Flightless Bird: Pickleball
2023-03-28 00:54:24
Hi, I’m Dax Shepard, and I love talking to people. I am endlessly fascinated by the messiness of being human, and I find people who are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and shortcomings to be incredibly sexy. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to growth and betterment. What qualifies me for such an endeavor? More than a decade of sobriety, a degree in Anthropology and four years of improv training. I will attempt to discover human “truths” without any laboratory work, clinical trials or data collection. I will be, in the great tradition of 16th-century scientists, an Armchair Expert.
I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick now. One of the most fascinating things about being in a new country is observing what the people around you are doing with balls. They say that dogs like balls, but in my experience, people like balls way more go to India and they're hitting hard round balls with a bat. In New Zealand, we do that as well, but we're way more obsessed with tackling players to the ground so we can steal their oval balls.
In England, they're running around in the grass doing fancy footwork with their spherical balls, and in America, they bounce their balls and try and get them through a small hoop. But I'd heard of a new thing they're doing with balls in America, involving a sport that's been named the fastest-growing sport in the United States.
Fall Saturdays may be for college football, Sundays the NFL, but you better make way for pickleball.
To me, pickleball looks like a cross between tennis, badminton and ping-pong, and the ball involved is hollow, made of plastic, and has holes all over it. During the pandemic, around 5 million Americans turned to pickleball to stop themselves from going insane with boredom. George Clooney was one of them. Tom Brady and LeBron James have both bought franchises in various pickleball leagues. In short, America has gone batshit crazy for pickleball.
So grab that ball and paddle and prepare to play the sport with the silliest name of all the sports, because this is the pickleball episode.
Flightless, flightless, flightless. Bird touchdown in America.
I'm a flightless bird. Touchdown in America.
Pickleball Monica Do we have any opinions on this American? ...?
Soon-to-be-pastime?
Soon-to-be-pastime? Yeah, what is it? Now? It's blossoming, virgining. Yeah, it's a thing.
It is a thing, you know how we know, it's a thing how my dad is playing pickleball.
Your dad's older people love pickleball.
Yes, he's playing it with a woman from work's husband, he's like making social connections.
Right, that's nice.
It's brand new.
Yeah.
To me, in all of my life 35 years, this is the first time I've seen him engage in a sport. I mean, he played cricket when he was young.
That's great for your dad, because as our parents get older, you want them to be moving around. Because there's that thing if you're sitting all day, that's when you die, right?
Yeah, but you know, I'm going to knock, okay, because I am afraid of something. Elizabeth and Andy, my favorite podcast, nobody's listening, right?
Elizabeth's dad died on the tennis court. Oh, he had a heart attack.
Oh no, yeah right, so it was just too much.
Well, I mean, I'm sure there were other factors.
Yeah, but you're thinking, yeah, is my dad racing around, getting that heart rate up?
Is he going to push the limits?
Yeah, it's that balance, isn't it?
Yeah, because he's a winner like me, and I'm worried he's going to push the limits.
So what was that?
I just threw that in there.
Does it make you want to take up pickleball? It's a bonding thing with your dad. How do you bond with your dad? That's like a question you'd put to me.
You're right.
How do you bond with your father?
I thought you were going to say that could be something we bond over, I thought you were going to offer that way we play.
No, I'm putting it over to you and your dad, okay?
Yeah, we mainly bond by conversation, debate, but maybe pickleball-.
You could be bonding on the pickleball court.
Also, would I be embarrassed? I don't know what it looks like, I don't know much about it other than that. My dad is playing and that everyone's playing.
I knew nothing either. Coming in and making this documentary, I was exactly the same. I went out and hit the pavement. Talked to a few Americans about their thoughts on pickleball because I knew nothing when I started this. What can you tell me about the sport of pickleball?
I'm like an avid pickleball player, actually, I love pickleball. It's like between table tennis, ping pong and real tennis, we're older, I'm 50..
We're from Chicago, I heard about it, but I don't know that much about it.
It's a new wave, it's a new wave thing.
That's all I know. Has anybody told you how furious people get when people play pickleball on tennis courts?
No.
At least on the east coast. I live in a town that has a lot of tennis courts scattered around the community. You see people using those courts. For pickleball, There is a line for the pickleball court, the overflow goes to the tennis courts, which are generally empty.
But then people who do want to play tennis show up, it's a thing.
I remember somebody mentioned this podcast where somebody who had never been a professional athlete figured out he could make it as a professional athlete by learning pickleball. He was trying to study it.
That's all I knew.
There is this thing with pickleball, where it's known as being much easier to pick up than tennis or pretty much any other ball sport.
People are going hard.
You're deflecting that you had a bad week, you have to tell me why.
I said earlier I did have a bad week, I have hated this week. My roof got a leak, I've got a big leak in the kitchen, there's water coming in the house.
I think when water's coming in the house, it's a bad time. In New Zealand, we're experiencing all this horrible flooding at the moment. People have lost everything, so I can't talk, but it's just annoying when there's water in the house. The thing about living in Los Angeles, everyone's like, it never rains.
You come here for the sun. Meanwhile, it's the only place that I've lived in that suddenly got a leaking roof.
You know when the rain really started picking up?
When?
When you arrived.
Noah, it's weird.
What if you brought it?
I probably did. I was catching up with a New Zealander the other day that had just come here and he made the same joke that he had brought it over here.
I've still got the ghost at 3 in the morning.
I was going to ask, but maybe he's scared of the rain and he'll leave.
No, he's still waking me up at 3.
It's a thing it's still happening, there's a leak going on, I don't know.
Everyone feels a bit grumpy and annoyed, including me.
Okay, well, it's seasonal affective disorder. Sad times, I bet that is infiltrating it sucks.
How do you feel?
I feel I have a cold, that's a bummer, but it's also fine. But a worse thing happened, really bad. Oh no.
You're connected to this too. Oh my god.
Okay, really bad.
So I took you to a new wine bar.
Yeah, it was yum.
It's closed now.
Oh.
Right after, I took you there.
It's gone.
I went like, every day, yeah, not every day, but a lot of days.
Yeah, it was great, we sort of perched up on those little chairs in the corner, It was great. Yes, it is so sweet. It felt very great.
Lighting, cozy, great music.
Now the city is requiring new stuff from them. They have to, like, put in a pause, and that's my favorite place.
Had they gone off the rails, were they doing something? was there something not in order?
I don't know right, I don't think so, right. I mean, it was great to me.
It was great, I had a great time. I've always wanted to open up a whiskey bar with my friend Hayden in New Zealand, because, I mean, I don't even know that much about whiskey, but I do like drinking it. Oh, you do, and I always like the idea of just having. You know, people can pop down to, you know, Dave's bar, and there he is behind the bar, and you know, you sort of talk with people.
What would it be called? I could record for the podcast? It used to be called Dave's Whiskey Bar, Oh okay, or if Hayden was involved, actually, Dave and Hayden's Whiskey bar.
Oh, that's a mouthful, it is a mouthful, it doesn't flow off the tongue.
Dave's whiskey bar sounds better.
I think it would be great to have a bar, you know, yeah, or a paper ball.
Dave's Den.
Dave's Den, it sounds that's a little....
What's it got, Hayden?
Yeah, oh.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
It's a lot better than Dave and Hayden's whiskey bar. Thank you Rob. Do you want to come on board?
I'd be down.
I'll be part of the R&d. Okay, trying the whiskeys?
This is great.
What's your favorite whiskey?
That's part of the problem of opening up a whiskey bar is I don't know enough about it to even define a whiskey that I love.
You don't know what whiskey is.
I don't know a lot about it, but whenever I'm handed a whiskey, I feel like I like a smoky one.
Oh, okay.
I like that vibe.
This is a ding, ding, ding. Have you ever done a pickleback?
No, is it pickleball related?
They both share the word pickle.
Yeah.
A pickleback I think now I'm getting a little nervous, is you take a shot of pickle juice and whiskey?
Oh, pickle, juice and whiskey.
Yeah.
That sounds sort of revolting.
Can you check?
Yeah, it's a shot of liquor, and it's chased by a shot of pickle, yeah.
It's supposed to be good. I'm not a big pickle fan, and therefore pickle juice, for me, is a bit of a no-no.
Do you like Dill?
Yeah, what's Dill?
It's a herb, it's a herb, it's so good pickley herb.
It's so good, yeah.
Some people say herb, don't they?
America says herb, but herb, herb.
Really.
Yeah.
That is a thing here.
Yeah, you say herb.
Herb, because it's got an H there, I wondered about that, you're all saying herb.
Yeah, it's silent.
This week on Flightless Birds Herbs.
Oh my God. Speaking of. I watched The Inside Man, which is a show on Netflix, and they said maths like, 4,000 times.
Yes, and how did that make you feel?
Attacked.
Absolutely wild.
Yes.
Yeah, I get a lot of people dming me different things, both math and maths, all the time.
Well, now we got herb and herbs.
Yeah, leaf blowers and math really seem to hit a chord with people. People got very passionate. Yeah, anyway, pickleball, okay.
I'm sorry, okay? So we've all had a miserable week. The wine bar's closed. Yes, we've got a leaking roof, all that kind of stuff.
But we've still got pickleball, okay, and what I really like about pickleball is what someone mentioned in there is that there are these fights breaking out across the United States. With this rise in popularity of a brand new sport. America doesn't have the infrastructure to host all these players. And so what they're doing, they're flooding to the tennis courts where people are playing tennis to play pickleball.
And now there's this big, abusive relationship between tennis players and pickleball players, because pickleball players are trying to take over courts that typically tennis has dominated. Right? I think it's very political.
Okay, it is very political, it's very divisive, and I'm going to, of course, pick a side, please.
I pick the pickleball player's side because these are community courts, right?
They're community courts.
So if you arrive to play tennis at your local tennis court and people are on it, why does it matter to you whether they're playing tennis or pickleball?
I think you've dedicated your life to the game of tennis, you love tennis, you live for tennis, you're loving tennis.
Okay.
Suddenly, this new sports invented. You pop down to the courts, just overridden with maniacs like your father, who decided to pick up a paddle and just start willy-nilly whacking a ball around.
But would they have the same complaint? If they were playing tennis? That's my, they wouldn't.
That's stupid. It's the sheer volume, it's the popularity of pickleball that's just gotten so out of hand. And I actually, I agree with you in a way. I don't do the Devil's Advocate thing very well.
I think they need to learn how to get on together and I think it's great people are playing a new sport.
And getting exercise and getting exercise. Oh, I almost took it in a bad direction.
Oh, did you, you pulled yourself back?
I'm proud of you, but I kind of want to go there.
Go there, give it a go.
I like that people are moving their bodies.
Yeah, absolutely.
And not everyone is just resorting to putting a needle in their body.
Oh, I think that's.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Heroin? No, no, the weight loss drugs, the current weight loss drug.
Oh, this is all very valid.
Right?
Yeah, absolutely yeah. Get out and move the bod, why not?
I think it's preferred.
I'm figuring out an episode around, sort of, I don't know what the episode is going to be called, maybe bodies.
Okay, American bodies.
Yeah, because obviously, especially in Los Angeles, you know, I can't help but notice all the plastic surgery and all the different health things. And I think the way America thinks about things is certainly different to New Zealand.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Part of it is, yeah, this new trend of getting a little injection, and I look, it's wrought with drama.
We could have 400 hours of conversation on it, which we won't.
But New Zealand and America both have problems with health with people.
And moving around is a really good thing, so if people are finding a new sport, that's brilliant.
I agree, especially for older people, that's the age where you really need to be....
You give up.
Yeah.
You can't have an old person running around the tennis court.
Well, I think it's a pretty low key sport too. So I think your dad's probably okay. It's probably safer for him to be safer to be playing pickleball than like, pick up basketball.
That's not his sport, he's very short, he's a short man, a point guard. Oh, cute.
Yeah, he's cute.
What's the height difference between the two of you?
He's probably like 5'7".
And what about your mom?
I'm 5'0".
Yeah, how tall is your mom?
She's 5'3".
Oh, what a cute family.
Everyone's small, I love this.
How tall is Neil?
He's tall, actually, he's like 5'10, 1⁄2 or 5'11".
Oh, really.
Yeah, he got lucky.
What a freak of a family.
Oh my god, we have a visitor.
Hi, oh, I didn't even know you guys were coming.
Hi.
Hello, how did I not notice that I was here?
Dax is here. We're talking about pickleball.
Pickleball, pickleball, pickleball.
Do you have any thoughts on it while you're here? I said, My dad plays pickleball now.
It's a form of tennis for the unathletic, is that right?
That's so big.
Yeah, that's basically what it is.
Well, just imagine Monica, like, let's play basketball, but let's play on a 30-foot court.
I don't want to go all the way.
Isn't it like a half-size tennis court?
Yeah.
Yeah, you can fit—Dax has just wandered in, he said. Do you have thoughts on pickleball? You have thoughts.
Of course he does, I don't.
I just made them up. I don't believe that. And anyone that likes pickleball, I really support it because anything that can get out and move your body is wonderful. That's what I was saying.
What do you think about the controversy where I was just saying? The infrastructure of America isn't coping with all the pickleball players? So you've got people playing tennis, they're getting annoyed because their courts are being flooded with new pickleball players.
It's not on a different-sized court.
They use the same space, so there's no specific. —there are a few, but not many. Most pickleball players will go to a tennis court and put up their little net. God, I've missed your accent, therefore taking over—.
They could do a tennis court. It's a little netty.
Yeah, it's been a long time, I've missed it so much, too.
Yeah, it's been a minute. Yeah, really.
So they're taking over existing tennis courts.
I know it's like, we just met, I've got to get over it.
I've got to get through it. Should Frito meet David?
Yeah, where are you from space?
I don't like this character, it freaks me out why I can't.
You freak out or something.
I don't like this character at all.
Okay, where are you from?
I'm from New Zealand, New Zealand.
U.S. and the Stars What galaxy? This guy's like Buck Rogers, but he's too tall.
Who's Buck Rogers?
Fuck, you don't know who Buck Rogers is, you're not even with it.
I'm not, I'm not, I don't know.
Who's planet Earth? Well, that's a great question.
Oh, uh.
Bud Rogers is the best.
I think you'd enjoy it in New Zealand, if I'm honest.
They got pancakes.
Got pancakes?
People have sex.
We have six.
Can you get loaded there?
If you want, I guess.
Oh, I didn't know that about Frito, I should have guessed.
No, you like beer bongs.
Oh, since you do drugs.
Do you do drugs?
All of them, what kinds? what are they?
You don't have to fit in, it doesn't make you fit in.
I'm a Manso man, so I do all the stuff, party, sex, drugs, loaded other things, you said.
Okay, I'm sorry, David, because yeah, see, he doesn't.
Oh, I love pickles, make me horny.
I know the character, I find him repulsive but mesmerizing.
You ever get so horny when you look at pickles because all the dicks in the jar.
The bowls are covered in little holes.
Right, don't they poke a little hole in there to take the velocity out? Why have your glasses just steamed up?
What is happening, or is there something atmospherically happening over there?
You know, when I laugh a lot, my face gets hot.
And the hat is holding in.
Hey, four eyes, what happened? You're steaming right over there.
No, because it does, because my hat that I've got on, I think, locks the steam in.
Is that visible?
And this is what happens.
Fredo gets people's motors running.
When you laugh, you start to heat up, but I'm heating up so much, my glasses are steaming up.
This is so weird.
I've never seen that ever happen.
You're releasing all of your moisture.
Oh my god.
Monica warn them electrolytes.
We should do an episode on American electrolytes.
Ding, ding, ding, that's what Fredo is obsessed with.
Electrolytes.
Yeah, Scott. What plants crave electrolytes? Bronzo?
Oh yeah, oh my God, we're more alike than different.
Yeah, you guys could meet in the middle on electrolytes.
Yeah, one thing.
I'll meet you all the way.
Well, no thanks.
Where do you live?
Oh, no.
Give me your address. Let's get out of this place. We're supposed to be together.
Ew god.
He's such a predator.
Can Dex please come back?
I know this is the problem.
I love Dex so much.
Once he gets released, I get hijacked. Yeah, you really get hijacked.
Just really quickly. Dex, Would you ever play pickleball? Absolutely would you take up a new sport you play?
It's really popular in Venice. Now. I feel like there's a bunch of dedicated courts and I have a few different friends who played on the regular, yeah.
And it seemed like a great thing to do. It's really fun and probably less injuries than tennis.
Yeah, it's less running in pickleball, so there's less cardio going on. All right, what were you coming up here? Because you ride up here sometimes, don't you?
Were you going to work out up here? What was the...?
No, there's a lot of mixed messages coming. Have you noticed? I came in holding a mic stand?
You did.
That has been in my luggage for three, four weeks, okay, since Hawaii. Oh yeah.
And it's not made its way out of my bedroom. I just finally tackled another suitcase, all my stuff, I just tackled and this needed to come up here.
This is a morning of getting things done.
Are you guys both very productive?
Yeah, I think we've been productive. I actually recently wondered, my friend told me I need to see if I've got ADHD, because apparently I get very distracted by things.
I need to go and get diagnosed. David, you are so productive, you do not have ADHD, can I argue?
Okay.
Yeah, please, yeah, because I do. Sometimes when I'm writing these episodes, I do get distracted, I'm sort of flitting around the apartment.
Well, everyone.
I'm doing different things. Your level of concentration is kind of unmatched, the prolificness of your writing, and that's straight concentration.
Exactly it is. Yeah, you're right.
Secondary to that, you're 39, you're 40, you're 40, you just turned 40..
I'm 40.
David at Bethlehem lies but.
Yeah.
As we learned, I don't mind.
Thank you.
I still will keep calling you that, yeah.
Yeah, that's all right.
Don't let a lie get in the way of a good story.
Exactly.
Okay, now back to being diagnosed with ADHD by your fucking buddy, you're 40..
I'm 40.
You're successful, people like you. Why on earth would you need to go get a diagnosis and then what? Get it for fun?
No, get it, because obviously you'd want to treat it, so then start medication. There's nothing needs investigation. This is what's a little...
Thanks for saying that. ....weird about our current culture.
I think you might have split personality, but you're not suffering anything. You weren't complaining to your friend, like, Oh my god, I just can't get anything done. He's like, Well, try this, No, he's like, looking at a perfectly functional person and going, you should go get a diagnosis of ADHD. I don't get that.
Yeah, the appeal to it was. I'm like, am I missing something? Maybe I could be even more sort of, maybe I could be better, become some sort of other level that I'm missing out on. Superhuman, I don't know, but that's nice to hear.
Maybe I don't need to go and get a diagnosis.
I don't see why you would go.
Right, okay, all right.
I'll think about it a bit more, anything happening sexually we don't know about.
No, it's mainly just not.
I do get distracted sometimes.
Yeah, once every three hours, you're a person.
People get distracted.
You do get distracted, don't we? Yeah, yeah, that's true. Sometimes it's hard to know what's normal and what's not normal.
There's even science about how frequently you're supposed to take breaks. Is that true? The actual energy output of the brain? When it needs to rest, you might just not even be in the cycle of what one should be and just give the little rests.
Okay, no, I'll take that on board. Thank you. That's really good to know.
I'm going to diagnose your friend with something now, tell them that they have hypochondria and they need to go see the doctor, then get some xanax.
Oh god.
Try some benzos.
Oh god, oh god.
He's back.
Oh God, you never know when he's going to appear.
Including me.
It was nice to meet him in person. I love you guys.
What a fun experience. I'm so delighted that this accident happened.
Yes, me too.
Good luck pickleballing.
Bye.
Wow, interlude.
Okay, we were going to hop in on that.
Oh, you were going to play the documentary, okay? This is the documentary I made to learn about the sport of pickleball. It was a Saturday morning and I was off to Arcadia, a part of L..A. I've never been to before. I've given up trying to figure out what all the different suburbs here are all about. But I did note that this one appeared to have a Denny's that was housed inside of a windmill.
As I said, not much of America makes sense to me, even after a year in. I also noticed a lot of peacocks in Arcadia, and apparently, Hunter S. Thompson wrote Most of fear and loathing in Las Vegas at a motel in Arcadia. Jet Li lived here while he was making some of his best films, but I wasn't here for Peacocks or Jet Li.
I was here to find a pickleball court and I heard it before I saw it. The pickleball is a loud ball and hit with a hard bat, it makes a distinct noise. That's more ping-pong than tennis in true American style. Some people are suing over it. One lawsuit alleges the sounds of a pickleball court close to a house in Newport Beach cause severe mental suffering, frustration and anxiety.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed about this. Sound, from the West coast to the East coast, but here in Arcadia, people love pickleball. As I approach the courts, I can see about 12 people playing, so extend all the way through. This is one of the few shots where you don't want a short swing.
I'm here to meet Jessie Irvine, one of America's top pickleball players. She's a top five player in all three divisions of women's pro pickleball, and today she's coaching a bunch of pickleball enthusiasts.
If you notice he's making thirds that are unattackable, right? They're not really punishing it. Move forward, close that gap and apply pressure.
Any sporting lingo sort of breezes in one ear and out the other with me, but it certainly sounds like she knows what she's talking about.
It's kind of like the children's game, red light, green light.
The lower the ball, the more you can move forward.
Because the lower the ball, the less the opposing team can do with it.
I've arrived early while Jessie is still mid-session, and so I move away from the pickleball chaos and call Chuck Menke.
Here's a fun stat. So in this country right now, there are three new pickleball facilities opening up every single day.
If you can't tell already, Chuck Menke is the Chief Marketing officer for Pickleball America.
My first exposure to the sport of pickleball actually was back when I was in college. So I'm going to date myself here. Around 1992. I was asked to fill in for a doubles partner of a friend of mine and play pickleball for the very first time in intramurals at the University of Missouri. So I kid around sometimes.
I like to say that I hold the world record for the greatest amount of time elapsed between playing pickleball because I didn't play pickleball again until earlier this year in the spring.
That was a gap of about 30 years, and pickleball has been around for longer than that. It was first dreamt up almost 60 years ago, in 1965, by friends on Bainbridge Island in Washington. Joel, Bill and Barney wanted to play badminton but didn't have enough gear, so they grabbed some ping-pong paddles, a net and a ball and invented what would become pickleball.
The court's a lot smaller than a tennis court, so you don't have to run around as much, meaning it's much easier to pick up.
If you're being introduced to the sport and someone is teaching you how to play it, within 30 minutes or so, you can start playing a game, if not sooner. Whereas a lot of sports you really need to get coached up. You need to practice a ton before you can start enjoying it, and that's really not the case with pickleball.
Pickleball saw a growth of 40 during the pandemic because it was so easy to play. Families, slowly losing their minds, stuck together all day, could finally take it all out on each other. Nets thrown across driveways and singles tennis courts divided up into multiple pickleball courts.
You've got grandparents playing with grandkids, which you can't find in too many other sports.
Chuck also sees pickleball as a new way for kids to get more exercise. I mean, not every American kid wants to play baseball, football or basketball.
Unfortunately, there's a childhood obesity epidemic in this country, and we don't have enough kids who are staying active enough hours of the day. So that's why we look at pickleball as an opportunity for kids to get out there.
It's not often you see a new sport being born. I mean, what other ones are there? Ultimate frisbee, cornhole.
I would say that there is a group of emerging sports here in the U.
S When you look at the Olympics and you see some of the new sports that are coming into play, surfing, breakdancing, esports has blown up as well. Cricket is making significant inroads here in the U.S.
But right now, pickleball is the sport still on a steady rise. The Kardashians are playing, you've got like a good number of celebs on board.
We do, I think that that's really helped push the awareness as well and the credibility and legitimacy of the sport. It's this sport with a funny name, pickleball. And I think that some people initially when they hear about it, they're like, what is that? and they may even kind of scoff at it.
But then when you see all of these a-list celebrities who are playing the sport, people might say, Oh, wow, geez, maybe I should look at this again. Another thing that we've really seen is a lot of top professional athletes from other sports, whether it's the NFL or the N.BA. Getting involved in the sport now. And at the professional level of the sport, there are two Pro Tours and a Pro League. And you're seeing folks like Tom Brady, LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees, Kevin Durant, all coming into the sport now and investing in professional pickleball entities. Which again, is another huge vote of confidence for the sport. And showing people that this really is becoming a mainstream sport and that it's a cool sport.
Will Pickleball be at the Olympics in L?
A In 2028, maybe. Around 60 countries have joined the International Federation of Pickleball. you need 75 countries to be considered for being part of the Olympics.
In my mind, the sport has another obstacle in its path to becoming a mainstream American activity the name.
There's two competing theories one is that. The wife of one of the three founders of the sport referred to it as pickleball, because pickleball essentially is a mashup of tennis, ping pong and badminton. So she was using a rowing reference. What's called a pickle boat, which is a combination of all the rowers who didn't make the other varsity boats. So you get put in that combination of other teams, that's called the pickle boat.
And then there's also a theory that the sport was named after the family dog, which was called pickles.
So I've looked more into this and apparently the dog was named after the sport, not the other way around. In the United States, are there particular areas that are popping off more than others, are there particular parts of America that refuse to play pickleball that you want to cut through into? What does it look like out there?
Right, yeah. So I think when you look at states like Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, those are the primary hotspots. It's being played everywhere, and obviously the northernmost states.
During the winter months, people are going to have to go indoors, whereas in those warm weather climates you're going to be able to play the sport year round. So I wouldn't say there's anybody who's refusing to play pickleball, but there are definitely states where the sport is really taken off.
I look over to the pickleball courts and see that Jessie is winding down her coaching session. I tell Chuck who I'm about to meet.
So she is one of the top professional players, and she was actually at our national championships in early November and competed there and did tremendously well.
Who better to learn from than one of America's best players, one who will definitely kick my ass at pickleball?
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So pickleball, it's a big deal, right? Competitive leagues, it's all happening.
Is that a cliffhanger that you play? It's a cliffhanger.
Yeah, I'm going to go and play.
It's a cliffhanger. Oh, okay, I really want to play now. This is making me feel....
Yeah, we should actually all get some gear and all go and play together.
Yeah.
Get Dax, Rob. Four of us will go down. It's like tennis, you can do two-on-two or singles, okay?
I played a little bit after this episode and something I found it's not documented in this documentary. But I get really angry. I had a lot of emotions come out and I played my friend Ben and I got really....
Competitive sort of violent.
Yeah, not violent, more verbally aggressive.
At him or just...?
Oh, my David, No, I was, you know, because I wanted to win and that came out of me. And that's actually not sort of in this episode, but something I've found about myself since this episode is I am....
Pickleball brings out the worst in you.
It does, I mean, I was really throwing some pretty harsh insults at him.
I think you have a latent rage.
You can't just come out with that, yeah, you can't just make that statement.
I can, I can, because I saw it when we drove, too.
That's right.
You had moments of rage, but then certain things bring it out, and I wish your friend had diagnosed you with rage instead of ADHD, because that's more accurate.
I don't like things that I can't control, and I think other drivers made me angry that day. I got annoyed at myself as well, because sometimes, yeah.
You let yourself down.
Yeah, I let myself down, I don't play sport my whole life, I've avoided sport.
Have you ever played any sports?
At school, the only things I could kind of get away with were tennis and basketball. I could sort of play them. Yeah, I wasn't good, but rugby and soccer and all that kind of thing were just terrible.
Oh, but you swim, right?
Yeah, but swimming's different. What I don't like about sports is you have to be in a team with other people. That's really hard. And there's the social thing with school, like when you're getting picked for teams. I don't know.
If you do this in America, you get two captains. Yeah, I pick Sally, I pick Roger.
I'm always right at the end, I'm the one you're just like, Oh God, what team has to take me on?
You're so tall, though, you should be picked early.
Yeah, but people knew I was bad, I wasn't good at sport.
You were tall and clumsy.
I was tall and clumsy.
And your brother was so good.
You don't need to necessarily bring that up.
But it was a piece of it, David, It's a piece.
Yeah, so my brother....
You felt inadequate compared to your brother.
At my school, my brother was literally one of the top athletes and everything, and I wasn't. And so yeah, that created pressure because also I was a farrier, you know, and there was a sporty farrier. And then there was the dud and that came into it as well.
So my relationship with sport is I haven't had one.
What does your brother do now?
He's a graphic designer.
Oh so, he's also doing well.
Yeah, he's doing really well.
I was hoping maybe it switched. And as an adult, he's doing horribly and is stupid and bad.
No, none of those things I was thinking of lying then instead of making out that he was. But he's actually doing quite well.
Okay, he's a winner, too.
So I haven't played sport for a long time. So since this episode I've gone and played a bit of pickleball. I think my rage has found sort of an outlet, maybe in pickleball.
Oh, I can't wait to play with you because I'm really competitive.
There's also that thing of getting annoyed at yourself when your body doesn't do what you want it to do. Like, when you're trying to return a shot and you think you're doing something really great and you fuck it up. I felt so angry and I'll take that out on Ben, okay?
That's not fair. How long did it take you to learn the rules? how quickly did you pick up? At least that?
Rules are really confusing in pickleball, they are. the scoring system is really unusual. No, you get the idea pretty quickly.
The scoring is annoying, the lines on the court are quite annoying, but you get over that, okay, why don't I play you? The rest of the dock where I talk to Jessie, because she's the one who really knows what's going on.
As far as I can tell from watching so far today, Jessie basically destroys everyone she plays. So when the game's over, I give everyone some gentle encouragement.
You're all very fucking good.
We'll be back next year, we want a rematch. I'd noticed something weird they all did at the end of the game, so I wanted to clear that up first. Everyone hits their bats at the end of a game.
The paddle Sorry, a paddle tap. What's the paddle tap?
Partners will do it in between points, kind of like good shot, or like we got the next one at the end. Is what they used to do in tennis, where they would shake at the end of a game.
Now, Jessie would know all about this because she used to play tennis. She moved from North Carolina to L...A. when she was about 21, mainly for the weather, and it was in L...A. that she'd swap her tennis racket for a pickleball paddle.
What had happened was I started playing tennis, probably around the age of 10.
My goal was to play professional tennis, I went to Florida to train at the academies, did that whole thing, played national tournaments, started playing the professional circuit. And after a couple years in, I got injured to the point where I couldn't continue at the high level. I was born with very little cartilage.
So what happens is it's not really an injury per se, but my joints just don't have any cartilage, so it's bone on bone.
Ow, that feels sore.
No, it's not great. What was happening in tennis was when I would serve in particular, it would pinch the nerve. Then I can't lift it up for three weeks, and then eventually, after this happening a couple times at tournaments, I just had to quit altogether.
Which would be such a thing to come to. Your body's not letting you do this thing you're really good at doing.
Basically, what happened was I took a couple years just to kind of mentally regroup and handle that, because it was very hard for me to mentally handle. The idea of it was myself that is stopping me from being able to achieve my dreams, and that's kind of how I took it. Then that's when I decided to move out to L.A. just to kind of have a fresh start, started coaching tennis to kids.
Loved that I was doing that for like, 10 plus years, coaching junior tennis. And then I would say, at the end of 2018, somebody kind of brought to my attention. The sport called pickleball. And they're like, Hey, Jessie, I know you kind of had these injuries in the past that were related to tennis, but you know, there's a sport called pickleball. It's a smaller court, it's easier on the body.
And there's no serve, it's all underhand.
So, like, you don't have to worry about that.
And it's becoming more competitive, more professional, more money is getting involved. They thought I would really like it and I would enjoy it.
It was like, custom built for you? Almost exactly, yes.
And I think there's a lot of pros out there that feel that way. You know, there's a lot of us that are kind of in our late 20s, early 30s that are seeing as, Oh, this is a second opportunity for me to, like, actually be competitive again.
I figure I should start with the basics and get my head around the rules of pickleball. You can play singles or doubles, and only the person or team serving can get points. If the team serving messes up a rally, it's the other team's chance to serve and their chance to collect points. There's an area close to the net called the Kitchen, and she explained what that was all about, but I'd sort of drifted off.
I find new sports confusing. it's like when someone's trying to teach me a new tabletop board game, I just drift off. Even the scoring is confusing.
So there's three numbers you have the first number is your score, second number is the opponent's score, and the third number is whether you're the first server or the second server.
As a team, you get two chances to serve. So, for instance, let's say we're a team. And I win the first point. So now I will say 1-0-1 if we win the next point, 2-0-1 if we lose that. Well, now it's your serve.
So now you would say 2-0-2 to keep track of who's first and who's second then if we lose that. Now, the opposing team serves. Now they say their score is zero, they say our score is two, and now they're on their first chance of serving one.
Simple with the facts sorted. I wanted to know about the money. Can one get rich playing pickleball?
I would say tennis players probably ranked top 300, top 400 that are making okay money. But if they actually transferred over to Pickleball and took it seriously, they would almost make the same amount, or even more.
Now, a big point made again and again about Pickleball is that anyone can play. A father can take on a son, a mother, a daughter, a grandma can take on a baby, that sort of thing.
But I wondered what it took to take things up a notch, to get to Jesse's level, to a pro level.
It really isn't a skill thing, which is, again, what makes pickleball such a great sport. It's not like you have to be like John Isner and be 6'10. And have, you know, just these big serves that are 140 miles. I could never serve that hard. Like, there's just some people that just can't physically do certain sports.
Whereas with pickleball, you don't actually have to be fast and you don't have to be strong, because that's not what the sport's about.
It's more technique.
It's more technique, it's more of a skill set, and then it's more mental. It's like chess. It's just understanding how the game is played. And if you can understand it and make balls and just have good technique, you can go really far.
Her pro tip is just to make balls. I nod when she says, make balls, pretending I know what that phrase means. A lot of my time in America is spent doing this, just nodding away, pretending.
I know what the hell is going on, but I never do.
Honestly, the better players are good because they do the simple things really well, so when I say make balls, they don't miss. They're not doing all these extra fancy things because the problem with the extra fancy things. It's also high risk, so it's a high reward, but high risk, and you might end up missing it.
So people are going for shots that they really don't need to go for because they think that's what it takes to be good. Instead of if you just watch the Pro, they just don't miss that many balls, like their error count is so low.
So don't smash it, just keep it simple. Who's your nemesis in the sport?
I don't have a nemesis.
I don't believe it for a second, I'll tell you why.
Look, obviously there's always going to be pickleball drama because it's just people that you're dealing with and it's competitive. It's very hard for there not to be, but what's unique about pickleball? And I think it's great, especially at the professional level. You have to be somewhat polite and nice and friendly to everybody because partners are very important. Pickleball is unique in the sense that because you have that non-volley zone kitchen line, you can't just take all the balls.
So it's very easy, if you don't have a great partner, just to pick on your partner. So what happens at the professional level? At a certain point? Everybody is nice to everybody because you may need to partner with them, it forces everybody to be friendly.
What a nice sport, I wonder if it existed in New Zealand. When I was at school, I'd be a bit more sporty. I wasn't a cool kid. I had zits, glasses, braces, and I played the saxophone, which meant I lugged around the saxophone suitcase thing all day.
It was social suicide. Maybe pickleball would have made my life better, I would have been more sporty and cool, but then I came back to that name. I mean, all sports names are kind of stupid.
Football, basketball, baseball, we get it. You like balls, but pickleball that takes it up another notch, I feel like the one thing pickleball has going against.
It is, its name is.
Do you know what I mean? It's my personal theory, something needs to change.
Yes, the name needed to change. The problem is it's now too established, almost to a point, too many people know about it, too many people play it.
It's gone too far.
It's gone too far.
The pandemic took it too far.
Yes, honestly, the name needed to change, probably back. I heard about professional pickleball, or I saw when it kind of started was like 2016. There was like only three or four tournaments, but that's kind of when you could play a tournament and make some money.
It wasn't a lot, but you could make some. I would say back then, marketing wise, that's when they needed to try to change the name. I don't know if they had the vision it was going to become that big. The problem is, it only became really popular when Covid hit, because then it was one of the only sports that people could actually play outside of tennis.
So I think at that point it was almost too late, because that's 2020.
I started playing in 2019 and at that point it was more of a professional sport and people were playing it. It was somewhat established.
You're totally right, it's just that step too far. Yeah, it's a little too far. Now. Before I leave, I asked Jessie if I can have a game with her. She agrees.
I would say, the lower the ball, the harder it is to hit it hard.
If it's high, like, if I do this, you can smash that.
I won't bore you with the audio, but she won left me in her dust. She also lied to me. What do you feel about my skill level so far?
You're like a 2.
0.
Out of what?
The highest, I think right now, goes to, like, a 6.5 7..
v1.0.0.260408-1-a910ba6_os