By Ellen B
I am a person who has avoided team sports since early life. As a child, I was often the last person picked for teams due to my exceptionally short stature of 4”10” and a general lack of coordination.
These experiences chipped away at my fledgling self confidence, so as a teenager, I made the decision to participate in individual sports exclusively. This way I didn’t have to concern myself with letting down the team.
One bright spot in my early sporting experience was hitting a tennis ball against the schoolyard wall. At the time, I had good aim and reasonable hand eye coordination.
Fast forward to today, many decades later, I had heard about a sport called Pickleball. I thought it might be a good way to tackle my team sport anxieties, since it only involves teams of two. Besides, two of the ways I find joy in life is to move my body and make new friends and Pickleball is known for meeting both these needs. So, with great enthusiasm, I joined the new Pickleball club in Guelph and enrolled in some group lessons, convinced that joy and renewed confidence in team sport would soon be at hand!
Little did I know that it would also remind me of some important life lessons about self acceptance, humility, and the importance of laughing at myself despite it all.
We played “real games” right from the start of the lessons. For those of you new to the sport, pickleball involve playing with a partner and learning three basic strokes (forehand, backhand and volley), on a court that is shorter than those for other racquet sports. I had bought myself a paddle and attended my first class with optimism. To my great surprise, I had overestimated my ability to land the ball anywhere near my opponent! In fact, getting the ball into any part of the court without someone shouting “OUT” turned out to be a big challenge. Other times, I would swing at the ball and miss it entirely with my opponents mischievously inquiring about the hole in the middle of my paddle. One time I returned the ball and it hit my opponent in the face!
At first, I was able to laugh at these newcomer errors, but as others progressed passed me in skill level, that old feeling of not want to play sports with others returned. I noticed that others who were slower to gain skill were starting to drop out and I considered doing the same thing. Those old feelings of shame and embarrassment I had when I was a child had resurfaced in full force. In fact, soon I found myself warning all of my partners that I was “not very good or even terrible”, before we even got started in the game.
As many sports enthusiasts know, this type of self-deprecating dialogue actually worsens performance and does not cultivate team spirit. Mindset is a big part of success in sport, I knew this from running races. I needed to change my thinking in order to succeed and have fun, but how would I do this when such deep-rooted messaging was at play?
Then an idea dawned on me…to get past my self-defeating thoughts, why don’t I view pickleball as a form of therapy, with strategies that my psychiatric patients learn in treatment?
For instance, I could use some positive affirmations before playing and practice opposite action to the negative thought during the game. I could also view pickleball as a type of exposure therapy to difficult circumstances and perhaps this would help to reduce my anxiety and self consciousness other aspects of my life. And, how about developing some humour, laughing at my wild shots and not take myself seriously? After all, it is just a game and the goal is to get some exercise AND have some fun.
I am happy to report that with an adjusted attitude; I am slowly but surely approaching the game from a new perspective. In fact, this week I took the giant leap of playing in a tournament with 50 other folks at all different skill levels. I lost most of my games, but rather than telling folks I was terrible, I simply advised my partners that I am a beginner while keeping a smile on my face. This in itself helped me to land more shots in the court and actually win a few points. One of the great aspects of the Pickleball culture is to offer positive reinforcement to both teammates and opponents and there was plenty of that at the tournament.
After four hours of “pickleballing”, our team made it to the tournament finals. All the other players were too tired to play, so my partner and I were nominated to play with the best team in the league, with 40 other participants watching! Just before the game, the team captain whispered to me, “just do the best you can” and that stuck with me. I saw him in the crowd smiling and cheering me on and that helped too. Even though we lost the game, folks congratulated us and we were reminded that we were courageous to take on such skilled players.
Changing hard wired messaging is difficult for sure and sometimes I slip backwards, but overall, I am moving forward and I can take some satisfaction from that. This experience has also reminded me of 3 important concepts of sportsmanship and life:
1st: I am much harder on myself than anyone else ever will be and besides, everyone else more concerned about their own game than my playing.
2nd: Forget about what others are thinking, it is likely not as bad as you think and besides, you are not in the schoolyard, you are an adult with coping strategies at hand. And you are here to have fun!
3rd: Through my work, I have learned that one way of defining humility is to remind myself that in life, I am no better or worse than anyone else. Reminding myself of this helps to avoid the tendency towards self centred criticism both on and off the court.
I hope to see you all on the court someday for some laughter, exercise and maybe even some personal growth!
Ellen B., lives in Guelph, Ontario and works as a psychiatric nurse. In her free time, you can find her sailing with her partner or on the court practicing her shots with new friends.
