Never Let Good Enough be good enough!

The Farm where I lived as a child. This is a racquetball post…sort of. It is a personal post but it does have implications for us all. I am the oldest of five children whose young lives started on a farm in upstate New York. My brothers and sister have all had successful professional lives and have great families. Our mother’s birthday was December 15. She passed away many years ago after a prolonged bout of cancer. When she passed she left behind my Dad, four sons and her daughter and some huge lessons. As a tribute to my Mom …

I got a phone call from an athlete I coach. “Coach, my opponent’s talking trash to me and cheating! Every time I play this guy in practice he resorts to cheating and trash talking. Do you have any advice? It threw me completely off my game and I ended arguing instead of playing.” First-this happened in practice. Practice is just that. I think it is great that people want to win at any costs and cheat in practice. Why? That gives you more realistic practice and puts you under more pressure. That pressure is great for tournament play. Did you …

The guilt trip player can be a shock the first time you experience this. Let’s shorten that to GTP. The GTP plays on an athlete’s sense of fairness. The GTP knows their opponent wants to be perceived as fair. GTP takes advantage of that. Phrases like “If that is the way you are going to play…” or “I can’t believe you thought that shot was good” or “Are you going to take that call?” are some examples. GTP sets off a chain of thoughts in their opponent’s head. Goes like this…… “Gosh I hope they do not think I cheat.” …

From day one in my tournament life I did and still do devote myself to winning. With that in mind, here is the question posed to me. Should tournaments guarantee two matches? In most cases I say yes. Local, and regional tournaments emphasize play and competition so two matches should be guaranteed. This is not difficult. Have a consolation bracket, no refs and schedule the matches around the other brackets. Have as many round robins as you can. Now national tournaments are a different animal in my opinion. I entered national tournaments to see how I stacked against the best …

I have a student moving away from here to college and a new coach. I get very nervous about the move. Why? I have spent time teaching this student how to move and how to train. In comes a new coach with an entirely different way of looking at the game. Out goes the technique and footwork and in comes all sorts of issues. Some of those issues relate to injury but others relate to efficiency. This paradigm of “what” shot to hit vs “how” to hit the shot is something I struggle with. Some very very well known names …

A few years ago I got this photo from an athlete I used to coach. The photo is one of my favorites and was sent to me by Melania Sauma, formerly on the Arizona State Racquetball team. The picture came to me at the same time I received an email from one of my athletes. The gist of the email was, “Why do I do all of this work only to enter a tournament and get destroyed by a player my same age who has been playing five years longer than me? What’s the use? I will never be able …

This is a great question that was asked of me a few days ago. I am paraphrasing and it went like, “Coach, What is the risk vs reward of changing your stroke mechanics after you have been playing a long time?” Here is how I see it. “If I had a magic pill and if you took this pill, your game would go down one level or maybe two even for the first few weeks. After that your game would continue to improve up two levels from where you are now, would you take that pill? In other words if …

(Editor’s Note: This one is from the archives!) Every once in awhile I come home totally wiped out. I am tired and I have to look back at my day to figure it out. Yesterday was such a day. I had a lesson with a player who had never had a lesson and was self-taught. I was amazed at the athleticism and intelligence of the player and how they had morphed from martial arts expertise to racquetball. To say the footwork was different would be a vast understatement. Now here was my dilemma-what do I do? Blow up everything and …

It seems like a simple thing but it is not. Keep your upper body over your lower body. Say what? Okay–you should not be bending forward at the waist to get to a shot. This puts you off balance. Arch your lower back, stay straight and centered. Your movement will be much better. How in the world can you practice this? Do the old star drill. Head to center court, and then proceed to sprint up right to a few feet from the front wall and execute a shadow swing, then backpedal to center court and repeat the process up …