Causes of Bad Play

 I was playing the other day and at the end of one game, another started.  My new partner warned me of having "a bad play day."

I've been thinking about what causes a bad day, or game, or stretch of some minutes.

I once asked an old golf pro what was the cause of inconsistent play in golf.  He thought it was excessive, non-proper body movement.

I have no doubt to question that.  Golf and pickleball have a lot of similarities.  The swings are fairly close and the shoulder rotations are very much related.

There are differences.  Golf balls are usually hit when still, while the wily pickleball is always hit when moving.  A moving ball is a curious thing.  There are spin and the usual gravity, plus the wind is an evil force.

Imagine a windy day and you can easily see that just a bit of extra ball movement will cause all sorts of trouble.  There are fairly small margins when hitting a pickleball.  The ball's speed decays dramatically as does its arc.  The paddles have smallish sweet spots, there is the odd bounce, and skip off the lines.  All sorts of little things that create chaos.

Let me return to the problem of a bad day.  I would suggest that being a half step too late to the proper position to hit a ball might be a big problem.  And when that happens, it's easy to try to hit the ball when you are running, or at least, not stopped.  

When that happens, the normal shot that you will easily hit back with accuracy is now going a bit wonky.

There certainly could be other causes, as mentioned the wind, the temperature, opponents with wildly different styles and ball speeds; all of which can make anyone look clumsy and inept, but let's assume that it's a calm, sunny day, with the usual opponents.

If you find yourself doing unusual, bad things, it might be lack of movement.  Which brings us back to an on going theme in these blog posts and that is time.  If you are slow, or late, or inattentive, you squander the couple of fractions of a second that make the difference between being able to hit a solid stroke and just getting "there" in time for some stabby lunge.

What is required is to recognize that that is going on and get those feet moving earlier and or faster.  I felt some of this in a recent game along about the two hour mark.  I was just playing a bit too casually due to some tiredness and it showed.  

Busy feet are happy feet!