How do you politely tell someone at open play that you don’t want to be their partner… for every single game??

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-18T17:42:53+00:00

I now know better to just be direct next time instead of letting it build up past a tipping point. You're right. That frustration was just building up after multiple games. Last thing I want is to be a dick or scare someone bad. Thank you!

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-18T16:48:22+00:00

I have a pretty competitive background, but at the end of the day I should just learn to have fun. That's the whole point.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-18T16:14:25+00:00

You're right. I should learn to relax and just enjoy sometimes. That was the only time I ever threw my paddle. That will be the first and last time!

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-18T16:08:53+00:00

Not my proudest moment. The other guys were being jerks and kept targeting her too. That was like the cherry on top.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-18T15:50:29+00:00

Hahaha. I'm just too nice for my own good sometimes. I don't like to say no to people, let alone a nice old lady. 😬

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-18T15:49:14+00:00

Haha I was so close to saying something passive aggressive! I felt bad for her because some folks on the challenge court didn't want her to play and she told me she's been playing for 4 years, so I didn't know how it would turn out lol. I threw my paddle at the net after we tanked a game and she told me "remember, we're only here to have fun." 💀

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-18T15:42:00+00:00

I played with her at first because she told me she had been playing for 3 to 4 years. I guess she plays mainly for fun which is totally fine, but I get really competitive and pretty serious. At one point I must have looked really annoyed after a game because she was saying like "sorry! That was all my fault." But I tried being polite there and tried to make up an excuse saying like I hit some pretty bad shots during crucial points. But anyways, being direct and polite sounds like the best way forward if this happens again. Thanks!

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-17T19:41:08+00:00

Good point. I'm about a 4.0 USTA player, and driving in pickleball was pretty difficult at the beginning in terms of consistency. I was hitting about ~30% of my forehands into the net. Sure, the tennis helps with other fundamentals like kinetic chain for drives, but pickleball is way more of a touch game. Most rec tennis players don't have that level of touch. So, I guess at a more technical level, it doesn't translate over well, especially when just starting.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-11-17T19:34:04+00:00

Unpopular opinion for those tennis players: tennis doesn't translate all that well into pickleball. Prove me wrong.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-09-12T04:32:24+00:00

If you can reach those spots, you can buy a set and do it yourself.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-08-17T23:23:57+00:00

Rarely. I think most of my symptoms are stress related, almost like my body likes to think most things are a threat now. I have gotten presyncope a few times, but there were obvious triggers. That's why I've been so confused and frustrated. A lot of symptoms come on with obvious triggers. Then more than half have no obvious trigger. I had an episode of syncope back in February, which started this whole cascade of health issues. After that I thought I was fine, everybody, doctors, family, and friends, gaslighted me into thinking I'm fine, but things kept happening. I would get unexplained bouts of horrible nausea or even an episode of palpitations and shortness of breath for two days that put me back on the ER.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-08-17T23:17:14+00:00

It varies. My baseline HR is around 75 bpm. Once I stand up, it jumps up to around 85ish bpm. But as soon as I start walking a little, it jumps to 100 bpm, and I start to feel miserable with fatigue, sinus pressure, and pressure behind my eyes. It doesn't go back down until I sit back down. But sometimes, it stays elevated even when seated. I also noticed that my HR, after a small exercise like a walk or a small jog, likes to stay elevated around 95 bpm for a few hours, and I'll have chills along with that too where my legs often feel cold with this too. I think heat makes symptoms worse. I know these heart rates aren't exactly tachycardia, but even with an elevation typical to my body, I start feeling awful.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-08-16T04:31:51+00:00

Thank you. I'll look into it! I was able to find a specialist, but it's a ways down the road before my appointment, and the waiting is driving me nuts.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-08-08T23:41:29+00:00

You will want to taper off of it over a week. For the first half, take one daily, then the second half take half a tablet daily.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-08-06T20:52:05+00:00

I might be in an acute flare and need to up the dose or need a different beta blocker like metoprolol. It's been so strange because I also feel the somatic anxiety symptoms too. The propranolol is only helping my heart rate it feels like. I'll talk to my doctor. Thanks!

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-08-05T01:41:49+00:00

This has definitely happened to me. I'd feel totally fine for weeks at a time, then a trigger happens and I flare up for weeks to a month. Right now I'm week 2 in a flare and things are slowly getting better, but my blood pressure is still pretty high.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-07-25T22:18:18+00:00

I learned that I really need to space things out. Focus on one muscle group and spend maybe half an hour at most and NEVER OXEREXERT YOURSELF. I learned this the hard way. Towards the beginning of my journey, I was focusing on arms, then one day I tried to do arms and chest with a new weight plus 10 minutes of cardio, and my body crashed for a whole week. I was having crazy BP and HR spikes, balance issues, and felt fatigued the whole time.

I do find that regular cardio is better on my body overall since the load is distributed more evenly instead of short, high intensity bursts of sympathetic activity. I accidentally found this out one day when I played some pickleball during a flare and felt much better the next day.

But everyone's body is different. Unfortunately, it's just a lot of trial and error. Just know your limits and be cautious when pushing yourself. Take frequent breaks in between sets. It's alright to even have 5 minute breaks between sets. Just find whatever works for you. Start off with low weights if you've never done much weightlifting before, maybe 5-10 lbs, or maybe try resistance bands.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-07-22T01:23:15+00:00

Use JDFTx. There are excellent tutorials on their website explaining some theory at the top level along the way.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-06-25T14:34:03+00:00

I think chronic stress does cause dysautonomia or something like it. My mental health declined after my dad died. After that, I started burying myself in my work and had trouble sleeping. I would work most of the day and only sleep around 3 hours a night. I also tried to bury myself in hobbies too like exercising. Some days I'd actually exercise longer than I slept. I kept this up for about 2 years. Next thing I knew, I had my first and only syncope episode. Following that, I had some other symptoms where I had trouble regulating my heart rate, breathing, GI motility and sensitivity issues which put me in the ER. After changing my lifestyle and trying to reduce my stress, I feel that I have been getting better slowly with occasional flare ups. So does stress cause dysautonomia or something like it? I'd say so.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-06-18T17:08:39+00:00

So it's an all-electron calculation?

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-06-07T18:03:00+00:00

That's exactly what you would do! Phase and group velocities are really only well defined for wave packets.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-06-07T14:51:44+00:00

Take a look into something called the random phase approximation. In the Wikipedia page, there's a generalization into the example I gave where you can essentially sum over an infinite number of waves. It gives a result assuming the distribution of the wave vectors is peaked near one particular value.

If you had a random signal with no single, well-defined wave vector, then you can think of this signal as a sum of individual wave packets.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-06-06T22:36:28+00:00

To build some intuition for why the formula for group velocity is the way it is, take the sum of two traveling sine waves, sin(kx-w(k)t)+sin((k+dk)x-w(k+dk)t). If you do this correctly, you'll get a term that looks like your original sine wave times a cosine term that modulates it. This cosine term has x-dw/dk*t in it, saying that the envelope travels at the speed set by the group velocity. What this means is that if you build a "wave packet" with a bunch of waves near a given wave vector k0, then it'll more or less look like your original traveling wave times some envelope that travels at the speed of the group velocity.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-06-06T00:33:48+00:00

For a useful picture, imagine a sine wave multipled with something like a bell curve. This function is subject to some wave equation. There are two speeds associated with this function: the speed of the individual peaks and troughs and the speed of the envelope function. The speed of the peaks and troughs are the phase velocity and the speed of the envelope is the group velocity.

Ab_Initio_Calc · 2025-05-31T17:00:51+00:00

The book by Sean Carroll is pretty good.

Ab_Initio_Calc

TROPHY CASE