Fun drill class this morn, outside. Today we spent a lot of time at the kitchen with soft dinking. That included “dink games” where we played normal rules, but only the kitchens part of the court. Good practice.
We were reminded that it is often good to try to get your ball to go about a foot over the net… that way there is some leeway if it goes too low.
The wife and I played pickleball last night with my daughter and her boyfriend. It’s a good thing I’m a runner. My 48 year old self was able to keep up with a 20 year old youngin’. 
One of my favorite things about the sport is that I see so much intergenerational play, within families but also with perfect strangers .
Today was a splendid day for me for PB. In the morning I signed up with a local group, outdoors - lovely weather! I had been hesitant to sign up for the Ladder, since it was for Beginner/Intermediate. Sometimes at those events I spend the who time on the loser court. Today I started there and worked my way up (mainly due to lucky partnering) and was on the winner court for THREE games (ie won twice, then lost and got demoted). 2+ hours, only about 10 min on the sidelines. Bonus - one of the players happened to be a lovely coworker who had shared office with me for a few years long ago, but we later lost touch.
Then I headed over to the indoor courts because they had a free Sketchers demo event, so I got another n hour of play.. both with the old PB shoes and new demo shoes. More on that later.
All of the play today included a lot of male players, including some young athletic guys. They are mostly new-ish but really learning the game well and getting great shots. I admire their politeness and good cheer when they team up with players like me.
Last night we had 2 courts instead of 3 at weekly event as some dropped out due to weather. Luckily we only had a few raindrops (and not much wind - yay). Had a great time.
A fun thing was the several nearby courts of boistorous high school boys learning PB. It was great to see them all having a good time on the courts (not home playing video games or causing mischief somewhere). They seemed to feel bad about the wild balls that sometimes shot over onto our courts. Had to laugh when I heard one apologize… “Sorry. Bill over there thinks he’s Jackie Robinson”.
Just got done playing with the 30 and up group. I am definitely the oldest at 64. I can keep up but…
. I am tired!! Lol
Off to our local mexican happy hour. I have choices of two, 3 blocks apart. Advantages of living in a major city.
Isn’t it great that it’s a multi-generational sport, and sometimes we can do pretty well against the youngsters!
So my 50 and up group is more competitive then my 30 and up group. All good player’s but the older players play like 3x a week at least and the younger ones have kids and need to work 
. There is like a 75 year old in our group that would beat anyone she’s plays. If your rating is up there I think PB is the great equalizer, honestly. But it’s damn fun!!
There is a legendary player around here who I have yet to meet. She’s 91 and is supposed to have one helluva swing… the guy who taught my first classes said you’d better be out of the way if you don’t want to eat the ball.
This is exactly how I play .
This kid is a 23 year old 6.0 rising pro player. He has these 60 second video’s that he puts out daily. This one is on top spin. He has longer videos and shows his matches etc but I like his energy and his advice is great and easy to understand. I “try” to take a few thing’s and practice them weekly.
I think it’s important to have pickleball shoes (or court shoes), though not all my Pb friends agree. I’ve liked my budget Fila shoes, but the did not seem “cushy” enough. I upgraded to these Skechers Viper Court Pro 2.0 Archfit shoes - better arch, a little more shock absorbtion Shoes: Women's, Men's & Kids Shoes from Top Brands | DSW
The details: I actually ordered 3 pair of Pb shoes while DSW had 25% off sale. While they were en route, I had a chance to attend a Sketcher’s event and play in demo Vipers. When the shipment arrived, I disliked the Keds (no arch) but did like the Sketchers. I picked the ones I had demo’d. But before finalizing the decision I brought them to a local court sports store and tried some alternatives. I was willing to spend more money but didn’t find a pair I liked better (though they were out of some of their styles in my size).
A friend of mine just got exactly those shoes bc she had a nice coupon/sale combo. I asked her after wearing them a couple of times and she said she really likes them.
You need court shoes for side to side movement. Running shoes are for forward motion and why so many people get ankle sprains/knee issues when wearing them instead of court shoes. I like my Fila tennis shoes. I am so much more quicker with lateral movements now.
Usually I play PB a few times a week, but recently I’ve done some subbing in regular games and other opportunities. Realizing that I have played 6 of the past 7 days, total of about 9 hours. Some of the events had 3 courts, so probably about 30 happy players total (guessing around 20 unique faces, since there is some overlap of same people playing different places). It really has been fun meeting so many people, mostly retired but some younger too.
What methods do you like for coordinating PB schedules?
I have a variety or methods. (Though I do log every game the same way on Google calendar, including husband for awareness. None are “regular” meeting of same group since I travel a lot, though I sub for some of those foursomes). Often game play is planned out with small or big group texts, sometimes with MANY people. That can sometimes get confusing. The local non-profit club has a nice organized way to offer slots for mixers/ladders and drill classes… but ya gotta sign up quick after newsletter comes. In recent weeks I’ve been using a TeamReach big local group to coordinate weekly Friday 7am indoor/$10 courts… that has some setup pain for each participant, but I like it.
I’m not sure if this is what you are asking - sorry if not
My “personal” group uses text. Someone tried to move us to an app, and we vetoed it. But we are at this point friends, and we talk about other things, so we like the personal touch of text. We are a group of about 12 ppl.
Courtreserve is what the two “public” places I play use. One used to use something called the Stack Team app, but they moved to CourtReserve.
I’ve posted about this previously - my women’s group uses TeamReach for sign-ups. Works great for us, especially the Wait List function. For instance, we had 5 people on the waitlist for tomorrow morning. As of tonight, 4 of them have been moved to playing. The move happens automatically on the app when a player changes their Yes sign-up to a No, and the next on wait list also gets a notification that they have been moved. We use the app to “chat” as well, either as a group or you can DM specific people or a group of people. We put our party events on it too, and everyone RSVP’s on the app (including indicating what they will bring.) We currently have 46 members, with 10 of them being fairly inactive and another 10 being semi-active. So about 25 regularly active players. I think the key to making it all work is that we have a team “mom” (that’s what we call her) who reserves our courts, posts them to Team Reach, and just generally keeps us all organized. She is also the gatekeeper for any requests to join our group.
Sign-ups for Open Play at my club (Lifetime Fitness) are done through the LifeTime app. We also have WhatsApp for sharing info about all PB opportunities at the club (clinics, leagues, etc.) For leagues we had been using Pickleball.com for sign-ups, results and standings, but it has been glitchy and LT is beta-testing their own league app - our club is one of 5 that were asked to demo it. So far it seems pretty good. These apps are able to connect to the DUPR app, which is necessary for league play.
Thanks for your input. I will have to look into waitlist function. For my Friday/indoor play I usually book two courts, then make Max Participants = 14 (that function was hard to find, under Date/time settings)… and add 3rd court if interest warrants.
I do like that TeamReach has Yes button (and also Maybe for those thinking about it). Also there is a No button - generally that is only used by one of my Friday regulars, nice because I know not to text them if trying to round up a few extras.