Our People Deserve Some Meat!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You sound lovely as ever, my love. My one take wonder wife. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Right? [00:00:05] Speaker A: That's my new name for you. [00:00:07] Speaker B: That's your name. [00:00:09] Speaker A: No, I'm one shot. What was it? One shot, one kill? [00:00:13] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:00:14] Speaker A: I think that's what they called me. I said, you're my one take wonder. [00:00:18] Speaker B: I know. Like I don't have to do a bunch of. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Just making sure you heard me right. [00:00:22] Speaker B: I understood. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Let's talk about that. That's one of my favorite phrases from Rhett and link on the good Morning America. Let's talk about that. [00:00:30] Speaker B: Let's talk about that. [00:00:31] Speaker A: They. Yeah, they used to be good. I think that we shall talk about. Are you ready for this? Drum roll, please. Oh, I wish I had a drum roll over here. [00:00:40] Speaker B: You should have a drum roll in it. That would be like a stain. [00:00:43] Speaker A: The best I have is something like. [00:00:49] Speaker B: That'S not what you wanted. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Let's talk about pickleball strategy. This morning we had another one of our community in motion drills and thrills out at Shady side Park here in lovely Anderson, Indiana. Beautiful Madison county. Gorgeous weather again. July feels like amazing. [00:01:12] Speaker B: I think it was like 60 degrees at 06:00 p.m. yesterday. [00:01:14] Speaker A: It was fifties. It's just stunning out taking advantage of it all we can. And so I want to talk about some pickleball strategy this morning. Let's start with when you're at the kitchen line. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:01:28] Speaker A: So we were doing ding goals, which we talked about on our drill pod before. Yeah. And when the first ball goes bad, we are counting three shots. And so after the third shot, the whole court's available. First strategy is don't just hit it, which we talked about before. Just because it's the fourth shot. Don't go for it, Dink, until you get the right shot. Statistically, if you are the person or your team is the team that speeds up the first ball. If you don't hit a winner on that shot, 70% chance you lose the rally. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Really? [00:02:01] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:02] Speaker B: I would not have guessed that. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah, there are two seventies in pickleball and we'll talk about the other one here in a little bit. So 70% chance that if you don't put the first one away, you end up putting yourself in a bad position, your team in a bad position and you lose the rally. So that's why we want to wait for the right shot. And that's a strategy. To know that data and to play your game in such a way that you try to create that shot for you is a good solid strategy. [00:02:27] Speaker B: Wow. That's very insightful. [00:02:29] Speaker A: It is. But people like me that want to go for it. [00:02:31] Speaker B: Yes. You get all [email protected]. [00:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I just want to hit the ball hard and fast and try and get it away from somebody. [00:02:37] Speaker B: That explains a lot of my mistakes last week. [00:02:40] Speaker A: I wasn't trying to do that, but, no, you're right. [00:02:43] Speaker B: I'm taking what you teach me and trying to review what I've done so that I can learn. No, I didn't feel like you were trying to. [00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, good. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I wasn't there this morning. I slept in. [00:02:56] Speaker A: I have magically found out how to coach her better. No, I wasn't. So this morning, you are coachable. I love that about you. What I saw was in dingles when that we got down to one ball and we were just dinking. One ball was that people were getting comfortable standing on the outside edges of the court. So they could just keep dinking it diagonally back and forth, but they weren't sliding every time. When the ball is on the left and you're, when you're facing your opponents and the ball is on their side of the court, it's their right side, but from your perspective, it's the left side of the court. Your left player needs to be covering the line and your right player needs to be covering the middle. [00:03:38] Speaker B: Yes. You call that shadowing, right? [00:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Shadowing is a good term for it. Other terms used are think about being rubber banded together at the legs. If they move, the rubber band pulls you over. If you move, you pull them with you. Good partners feel sense where their partner is at, and when they sense where their partner's Athenae, it helps them think about the rest of the court. Where should they be best positioned to cover the rest of the court? [00:04:04] Speaker B: That's a very interesting drill because you start off playing almost like an individual game, and then once that third, once. [00:04:12] Speaker A: The first ball goes bad, the first. [00:04:13] Speaker B: Ball goes bad, then you have to instantly switch to being a partner again. [00:04:17] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. It's a good mental drill. It's part of our fam. Right. F a a m. Which we, which we have, I think, talked about before. [00:04:24] Speaker B: Have we footwork? [00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Good. [00:04:28] Speaker B: What's a. [00:04:29] Speaker A: Accuracy and angles? Those are the two a's. [00:04:31] Speaker B: I knew angles, accuracy, and then m. Mental, baby. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Mental, of course. Yeah, that's right. Pickleball, fam. Well, the reason is because so much of it is mental, whether it's how you're talking or treating your partner, which we had that podcast on, or whether it's getting frustrated about a shot you've made or on the other side, being super positive about what you've done or feeling good about your game. There are times when you're just like, I'm in a rhythm. This feels great. And that's a good mental component as well. Back to the strategy and where you're positioning yourself. I think that basketball players, and volleyball players in particular, have a very good ability, and I'm not gonna call it natural, I'm gonna call it trained ability. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Definitely trained. [00:05:13] Speaker A: Right. To know where to go to cover their space on the court. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Yes, we practice that as absolutely. [00:05:20] Speaker A: In basketball, if you're two passes away, then you're back to where you can see your person. You're defending the ball and your back is to the rims. Like you're kind of creating a y or a v, depending on how you look at the angles. And so basketball players, they are thinking about, how do I cover and protect defensively the rest of the court? Offensive is a different story, but we're talking about defensively here in pickleball. Same thing in volleyball. When you feel your team shift and you feel and you watch the ball, if the ball goes here on, you know, let's say as you're facing at the right side of the net, then you know where you've got to shift to take away. You got to take away the line. First of all, the same thing in volleyball, but you've also got to have your middle blockers, right, that are trying to take away that middle shot. And then you got to have that person up close that can grab the dink or the tip. Then you got to have the person that's on the back in the middle and the back on the outside. So all six players know whether they're supposed to go and where it's supposed to be. Same thing in pickleball. We've got to become much more comfortable sensing how much of the court is mined to currently cover because it shifts all throughout the game. I mean, it shifts on every rally, right? It shifts multiple times. So as you're, as you're playing out your rally, it's really mentally an awareness of where do I need to be? There are people that can cover more of the court than others. Jessica Jones covers more of the court than I do. Well, so that we know about each other, and so I know what I can leave for her, but I know what I have to protect as well. She knows what she can leave for me and what she has to protect. And we're very good at knowing where each of the others are. In fact, some of our mistakes, I would say. I mean, you know, us screwing up and just hitting a ball in the nets. Just us screwing up and hitting a ball in the net. But as a team, we only make two real mistakes. One mistake is not communicating enough. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:06] Speaker A: One mistake is not trusting the other one enough that they were covering the spot that we thought they could, but we weren't sure. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Does that make sense? [00:07:14] Speaker B: No, it's complete sense. You have to be able to trust your partner. [00:07:18] Speaker A: I'll turn on Jess and say, hey, I'm sorry, my bad, because I hit a bad shot, hit it long, whatever, who cares? But there. But the times when we actually talk about the plays, almost all of them are. Did you have that? Did you have that? Did you. Sorry, I didn't think you had that. Or, you know, right. Or thanks for taking it. I didn't have it. So it goes both ways. But those are the things that we talk about the most on the court. But we are very, very comfortable knowing where each other is and what we should be covering. That is something that you can work on. [00:07:45] Speaker B: So that's one. [00:07:46] Speaker A: That's one. [00:07:47] Speaker B: One of two. [00:07:48] Speaker A: It's, it's. Well, it's one of two things I want to bring up in terms of the 70% number. [00:07:52] Speaker B: Okay. [00:07:53] Speaker A: Because what's happening in this dinking game is it gets tiring to some people. Moving to the middle, move to the outside, move to the middle, move the outside. But it's only 10ft and you only have to move like four or 5ft. So it is. And you have to just continue to stick with it or you're in trouble. So there's that thinking about where you're at perspective to it. There's also this other 70% number that I'm going to go ahead and just bring up real quick. And that is that if your team is at the kitchen line and you're able to keep the other team away from the kitchen line, you will win 70% of the rallies. [00:08:29] Speaker B: We talked about that before. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Yes. [00:08:32] Speaker B: In the reverse, how you have to get to that kitchen line first. [00:08:35] Speaker A: Right. So now I'm going to go back to the first 70% number and the speeding up and just the dinking and the strategy and where people are at. Okay. So what I see happening is the first thing, which I told you people are staying outside wide. The second thing I see happening is they're not covering the middle. Now it sounds like it's the same thing and it kind of is, but they're also not covering the middle when they're coming from the back line to the front. They're just coming a lot. Last week, exactly. [00:09:03] Speaker B: Some of it was I was rushing to get to the line, and I didn't stay back for shortest distance between. [00:09:09] Speaker A: Two points is a straight line. And most of us think, like, I got to get to the net, and we only think that means going straight forward to get to the net. The fastest way to get there, straight ahead. But the truth is, I got to get to my position on the court. And my position on the court. If I've just hit a cross court shot or my partner's hit a straight shot, then I have to go to the middle. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:28] Speaker A: And that's a big deal, and a lot of people do not do it, and I am guilty of not going enough to the middle. [00:09:36] Speaker B: So let me repeat that. So let's say my partner hit a cross court shot. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's put your partner on the left and you on the right. Let's. Let's get really visual here. [00:09:46] Speaker B: I like that. So you're on the right, my partner's on the left. [00:09:49] Speaker A: I'm your partner. [00:09:49] Speaker B: You hit a cross court shot, which. [00:09:51] Speaker A: Means it's landing in front of you. [00:09:53] Speaker B: Right. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Where do you go? [00:09:55] Speaker B: I am supposed to go to the middle? No, I'm supposed to go to the line. [00:09:59] Speaker A: If it's in front of you, you cover your line. [00:10:02] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:03] Speaker A: Your partner, me as I see you go to where you should go, you're kind of pulling me mentally. I know that you're. If you're going to be there, right, wrong, or indifferent. If you're there, I still got to cover the rest of the court. [00:10:14] Speaker B: Correct. [00:10:14] Speaker A: So I'm going to the middle, and what I'm doing is I'm taking away the easy shot. You're taking away the easiest shot. Down the line is the easiest shot straight ahead. The second easiest shot is down the middle. The hardest shot is all the way back across court. So we're taking away their two easiest shots and giving them the hard shot and saying, make it okay. [00:10:34] Speaker B: I'm following that. So if you are my partner and you're on the left and you hit it straight ahead, then I come to the middle. [00:10:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I've got to go down the line and protect my line. And your responsibility is to come to the middle. [00:10:47] Speaker B: That is very helpful. [00:10:48] Speaker A: It is. [00:10:50] Speaker B: Okay. So one more time. If my partner hits it across the court is landing somewhere in front of me on the opposite side of the net. I cover my line. If my partner hits it straight ahead, they're going to cover their line. I'm going to come to the middle. [00:11:04] Speaker A: Yes. And I can sum the whole thing up in three words. [00:11:07] Speaker B: Do it. [00:11:08] Speaker A: Follow the ball. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Okay. [00:11:11] Speaker A: So if you hit cross court, you follow the ball to the middle. Does that make sense? [00:11:17] Speaker B: It does. [00:11:18] Speaker A: If you hit straight, you follow the ball straight. [00:11:21] Speaker B: Okay. [00:11:22] Speaker A: If I hit cross court, following the ball now means tracking the ball and going straight to it, which is in the middle of the court. I mean, which is on your side of the court. [00:11:29] Speaker B: And this is the first of the 70% shots. No. [00:11:33] Speaker A: Second, this is the challenge with. It's the first because people are not covering the middle, whether it's cover the middle of thinking or covering the middle by getting to the line, either way, they're not covering the middle. Now, it's not really specifically tied to the 70% thing. The 70% thing said. The first one said, if you're the first one to speed it up and. [00:11:52] Speaker B: You don't make it, and you don't. [00:11:53] Speaker A: Make it, now, you're 70% chance you're gonna lose the rally. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:58] Speaker A: But what I saw happening was they were able to speed it up because the middle was open. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:03] Speaker A: And they were just hitting it down the middle. Hitting it down the middle. Hitting it down the middle. [00:12:05] Speaker B: Which is one of the things that you've told me to do. Yes. When in doubt, hit middle. [00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah, kind of. I personally believe the middle is a really good mental reset for people. [00:12:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:18] Speaker A: It's not a hard place to hit the ball to. You're giving yourself the most court to work with. [00:12:22] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:12:23] Speaker A: Still, a middle dink or a middle drive. Not a middle high shot that sets up your partner to get even more mad at you. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Right. Right. [00:12:30] Speaker A: So I'll look at my partners like Josh Uyghur knows if I look at him and I say, I'm going middle, he knows exactly what I do. He knows that I am mentally resetting my game. I've been frustrated with a couple of shots. I'm going to go to a good, safe, smart shot. And, you know, there's this phrase in pickleball. Down the middle solves the riddle. And it's kind of true because it forces the other team to communicate, it forces the other team to choose who's going to hit the ball. And when it's in the middle, it's the least amount of angle they have to hit back at you. So it's kind of like, this is where I liken it to soccer. [00:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:02] Speaker A: A goalie is a good goalie's objective is to take away the angle. The way they do that is by going towards straight away from the goal, away from the thing they're supposed to protect, actually protects it better because they're taking away the angles from the other player that's getting ready to kick the ball at them. That's why a lot of goalies go out. [00:13:22] Speaker B: I always wonder that. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. When you stay back, you've got to cover that entire width at all the angles. They can kick it out. When you go out, you take away the angle so it's less distant now. You have less time. But, but there's a good trade off there. Okay. Same thing in pickleball. [00:13:36] Speaker B: All right. What's the other one? [00:13:38] Speaker A: Well, the other 70% was keep the team back. [00:13:41] Speaker B: Right. Okay. [00:13:42] Speaker A: And we have talked about that in the past, but that's still, we're talking about strategy. That's still a very good strategy. Keep them back. Keep it well. But he's the better player. Great. Keep him back. You want the better [email protected]? [00:13:54] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. The one with the really long arms. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Him, her, whoever. If they're the better player, keep them back. [00:14:04] Speaker B: I understand. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Now let's talk about that. I knew I could slide that in at some point in time. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Your new favorite phrase. [00:14:12] Speaker A: It's an old phrase, but I like it. Look, if you are able to keep one of them back, what is very likely to occur? If the other one has good court awareness, their partner has good court awareness, where are they going to go? [00:14:24] Speaker B: They're also going to go back. [00:14:25] Speaker A: Correct. Because if they don't, they are not properly covering the court and they're leaving you a lot more to work with. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:14:32] Speaker A: Because you can hit it away from the guy in the back or gal and use guy generically, but the person in the back and between them and behind the person up front. So there's this really bad space open available to take advantage of. So if you can keep one of them back, they're likely, that's likely going to pull the other one back. And that puts you in that 70% category to win because you've got them back and you're up. [00:14:52] Speaker B: I understand that. [00:14:53] Speaker A: That's why we fight so hard to get to the net. That's why we get to the net quickly but not force ourselves to go there. [00:15:02] Speaker B: We should cover that on another podcast. [00:15:03] Speaker A: Well, I think that's a strategy thing, so I want to cover it here. [00:15:06] Speaker B: Oh, great. [00:15:07] Speaker A: So check this out. If your job is to make it to the net, which it is to the non volleys online. Right. And you hit a good drop shot, immediately say go and tell your partner. And the both of you should start moving up to your spot, whether it's middle or side, as quickly as possible. [00:15:21] Speaker B: Okay. [00:15:22] Speaker A: There are times when you don't go middle or side. If you hit the ball down the middle, you both cover your middle. You don't cover a line. [00:15:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:29] Speaker A: But if you hit the ball towards the sides, you go where you're supposed to go. Okay, so. [00:15:32] Speaker B: So hold on, let me repeat that. So if you hit a good drop shot, say go. [00:15:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:37] Speaker B: Go to the nonviolent. Go to the kitchen line. [00:15:39] Speaker A: We know. Just go. Now. Bear with me because there's more to it than that. [00:15:44] Speaker B: Do you have rhymes for everything? [00:15:46] Speaker A: If you're back with me, yes. And I say go. We're going to start moving towards the kitchen quickly. But the moment they're getting ready to hit, we need to be stopped, feet set, ready to go. [00:15:58] Speaker B: That makes sense. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Strategically, you are much more likely to get to their next shot if you're. If you're ready with your feet planted and ready, like on your toes, even when they're getting ready to hit their next shot, while your ball's in the air, move. When your ball is getting ready to be hit, you need to be stopped and ready if you're moving. It is much harder to change direction, momentum and all that stuff than it is when you're stopped. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Correct. And you also might be hitting the ball with that momentum, which means you might hit it incorrectly. [00:16:28] Speaker A: Could not agree more. It's much harder to hit a shot on the run than to just hit a shot that you're positioned for, unless. [00:16:34] Speaker B: You'Re planning on that. [00:16:35] Speaker A: Well, yeah, sometimes you have to. Right. You have no choice. And sometimes those can be amazing shots, but they're just lower percentage shots. We want higher percentage shots. [00:16:44] Speaker B: Correct. Okay, so let's go back to what you said. If you hit down the middle, you both have to cover middle, so that obviously would take a lot of communication. [00:16:54] Speaker A: No, you're kind of covering the middle on your side, and I'm kind of covering the middle on my side. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Remember, we're rubber banded together. [00:17:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:00] Speaker A: If you go too far over, I'm going to have to cheat towards you because I need to protect the space. But if I'm watching you and Z and you do that often, I'll be like, here's where I want you on that shot. So if I drop to the middle, we're not both going to come to the very middle line. That's stupid. We're too close to each other now. We're not covering enough of the court. So we both should kind of go toward the middle of, if you will, our own side. We don't play sides in pickleball. But you know what I'm saying when I say that I do. Yeah, you got it, I think. Okay, good. So there's some other cool strategy stuff that we could talk about as well. Let's talk about the strategy of thinking two to three shots ahead. [00:17:36] Speaker B: That's always hard for me. [00:17:37] Speaker A: It is. And you don't really have. It's not like chess where you go, I'm going to hit it here, and then I know they'll hit it there, and then I know I'll hit it. Because you don't know for sure where they're going to go. But you can predict based on what you do, and having watched them play or played with them before, you can predict where they'll go a lot of. [00:17:54] Speaker B: The time because people have their favorite shots. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Not just that, but if I hit it to their backhand by their foot, they don't have a lot of shots they can choose. So I'm, in a way, creating their next shot. Well, I don't want to create a good shot for them. That's why I don't hit it high and fat in the middle. I want to create a tough shot for them. That's why we say keep them back. That's a tougher shot than when they're up at the line. We know it's a tougher shot because statistically, 70% of the time, the team is close to the line wins. So I want to create shots for them just like I want to create opportunities for me. So if I create a bad shot for them, I'm creating a good opportunity for me. Make sense? [00:18:32] Speaker B: It does. [00:18:33] Speaker A: So, like in the dinking game. Let's go back to the dinking game. When I'm dinking, I want to dink towards or at their feet. At their toes. Like if my. If my shot would hit their toes, that's like a really good dink distance wise. But if I can dink toward their backhand, like towards their left ankle, for a right handed person, even better. And then I want to start moving them. I do not believe in the no two dinks in the same place rule. I think that's actually a dumb mentality to have. But a lot of people will tell you, never dink to the same place twice. Okay. Never dink to a same stupid place twice. [00:19:10] Speaker B: Okay. [00:19:11] Speaker A: But it is okay to dink to the same place twice? I'll give you an example. I was playing with Josh the other day, and I cannot remember who we were playing against. We were in a dinking battle. I was on the right, my opponent then on their left, and they're right handed, which means straight in front of me on the sideline is their backhand, right? Well, I went to their backhand. They hit one back to me, and then they rushed back towards the middle issue of the area to cover their space. Well, they went too far. They didn't cover the line. [00:19:36] Speaker B: Oh, so you went down. [00:19:38] Speaker A: I went right back to the same spot again. They rushed back over, dinked it. No one back to me. Ran back to the sort of the middle of their area, not quite covering the line again. So I dinked it a third time to the exact same spot, and they couldn't get to it this time. And Josh was just like, kevin wasn't going to give that up. And I was like, well, why would I? Why wouldn't I hit it to the same place 15 times if they're having trouble getting it back and giving me the better opportunity? One of them was almost high enough. I could put it away, but I had to go ahead and dink it. But if they'd got the next one, it had been worse than the other ones because they had really stretched to get it. I probably could have earned them or just had a good put away. The point isn't to go to the same place or not go the same place twice. The point is to go to a smart place, which is why I chose to hit it there. Right, but a smart place. So one thing that Josh and I love to do together, and actually, I do a little bit of this with Jess, is we work really hard to get people into that comfort zone on the outside edges. So we'll dink. Cross court. Cross court, straight. Cross court, ding. Straight. Intentionally trying to cause our opponents to continually spread apart. So then you have to where they're both covering the line and we take the middle, because down the middle solves the riddle. [00:20:45] Speaker B: Seriously, do you have a rhyme for everything? [00:20:47] Speaker A: I don't. Pickleball does. [00:20:48] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's not my rhyme. I see there's a few other things, too that are strategy wise, that are pretty cool. But does that one make sense? [00:20:55] Speaker B: Yes. I'm swimming. My brain's swimming a little bit. So he might have given me too much information in one period of time. To work on. [00:21:01] Speaker A: But little Tmi. [00:21:03] Speaker B: A little too much. [00:21:04] Speaker A: Little pickleball TMI. [00:21:05] Speaker B: I'm afraid that I will forget the first thing that you said, but that's okay. I can listen to this podcast over and over again. [00:21:12] Speaker A: You should boost our numbers, baby. Boost our ratings. [00:21:16] Speaker B: Right? [00:21:16] Speaker A: Hey, we're almost at 750 listens. What? [00:21:19] Speaker B: That's amazing. [00:21:20] Speaker A: We should do something for the thousandth. [00:21:21] Speaker B: We should. [00:21:22] Speaker A: We don't know who they are because we don't. We're cheap, and we don't pay the dollars that we have to pay every month to know who these people actually are. [00:21:29] Speaker B: If you follow us on Facebook, though, then we'll know. [00:21:32] Speaker A: Well, we know they follow us. We still don't know who listens. [00:21:35] Speaker B: True. [00:21:35] Speaker A: I mean, like, if you should do a thousand. A thousand listens giveaway. We have a. We have a yeti we can give away with our logo on it. [00:21:43] Speaker B: We can do a shirt. [00:21:44] Speaker A: Let's do that. So it'll be someone who subscribes through what? Our sweet Lobs Facebook page? [00:21:51] Speaker B: Yes. [00:21:51] Speaker A: Somebody who likes or subscribes to our Sweet Lobs podcast. Podcast. [00:21:55] Speaker B: Facebook page. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Facebook page. We will give away yeti the day we hit 1000 listens. We will open up a randomizer. I will personally type in all the names of all the listeners. Should take me 15 seconds. And we will then hit random, and we'll draw a name, and that person will get a sweet lobs yeti from us. [00:22:14] Speaker B: That would be great. [00:22:15] Speaker A: Probably have to wash it and clean it. [00:22:17] Speaker B: No, we have to. [00:22:18] Speaker A: We have a clean. A new one. Okay, good. You must know where it is. I don't know where it is. Okay, good. [00:22:23] Speaker B: You're so funny. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Back to the strategy. Let's do one more piece. Okay, serving. We do the same thing. When I'm serving with Jess or Josh or some others, we will intentionally try to pull them out or push them in. So pulling them out means I want to serve it wide and pull them way off the court so that when they hit their next shot, they have less control over it. It's not as likely to go as deep. And now my partner, Josh, um, has a chance to jump in the middle on that. He has to let it bounce, don't get me wrong. But he's got a good drive, so he lets it bounce. But now he's got partners that are trying to get back together. So what happens is, if I push the person I'm serving it to wide, and they're. And they're on as I face them, they're to the right. So they go out that direction. Remember the rubber band thing from earlier? Naturally, their partner feels like they got to do what? Slide towards the middle to cover more of that court. Because otherwise, there's this big gap between them. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:23:18] Speaker A: Well, when they do that, it creates an opening down the line. If that shot comes cross court or back down the middle. If. No, if they run to cover their line, but the other person can't get back in time. So I will intentionally serve wide or I will intentionally serve right down the middle to really create the same thing. If I hit it right down the middle, that person is now rushing to their right to hit the ball back, which means their partner is a little bit in their way. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Yep. [00:23:46] Speaker A: And they're both on their right side of the court, opening up more of the left side of their court, or as we see it, the right side to hit back to. So now Josh, if or I can, I can hit a straight one, but Josh is on my left, so he'll have the angle. So if it comes back to Josh, now he can hit a sharper angle back at them, pushing the person who just returned the serve all the way back out of the court. So we're really trying to take the other team and dictate where they go. [00:24:10] Speaker B: This one's easy for me to follow. I don't have a fancy hard serve, but I have an accurate serve. So I like to move them around so that they don't know where I'm going to serve every time. And because I have accuracy, I can move them forward or back or side to side. [00:24:24] Speaker A: And I do believe you should change up your serves, not necessarily to try and get aces or because you want to, you know, be known for having 20 different serves, but because we don't want them to know what to expect. The more they know what to expect, the better they are positioned to take advantage of us and dictate where we move. I want to dictate wherever they move. We'll even use the serve to do that. We will also do returns. We should, since we're doing serves, we should talk about returns. Returns are very important strategically. So if I'm being served to and I've got a good partner at the same on the right, let's just have a mental picture here. I'm on the right, so the person on their right is serving to me. My partner's [email protected]. they're both back. If I hit the ball straight, okay, I can get to the net and cover my line. Josh has to slide over to the middle. But if I hit the ball in front of Josh, meaning to the person that's back on their side of the court, that's in front of my partner. Now, I've positioned Josh to more easily be able to take one that they hit that's bad as a third shot or to slide over and take a poach. So more often than not, I want to hit it across court, which gives me, by the way, more time because the ball's in the air longer. I come to the middle or toward the middle, allowing Josh, who's giving me hand signal, by the way, the freedom to. [00:25:42] Speaker B: He does that. [00:25:42] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we do that a lot. The freedom to poach. Okay, so nice. Yes, it is a little harder to poach if I hit it straight ahead, because that person can come back down the line. So if Josh has gone for the poach, he's already running across the court. Now he's got to go basically across the whole court, which means I have to now run all the way back to his side of the court to come. Oh, it's not that I don't like to do it. I'm not fast enough. I'm just candid about that. But it's also not the smartest play. It doesn't position as well. I want Josh to go two thirds at the most to poach. But if he can get a good poach, it's the plays over, right? [00:26:19] Speaker B: Oh, this is a very meaty podcast. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah, we. You know what? Our people deserve some meat. Steak and eggs for you today. [00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot in this. Yeah. Please feel free to re listen to this. [00:26:33] Speaker A: Over. [00:26:34] Speaker B: We'll get to a thousand a lot faster, Nugget. [00:26:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll get to a thousand a lot faster that way. Well, on behalf of me, Kevin Hough, here at the Sweet Labs podcast at the pod pod studio, and my lovely, sweet love sky, huff the one take wonder. We're out of here. Ahead. I'm ahead of the game. I'm ahead of the game.