pickleball

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.

Two women in green shirts smiling and posing with racquets and a silver cup — Team Racquet Ralph (Grace-Ann and Elan) posing with the league cup we certainly did not win, but took a photo with it anyways.

Know someone playing pickleball right now? If you do, they will likely tell you it is a great sport–easy to play and growing widely in popularity.

As a newbie to pickleball (just finished my first half-season this fall), I would like to share some early reflections (and random internet searches) to consider why pickleball is gaining popularity, and for whom.

A Fun Sport for Seniors, and Others

Pickleball was invented in 1965 in Seattle by three men: two are described by this article as a congressman and a “successful businessman” who thought up the sport to entertain their bored children.

Today, pickleball is often regarded as a retirement (or near retirement) sport. This 50 Plus Today website article describes the key benefits of pickleball as:

Healthy (and easy on joints)
Easy to learn
Social
Space friendly
Playable at various ages
Playable at various skill levels
Affordable
A year-round sport

As a tennis-style game, but played with a wiffle ball and on a slightly smaller court, it can be played singles or doubles. Because the point count ends at 11 points (with a 2-point difference), a round of pickleball can be played in as little as 10-15 minutes.

Where I live, in Ontario, Canada, the province’s Pickleball Ontario association has a publicly available policy statement on diversity and inclusion. The document describes the board’s commitments to increasing opportunities for underrepresented groups in pickleball, and includes a long list of inclusive key terms. The rec league I have played on is “open,” so no gender specific teams.

Paying to Play

The above suggests to me that the sport is aspiring to keep its barriers to entry low by encouraging players of different ages and abilities.

Pickleball isn’t an expensive sport compared to some others, but it still requires equipment (paddles, nets, court shoes) and sufficient indoor or outdoor space. Although you can make an available tennis court work for free, sports clubs organize leagues so charge individuals and teams to play.

Folks with philanthropic and economic interests are tapping into the growing popularity of pickleball. On one webpage I found that pickleball was being used as a charity fundraiser event. On another page, an investment company provides advice to retirees by comparing wise investing with pickleball strategy. To understand and play pickleball today is to have some social and cultural capital.

For some, the sport itself may represent affluence. This Wall Street Journal article from 2018 highlights tensions in an American retirement community after some residents proposed installing a pickleball court, while others disagreed due to the high cost. The article’s author describes the disagreement among these residents as a symbol of the growing wealth gap in America.

An “International” Sport

Pickleball has been described as a sport as growing in popularity around the world. This site lists over 2 dozen national pickleball associations. I do notice that mostly Western and middle- and high-income countries are on the list.

On the web I found evidence of pickleball being played in some countries not on the above international associations list–but the players are vacationers, not residents. Examples below describe all-inclusive pickleball getaways, featuring special training and tournaments:

At the time of writing, there are only a few web articles I could find that consider the racial and ethnic diversity in pickleball, but both articles I found were behind paywalls.

The Future of Pickleball

The folks I’ve met in our fall pickleball league at the YMCA gym are a friendly and fun group, mostly couples or buds in their 40s to 60s. I expect most of them only wish they were retired.

Next season, the league moves to a venue across town with indoor courts that are dedicated for pickleball. The cost to play will double.

Pickleball evolved from other racquet sports. It will be interesting to see how this game continues to grow and evolve, depending on who plays it, and where.

Tag: pickleball

Ellen learns Pickleball, Humility, and Self Acceptance

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