About a year ago I was at a social function and someone asked me what I did for a living. My answer understandably prompted the question of whether or not I played pickleball. When I shared that I in fact, did not, at the time, play pickleball, this person adamantly proclaimed that I needed to start because until then, I was a fraud.
Ouch. Tough crowd.
It’s now been two years since I started working for the APP and covering pro pickleball. When I first started, I didn’t even know what pickleball was. However, in the last two years I’ve learned that pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America. That’s not from any sort of official research - although I know I could find that data - that’s simply from my own experiences talking to people about what I do. People tell me all the time that they either already play, their friends play, and/or they really want to learn to play pickleball. I can’t think of any other sport with that kind of traction, ever. If you’re reading this, I probably don’t have to convince you.
So what does one do in this position? Learn to play pickleball, of course! While the Fraud Lady was an impetus in my wanting to learn to play, she was not the only one. For one, I’m always on the lookout for more fun and engaging ways to work out. Two, pickleball looks so FUN - I genuinely enjoy watching the APP Tour matches and will even watch pickleball on TV when I’m not working. Also, pickleball is a great way to meet people! Last fall I had a conversation with APP pro, Max Manthou, and upon discovering I was about to start learning to play pickleball, he confidently told me, in no uncertain terms, that my number of friends was about to multiply exponentially.
I mean, what was I waiting for?
In an effort to go all in on my pickleball journey, I visited PowerPlay Pickleball, a new indoor facility about 10 minutes from my house. This is a great place with nine brand new indoor pickleball courts, and they are also planning to expand their facility with 21 more outdoor courts in the near future. Steve, the owner, took the time to give me a personal tour of the facility. They are building a podcast studio and a juice bar upstairs which looks like it would be a nice place to hangout with friends after a pickleball session. Steve recommended that I come back and start with the free Intro to Pickleball class on Saturday mornings, the perfect start to pickleball for beginners.
I convinced two people to sign up for the class with me. My cousin, Tracey, was a dancer and, like myself, admittedly has no hand-eye coordination. My friend, Alex, used to be a tennis player and has been reluctant to give pickleball a try. They are both introverts and prefer their comfort zones, so I’m extra proud of them for agreeing to come with me to try something new.
When we showed up for the class last Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the instructor, Kelley, was someone I had met at the APP Newport Beach tournament the weekend prior! Pickleball is already making the world smaller and I am just starting!
There were three other people in the class with us - so six in total. Kelley had pickleball paddles for those who didn’t have their own - I happen to use one that was gifted to me last year. Kelley did a great job going over all the basics in what little time she had. The one-hour class went by so fast. Kelley went over pickleball rules and taught us three shots - serves, returns, and dinks. Watching so much pickleball, I understood the scoring in a doubles game, which is sometimes difficult for people to grasp, but the one thing I didn’t understand going into this class was who serves when and where (who has time to keep track of this while watching a match!?). By the end of the class, however, with Kelley’s detailed instruction and hands-on demonstrations, I am happy to say I now get it!
For context, I could never hit a tennis ball in my younger days, and softball was equally disastrous. This definitely kept me from trying pickleball earlier - I didn’t want to be the exception to the low barrier for entry theory! When I was in college I worked at a tennis club, and my whole family played tennis - my brother was on the varsity tennis team in high school. Tennis was endlessly frustrating to me because I literally could not make contact with the ball. I remember being mad one night because I wanted to participate but I couldn’t hit anything. People kept telling me to keep my eye on the ball, but if I am keeping my eye on the ball, who is keeping their eye on my racquet?!?
I was ecstatic and relieved to see that this was not the case with pickleball. This former figure skater was actually able to make contact with the pickleball! I picked up serving and dinking with relative ease. I was surprised to learn that there is also such thing as a bounce serve, which I don't see on the APP Tour. I may or may not have missed a couple of balls because I was too busy admiring my previous shot, but it's all about celebrating the little wins, right?
My biggest takeaway from this class was that all the people who previously told me that pickleball has a low barrier for entry were correct. One woman in the class, she was maybe around 50 or so, could not hit a ball to save her life when we first started. She would completely miss every ball fed to her for about the first 20 minutes of class and she couldn’t even make contact with the ball on a serve. The first time she did hit a ball, we all cheered! Kudos to her and her persistence because by the second half of the class she was a completely different player. She had caught up to the rest of us, figured out how to serve, and by the end of class was even participating in rallies. This was all within an hour!
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Tracey’s experience closely resembled mine. Hand-eye coordination was definitely not passed down by our dads, so she was expecting to miss most of the balls. She did not! She was able to serve, dink, keep a rally going, and she understood the scoring and the serving rotation rather easily!
Alex also had a great time. She was having a little trouble shedding her tennis habits, but while my shots and serves hang in the air for extended periods of time and should be missed by nobody, Alex’s shots could probably take someone’s eye out. After the class was over, the three of us hung out for a bit to practice what we had learned.
Intro to Pickleball class - check! It was a great, fun workout with friends. (Did you know you get a special Apple Watch notification when you double your move goal in a day?!) We are looking forward to going back, but not sure what our next step is because we still feel like beginners but aren’t allowed to take that same class again. For sure I will need a little bit of a break after a few days of post-pickle soreness, but stay tuned for what comes next!
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