The Secret Is That There Is No Secret (Part 1)

I saw this recently and it hit home immediately. It was accompanied by three great pieces of advice that I would like to break down a bit for pickleball.

Consistency Over Intensity

Most of us actively encourage people to increase their intensity as a means of increasing performance. We cheer loudly and shout various bits of meaningless prose, thinking we are going to magically cause someone to play better. For players, this can be very difficult to react positively to, and it often actually hinders better performance.

Instead, as players, we should be concentrating on developing better consistency so that we can perform at a high level under any circumstances. The best players rarely get angry or even visibly upset. They have confidence in their consistency and they can quickly discard any momentary failure. They understand it for what it is.

So the mindset skills are closely tied to the physical skills, and, of course, good consistency skills are the result of hard work and good practice. And that pretty much guarantees success.

See you at practice.

​Michael Gauthier