PICKLEBALL THERAPY  ·  SHOW NOTES

Episode 304 – Tap Your Flow

 What this episode is about

Flow is not something you go out and acquire. It is already in you. This week I make the case for that, and then I show you what the work for finding your flow actually is.

Do you already have flow? Yes.

Picture yourself waiting to return serve. The serve gets hit. What happens next is remarkable, and you do it without thinking about it:

•     Your brain tracks a ball spinning through space

•     It calculates where that ball will be at a moment in the future

•     It moves your body to that place in space

•     You hit the ball

You were doing that before your first lesson. Before your first pickleball YouTube video. Nobody taught you. That is your supercomputer running software that came pre-installed.

So what is the work?

Removing interference. Taking away the noise. Clearing out the distractions and obstacles so that you can stop trying to think your way through the rally and start feeling the rally instead.

Playing by feel more than by thought.

One example of interference: trying to read paddle angles

Players ask about this a lot. How can I learn to read my opponent’s paddle at contact so that I know where the ball is going? It’s a fair question.

To be sure, some coaches teach it. But think about what you are actually asking yourself to do. You are moving. You are tracking the rally. And now you want to also read a paddle face at the moment of contact.

There is a better way. When the ball travels to one side of the court, you start to sense where it is likely to go next. Will you get surprised? Sure. Once, maybe twice. Then your brain adjusts. That is flow doing the work instead of your conscious mind.

Watch the pros. It looks like they are gliding. They always seem to be where they need to be. They are sensing the rally.

Pickleball is music

There is a rhythm to a rally. Learn to hear it and move with it, and you are in flow. That idea sits at the center of what we are doing in the Flow Project.

The Flow Project

Five weeks. Five bite-sized chunks. Focused on your mechanics.

Here is why it works: you have probably already tried the frontal approach to learning pickleball. You want a better third shot drop, so you watch 87 videos and take 32 clinics on the third shot drop. Fine. Let’s come at it from a different angle. That’s what the flow project is all about.

No cost. To participate:

•     Go to tonyroigpickleball.com and get on the email list. The written lessons come by email, so that is the only way to receive them.

•     Add [email protected] as a contact so the emails do not land in spam.

•     Join the community at tonyroigpickleball.com for the video lessons and follow-alongs.

In the riff: what Tony Roig Pickleball is about

It is about you. A pickleball player who wants to grow in the sport. Period.

On the question of whether the pro work I’ve been doing lately means a pivot away from amateur coaching: no. Commentating Major League Pickleball and the PPA, and coaching pro players, increases my knowledge of the game and keeps me current. I bring that back here. Not a pivot. Doubling down.

Free at tonyroigpickleball.com

•     Four mini courses

•     The TRP Community

•     The Flow Project (five weeks)