When you want to improve your pickleball game,
it's easy to get hung up on technique,
but is that the only thing you should be doing?
Stay tuned.
Hey everybody, it's CJ Johnson.
Typically when we start a new sport or we want to get better at it,
we focus on our physical technique,
but if you're not thinking about developing your mental focus,
you're probably going to fall short of your goals.
It doesn't matter whether you're a beginner who wants to just win a couple more
rec points or a tournament player playing in your first event or seasoned
tournament player.
Being able to focus on the task at hand and to eliminate the outside
distractions will help you to play better pickleball.
As a multi-sport professional athlete,
I have learned how to use visualization, breathing techniques,
and mental focus to help me to excel at sport.
Yet no matter how much I practice those things,
there are times when I'm skiing a steep run or hitting a tough approach shot
into a well bunkered green or stepping on the pickleball court that I forget to
bring those tools along with me.
Elite Competitors aren't immune to feeling emotions,
stress and the distractions that all of us suffer under pressure situations.
It's just that they have tools that they've practiced over a period of time that
helped them to navigate those waters more successfully.
That's why I'm always excited to pick another athlete's brain and to understand
the mental tools that they use.
Here's your chance to be a fly on the wall during my conversation with four time
US Open gold medalist, Laura Fenton Kovanda.
let's talk a little bit about the mental side of the game. Laura,
you are experienced tournament player. You played on some big stages,
not just in pickleball, but back in your racquetball days.
Do you still get the butterflies and if you do, what do you do to calm them?
First of all, Yes. Most of the time, you know,
people get butterflies because there's something on the line, you know,
the bigger the stage, you know, there should be more pressure.
What do you do to calm them? First of all,
you have to ask yourself what is at stake. And you know,
on a mental side,
people tend to worry about how do I look to other people?
Do I look stupid out here? Do they like my outfit?
Not so much guys,
but they're thinking about all of things that they shouldn't be thinking about.
Now when you go into a match and it takes practice, it's mental training.
You know, literally when your skills get to a higher level,
or I shouldn't even say a higher level at any level where you're at,
mental training should be done about 80% of the time,
especially in practice before tournaments. Okay.
So you know what to expect. Here's an example.
When people have the butterflies, everything tends to tense up.
All your muscles, your brain, your back,
and we're like kind of like pushing the ball. We're afraid to swing through it.
It's just part of it. Okay.
But when you learn what your body does as you start to play a match.
Usually it takes about 12 to 15 minutes for motor memory to kick in for the
endorphins to kick in.
And so when you play more and more matches, you realize, okay,
I know I'm tight but I know it's going to go away eventually.
It's a lot of times people have those butterflies, even the night before,
they literally feel like they're going to throw up cause they don't want to let
a partner down. Or am I going to play the same way?
We start doing what we call negative self talk. Okay.
So the more that you play tournaments or league matches,
the more you start understanding yourself and what to expect. Okay.
So as you start to play, do I get butterflies? Yes.
But now I've been doing this, like you said, I've been playing competitively now
51 years from the time I was five, six years old.
Right?
So I have learned over time what my body is going to do and what's going to
happen, you know, within 20 minutes or so.
And I've also learned how to focus on the positive things,
not so much the negative things.
Laura,
when we start to get those negative thoughts in our head when we're thinking
about letting our partner down or I shouldn't hit this shot or how other people
are interpreting my style of play.
What's something that our viewers can use to eliminate those thoughts?
You know, again, that's something that takes practice and prior to,
sometimes people will put headsets on and music to block everybody else out.
Some people like heavy metal music, some like classical that relaxes them.
Some people even say, Oh, I take a shot of tequila, you know,
whatever it takes to try to relax your body, you know,
during a match. Again, someone will think, I don't want to let my partner down.
So that's a negative self talk.
Instead of I need to focus only on the next point.
I only need to focus on the ball. I need to focus on my footwork.
These things that I have practiced prior to a tournament is only focused on
those things. Let the outcome take care of itself.
But we have a tendency as we worry about this and that and people and clothing
and a bad call, easier said than done.
But that's why we said we have to mentally and emotionally practice just as much
as we do physically on the court.
Whether you're at rec play or a tournament play,
what can you do to get back on track when nothing seems to be working?
Yeah, we all have those days. You know, there's two things.
Something that I actually learned this is from my assistant coach when I was on
the US racquetball team, racquetball team. And she said,
I want you to take hold of that ball, look at the ball and say,
focus only on the ball. And I've learned to do that,
to block everything else out. Now that's one thing to do.
If I'm just making mistakes, my,
let's say my drop shots are a little short or I'm hitting balls, you know,
right, left, whatever. I have to go back to the basics. That's one thing.
The other thing is maybe I'm in a match where I played two players who are just
driving every ball at me and we said, okay, we've got to slow it down.
So we're still hitting our shots into the kitchen and yet there's still ripping
balls at us and we're just not scoring points at all.
So there's something that occurs that takes you out of your comfort zone and
this is just kind of maybe a piece of advice from experience.
When I am getting destroyed by two players who are driving balls at me.
I finally have to say,
I have to turn that around and start driving balls at them first.
Because sometimes they're great at driving balls,
but maybe their reaction time or their blocking is not as good as them driving
at me. And sometimes even that first ball is like,
I'm not trying to hit a winner.
I'm driving it directly at them and all of a sudden it deflects and flings off
of their paddle and all of a sudden I'm like, Oh, okay.
If I could score one point, I can score two points, I can score two points,
I can score 10 points. And that actually occurred in a match.
I don't want to use their names,
but it did occur in a match about two years ago at nationals in our senior pro
division where my partner and I got beat 11-0.
We were down 5-1 one in the second game when it finally hit me,
nothing we were doing was working and I said, we've got nothing to lose.
We need to just start ripping balls a them.
We came back and won that game and we ended up winning the third game 11-9 and
totally out of my comfort zone.
But it told me that was something I had to work more on now because you gotta be
able to do anything in any match.
So what you go in with your strengths in practice,
you now got to keep adding and adding and adding to your game.
Laura, what's your favorite mental tool to use when you're under pressure?
I'm kind of strange in that the more pressure there is,
the better I play because it makes me focus.
And I think some people will understand this.
When you play a better team than you, it actually pulls your level of play up.
When you play a team that's not as strong as you,
you don't play as well and you're thinking, you know,
we should be killing these guys or this or that.
And so you start thinking again the wrong things.
I go back to my ball. I always have to say to the ball,
it's like focus only on the ball.
So I have to kind of bring myself back to just focus instead of focusing on the
other things. You have to just play within the moment then.
That one point only the ball.
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Train Smart, Live Bold and Age Well