Bubble gum and duct tape

by Duf Anything and Everything

With the Pickleball US Open wrapping up this past weekend that means the courts are now once again available for public play. I already have played twice this week as well as volleyball on Tuesday night. It really has been somewhat surprising that my body has been holding up to this new regimen which started early in 2023.

For the last 6-7 years there has been a gradual reduction in what I was doing physically. The weight numbers I was lifting plateaued or receded, I dropped running back in 2020 altogether and even my calisthenics tailed off quite a bit. This has been the first time in recent memory where I am pushing the dial back the other direction. I just hope the bubble gum and duct tape that is holding things together at this point doesn’t fail.

With playing more pickleball I am getting incrementally better at it. Pickleball has a surprising amount of strategy to it. The slow and short back and forth dinking that you see looks weird but is a necessary component of the game. Not surprisingly it is the part of the game I enjoy the least. My favorite time is when I am able to hit the ball hard, there are two situations I most enjoy.

If I am back mid-court and the opposing players are close, by the kitchen line I love winding up and just hitting the ball as hard as I can. Sometimes the hit will be right at a players body and if they aren’t quick enough it will hit them which is a point. However the better result is a low line drive with top spin that just barely clears the net that is past the opposition so fast they have no chance to react.

My favorite scenario is when a ball comes across head height or higher and drifting to my left. I play pickleball right handed due to being converted by a tennis coach when I was young. However my left arm is used for all other sports and has much more snap in it. So as long as the ball coming across is slow enough I can quickly switch the paddle to my left hand and crush the ball, which rarely will come back my direction after doing so. Of course sometimes things don’t go as planned and I may drive the ball into the net or deep out of bounds but when it works as intended, I love the feeling. I switch to my left hand in other scenarios as well and more often than not am pretty reliable with those shots.