Pickleball Life

  It has finally occurred to me that Pickleball is a permanent part of my retired life. For almost 6 years, I have begun my day here in Tanglewood, with a rousing game of Pickleball. Every morning, before 8 o'clock, an energetic group of players appear at our outside courts, waiting for the start time. This short waiting time allows for lots of tid-bit back and forth gossip before the real game begins. Why do we have a ridged, set in stone, start time? Because some of the non playing  residents who live nearby the court area, claim to be able to hear the balls as they hit the paddle, and it wakes them up! Hah!This might be a good thing for them: that they actually get a good early start to their day without using an alarm clock.
  2015 is a National Senior Year for Competition, an age level event, held every 2 years, for seniors all across the USA. In order to be accepted as qualified in your sport, you must compete in your state games the year before and win gold at your age level. So now at age 83 and qualified, I feel this might be my chance to do well as the competition thins out as the ages go up. How many over 80-84 competitors might there be? How many more years will I be fit? In 2013 there were only three couples over 80. I am sure by now there will be more. When the brackets are posted prior to the July start-up we will be able to see who has registered!
It is a wonderful goal to have created for myself, to push myself to keep fit. All this year since Christmas I have had it in my mind every day to use each game as a learning experience, to concentrate on one technique at a time throughout the whole game.Of course I don't share this information with the other players.
This has been my form of self coaching.
Like many sporting games, the first part is easy but then the finer points come into play. Pickleball is very fast back and forth across the net, so one must be quick on the feet, moving front to back and side to side while  having an idea where the next shot should go. Pickleball uses a paddle a bit like Ping Pong and a whiffle ball similar in size to Tennis. Oh yes, accuracy for placing the ball says it all! All the other parts of the game are useless if you are not accurate.

                                                 Here I am with partner Clayton Farrar enjoying a recent gold moment.

My regular daily chores and housekeeping continue around my Pickleball. Some residents here are Golfers or play Petanque or Shuffleboard or enjoy Cards, but I have chosen this game with the funny name: the most vigorous of all.
I still cook and bake almost every day and still eat lots of chocolate but it is tempered with Pickleball.
I will add to this story as soon as I have new results to share.
Look ahead in my Blog to a more recent addition to my Pickleball Life.