You're interested in playing pickleball,
open play is a really good way to get into the sport.
Open play is a setting where players show up at a given time and location.
You put your paddle into a rotation, which I'm going to show you how to do in a
minute when we go in here, and you basically get to play pickleball.
It's a really nice way to get into the sport.
If you want to find places to play open
play, the first thing I would do is check in your local community centers.
A lot of times community rec centers and places like that offer open play days and
times that you can join and play this sport.
You can also check at the YMCA Lifetime Fitness Center.
Fitness centers and places like that are
leaning into pickleball, so they also will have open play opportunities often.
One other thing you can do is check at Place2play.org
I'll put the link below places, Place2play.org
and you can find different places in your community where you might be able to find
open play opportunities, including on outdoor courts.
The places to play will have the name of somebody who is going to...
It's like a contact person, feel free to reach out to that person.
Their name is in there voluntarily, so
they're more than happy to help you figure out where to get open play opportunities.
When you call and find out about open play, find out about levels.
It's important to find out, make sure that
it's okay for you to show up, even if you're a beginner player, because
sometimes they'll have certain times for certain different groups of players, or
they may have certain days that are reserved for beginner players.
Ask them about that.
You also want to ask them whether you need
to bring your own paddle, whether they have paddles available.
Lastly, ask them if there's any local clinics.
Sometimes the facilities, particularly Rec centers and YMCAs and places like that,
will have free clinics that they give for beginners.
You can get in there and you can start
learning how to play pickle ball or improve your game.
One last thing you can do is you can check out our Getting Started program.
It's a free program that we offer to you here at our website.
You can go in there and download our
beginner's guide and get access to all the videos we have in the course to teach you
scoring, about serving, and things like that.
You learn about playing the game.
That way you're much more comfortable when you go out and play pick a ball.
Now that we know what open play is and
where to find it, let's go in here and play some open play.
Payments complete. I'm on the other side of the door.
We're going to go out here.
You can see all the pickleball courts.
We're going to basically find somebody
now, find out where the pickleball is happening.
What you want to do is when you get here
is when you get to the facility is see if you can find somebody.
Usually there'll be a grouping of folks.
There'll be some paddles in a holder or on a table or something.
Find somebody there and ask them what the rules of engagement are for the event.
Pickleball players are very friendly, particularly in open play and new players.
They'll point you in the right direction.
They'll tell you what to do.
Ask them where do you put your paddle?
How do you play?
How do you get in the rotation and things like that?
Now, how do you play pickleball?
How do you play in the open play?
How do you get in the rotation?
Again, where to put your paddle?
And things like that.
They'll give you the lay of the land and help you get along your way.
I'm going to go over here, find somebody who knows how the open play is run here at
the Hillsborough Community College pickleball, and jump into the action.
I'm walking around here and I ran into Elizabeth and Maggie.
I know they know what's going on.
So I'm going to follow Maggie's lead.
You can find somebody like this who has bags and you follow them.
She has a dog, too.
And just follow.
Are you going to the open play or where are you going back to your car?
She's ready. She's ready.
She's going.
All right, so it looks like Maggie's
putting herself down and getting ready for the open play.
Are we doing open play, Maggie or no open play tonight?
Are we doing open play or no open play? Open play.
Open play. What time's the open play start?
Six thirty. And where do I need to put my paddle?
What do I need to do? Well, where do you want to play?
Beginner? How does it work?
I don't know. You tell me?
how does it work? I see some paddle set ups here.
Maggie, so what do we have here?
We had a paddle set up here, right?
Tony, these are the paddle set ups so that
people, when they're waiting for a court, they can stick their paddles in here.
Got you. And during COVID, what's.
Interesting there, Elizabeth's going to put her paddle in there?
This system was created during COVID so
that you could move the ball instead of moving all the paddles.
You weren't touching paddles. You moved the ball.
Very cool. All right.
Easier to show you if I had more paddles. Usually, we're packed.
Excellent system. They'll get packed in a minute.
That court's pretty packed. Advanced open play.
We have advanced play over here.
Played to nine win by one.
You can see the rules are written on there.
When you get there, you'll find is you'll find some courts are set up here.
They have beginner and advanced beginner,
and then they have advanced open play over there.
Or intermediate.
Players tend to want to play advanced, it's fine.
I'm going to jump on the beginner court, so have some fun.
Then they have intermediate courts over there.
You can see how it lays out here.
Someone like Maggie will help guide you
when you get there to help you play open play.
As I mentioned earlier, open play is a lot of fun.
There's a lot of players here.
You can see behind me, there's players waiting on these courts.
There's players waiting on these courts.
Right now, there's four, seven courts
going right now with open play here at this facility.
It's just a lot of fun, a lot of energy here.
Highly recommend you give it a try.
Now, a couple of things that will help you out with open play when you get there is,
first of all, find out about the rotation system.
That's something you're going to want to know is how the rotation system works.
You're going to be paying attention.
You're going to be alert to what's going on, and you're going to want to make sure
that when your name is called, that you're ready to go.
You don't want to be the player who's
like, They keep on calling your name over and over again.
It's not a good look.
So make sure that you're alert as to what's going on when you're there.
Then if you find out where the courts are, that's helpful too.
Here you stand by the court, so it's one way of doing it.
Other places, they're going to have
multiple courts and maybe one central location for the paddles.
In that situation, you want to get an idea of where the courts are.
That way you can find your way to the court comfortably.
Then another thing that's really helpful is names.
Knowing a couple of the names out there, recognizing the person that helped you out
and remembering their name and things like that can help.
Those are things you really want to know when you're out there.
In a minute, I'm going to give you some
tips on things you don't really need to worry about before you play open play.
Let me give you a couple of things you do
not need to worry about when you come to open play.
You do not need to worry about scoring.
You do not need to worry about winning.
You don't need to worry about hitting every shot perfectly.
You don't need to worry about anything
other than coming out and having a good time.
You'll learn how to got to play the game as you get out here and play.
Think of it like the chicken and the egg.
Don't worry about what you're paying first.
Get out and play some open play and you'll figure out the other stuff.
Someone will take to figure out the scoring for you when you're on the court.
Just be alert. You know what's going on out there.
You're going to be fine.
Very welcoming community when you come out and play open play.
If you want to know the common terms that
we use in pickleball and also get some guidance before you head out there the
first time, I'm going to put a link below to our Getting Started series.
It's a free series that we made for new
pickleball players so that you can orient yourself in the game, get some pointers on
what's going to happen when you're out on the pickleball court, know how the game is
played, and just feel more comfortable out there.
Click the link below, get the Getting
Started Guide, and you'll feel more comfortable out on the court.
All right, so that's an open play session that I just finished.
So a lot of fun out here playing open play.
If you're looking for open play in your community, use the resources I'll put in
the description below to find open play and you can get out there and have some
fun, meet some new people and enjoy this awesome, awesome sport.
If you enjoyed this content, please subscribe and like the video.
That'll help you get more videos like this
in your feed so that you can keep on growing in the game.
Check out the Getting Started series that we made for you.
I'll put it in the description below as well.
Get that so you have a better feel, more confident when you come out to the courts.
And maybe one day, I'll see you at open play and we'll get a game in.
Be well out there.