Trades, Tech, and Too Many Tournaments?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I hope you're feeling creative. [00:00:01] Speaker B: Am I? I got them neon lights look good on you. So good on you. But we ain't got no room to move. [00:00:08] Speaker A: I have a question for you. [00:00:09] Speaker B: As always. You know, I turn it on usually right away. So just make sure this question is clean. [00:00:14] Speaker A: It is clean. Question. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Hit me. [00:00:17] Speaker A: What are you thinking about today? [00:00:19] Speaker B: Oh, are you wanting to run the podcast? [00:00:21] Speaker A: No. [00:00:22] Speaker B: You want to be the lead dog? [00:00:24] Speaker A: I just want to get started. Let's go. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Well, several things. Sky was an interesting leak. So the MLP deadline was a week ago? Over a week ago. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:37] Speaker B: And it got delayed. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Why? [00:00:40] Speaker B: There's some conspiracy theorists out there saying it was so that Ben Johns could join the LA Mad Drops. [00:00:45] Speaker A: There's a conspiracy theorist when it comes to pickleball? [00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:49] Speaker A: That's funny. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:54] Speaker B: And it might be true. Do you remember? Do you remember? I think it was in football. Well, football. Deflate Gate with Tom Brady. [00:01:03] Speaker A: Yes. [00:01:03] Speaker B: Okay, so there's a deflate gate version in pickleball too. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Okay. [00:01:07] Speaker B: This one's gonna kill you. You're not gonna believe it. [00:01:09] Speaker A: People who are listening to our podcast who don't regularly play pickleball, there isn't a pickleball that you inflate necessarily. Like, that's. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Oh, I like that. That's what you started with, cuz. Here we go. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:01:23] Speaker B: There was a team playing against Ben Johns and Annalee Waters. This is probably two years ago. And one guy, the guy that smashed it against Annalee and Ben so freaking hard it barely bounced and went way past him to the. To the wall. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Okay. [00:01:37] Speaker B: Right under Annalise. Pedal swings, misses. Ben and her look at each other, kind of like throw their hands up, like, in that. [00:01:44] Speaker A: I don't know what's up with this. Right? [00:01:46] Speaker B: They challenged the ball deflated. What? And the announcers were like, well, it's got 40 holes, so there's actually no inflating of the ball, so it can't really deflate. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Ray Free comes back and goes. The ball deflated. Challenge. Challenge accepted. Overturned. Huh. [00:02:06] Speaker A: So it was a trick ball of some sort. [00:02:08] Speaker B: No. It was the dumbest call I've ever seen in all of pickleball. [00:02:11] Speaker A: I don't understand that at all. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Huh. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:14] Speaker B: They're basically saying, great shot. You hit it so hard that it flattened a little bit when it hit the ground, and she couldn't get it back. It flattened, but we don't know. They had horrible cameras back then. Couldn't see a thing. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Was it Marshmallow Balls back then? [00:02:28] Speaker B: I have no Idea. [00:02:29] Speaker A: That's crazy. Who knows? [00:02:32] Speaker B: I'll tell you this much. If you'd have predicted that there'd be a deflated ball you to been ahead of the game. You know what I'm saying? [00:02:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:41] Speaker B: I probably should have had that. I mean, that would be great if I had the. The music teed up for that one. Let's just go with this one here. Come on. Deflate gate is not why we're here today. [00:02:54] Speaker A: That's good. Because I don't know anything about it. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Crazy. [00:02:59] Speaker A: And so I wouldn't be able to contribute. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Well, we don't need you to. [00:03:02] Speaker A: That's good. [00:03:03] Speaker B: The referee contributed enough in that one way, more than he should. So the point I'm kind of getting at is it does seem that every once in a while, Ben Johns kind of gets extra fairly treated. Is extra fairly a word? [00:03:16] Speaker A: No. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Extra well treated. [00:03:19] Speaker A: Treated very well. [00:03:21] Speaker B: And this move, quite honestly, I personally believe. And I think a lot of people believe because there's a ton of chatter about it. This. This move puts Ben and the LA Rams. Rams. That I'm going back to NFL now with the deflate gate and the. And the Los Angeles Mad Drops in a position to probably dominate and win MLP this year. [00:03:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:45] Speaker B: And we're past the halfway point. That's how big of a deal this is. [00:03:49] Speaker A: Wow. [00:03:50] Speaker B: I don't know if he'll play with Jade or Catherine. I think he'll probably play with Catherine and Jade will play with Hunter Johnson. But you remember we watched them in MLP up at Beer City. Yeah. You have an elite Mad drop shirt, don't you, H? Where's that at? Tonight? You just want it. I couldn't remember who they were. [00:04:03] Speaker A: I had a meeting. I had to wear a different outfit today. [00:04:05] Speaker B: Had a. Had a meeting. Do you wear it every other day when you don't have a meeting? [00:04:09] Speaker A: No. [00:04:09] Speaker B: Okay, just checking. I can verify that. Folks, she does not wear it every day. [00:04:16] Speaker A: So this is what's been on your mind today? [00:04:18] Speaker B: A little bit. [00:04:19] Speaker A: That's funny. Well, we don't normally talk about pros or the pro circuit. No, not much. [00:04:26] Speaker B: I have a pro coming to town in a few weeks. Actually, in a month. [00:04:29] Speaker A: Oh, that's why it's on your mind. [00:04:30] Speaker B: And it's not Ben. [00:04:32] Speaker A: No. [00:04:32] Speaker B: But this dude I loved since day one. [00:04:34] Speaker A: Yep. [00:04:35] Speaker B: I have a paddle signed by him. It's not my boy Zayn. Somebody else. Yeah. Who is an animal. He's a beast. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Yes. [00:04:44] Speaker B: He might be known as the most interesting man in pickleball. [00:04:49] Speaker A: Really? That's his. That's his. Hi. [00:04:52] Speaker B: There's some commercials that were done with him in it. That was the tagline. Okay. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. Well, what else is on your mind? [00:05:00] Speaker B: And we'll be marketing the crap out of that soon because that event is going to be in September. [00:05:07] Speaker A: We have a lot going on. [00:05:09] Speaker B: We have our own tournament the very next week in September. [00:05:11] Speaker A: Pickleball Time. [00:05:13] Speaker B: BB Time Tournament. And quite candidly, listeners, I'm honestly begging you to play. It's our first tournament. [00:05:20] Speaker A: It's our inaugural tournament. [00:05:21] Speaker B: It's our first tournament. We're so excited. This new banner. And we need people. [00:05:27] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:29] Speaker B: And I believe people want to play in our tournaments because we've done a good job. We've gotten great feedback, incredible tournament, great on time, everything amazing. Blah, blah. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:38] Speaker B: And we're grateful for that, which is why we stuck our necks out and took a risk to start our own tour. And now we're hoping that those comments were not just nice, but people really meant it. And we can get you in. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And we've. We've talked a lot about it, so we don't need to talk more about it tonight. But the registration is open and you can go to pickleballtournaments.com look for or do a search for just Victory Time or Victory. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Not PB Time. Victory Series. [00:06:02] Speaker A: Victory Series. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Yeah. PB time is really not a keyword. We gotta look for Victory Series. That's the name of the tour and that's what they'll find the tournaments under. And. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Yeah, we're excited. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah, we are. [00:06:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:13] Speaker B: We're going to picklecon. [00:06:14] Speaker A: We are. [00:06:15] Speaker B: I kind of thought that'd be fun to talk about. Right? Yeah. So we leave in two weeks from yesterday, I think. [00:06:21] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. On the road again. I can't. [00:06:22] Speaker B: On the road again. [00:06:23] Speaker A: I can't so much. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Did you hear that Willie Nelson died today also? Hulk Hogan. [00:06:31] Speaker A: I feel like this is a joke. [00:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah, he was playing on the Road again. [00:06:34] Speaker A: Yes. [00:06:34] Speaker B: Okay. Never mind. [00:06:35] Speaker A: You've done this on this podcast before. [00:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah, but you literally have done this before. You still were like, feel like this is. You need to look at me and go online. But I knew we lost. Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan Honorary. They say it comes in threes. Maybe there was one before these two. I don't know. I don't believe it comes in threes either. But that's just sort of the thing that people talk about. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Okay. Go back to Picocon. [00:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we're good. Well, going back. We're going to. For the first time to pickle con. It's August 6th through the 10th in. Sorry, seventh to the 10th in the lovely Kansas City area. We love Kansas City. We lived there for a while. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Almost 10 years. No, that was Denver. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:13] Speaker A: No, we lived in Kansas City almost four years. [00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Barbecue capital of the world. [00:07:18] Speaker A: Great place. [00:07:19] Speaker B: I don't care what Texas. I don't care what Memphis says. I don't care what Carolina says. With their sloppy, nasty, vinegary pink. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Stop. It's good stuff. Barbecue sauce is just good stuff. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Honestly, all barbecue is pretty good. [00:07:31] Speaker A: But we are going back to pickle con for the. Not just for their not bad first time. [00:07:34] Speaker B: We're going for the first time. [00:07:35] Speaker A: I'm sorry. We're going to pick a con for the first time. But we also got the big tickets, so we get to do all these fun events. [00:07:44] Speaker B: Wait, we get to have unlimited play? [00:07:47] Speaker A: Yep. [00:07:48] Speaker B: We have that right now in Anderson, Indiana. Mecca of pickleball. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Sure. [00:07:52] Speaker B: So not a big deal. We will get to meet with 75 + vendors or see 75+ vendors. We get to go into like seminar type workshop stuff. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Sign in. [00:08:05] Speaker B: We get to play black light. They call it glow in the dark. [00:08:08] Speaker A: Which is also very excited. [00:08:10] Speaker B: I know, but you know that it annoys me. [00:08:12] Speaker A: Whatever. [00:08:13] Speaker B: Glow in the dark is that like greenish whitish plastic stuff that you hold under a lot. I know. [00:08:17] Speaker A: I'm just saying don't get distracted. [00:08:18] Speaker B: It's really black light pickleball. [00:08:19] Speaker A: But whatever, it's black light pickleball. [00:08:21] Speaker B: It's still glow in the dark. We get to do that. And then, I don't know, we had something else that was pretty cool in there. [00:08:26] Speaker A: I don't remember, but I'm excited. [00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah. I say it'll be fun. I think, I think Joe Drown has gone a few times and maybe Sharon has gone a couple times. Joe's buddy Sharon. My buddy Sharon. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Yep. Lisa Farley. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I think. Did she go before and then of course, your former boss lady. Yeah. Will we see her there? [00:08:50] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:08:51] Speaker B: Okay. It's Blake Renault. Renaud. [00:08:54] Speaker A: I don't know. I haven't asked her. [00:08:56] Speaker B: That's pickle play. So you never know if there'll be a vendor or not. [00:08:59] Speaker A: So I hope she's there. [00:09:00] Speaker B: And we will give you guys a great report on what we find there. Hopefully we'll learn more about paddles. I do want to talk about that on today's pod. And maybe we'll learn some more about balls. I think there. You never know. Could be some. Why do you giggle at that. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Because every time we talk about balls, I think of the marshmallow ball. [00:09:16] Speaker B: Oh, good. You made me nervous for a second there. This is a family friendly podcast. [00:09:22] Speaker A: If you've been a long time listener, that will make more sense to you. [00:09:24] Speaker B: Yes. So we'll see. There's this kind of. So back to pals. There's kind of this looming September 1st date and it's looming for pro paddles, but they're gonna dial them down. [00:09:40] Speaker A: I don't understand. [00:09:41] Speaker B: They're too hot. [00:09:43] Speaker A: Oh, because the ball bounces so far off of them fast. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, off of them. I wouldn't be surprised if the Flamingo, which I love, gets taken away from pro pickleball. [00:09:54] Speaker A: Really? [00:09:54] Speaker B: I wouldn't be surprised if the TKOs, the Esquires, the. The CKOs, all those paddles from Paddle Tech are taken away from. From pro. I wouldn't be surprised at all if gearboxes get taken away from pro. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the yolas get taken away from pro. Not just the ones that have already been banned, but further. Further banning more paddles. Okay, so it'll be interesting. And here's what happens. Sky. Our sport, I think, is to that place where we're closer and closer to where the. There's this intersection of whatever happens in the pros ultimately happens in the. In the sort of amateurs. Right? [00:10:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:29] Speaker B: Now there's pro, amateur and rec. Let's not get. There's kind of three different things. Amateur to me is still a tournament player, pro tournament players, amateur tournament players, and then rec players, which don't play in tournaments. Rec players often don't care what pallet they play with. And we'll come back to that in a second. But because our sport is getting to the place where I think that the pro. Whatever happens on the pro circuit is going to start happening more and more on the amateur circuit. I think we'll see some more paddles being eventually blocked at the amateur level as well. Pretty sure they're talking about that behind closed doors. Well, I know they are. Jason Aspis, who's. So while we're one of the owners or founders of the Kitchen, which is that huge Facebook group. [00:11:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:09] Speaker B: You and I were going back and forth about that today in. In the comments in one of his posts. [00:11:13] Speaker A: So does that mean when, as tournament directors, we're gonna have to start checking paddles at the door? [00:11:17] Speaker B: We have to check our pals anyway. That's our job. We make sure that every paddle is played with is legal now? [00:11:24] Speaker A: We do that two ways on that team. So I don't. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we do that two ways. One, in all of my emails that go out, they. We tell them flat out, if you're using illegal paddle and we see it, you're gonna be forfeited. But two, when we have like our bronze and gold matches, usually we try to have referees, right? And those referees job is to actually physically go out, inspect each paddle, rub their hand across it to make sure nothing's been added to it, all that stuff. And the referees do a great job of that. So there's really two ways that we sort of police that. And then as the td, like at the last tournament, I got brought a paddle. Hey, this is the slap paddle. It's a teardrop, tiny looking thing. And I'm like, that's approved so the guy can play with it. It was J Rod, okay? And then I made fun of him for it. [00:12:07] Speaker A: And then he ended up for two. [00:12:08] Speaker B: Months and I was like, I'm fine. He just begged me, try it, try it, try it, try it. And I did. And I absolutely love it. I've been playing with almost it exclusively. So proxy guy, if. When I. When I find that the slap's not helping me any, I grab my proxeron, I'm dialed right back in. I feel good. [00:12:23] Speaker A: You forgot yours the other day and so you grabbed mine. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, and I played great with it because it's a Pro XR and I love those. But there's something to be said about that shape. So I did talk to Pro xr. I cannot say how that conversation went, but I can tell you that I strongly recommended that they make a teardrop shaped paddle. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:12:42] Speaker B: And they replied with, oh, thanks for the. Thanks for the heads up on that. [00:12:48] Speaker A: So if they come out with one, you're going to take credit. [00:12:50] Speaker B: I am. [00:12:51] Speaker A: Of course you are. That's funny. Speaking of paddles, we're gonna put in our Facebook page our own. [00:13:01] Speaker B: Our first ever paddle review. Our first ever paddle review. [00:13:05] Speaker A: No, it's not my first ever. [00:13:07] Speaker B: Oh, you did monkeys. [00:13:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:13:10] Speaker B: But this is the first ever sweet lobs 1. [00:13:12] Speaker A: First ever sweet lobster. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah, we did a. We. We got brand new paddles this morning. We won't tell you anymore until you see the video. We took him out to our drill session that we have on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so great drill session this morning. [00:13:25] Speaker A: Very fun. [00:13:25] Speaker B: And then after the drill session, you and I did an unboxing video and then we did some demo hits in the kitchen area, made our comments on the paddle and you'll get to hear what we think of them. [00:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Check it out. [00:13:38] Speaker B: And they're not expensive. No, quite affordable. We had three ball machines out this morning. [00:13:46] Speaker A: We did. From Slinger. [00:13:48] Speaker B: Yeah, Slinger. Great. Makes a great product. Here's why it's great. It does its job. It shoots balls at you. That's its job. It has a. Has a rotating disc that you can put under it so it'll spin back and forth. But I've never used them. I just like to set it in one spot because my. Most of my players that are hitting with them are intermediate and I want them just on the same shot the whole time. I don't want them running back and forth. This is not a cardio, you know. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Oh, I think lesson. Try that though. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Yeah, you'd love it. But for them it just shoots the ball right. Basically in the same area. And then that way they kind of get that same stroke. I had a guy this morning working on his backhand and then I forced him into a two handed backhand. Didn't love it. But after he figured out, he's kind of like, okay, yeah, there's something to that. Had a lady. What was Ruth working on? I think she was working on her forehand drives. [00:14:34] Speaker A: She was. [00:14:34] Speaker B: Lance was working on his top spin and he really started to get a lot better at it. Joe was working on the. The flick at the net. [00:14:42] Speaker A: Yes, I saw that. [00:14:43] Speaker B: Well, we had just seen this video that said to think of it like a frisbee. Yeah, like you're throwing a Frisbee. And he struggled with it. He didn't like it all. He's like, that doesn't work for me. And it may be that the way he holds his paddle, you know, Continental versus Western versus Eastern, like whatever he's doing, it was pushing it down into the net. [00:15:00] Speaker A: It was. [00:15:01] Speaker B: But it also might be that he was just standing there because he is hurting in the back of his knees. And I think you need to be able to stand up into that one because you're. You kind of like you have to bend your knees and step up. [00:15:10] Speaker A: Yeah. You have to whip well. [00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Not your arm though. It's just like a two handed backhand. You really got to bend your knees and come up with it. [00:15:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:18] Speaker B: So I think it's the same thing there. So I don't know. Lance tried a bit, did okay. [00:15:22] Speaker A: But it was fun to see all three machines out. [00:15:25] Speaker B: It was really neat, wasn't it? [00:15:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:26] Speaker B: And then we had players going on the other two courts. [00:15:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:29] Speaker B: Two out of the other three courts. [00:15:30] Speaker A: You had us do some drills that were mind twisters. For sure. [00:15:34] Speaker B: Mortimer. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Mortimer was one of them. [00:15:36] Speaker B: For our listeners. We've never discussed Mortimer. [00:15:38] Speaker A: We haven't. Today was the first time I've ever heard of it. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah, so we. [00:15:43] Speaker A: It's a drill. [00:15:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And so we created a 3 on 3 pickleball version years ago. And I say created. We came up with it on the spot and, you know, you find out later, oh, other people have come up with the same thing. You're not exactly the original creator, but whatever we didn't see it before, we came up with on our own. So pat on the back for that. James, me, Robin, whoever was there, you know, four or five years ago, at least. Well, we had six players and it was like, you know, we don't want these other two guys to sit out and. Yeah, every. Every game, two people are sitting out and there's six of us. What can we do? So we create a game three on three. Well, a couple weeks ago, we had our buddy Seth here from out in San Francisco, and we met him last year when he came to town. He used to live in this area. He played with us. Really good player. Played 5, 0 up and beat Bear City Open. He comes back this year and we play with him and we have six of us. And he goes, I go, let's play three on three. And he's like, yeah, we play Mortimer. And I was like, three on three? Is that what Mortimer is? He's like, I don't know. So we talked through it and he's like, no, this is Mortimer. So here's how Mortimer works. Let me start with our three on three version. In our three on three version, we rotate positions, so all three people on each team serve. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:51] Speaker B: So we end up with a, you know, 102103. [00:16:54] Speaker A: It's much more cardio too. I feel like there's a lot more running. [00:16:59] Speaker B: You do rotate in a triangle. Yep. His version, it's still two on two in terms of scoring and serving and receiving. So you don't go past the second server. But the third player, whose nickname is Mortimer, is the person whose responsibility is to run the back line while the other two try to get to the net. Mortimer is chosen by being the player who last screwed up on your team. [00:17:23] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:23] Speaker B: Your own team. [00:17:25] Speaker A: You have this self claim it. [00:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah. You pop one up that somebody puts away. You're the Mortimer. You hit one, I hit one out. You're the Mortimer. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:35] Speaker B: So then you go back to that Mortimer position. Mortimer cannot serve and Mortimer cannot receive a serve. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:42] Speaker B: But all other hits the Mortimer can be involved in. [00:17:44] Speaker A: Right? [00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it because we, we have a guy, Greg Wendling, last year when we were playing some of these drills and we'd have like five people, we would do whoever screwed up, they'd come out and that person would come in. So you'd end up playing on north and south sides of the court in the same game. Right. It's kind of weird. You'd be like six, two and you're like. No, it's just two, six and you're on the other team now. You know what I mean? It's really weird. Well, his phrase that we picked up and adopted big time last year was somebody's got to pay. [00:18:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:11] Speaker B: Well, we all like Mortimer because it's a somebody's got to pay game. [00:18:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:15] Speaker B: So anyway, we taught them Mortimer this morning. [00:18:17] Speaker A: I'm not sure we did it right today based on what you just described. [00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you did. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Okay, good. [00:18:21] Speaker B: Every time somebody screwed up, they became Mortimer. [00:18:23] Speaker A: Right? Yep. [00:18:24] Speaker B: That's it. [00:18:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:25] Speaker B: I was watching you. You get fine. [00:18:27] Speaker A: Okay, good. [00:18:28] Speaker B: It is a mind twist. [00:18:29] Speaker A: It is. [00:18:31] Speaker B: You gotta remember who you are and where you go. And this is why I like it. I, I, I over train on the mental. [00:18:37] Speaker A: You do. [00:18:37] Speaker B: That's the area I like to spend the most time on because I think that's the area that the most people fail in. [00:18:42] Speaker A: But it is great for tournament prep. [00:18:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:45] Speaker A: Or league prep. Because communication of communication and there's always the unknown. Someone's going to be sick and you're going to get us. You might be playing against a sub or you might be playing with someone who's a sub or there's like all these factors that might happen to you that can just knock you off your game. [00:19:04] Speaker B: Well, yeah, but you won't be playing with three people. [00:19:06] Speaker A: This, these refocusing type of situations. And it helps you anticipate what's next. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:18] Speaker A: And communicate with your partner, whoever your partner may be. It does help alleviate and maybe even. What's the word? Desensitize you to prepare you. It's a preparation. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah, preparation. [00:19:32] Speaker A: It definitely prepares you, but it almost through Dyson, I can't say that word right now. [00:19:36] Speaker B: I don't even know what you're trying to say. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Sensitivity. [00:19:39] Speaker B: Desensitization. Desensitized. [00:19:41] Speaker A: Desensitized. [00:19:42] Speaker B: Desensitization. Just say becoming desensitized. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Becoming desensitized to some of these little items that might knock you off. [00:19:52] Speaker B: You keep trying to move me forward in our conversation, not allow me to finish the previous conversations I was on. So I got to go back to something. Oh, that I said, we'll get to in a minute, and then you skipped me. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Maybe I forgot already. [00:20:02] Speaker B: No, we're talking about paddles. And I said, there's a pro date, September 1st looming. I talked about the fact that amateurs are probably going to face something in the near future, but that rec players don't care. [00:20:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:12] Speaker B: But I want to make one comment about that. I had a club reach out to me and says, we have players playing with band paddles. And I go. And they go, what do we do? You know, do we stop them from using these paddles? Do we just let it happen because it's just a rec play? Like, what do we do? And I said, well, do you allow them to, like, toss the ball up in the air and serve overhead? No. Do you allow them to let the ball bounce twice before they return it? No. Do you, you know, do you allow them to hit the ball out of bounds or serve a serve, a serve into the kitchen and call it good? [00:20:40] Speaker A: No. [00:20:41] Speaker B: I go, well, all of those are in the rule book, and so are paddles. Paddles are actually defined in the rule book, and these are outside the scope of a legal paddle, making it just as. Just as illegal as tossing a ball up and serving it overhead. [00:20:56] Speaker A: So if you are a rec player and you're not confident that your paddle is okay, where can you go to find that information? [00:21:03] Speaker B: Honestly, Google it. Okay, there's a whole list of, like, a thousand plus approved paddles on USAP site. [00:21:10] Speaker A: Okay. [00:21:11] Speaker B: But you can just google, is my pickleball paddle approved? And make sure you get to usap, which is USA Pickleball. You get to their site, there's a whole list of them. [00:21:22] Speaker A: Good. That's what I was hoping for. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So pretty easy. [00:21:26] Speaker A: I think sometimes people, they see something and they get it and they don't even check. [00:21:33] Speaker B: Or they buy it from TEMU and it says USA approved. [00:21:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:36] Speaker B: And then it crumbles. Or it says. Some of them say, like, american approved or. Right, USA approved. Like, they don't all have, right, the right word on them, the right words on them. I should look at. Wish I had one in the room. I would look at it and see. Pretty sure it says USA Pickleball approved. So maybe there's like, say, USAPA approved or something. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Right? [00:21:55] Speaker B: Yeah, they often stamp them or they don't stamp them at all. [00:21:58] Speaker A: And we covered this in the last podcast that sometimes because of the Growth of pickleball. There's scammers out there and that's a. [00:22:06] Speaker B: Big part of it. [00:22:07] Speaker A: It is. [00:22:07] Speaker B: Teemu and Alibaba are probably the two biggest scammers out there. [00:22:14] Speaker A: Scary. [00:22:15] Speaker B: Well, and it makes it weird because, like I have good connections with a lot of pickleball companies, paddle companies. And I can get paddles early on before they're out at a good discount. And then you go and it looks just like Teemu's paddle or whatever. Because they can't. They don't do all the markings. [00:22:35] Speaker A: You. [00:22:35] Speaker B: Know, in their prototype stage. [00:22:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:37] Speaker B: I probably got four different Proto Hypes is what they call it from Pro xr. [00:22:41] Speaker A: Right. [00:22:42] Speaker B: I don't think you can buy any of them online. [00:22:44] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:22:44] Speaker B: But they probably are on. I mean, actually I've never seen Pro X are out there. Look for Pro Cyber before on Timo just to see if they had them. And I didn't see any, but they have like Yola paddles and wow. Selkirk sometimes paddles and then they have knockoff. It looks like Selkirk, but like the S's are a little bit more jaggedy or it's very, very similar. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Well, be careful, people. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Do fire paddle. Yeah. I'm a known entity. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like there was one more thing that we wanted to bring up today. [00:23:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know, maybe can always bring it up in the future. [00:23:21] Speaker A: Well, sure. [00:23:22] Speaker B: We got multiple listeners. I mean, they'll wait, they'll be, they'll. They have something. They got to look forward to something. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Oh, I, I was on social media today posting about our upcoming tournament and there are a ton of tournaments. In your opinion, as a tournament director, do you feel like there are two, two many tournaments out there? [00:23:41] Speaker B: I'm going to give you my opinion as a businessman, as a tournament director. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:45] Speaker B: If people are buying, that's fine. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:48] Speaker B: There's 2,000, 3,000 pickleball paddles out there and people are buying. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Sure. [00:23:55] Speaker B: Now if we see, and this is what I think we're starting to see, tournament sizes go down and an average is being in the hundred to 150 range. I just think it's hard to maintain or sustain a pickleball tournament. That's whether it's just a business or whether it's a non profit. I think it's hard to sustain in that number range. So, you know, we had a group here in the area that was going to run a tournament and they had like three players signed up with three weeks to go. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:27] Speaker B: I was like, guys, just call the ball, like. Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense. [00:24:31] Speaker A: I noticed that one on pickleball tournaments. [00:24:33] Speaker B: Was canceled and I'm sorry. Yeah, I am. I'd like for it to be a success for you and for you to make the money you need. But there's enough. Saturation maybe is a way, a way to put. I don't know if there's too many tournaments, but again, that also means saturation. But if, if you get 200, 300 players in every tournament, then you can have more. [00:24:51] Speaker A: Sure. [00:24:51] Speaker B: We're not seeing that. So I guess my business mind says no, we, we probably have too many tournaments and. No, wait, what'd you say? I don't know. However, I'm trying to answer this question. I believe it's too many tournaments. [00:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:03] Speaker B: And here I am launching tournaments. [00:25:05] Speaker A: I know, that's why I asked you. [00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah. No, so if you ask me as a td, I would say, well, the big difference is there are people who just run a tournament because they think that they want to run a tournament or they want to try to make some money for their non profit or whatever. And I get that non profits are struggling. That's why one of the things we're doing is having a non profit component to what we do with our tournaments. But then there's also people like me and there's not that many of us who want to make a career out of this tournament director thing, which means that my job is to deliver to every player the best possible experience. From that perspective, if I can do that and I'm seeing 3, 4, 500 players at our tournaments, then I don't think we're doing anything wrong. I think we're doing it right. And then. And more tournaments is good, but that will continue to create a separation of who wants to play in what tournament. [00:25:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:55] Speaker B: And it's interesting. It very much mirrors the surfaces or the courts that we play on. Seven, eight years ago when we started at Bethany Christian Church with broken tiles from 1979 in our gym. Not making any of that up. Like that's the, that's the stats. [00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Broken chipped tiles, cracked corners, gone in some of the tiles. Remember, we didn't care. 40 people showed, 36 people, whatever it was, to show to play on one court. 40 people showed up to play on two chords. 30 plus kept showing up week after week after week to play on three chords. I mean it was just so much fun. We didn't care. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:32] Speaker B: And then we got a nicer court at Bethany because during COVID they tore the whole thing apart. Put in that nice sort of rubberized. I forget the special name of it. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:41] Speaker B: Flex kind of court surface. Really nice on the knees. Balls okay. Bounce. Okay. Great. This is even better. And then the city of Anderson built us the outdoor courts and of course the picklers 24 sevens dink houses, third shot. All these companies popped up with dedicated indoor awesome courts. I don't want to play on tile ever again. I mean, I would do it just to play pickleball. Sure, if I'm in a place that has nothing else. But if I have options. I think the same thing is true for tournaments. If I have options, I don't want to play in a rinky dink. I hate to say this because, but like, I want to play like a rinky dink YMCA tournament in nowhere, Indiana, because I can play in an awesome one. Probably instead in Chicago or Cincinnati or Indy or there's all these big, you know, Louisville. There's all these big cities close enough that probably has a tournament going on in any given weekend. I want to. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:36] Speaker B: So that's the tough part. You know, YMCA wants to do something which is really cool. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:41] Speaker B: It's a great organization, but man, they're going to struggle because unless they can get the newer players to play. And that's what. And that's what the real trick is. How do you get more people into tournaments that have not been in tournaments yet? [00:27:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:53] Speaker B: Because they don't know any different. [00:27:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:55] Speaker B: And you want to give them a great experience right out of the gate. So. Yeah. [00:27:59] Speaker A: Anyway, that's good. [00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, sky, thank you so much for being an incredible partner in our journey. I love the ever living heck out of you, girl. [00:28:10] Speaker A: Hey, it's been fun. [00:28:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:12] Speaker A: I got to play pickleball today, so. I know it's been a good day. [00:28:14] Speaker B: You drilled this morning. That was awesome. I got to play this afternoon. Hopefully I took away some duper points from some people. We were 4.0-my partner and I, and we played a couple 4.0 level players. [00:28:25] Speaker A: So there you go. [00:28:25] Speaker B: We should move up a bit. Well, I think it's time. Let's tell everybody that we're ahead of. [00:28:33] Speaker A: The game and so are you. I'm ahead of the game oh, I'm only a butt slinging I'm working over time Got a song and I'm the singer the melody, the vibe I'm a prodigy Logically I'm impossibly wanted Then they'll remember my name they'll remember my name.