk about in a

minute, was the mark unmarked. And that thing just rips spin. You go from the Zen and the turbo to

that. And you feel like you can do anything you want on the core. I had to change how I hit the ball

so much. Yeah, so drastically. Yeah, like it was insane. I feel like when I started hitting drives,

he was like, Oh, I'm actually like getting these two dip right over the net and like kind of below

your waist. Whereas the Zen, it just felt like I had to hit very flat to get it over the net. Yeah.

Or if I tried to hit it the same way that I hit with the mark unmarked, the V-Sul tour,

a spitfire, any of those, like it's going into the net. I mean, we were even laughing because as soon

as I went from the mark unmarked spin test indoor to this, like five of us serves went into the net.

Yeah, because I was trying to hit it the same way and I'm like, I can't. It just doesn't work. You

have to change. And like what's interesting about the Zen S plus and is like really unfortunate to

me is the performance of this paddle aside from the spin the way it feels how hard it hits like

this is pickle ball a best paddle minus the spin. Yeah, like even had raw carbon fiber on it,

which obviously would get ding because it's not a durable grit. The performance would be exceptional.

Like if you literally just had hex grit on it, this is probably one of the best foam

paddles you could buy right now. Elite power. Like, feel is nice. Very, very thonky. Super thonky.

Yeah. Soft hollow kind of feel like it's not stiff. Like in my opinion, it's actually probably

too powerful. I agree. My preference would be and what I would recommend for most people.

If you just wanted something that was fun and hit really hard, awesome. Yeah. But what I

recommend for what you're going to play the best with probably that. So that's interesting. I'm

curious if we'll agree on this or not, but because we tested a couple paddles today, the V-Soul tour,

the RPM, the Zen and the unmarked and the armor turbo. I these were the only two paddles that I

actually felt scared playing against you with was the Zen and the the unmarked. Yeah. Like I have

not actually felt scared on a pickable car in a long time. Flinging a lot. Yeah. Like, look,

I'm not trying to say these paddles are illegal. They pass their certification and whatever.

But like these were in the territory of power that I haven't experienced in a while. Like,

I was even just telling you the other day because someone came up to me and complained about the

unmarked ad have had multiple DMs. People complaining about that paddle. Yeah. Like someone in our area

played against it in a tournament that I was at and said, dude, like that paddle is insane. Like,

how is it legal? And I hadn't hit it yet. I didn't know anything about it. And then today,

I was actually even joking with you. I was like, you know, no one's complained about

paddles being illegal in a long time. Like even me, like, you know, all these hot paddles that have

come out. They felt fine. Well, you know, wouldn't have been our first podcast back if we didn't have

an issue. We had a camera die. So if you're wondering whether it was a weird cut there, it's because

our camera died. Yep. But we're back. I don't remember exactly what it's saying. But basically,

this is the first time in a extremely long time that a paddle has been so powerful that I was actually

blinching and being like, oh my gosh, I actually don't like how hard this hits. Yeah. I mean,

I don't know if I'd say I was surprising myself, but I can tell you I have not hit drives that hard

with anything recently. Yeah. Been a minute. Yeah. So it's just weird to me that power has been in a

pretty stable spot. And then all of a sudden, both of these paddles are hitting like nukes. Yeah.

To the point where it was like worrying to me. And that was both indoors and outdoors. Yep.

So I'm not sure exactly what's going on there. But that was my experience. Like,

and it's interesting because both the unmarked, we'll get to the unmarked. We'll start.

Let's just stick with the zen. I mean, I begged you from the baseline with this one. Yeah.

Didn't feel great. Yeah. But also what's even crazier to me is the swing weight on this zen is 107.

If you loaded this up to like 118 swing weight with weight, I don't want to know how hard this would

hit. I actually, I don't know what we, I mean, we will have to test it. But like,

if you probably couldn't keep the ball in because it doesn't have enough spin. It was already

difficult enough to keep the ball in with the zen today. Yeah. I agree. And it could have had

even more. So very light is a really interesting option, especially as a hybrid. I mean, 107 is nuts.

Like, that's a pretty crazy stat. But yeah, I, I think the paddle performed really well. I haven't

got to play high level games. I've played two games with it. And then when we drilled and in the

games, I felt like resetting actually wasn't a problem. I felt like I could go from defense to

offense pretty quick drilling with you. I definitely noticed it being more difficult probably just

because you're hitting harder at me. But I would say for the amount of power it has, I was shocked

how well I could still reset the ball. I'd want some more time to like really flush that out. I'm

not going to say like, oh my gosh, guys, it's so easy to reset. I would say for a lot of people,

this is going to be a hard paddle to use. It kind of struggled a little bit with resets at the

beginning. And then quickly adjusted and got used to it. And then I had no issues. Yeah, it just

took me a second. It just felt like if I wasn't swinging a lot, I wasn't getting a ton of,

not that, not that I wasn't getting power out of it. But it was like, oh, it's not too bad.

It wasn't like super poppy all the time. Yeah, you know, yep. So that was kind of interesting.

But I guess outside of that, did you have any other thoughts just on how it played besides the grit?

Yeah, just very satisfying. Really satisfying feel off the face. Very springy feel, not like really

harsh. Wasn't a stiff. I had a lot of fun using it. And like I said, super light. So like doing

hands and stuff, I felt like the second I had a ball that was just floating a little bit, I could

put a little punch into it. And it was over. Yeah. So really fun to play with. I just don't think I'd

recommend it to most people because I don't think there's many people out there that's going to be

able to really be able to control this paddle. If you can't put an overhead away with this,

you can't put an overhead away with the paddle. There was an overhead I hit when we were playing

skinny singles that I mean, I'm still dealing with some shoulder stuff. So I'm not going all out

and I maybe swung 70% and I hadn't seen an overhead move that fast in a while. Yeah, like that

thing was moving. Yep. So it's definitely an elite tier of power amongst other power paddles.

Yeah, which was pretty, pretty surprising. Totally. So just before we move on from this paddle,

I think there's a couple things I wanted to point out. So since I got to play some actual games

with this, when I was playing games with it, I didn't immediately go, oh my gosh, this is the

worst spinning paddle I've ever hit. I can't get anything over the net because I think one thing

that people need to understand is that when you are playing, you will just adjust your stroke to

make it go over. So let's say you picked up the zen and you hit a servant and went in the net.

The next ball, you're probably going to make a small adjustment because you're like, oh, that didn't

work. So let me just fix it. Like your immediate thought isn't always, oh, that was just terrible spin,

right? And so I noticed that as I was playing with that, I was like, okay, I can, I mean, I can hit

drops and dinks. They're just not as aggressive as I want or I can't attack from the position I want.

Like if I could attack some balls from like knee height before, now I have to do it at like waist height

to be able to roll like that. I was saying while we were we were drilling earlier today testing

paddles, I had to be much more picky on the drives I would hit in terms of how high it was bouncing.

Yes. If I had a ball coming at me a little quicker and it was maybe knee height, I couldn't hit it

as hard as I wanted or hit a drive in general versus with the mark, I could pick that thing off the

floor and shape it over the net. Yeah. So it just had to be a lot pickier. But again, if you're not

hitting them side by side, I could get used to this and go play a tournament and realistically be fine.

I would just not be able to hit some of the shots I want. Yeah. And I think where it becomes a

problem is like if you have like I'm telling you, if you took two people and you had our mark in the

zen, no one is choosing the zen for spin. Like you would immediately be like, oh my gosh, the

shape I can get on this ball. And we keep saying the mark, but like this applies to literally all the

other paddles I talked about. That was just one of the grittier, spinnier paddles we had with us

today that we were using exactly quanta pro the thrive the RPM and for all of those were like

crazy spin like they were so good. Yeah, we just didn't have them with us today, which is why we

keep referencing the mark. But yeah, I think it's it's one of those ones where look, if you're happy,

if you already own a zen and you like it, you shouldn't let this change how you feel about it,

right? Because the other thing that I think people don't understand is that when they hear like

reviews and they hear, oh, this paddle gets 2400 RPM, everyone obviously wants the one that

can generate more spin, right? Why would you not take more? You know, but the other thing people

don't think about is not every level of player can take advantage of that spin. 100%. I have

played a decent amount of like lower level rec games as I've been healing my back. I've been playing

some three five groups and four groups just because it's a little more gentle for me. And watching

a lot of these people play, they some of them just aren't even putting spin on the ball. They're

hitting it extremely flat. And like, I just don't think everyone can take advantage of that spin,

right? If you put a really spinny paddle in Hunter Johnson's hand versus mine, I promise you he'll

do more with it than I can do with it. And that's an extreme. I mean, we could be just saying you and

me. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's calm down here. I taking we just came back when I'm taking

co-host applications. Okay. You know, I figured I'd give him one more chance, but, uh, but no,

seriously, like, I mean, that is a good example. Like I think people should understand that, look,

not every level can take advantage of spin in the way they think they can. Yeah. Well, and I even

think going back to just durability and wear you and I, 20, 20 hours of use on the same type of

paddle is going to be completely different where. Yeah. I'm going to spin it more. I pit drives harder,

overheads harder. It's just going to be different wear patterns from player to player. And now you go

to the extreme of say a three or three five to a five. Oh, then yeah, like I said, three years and three

fives. A lot of times I've been going to some public parks and kind of just goof around with people

almost no spin. Yeah. So like they could play with this and it would not affect them in the slightest.

I could give them this versus the facalos. And I bet they wouldn't be able to tell me much of a

difference. Yeah. Just because they don't know how to take advantage of certain things. And it's not,

yeah, we're probably about to say the same exact thing. Yeah. Just to be clear, we're not like

racking on, oh, if you're a three oh, you just don't know how to hit top spin. It's like, yep,

the reality is just that at a higher level, your mechanics are generating a lot of that spin.

So if you are someone who doesn't utilize those mechanics, you don't actually need that much spin

exactly. So like the point is just that there are probably a lot of you that could play with the

Zen and be fine. And love it. But if your goal is pure spin, then no, I cannot recommend this.

Yep. Like I mean, even with how it is right now, as much as I liked how it played, I don't know

that I'd probably recommend this a lot unless I can fix this grid. Yeah. Like in less hours as a

daughter, something like I wouldn't recommend this a ton. What's the price point of this one?

I don't actually know. Emile have time. It's probably somewhere between after code, probably

between like one six, I think it's about 180. That's 199 before code. Under 200. Yeah. If it,

dude, if it even just had regular peel ply, it would have been great. Think about this too.

Going back on the different levels and how people might abuse a paddle. The difference between

tier three, tier two and tier one for the different levels of players. Like if we take a three five and

a five oh, that five oh is probably going to be a lot more dependent on tier one grid. But someone

that's three five tier three, grit or tier two, let's just say, could feel like it's lasting.

You were really long time because you're just not wearing the the paddle is heavily, right? So

obviously we all want to have tier one grid. I don't want to tell companies how you don't need to

make tier one grid. But I do think maybe there's a little bit of an obsession to where it's like you

might not be wearing the paddle out as fast as you think. And I the problem is I think particularly

like we're seeing with the enhanced turbo and the Zen companies are in a race right now to push

things out as quickly as possible with maybe not quite doing as much or proper testing needed. And

as a result, we're going to get products that are not up to standard. I mean, Luz, Luz is what

released like three different versions of grit and all of them have sucked to what I understand,

you know, like yes, just how it goes, I guess for sure. So okay, let's move on to the

Vsult tour. I've actually been pretty excited about. I've been putting some hours on this one.

Yeah, you've you've really been enjoying it. Let me talk about one other spin thing related to

this because I think it's another thing that people have been a little confused about. So I got a

lot of DMs when I asked about what he wants to talk about. And some were saying, hey, like John

got really low spin on the Vsult tour. So even if it's tier one, why would I buy it? Kind of

like what we were saying earlier, right? And so I went and listened to John's podcast. And I

think something that people often maybe miss with John is that John has two tests. John has the

cannon and John has his arm. And oftentimes there are some paddles that get low spin on the cannon,

but might not be bad on your arm or some paddles are hyper optimized for the angle that John has

the paddle at for the cannon and they'll get crazy spin. Like I think I heard that the mark was

getting like 2600 RPM from John's test. But then the Vsult tour was getting 1800 in his test. So

the reason I bring that up is because I tested the Vsult tour in the real world 2300 RPM. And I also

feel like I can shape the ball on the court like crazy. So not a criticism of John's test, but

just people should understand that there is a difference between the real world and the cannon.

And I wouldn't look at the cannon so much as like, oh wow, it was terrible spin. Like you should

probably look at the cannon plus the arm test. Yes. Well, and there's again, there's ways to game

both companies can figure out how to game the cannon test. Yeah, if like, hey, let's make it really

good at 30 degrees. Yeah. But maybe it's really bad at 40 or you know, there's certain people out there

who might try and do an arm test and really just lift the ball and shoot it, lob it up and get a

ton of spin. Mm-hmm. There's ways to game both. Yeah. So I just thought that was worth pointing out

because you know, if you're going to hear me get 2300, you're like, how did John get such low

spin and it's because one was the cannon, one was the arm. I think I did check John's website

and with his arm, the Vsult tour was 2200 RPM. So I say all of that to say the Vsult tour gets great

spin. Yeah, that was my whole point in saying all of that. I've had maybe not no complaints, but few.

Yeah, so you've had way more time on the Vsult tour. You've actually played a lot of games with it.

I gave it to a while ago and let you kind of just hit it around. So I'll let you talk about it

first and then we can dive into some of my thoughts. Yeah. So initially when I started playing with it,

yeah, spin is spin is great. No complaints there. I don't know the exact swing weight,

twist weight measurements on the one I've been using. I think we've got it around here somewhere.

Maybe we should grab that. Yeah. Um, power is really good. Counters are awesome. Very satisfying

feel. The one thing that is a little strange. I didn't put no weight on it. I've been using it

like completely stock. That's crazy. Overgruing. You don't know that. Yeah, because I've just been

wanting to use it completely normal and to be honest, I've just been kind of lazy. So I just

used it stock. I probably will put weight on it. Um, but it has almost, uh, and I know people hate

when I say this. Okay. But and it's a little bit different. It's not quite the same as some other

paddles where I've said this where it has a slight vibration feel. It's, it's very interesting.

It's, it's like a post impact feel where I can kind of feel the core shake a little bit.

It's really not that bad and it kind of threw me off at first. Um, but I got used to it. And I think

tops and drops have been super easy to hit. Um, drives are awesome. Sweet spots as good as

anything else. Yeah. So I've had very few complaints. I'm even potentially thinking about using

this at worlds. Yeah. So it's, it's up there as one of the my current contenders for sure. They're all

16. They don't make 14. Yeah. All 16 millimeter. Their shapes did change by the way. Yes. So this one

in front of me is just called elongated. They don't have V7 anymore. Short handle, long handle.

They had like a million different skewn, you know, skews. So this is basically just a standard

elongated paddle with a long handle, five and a half inches. Then they do have two hybrids.

The long handle and standard handle and then the bloom, which is just the wide body. So they

simplified their lineup a little bit. Yeah. But yeah, anything else. The only thing I will say is

just off real world playing and feel I wish we got the actual spin numbers from when I was

using it new to now. I do feel like it is dropping. Yeah, I wish I had done the testing on that one

before I gave it to you. So this new one right here. I did the grit test and spin test on. So I'll

give you this one after so you can start working on it. But we probably would have had some

data by now if I had done that. I just was occupied with other stuff. Yep. So that's and it's not

like drastic. Like I still feel like I can go out play with that one and be just fine. And maybe

part of that is I'm just adjusting to it, right? Maybe if I hit this one to the one I've been using,

which we probably should do, I'll notice a bigger difference. So I just don't feel like the grit

on this has been holding up as well as say, Spartas P1, Hexcrit or the blue crystal blue grid.

Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Well, keep you guys posted. I am going to probably give this one to Isaac

and let him beat it up and then we'll get some actual numbers on it and kind of see where that

one's going. But yeah, I mean, I think these battles for a hundred bucks. You know, it's the classic

vatic thing. Everything's a hundred bucks. One of the best values. Yeah. 100%. It's so good. It's

really good. Like I think the hundred dollar areas really competitive, even if we take the armor grid

out and we just go the OG turbo with rock, carbon fiber, thought that was really good. You have

the V soul now, you have the spitfire, which is another really good paddle. I'm really looking

forward to when they make that in a wide body and testing that some more. But I just think the hundred

dollar area is like, you can get, look, we've said this for a long time, but price is not the problem

restricting you from getting a good paddle. Yeah. Have we gotten, do you know the swingway

number on this? I don't have enough. Yeah. The one interesting thing is a lot of times recently

when companies, unless they come out with a, a well performing durable grid, newer paddles to older

versions, haven't been that big of a jump in my opinion. Say, V soul pro to this, I actually feel

like there's a bigger difference. I still think the V soul pro is great. But that one I probably

wouldn't use unless I put weight on it. I've been using this without weight and I really haven't

had that many complaints. It's totally fine. Yeah. Again, I probably will add weight to it. But I

don't feel like it's necessary. Yeah. And so to me, that's, that's, I would just wish I knew the

exact, like, maybe it's just heavier and it doesn't need weight because it's, it's heavier stock.

Well, I think they did change, make some tweaks to the core. Yeah. So I, I prefer this over the,

the V soul pro. Okay. I haven't gotten to hit a V soul pro in a while, so I can't really give a

comparison on that. But I have been hitting the, the bloom shape and I've really liked it so far.

We've drilled a little bit with it. And again, I don't really have any complaints either. Like I

don't, the only thing that I feel like someone could say bad about it would just be personal

preference things. Like if you don't really like a stiff and hollow paddle, then it's not for you.

But like, it spins really well. It's cheap. It comes in all three shapes. Like I don't really

know what more you could ask for. You know, I think a lot of it just comes down to what feel are

you looking for? Like maybe you want a spitfire because I haven't hit that one enough to say for

sure, but it kind of strikes me initially as like a soft hollow ish paddle. And that would be the

reason. Like, okay, if you don't like one of the other, you'd pick it over that. But I've had not

a complaint with sweet spot. Again, similar to you, I don't even know if I would need to add weight,

which is pretty abnormal because I kind of add weight to everything. Yeah. Yeah. I literally, it

just comes down to if the grit is really good. If it's tier one, like it came back in John's test,

that's elite. Yeah. For $100. There are $250 paddles that don't have that. You know, I tell you

right now, I would take this over a pro five. Sure. All day long. But would you take it over? Like,

let's take some other ones like a boomstick and Omni, like other expensive paddles. Yes. Okay.

The only things that are coming into question is like P1.

P1 would be the biggest contender of like a more expensive paddle that would probably pick over

this. What about or a pro or a pro? That one, the only thing is it doesn't have a durable grit.

I don't know if they're working on that. What if it did? If it did, then I'd probably prefer the

feel of the or pro. That is one of my all time favorite paddles. Okay. That paddle is so good. Yeah,

that's why I asked. I was just curious how much of it was like feel. Yeah. Yeah. I just the way I

play, it's so easy to reset plenty of power on drives. That is one of the best paddles in my opinion.

It was a good paddle. So just if it had a well performing durable grit, let's just say it had

hex grit, P1's grit, blue grit, I would take that over anything on the market. Okay. All right.

Dang. That's high praise. Yeah. All right. I guess last thing I'll wrap up because I don't think I

said it's on my bloom. I got 2320 RPM and then 2249 on the elongated. So yeah, spin was

plenty good. Not a problem there. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about this marked paddle. This will

be one of the last paddles we talk about here. Yep. All right. Kind of looks like a popsicle.

The shape. Yeah. Kind of does. You know what's what shaped is this remind you of? There's one

particular. It's slightly different at the top. Zero zero six. No. Really? Taper at the throat. Think

on the blue? Yes. Yeah. And I hate it. Okay. I don't hate it. But I just I do not prefer when the

taper of the throat flares out more like sideways. Yeah. Just because you lose real estate for it's

just less comfortable for two weeks. Well, and I feel like for you, like this, you know, again,

comes down to a lot of the nuance that I think paddles have come to at this point. They're going to

be people who would rather have that stability. But for you, you're like as someone who is a higher

level player, that stability might matter less if you would rather have the handle length, right?

For sure. Yeah. And then I'm not saying this bad just because of that. I actually think

performance paddles great. It's just a small preference that I have. There's going to be people

who don't care at all. Yep. But it does remind me if you just chop the corners a little bit,

it would be the same as actually I have it. Oh, in your bag, the panel, Lulu. Look at the throat

taper. Yeah. I mean, put them up very, very similar. It's just that the corners of the top

aren't cut. Yeah, they are really similar. So it's, it's, it's a J6 shape. Got it. Just without

the cut corners at the top. Yeah. So okay, let's talk about this 110 swingway, which is crazy for

an elongated paddle. Wild Lulu. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but okay. I mean,

we've been alluding to because of talking about it throughout the spin stuff. But like, you know,

spin was really good. Just like it was on all the other paddles. We mentioned that tested well.

And it just hits very hard. Like it, a very different feel profile from the zen, which just feels

very like cushioned is super thonky and loud. Yeah, definitely a little stiffer, more thonky,

stiff hollow. I mean, I don't really have a complaint about this paddle. It's again, like,

you want something that'll launch the ball and you want it to be low swing weight. Because again,

think about this, put some weight on this thing. What's it going to do to the ball? I hit one with

weight on it. Oh, you did? Yeah. We have a player here who's sponsored by Mark. Oh, okay.

God, you've hit it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just like I had not a complaint about this paddle.

I don't think I had anything bad to say. The only thing is if I am recalling correctly, I think

the grit was like around tier four for John. Obviously, I have no idea in the durability. I haven't

gotten the test yet. But like it's spun very well and it hit the ball very hard and it's light.

Yeah. I was all good things. Yeah. Depending on what you want. Depending on who you are and what

you're looking for. For sure. But yeah, it being light, customizable, plenty of power. I had no

issues resetting with it. But yeah, serve, dude, comparing to the Zen. Oh, gosh. It wasn't even close.

I served. Dude, you missed so many returns. I felt like I was, dude, I was hitting my

serve harder than I've hit in a while with this because I could just swing more freely. Yeah,

then with the Zen. The Zen, I had to guide it a bit more to keep it in. This I just swing as

hard as you want. I was putting so much into that serve. But yeah, it's great. Yeah. It's one of

those ones where I'm like trying to think of like something interesting to say about it. But it's

just like a, not that there isn't something interesting. It's just good. Like a lot of other things

are good. What I will say that I think they did a really good job with this. And, you know,

maybe some people disagree with me. But I like that there's almost nothing on the face of the

paddle. Graphics wise. It's super simple. You don't have any graphics getting in the way of,

you know, spin or is it going to affect the spin texture or whatever? I like that it's blank.

I think that's actually great. There's more companies would do that. I think the thing I'll say,

this is, I guess, more about their marks older, paddles than it is about the unmarked. But

not only is this their best paddle, but I just think the old paddles they had were always

extremely mid, very average like that. Not bad performing, but nothing special. Kind of behind.

Yeah, with, with things. It was just always late. And it was like, I don't think this brings

anything new to the table. And they weren't super expensive, but they were more than some of the other

competitors. This is the first one where I'm like, yeah, a lot of people, this would probably turn

a lot of heads. Yeah. Like if someone faces at a public court, I could see people being like,

oh, what is that? Or is it played against an old unmarked or marked paddle? You'd be like, okay.

Yeah, it's whatever. You know, this is like hits hard enough and has enough spin that you'd be like,

whoa, hang on, like, what is that thing? Yeah. I mean, there's a kid at a public park that I go

play at who got two of these. And he's having a really hard time adjusting to his like, dude,

it's too powerful. I can't control it. Yeah. I think that is the downside. If like you know

you're someone that can't handle a lot of pop, you probably don't want this paddle. Like it's just

be too much. Dinking is going to be difficult. Mm-hmm. Drops are going to be popping up. Yeah,

but if you get a high ball, yeah, it's going to be put away. You need to have a very well-developed

soft game. Or I guess if you're just a big banger and that's what you want to do, well, this will

this and the zen will do that. This just has way more spin. Yep. You know, and that's why like,

if I was comparing the the zen and this, I'd be like, yeah, go buy this over the zen because like,

you can keep the ball in. Mm-hmm. You know, but who knows how long it's going to last the grid.

That'd be the kind of biggest asterisk. Like, and at the moment, these are only USAP approved.

Correct. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So no UPA there. Same thing with the V-Sole tour. Yes, only you

know. Which USAP? Which USAP? Some of that might start. We'll probably talk about it on another

podcast episode in the future about, you know, USAP is developing a spin test and I have some thoughts

on that as well. And I think that'll kind of balance out the doesn't need to be UPA or at that point,

it'll purely come down to what league do you play in. And less of I would say this whole summer,

it's been UPA paddles are better because they get more spin. Mm-hmm. You know, now potentially with

USAP's test, it'll be a more even playing field. Yeah. So all right, that is that the last pedal I'm

going to talk about, which we don't actually have yet at it just kind of goes to show where I

think this is a very smart move is the layer licensed hex grid from 11624. So the next paddle that

is coming out will have hex grid on it. Yep. And that is smart for a lot of reasons. One,

everything we just talked about, do you want to be like one of these and have this problem where

you spend a lot of time and then maybe it still didn't turn out time and money time and money.

And then the other thing too is hex grid is probably the most well established grit that does

really well at this point. And so if you license it, you gain all of that clout with it.

Yeah. You don't have the time period of have reviewers test it, have the general public learn what

it is. And then also go, is it good? Do I believe this is good? People just see the name and know.

Yeah. So to me, I'm like, man, how many more companies are going to start licensing hex grid?

That might be a really smart move. Great. Well, great smart move on the layer for that,

but also smart move on just 11624 and opting into start that process with one company.

Because once one does it and succeeds, it's going to start spreading. Well, think about this.

Another reason that I think it's probably smart for 11624. You're sitting there going, okay,

I don't want my competitors to beat me in long lasting grit, right? That would kind of suck.

But you have one of two options. You can make money by giving it to them and they have to pay you for it.

Or they can eventually figure it out and you make no money and they're still competing against you.

They're competing against you one way or another, but at least one you make money. You're profiting.

So I'm curious to see if we see a lot more companies do that because after experiencing what we did

on the armored turbo and the Zen, I'm like, I mean, imagine, imagine this, imagine a world where

Yola, because we've been seeing acquisitions. Yeah. Okay. Soker brought, bought bread and butter.

Imagine Yola buys 11624 and throws hex grit on the pro five or whatever they put on the

next six, the FX was coming out, whatever their next paddle is. Imagine that.

I mean, it'd probably be good. And then they stopped licensing it to everyone because that's what

they would do. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, naturally, I think that can also be smart too.

Yeah. Keep it to yourself. That'd be interesting. So yeah, I just think that's a very smart move,

a very interesting move. I know nothing about how the paddle performs. Not going to say anything

there, but yeah, I just think that's incredibly smart. Yep. You just gain all of the work that's

been done for the last six months in terms of testing. You just gain all of that with your paddle.

Yeah. That's without having to spend time or money on testing new things, communication back and

forth with China, which is a very long process. Unless you go over there yourself and do all that.

And if you're not an engineer, then you're just relying on the people at the factory.

So yeah, if you just spend the licensing fee, you lose a little bit of money, but you know,

you're going to get a better product totally. So okay, let's see. I don't even know how deep we are

because that one camera reset. Well, about a little under two hours. Let's freaking go. And we still

got more to go. Yes, sir. We've maybe got another 15, 20 minutes. Okay. So you think. Yeah,

it's what you think. We're yappers. I hope you guys are enjoying. So all right. We're going to talk

about the peel of sunglasses. So I'm sure if you watch Pro Pickleball, you have seen so many

pros wearing these. And I want to kind of wear every new my journey of these glasses. So first of

all, I bought these myself. I don't even have a discount code. I spent $1800 to buy two sets of

these questions, man. How how much are your eyes worth to you? I was worth a lot more than 18 hundred

bucks. I will tell you that my eyes are worth more than 1800 bucks. As someone who almost lost his

left eye vision, I was worth more than that. That was bad. So yeah, just want to say did buy

these myself. These were not sent to me. So let me walk you through my journey of one this

company. First came into pickable. They first came into pickable. I didn't know anything about them.

Right. I just saw them. I saw the glasses. And my first thought when I saw the glasses was

holy crap. Those are extremely ugly. I was like, those are the ugliest glasses I've ever seen.

That's so funny because on one hand, I'm like, okay, I get why people think they're unattractive.

But bro, I kind of like it. Well, I kind of it's like, you know, a little sci-fi. Like, I also love

the fact that. Frameless. Like you don't see a frame. It doesn't obstruct my vision at all.

Do I look a little silly? Maybe in some people's eyes. I kind of like it, you know, well, we'll get to

all of that. We'll get to that. But my first thought when I saw these on pros, I was like, those are

the ugliest things I've ever seen. I was like, you ain't going to catch me dead with those. There's

just some people. It doesn't fit their face. Yes. I agree. So I thought that then I saw the price.

And I was like, so hang on, you're going to pay $500 to look stupid. I was like, no, you ain't

catching me looking stupid for $500, right? So there's they have a lot of different models and

they vary in price. I think the cheapest ones, let me check here are.

399 for one lens. Yep. But we'll get to all that in a second. Okay. So then I was like, okay,

you know what? So many pros are wearing these and I am starting to get questions like, hey,

what do you guys think about these? And a lot of the pros are buying them themselves. Yeah.

They're not being sent them either. So clearly they believe in the product. Yes. So I was like,

let's check them out. Okay. So I get them and I try them on and I will admit. I put them on and

I was like, looking in a mirror and I was like, you know what? Honestly, these don't look anywhere

near as goofy as I expected them to. Yep. And I have worn tons of glasses in the past. Well, I'm like,

you couldn't catch me dead with these. You know, so I will give them credit for that. I

definitely changed my mind on that. I don't think it looks that bad. Maybe I would still

prefer myself in more of like those normal sunglasses you have there. These are just some standard

sunglasses. I think I look better in those. Yep. But I wasn't that worried about it. Like honestly,

there are some glasses where I would probably be self-conscious enough about them that I would not

wear them. Yeah. These don't fall into that category after trying them. So I was wrong there.

Let's kind of go over just they have their websites extremely confusing. It was even more

confusing when I bought these and I'm going to try and make it a little more simple for you.

The big thing with these is the amount of customization is overwhelming. Yes. But it's also a benefit.

One thing with sunglasses in particular is it is not always a one size fits all. Yes.

I think you and I have pretty narrow small heads and some glasses just don't fit well. We have

one friend. She's very small, very petite and very few glasses fit her face when she was looking

for protective eyewear and really struggled with that. So the benefit of these is there's so

many different ear pieces, nose pieces, the customization to actually get a comfortable fit no

matter who you are is like endless. Yeah. And I think that's a big benefit. But it's confusing when

you first get into it. Yep. So they have six or seven different shapes of the glass in front of

your eye. Okay. So the one I am holding right now is the Neptune. This is what Analy Waters wears.

I'm not going to go through all the options, but they have the Azure, which just recently came out,

which is my understanding is it fits much smaller faces and it also doesn't have quite as big of a

visor look. It still has a little bit of a visor look, but it's less. So I think if you were looking

for one that didn't have that look look at the Azure, then they have the razor and razor max.

Honestly, couldn't tell you the difference between those. I don't know because it's that confusing.

And then the Zeus is they're like premium top of the top most expensive. If you buy a three lens

kit for that, that is $1,800. If you buy one lens, that is $749. So we are talking pricey. Super

money. I had someone helping me a little bit and he was like, I would not buy the Zeus. He was like,

it's just too big on most people's faces. He's like, I wouldn't bother. And so I was like, okay,

I'll buy the Neptune and the Azure now. And I could be saying that wrong. Azure, Azure, I don't,

you know, whatever. I was expecting the Azure to fit my face better. And so I bought the regular

three set lens that they recommend with that one. And then the Neptune, I was just less convinced would

fit me. Turns out it was completely flipped. So the Neptune fits my face like a glove. It is

awesome. So comfy. Same here. The Azure was a little tighter on my head, but also I bought the

adjustable nose piece, which only goes up and down. It doesn't go wide. The only thing I needed to do

to be better for me was if I could just widen the nose piece because it would sit too high on my

nose bridge. And that's the purpose of them. It's meant for people like Asian fit glasses. So

there are a lot of people who would be awesome for. But it did not fit me or you or another friend

of ours who is more Asian than both of us since we're mixed. And for her, it was still too narrow

and sat too high up. It's just really tough because there's no place you can go and try these.

So you're kind of just gambling when you order them. Yes. So Neptune has been perfect for me.

Personally, the one I would probably recommend. If you know you're someone with what do they call it?

Like a low bridge or high bridge, then you may want to look at the Azure. The forehead

padding here. I actually didn't think I was going to like it very much. So comfortable.

Now that's really good. Amazing. Yeah. This is awesome. Yeah. I wish I could have that on every pair of

I wear four pickleball specifically. I had day to day use. But for pickleball, love it. I think it's

what's nice about it is it prevents it from getting too close to your face to where then sweat can

get on the lens easier. And these the Neptune, by the way, also does. I think it might be the only one

not 100% positive might be one of two has a couple vent holes in the corner. I mean, they're pretty

small. I don't know how big of a difference that's making. But because of the forehead band, it makes

a bigger separation. So if you're someone who fogs glasses a lot, which I'm not, but there are people

that happens to it should let more air out and hopefully not fog. I've had zero fogging issue

with these. Yeah. I've worn these ones and the other ones we have and haven't had any issues

with them fogging up. Yep. So the Neptune, my opinion, awesome. Gonna come down to your face and

what shape you're looking for. But I do think this shape is very good. The Neptune, if you buy it with

just a single lens in the frame, it is $449. And then the three lens kit is 899. Look guys, I am just

as a pallet of the prices you are. I'm not saying that is a steal. We'll get to that. But we're talking

about the good things now. We'll get to some of the bad things later. Yeah. Is you have something to say?

Well, I was just going to say like, yes, I'm well aware. These are crazy prices for

I wear. But at the same time, like I said at the beginning, how much do you value your eyes?

These have an element of protection and safety standards. They come from shooting sports.

Pila was a originally still for shooting and still is for shooting competitions.

Yes. I actually know somebody who did a trap shooting in high school and he owns a pair of these

for shooting. Yeah. Not the pickleball ones. So there's an element and there's it's

Zyce. Yeah. They can see how they look on me. It's Zyce glass, right? Yep. And for those that don't

know, Zyce is like a glass company. They make camera lenses. They're just very well renowned for

extremely high quality glass. And so if you get hit in the face with those, you're not going to have

any worries about damaging your eyes or getting injured or anything. There is an element of safety to

them. So it kind of comes down to how much do you value your eyes? Yep. Totally. But we'll also come

back to that because I don't think you need to spend $500 to get protection. Yep. So let's talk

about the lenses a little bit. This is something I'm going to go slightly less in depth on. I guess I

should pull up their website and it'll make it a little easier to talk about this. But basically,

they have this is one part of the thing that makes it very overwhelming to choose what you're going

to buy from Pila is they just, it got a little better. But it was so confusing when I was buying.

Let me pull up their website Neptune lenses. And again, if you are buying these are looking at

buying them and seeing the different colors of lenses. Because there's so many different options

like the two that we have these versus the other ones. They're just very different.

Right. So like the lenses you have on right now kind of just are more normal. They make everything

look pretty saturated. So these ones are actually more of an indoor ones. The other lenses you have

yes, make it very saturated. Then there's the other frames that we have is very blue turns everything

blue except for the ball. So it makes it stand out more. But it's just different. So if you're

if you're looking at buying them, it's hard to tell what you're going to prefer without seeing

through them. And so it just gets tricky. So okay, on mobile or my iPad here, the website is not

quite the same on desktop. So they have a slightly better way of explaining their lenses now. But

I'm going to walk you through the ones that I think are relevant for most of you. The other ones

are a little bit more niche. So first of all, their naming scheme is a little confusing. The first

one we'll talk about is the 26 C I E D. There's all codes for what these things mean. Like the 26,

I think is 26% of light is transmitting through the lens. And then all the other letters mean,

you know, something these would all make sense if you take the time to learn it. But it's just really

complicated. Yes. So the 26 C I E D that is like their outdoor recommended lens bright sunlight.

Those will saturate everything like saturation just gets posted through the roof. So everything

becomes more vibrant, including the ball, but then so is the background. One of the other lenses I

bought is the 30 H I R. That is what Isaac was talking about. That turns everything blue. It's

funny. The way they describe it on the website is that the idea is it desaturates everything except

the color of the ball. But as someone who does a lot of video work and has worked with a lot of color,

to me, it's like someone took the white balance and just shifted everything blue. Yeah. Like

the ball maybe mildly stands out more, but not so much more than I'm like, oh wow, like I can

really see the really just thing it take like preference of what your eyes like to see for color.

Because I actually like those lenses quite a bit. Same. I think they're good. It's just weird.

Yeah. It's just different, but I could get used to it and I probably would really like it.

So then the next one is the, I guess, I think on the website they call it like the watermelon lens.

That's the 62 C I H W. And that is meant for overcast. And I believe also saturates kind of everything.

But it's built to let in more light on days where you don't have full sunlight. Yeah. Then the next

two most popular from my understanding is the 92 C I L. So 92% of light is coming through.

That is the indoor lens. That is meant to be played indoor. At facilities. It's not meant for outdoors.

And then the other one is kind of an indoor overcast lens. It's the 82 C I R G. I believe that

will saturate more than the 92 C I L. But it's not going to let in as much light. So kind of

depends on the venue you're playing in. You'd probably need a venue with brighter light. So the ones

they try to push to most people from their website is the 26 C I E D first outdoor sunlight.

The 62 C I H W for overcast. And then the 92 C I L for indoor. So that would be your like cover you

in every scenario that you would play pickable. But there's one two three four five six seven

other lenses you could do between overcast indoor. And then there's one that's like 9.5% of light

comes in. So if you were in I don't know the desert, maybe you want that. Or if you have sensitive

eyes, some people with like blue eyes are kind of sensitive. Yep. So I know all that's really

confusing. Also the lenses are expensive. They're like 275 pop crazy expensive a lot of money. It's not

it's just insane. It's so much money. And then they they do have different earpieces that go back.

And I'm not going to go over all those. I just got the standard like straight ones because

there's ones that flare out and all these other things hug your head a little more. I just

want one with the basic one because I was like, I don't really want to mess with something weird.

I know I like this. Yep. And it fits on. I like how light they are. Super light like you'll

forget they're on your face. Yeah. I forgot these are on my head multiple times. So comfy. So

that's the lenses. You probably going to have to do a little bit more of your own research.

At some point I want to do a review of these and I'll cover all of it more in depth. But these

are my initial thoughts after having these for about a week and a half. Yep. So okay, that's the

lenses. I want to talk about some of the pros and cons. So I'm going to start with the pros.

The full wrap around there is no spot like because there's no rim or anything. I all I'm seeing

is normal vision. There's nothing in my vision that is blocking me from seeing anything. Yep.

That is the advantage of this like visor look big benefit. Nothing is in your way.

So I think that's a big pro. We talked about the sweatbar, big pro, the vented holes. And then

with this company you get a lot of options for lenses, which depending on what you're playing in,

that can be awesome, right? Yeah. So those are mostly the pros. Oh, and light. You know, we just

talked about that. They're extremely light. Don't really know. They're on the face. Having the

the option to be able to play indoors and have them and then maybe it rains out and you have

to switch to indoor and being able to wear the same thing, just swap out the lens. Huge because

these regular sunglasses, they're pretty dark. I can wear these outside. The second I go indoors,

I can't wear these anymore. Yep. Totally. Now the cons, very hard to understand who

H shape is for. I really think peeling is to do a way better job. Like different models or a

video explaining on different people, what each of them are for and how they look. That'd probably

be the easiest way to do it. Is a video. Yes. They really need to do that. If it's on their website

somewhere, I thought I looked everywhere and I couldn't find it. Yeah. Maybe it is and I just

don't know. The lenses can be confusing, but once you understand it, it's really not that

confusing. The price is insane. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. That it is just insane. Wild.

In my opinion, I'm going to do more in-depth testing and maybe I'll do a comparison video at some

point. I wouldn't say that the clarity compared to other companies that produce performance

I wear is that much better. It's very good. I don't have any complaints optically,

but other companies I have bought my own pair of Ria I wear. Briodi has sent us lenses. They

actually just sent us some new ones. We'll have to check those out. I have been wearing Oakleys

for a while. None of those I have ever looked at the ball and pick a long gun. Optically, this

was better. I don't feel wearing these that suddenly optically, I'm like, oh, this is. I'm at

an advantage now. Maybe it is a little bit better, but I wouldn't say it's worth $300

extra dollars better. I do think that I would put that on. At your level, like you're saying,

maybe you're just not quite lover. You can take advantage of the benefit. I do have bad visions.

Maybe this is a part of it. The other thing I'm going to say, this is actually kind of funny,

because I don't get to experience this very often. Since a lot of times products are getting

sent to us for free, I don't have to test customer service, but I am going to return the azure

lenses because they just don't fit. I'm just going to buy another pair of Neptune in the other

lenses. Their customer service is not very good. I emailed them, got no response after a couple

days and I was like, okay, that's weird. Then I called them, got a voicemail. Nothing. Then I

waited a couple more days and called them again. Nothing left a voicemail this time and was like,

hey, here's what I want to do. If you could give me a call back, that'd be great. Then still got

nothing back. Then I emailed them a second time and then they finally got back to me. I was like,

I had to contact you four different times and leaving you a voicemail wasn't enough to get back to

me. Get a response. To me, if you're going to be a premium company charging me, I spent $1,800

on sunglasses, I would expect, I'll give a grace period on like you missed one. The second one,

and then third and then fourth, I'm like, okay, I'm a little less graceful there. Then the other

thing too is that returning them, I still have to pay the return shipping, which like, okay,

it's not the end of the world, but I'm like, I'm spending a lot of money. I think you could

eat the margin on the return of the glasses at $500. Make it up pretty quick. Like sell

Kirk to my knowledge if you return something, I don't think charges you a restocking fee,

they might. I could be wrong on that, but I know like for warranties and stuff,

they don't charge you shipping and maybe because mine's not a warranty, that's why I have to pay for it.

I don't know. I was just a little caught off guard like, oh, I spent a lot of money.

Out of the world, but just odd. Yeah. So I don't know. I think their customer service is pretty

mid for my experience. Gotcha. And then the last thing like I was going to say is, I think the reality

check is look, you don't need $900 glasses to play better pickable. Let's be real here. You just

don't. It's like the bag. If you have the money and it's in you value, like you maybe you've been

hitting the face and and that's been a problem for you, then, then sure, of course, they're going to

be amazing. Yeah. But completely unnecessary at that price. Like you at that price. I think you'll

get from the other lenses we're about to talk about. So BrioDee is a pickable eyewear company.

Ria makes pickable eyewear lenses. And I've also worn worn the Oakley Flax lenses, which is what

Analy used to use before these. And so like, look, if the Oakley's at $200, we're good enough

for Analy Waters. They're probably good enough for you. And don't be wrong. That's still expensive.

Yeah. Right. For eyewear, that's that's still a lot of money. But much more tolerable than $1,800.

Yeah. Right now, obviously mine was extreme. I was trying to review multiple lenses and I was buying

like kind of you don't have to spend that much. Like if you wanted to do it the cheapest way.

Four to 500. Yep. Four to 500 bucks. So it is more than the competition. But yeah, BrioDee,

$199. Ria is around $199. Oakley Flax is around $2.10. And there are gearbox glasses for $45.

Personally, I do think those aren't really not that great. They scratch kind of easy. But my wife

wears them and she likes them. So again, you can do it for cheaper if you want. Might have some

fogging issues. Yeah, might have some fogging issues and stuff like that. So it's like, look,

I would say so far in my early testing, the Pilos perform awesome. Yeah, I have really no

complaints about that. But I don't think people need to spend this much on glasses. There are

other options. Totally agree. But if it checks every box you want, go for it. Well, one thing I

wanted to get into and say these glasses right here, these are some Oakley's not meant or specific

two pickleball. These are the, I believe it's Houston squared. These are like a Moto GP

addition glasses. Super light. Whatever these lenses are in these is the greatest lens I've ever

used for pickleball. I have never put sunglasses on that make the ball stand out more than these.

Even the Pilos. Yeah, it is saturated like to the moon. Crazy. But not even just saturated. Like,

the way it makes particularly greens saturated. Sure. Like everyone knows I hate the color of the

lifetime ball. I have ragged on that so much. And this makes a lifetime ball stand out so much.

To the point where I actually feel like it makes a huge difference and I benefit drastically

from wearing these. Sure. The downside is they're super light and they're not meant for protection.

So if I get hit in the face, these, I could see these cracking or breaking, which is a bit of a

bummer. I just wish I could take these lenses and put them in the Pila in the design of the Pilos

or a different frame or or something else. And they're, they're comfortable. But they, I do see a

frame around here. And they do slide around a little bit. So I kind of have to think about it

and adjust it versus when I was playing with the Pilos. I never even had to touch them. Yeah.

But yeah, these Oakley lenses, man. The best lenses I've ever used for pickleball. It's insane.

Yeah. So that's kind of some early thoughts. We'll have more thoughts as we get to play more.

And I get the other lenses and I get to kind of try the whole gamut. I do think that with the

different lenses, like the blue or the saturated ones, I think if you've never experienced that from

sunglasses, it'll be a very like, oh, wow. Like this looks really cool. But I think because I've had

so many different types of eyewear and sunglasses, it just didn't catch me off guard as much. So I can see

how people say things like, wow, I feel like I'm seeing an HD or whatever. But if you've already

experienced that through other stuff, the Pilos don't do it way better than the competition. I just

think it's a, if you're new to it, you're going to be like, whoa. Yeah. You know, right. So that's,

that's what I have to say about those for now. And we got one more thing I want to talk about.

I think it'll be kind of quick. This is more of a you thing. I've actually thought this before,

but I thought it was a really good question. So Kevin Dong, who is a pro pickleball player,

he responded to my story and he said, he just had a pod topic and he said, if people choke up on

in a long gated paddle, you know, like how hate and Gabe, all these people are doing these days,

where they don't use like that bottom quarter of the handle. Why not just use a hybrid and wide

body where you hold at the bottom, but then you get the extra width because by choking up,

you are effectively turning your paddle into a hybrid, like you're losing the reach. So I'm

curious what you think about it because you've started choking up on your paddle more. Yep.

So I guess I'm just curious what your thought is. Yeah, I mean, the argument isn't reach anymore.

A decent point. I mean, I used to be like how Jade Villia would hold paddle and like my pinky was

off. It was crazy. I had so much handled work with the point where I didn't even have put a finger

on the back of the paddle for a two. Now I've started to shift and hold much higher to the point where

and I kind of push my pointer finger up like this where I'm almost touching the face of the

paddle with my pointer finger. I lose a little bit of comfort on two ease, but I've learned

sacrifice that I think the reason why is the the actual shape itself of an elongated.

Changes where the sweep spot and how it affects play quite a bit over a hybrid.

It shifts the sweep spot much higher and that is a huge benefit for flicks, rolls,

not necessarily on dinks of resets because on those shots you do on slower shots,

you are hitting more towards the center on resets, danks, drops, unless you're hitting like a

really aggressive top spin drop. But for those top spin drops, overheads, flicks out of the air,

speed ups. I want to hit everything up here. It's kind of as close to the top as possible.

The sweep spot on the elongated is just shifted higher. Now if I use in a long or a hybrid,

okay, maybe I can move my hand back down and have the similar maneuverability at the same reach.

And the same reach, but now I also have to shift my impact spot down.

I see. And so you are still losing some reach. Maybe it's not a ton, but enough to at least

not really reach, but effective where you normally hit the ball. You're getting a different amount

of energy out of it. Yes. And the usability changes. So I can't speak for other players like

Hayden or Ben. But for my personal experience, it has changed how I've had to play pickleball.

And so that's why I gravitate still towards elongated and just shifting my hand up a little bit.

Because yeah, the more you move your hand up, effectively lowering the swing weight and

maneuverability in your hands. But you still get the benefit of the sweet spot being higher. I see.

That's for me what it's been. Okay. Yeah, that I mean, that makes sense.

I when he asked that question, I was like, you know, I never thought about it that way because I

was just never really thinking about people choking up that way. Because if you think about it from

the way he asked the question, you're like, why would you not take the extra with? Why would you not

take the extra stability? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a good question. I'll have to maybe I'll start putting

some time on the RPM hybrid shape. Yeah. And see how that one plays. Because it's a little

bit different with that handle. It's the longer handle and it's a flat top. So it's like a lot

closer to what you're used to. Yes. So yeah, actually, maybe you should try that out for like the next

pod. I'd be curious to know if you obviously it's not necessarily the type of paddle you've been using,

but you'll still probably know like, oh, well, my sweet spot feels way off. Yeah, I can go back

side by side with different paddles and compare it. But yeah, that's that's a good question. I think

is a good thing to explain to people. Again, I can't speak for others, but for for my experience,

that's been the reason why I still gravitate towards elongateds. Okay. Makes sense. Well,

dude, I don't know how long this was, but I think we delivered on a giga pod. Definitely over.

It's got to be close over two hours. It has to be has to be crazy. I mean, I cracked open my

second energy drink. So that's a first. And you know what? This time our first bar back,

we actually had a word ready. We've right. We wrote. If you made it this far, you can just comment

we're so back. We are so back. Back, baby. One thing I probably should have put this

in the front of the pod, but we'll put it in the back of the pod and the real people who made it to

them, they'll hear this. But I was going to say, there's a possibility that we may do bi-weekly for

a little bit just as I continue to make sure that my back can handle the load. I'm going to be

putting on it because I think every week I'm going to be really tempted to hit a lot more. And

if I do bi-weekly, I can just no reason to rush back into things and reset us back further.

Yeah. Like let's just ease into it and get back to where we used to be. So could be weekly,

might be bi-weekly. So if you hit, if we miss one, we're not gone. It's probably just waiting for

the next one. But ideally, we eventually get back to full weekly. So yeah, hope you guys enjoy

the podcast. We missed you. We missed doing the podcast. It feels good to be back. It does. This

is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And hopefully you guys did too. Cool. Catch you later. Peace.