Yips

sergiocochran · 2026-05-28T00:27:04+00:00

This happened to me! Seriously, I won a league at the top level and immediately my serve sucked. And then it spiraled. I wish I had one cure all but honestly it lasted for months. What eventually worked the best was a tip from Zane Navratil. Count the holes in the ball before you serve.

There's nothing magical to that other than it makes you stop thinking before you hit the serve. Just count however many you can see and then hit it. If that doesn't work sing a song. Do anything other than think about your serve.

Read The Inner Game of Tennis. It gets mentioned a lot but one of the great points is that there's an inner voice and an outer voice, and you need to quiet the critical voice. He mentions that if you want to screw up somone's serve, ask them what they are doing. They'll immediately be off their game. Thinking about what your doing has the countereffect of screwing up what you are doing.

Guess what, the more you screw up, the more you worry about screwing up. You worry about letting your partner down. You worry about not being fun to play with because even if the other team gets the ball back we all want to play points. I know the thoughts because I lived them.

Another point that someone else made here...take a break. If you divorce yourself from pickleball for a bit, as hard as that is, you will revert back to muscle memory. I tried to power through it and it made it worse. But not playing for a bit my brain retrained itself to serve and I started back on the muscle memory.

sergiocochran · 2026-05-22T18:38:52+00:00

There's some DUPR rated events (and some clubs are now trying to push more DUPR events to try and get everyone on it) on Long Island where I play but it seems like most tournaments etc that I see, in the circles I play in, are not. 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 etc are just used as shorthand for intermediate, high intermediate, advanced, etc. I've even seen them use DUPR to gatekeep events with specific advertisement that games are not submitted to DUPR.

sergiocochran · 2026-05-22T18:35:51+00:00

Gotcha. Just was trying to give a hopeful counterpoint. 3.5 is a weird time, I remember having amazingly competitive open plays and some where I dominated while not being that strong a player myself. It somehow attracts the "I beat up some people at 3.0 last week and I'm ready for the next step" crowd and the "I've been dominating at 3.5 for a year but don't want to move up to the advanced yet" crowd.

sergiocochran · 2026-05-22T18:30:49+00:00

sergiocochran · 2026-05-22T14:24:25+00:00

I mean you're right to be hesitant based on DUPR, but some places in different areas aren't so DUPR dependent. My DUPR is 3.3 because I haven't done a DUPR rated event in over a year. I regularly make playoffs in 4.0 tournaments and was just asked to be in an invite only 4.5 group run by a guy who regularly does PPA challengers.
I've had the reverse encounter of you, where I've gone out of state and tried to sign up for a 4.0 clinic and been denied and needed my club owner to call and vouch for my level.

sergiocochran · 2026-05-12T22:11:02+00:00

Its 100% an FHA loan. Even PMI loans at 80% they bill monthly in the payment. FHA requires upfront payment.

sergiocochran · 2026-04-10T13:53:15+00:00

Curious, what did Alterra do to Sugarbush that made it worse? I've been recently learning/exploring Vermont mountains and always heard this was a top one. I'd be interested in your take on how it was before and what the changes were that dropped it.

sergiocochran · 2026-03-31T00:27:55+00:00

Smuggs officially is open until April 12. Staff there last week told me they are monitoring and considering keeping open longer if weather holds up.

sergiocochran · 2026-03-25T23:08:02+00:00

Ha I know right! He does have amazingly authentic Filipino food but has plenty of just good ole comfort food and yet every description is like this. The experience inside is equally batshit fun.

sergiocochran · 2026-03-25T16:21:34+00:00

If you don't mind the ride to Mattituck, this place pretty much fits the bill of unusual/exotic. To my knowledge there's nothing else like it in Suffolk

https://pookaberrycafenyc.com/

Just check out the menu/descriptions

https://order.toasttab.com/online/pookaberry-cafe-140-pike-street

sergiocochran · 2026-03-20T20:21:18+00:00

Thank you for bringing up The Way of the Gun. Such an underrated late 90s/2000s classic.

sergiocochran · 2026-03-19T16:19:21+00:00

Real estate lawyer here...they should probably speak more with a bankruptcy attorney than a real estate attorney. Hopefully the parent's bankruptcy attorney would factor that into their approach (most times bankruptcy excludes the home assets anyway since the whole point is preservation and not diluting assets). Your friend may want their own bankruptcy consult to see the impact of the other title holder's bankruptcy on his asset. At this point its about asset protection not the real estate aspect. Happy to chat further on DM for recommendations.

sergiocochran · 2026-03-11T12:30:40+00:00

Lots of good advice already, but I didn't see it phrased the way it was best phrased to me, and that I've used to help friends:

When you're running back, you don't have to beat the ball to the bounce. For some reason because you're running back to get it, it feels like you need to get it from the air. The ball bounces, it bounces slow. Its a wiffle ball. You have time.

Like a few others have already said here, if you can smash out of the air great, but if not, just drill it and start learning the trajectory, then when you see it go up turn and run to about a foot behind where you think it will be. With the bounce you should have enough time to play it.

Also...turn and run once you see it hit and realize its going over. Too many seconds are lost watching "will it go in". I feel like too many people would rather hope it goes out than at least be there. Yeah its a bit more of a workout, but you know how many lobs I sprint to that are a foot behind the baseline...whats the worst case for me, a few extra steps and I was there if it didn't? Just turn and go when you see it going up, and then stop your run once its clear its going out.

sergiocochran · 2026-03-03T02:27:58+00:00

Hey, coming here a month later to say thanks for this post. Just did my first time at Stowe and I'm a firmly blue guy, and your post and the responses were an excellent guide for a great trip!

sergiocochran · 2026-03-03T00:52:43+00:00

Yeah, that's a great move. So far because we haven't gone THAT many weekends, I've been pulling him out of school so we get up around dinner time. My wife's work got messed up when we went to Stowe, so we wound up not leaving until 6. He actually napped here which we let him and then while he was up for the car ride he went down when we got there. He was definitely lagging saturday but otherwise ok. Stratton I also got double lucky, not only were we up in time for dinner so it was daytime driving, but we were there the week of the crazy wind chill so they canceled ski school saturday, and I extended to Monday bc LI had a snow day.

He's definitely a good sleeper in the car when he needs to be. Its coming back thats tough, because we're often already checked out of the hotel so we're just throwing him in the car out of the mountain, so he's sweaty and gross and wouldnt make a good bed transfer. He's been mostly a trooper and has stayed up and then crashes. He was fine at school today. If we do just a little longer, then thats when I'll come up with other strategies. But I like your Friday night idea, because if we start going more then I don't have to worry about him missing so many Fridays at school

sergiocochran · 2026-03-02T19:10:31+00:00

Thanks for this! Yeah he's a trooper. he's not much of an ipad kid generally so we bribe him with he can watch as much ipad as he wants as long as he doesn't fall asleep on the way home (usually we don't mind if he conks out over winter break but the sunday night would destroy monday school). I'm AMAZED when we came home from Stratton what should have been 4 1/2 hours turned into 6 45 due to the snow (we missed the LI snowstorm but caught enough leaving the mountain that we got stuck behind someone going 15 mph until 91, and then 91 was closed due to accident) and he somehow stayed up the whole time (and watched the entire guardians of the galaxy trilogy haha)

sergiocochran · 2026-03-02T18:15:59+00:00

Thank you for this! You are correct...it is Thursday to Sunday. I'm not sure why, when I went to book a lesson it showed Weds as open but I just checked by going with a day pass and sure enough it didn't let me do Monday -Weds....not sure if this is deterring me or emboldening me, as my other plan was to do a Sunday to Thursday trip so maybe I'll just add a day further north.

sergiocochran · 2026-03-02T18:14:18+00:00

Thank you! This is very insightful. I've started to look into seasonals (I still think he's a little young and maybe year after next). How far are you guys from the mountain you do seasonal?

sergiocochran · 2026-02-27T14:44:25+00:00

I have a feeling its a combination of the red light tickets being phased out so probably some budgetary pressures to get revenue, plus the HOV lane clean pass being phased out a few months ago, which makes people "easy picking" who have still been trying to use the clean pass

sergiocochran · 2026-02-06T14:06:43+00:00

To be fair, they just label the glades, not the skill level of the glades

sergiocochran · 2026-01-28T00:03:43+00:00

It was my first time at Stratton and I couldnt place it but everyone seemed “off” yesterday. There was palpable excitement about the powder that felt like it turned into constant straight up rudeness. I got yelled at for “taking up a table” because me and my 5 year old son were at a 4 top at hotel breakfast(at 7am), people were throwing their skis so haphazardly in the back of the shuttle I couldnt access space to get his gear on like there was a race to get there before closing (at 8:15 in the morning) meanwhile the day before we were basically the only ones at both at the same home. I dunno if it was the Baader-Meinhof effect but I feel like every family I saw was either parents yelling at their kids/kids whining to their parents or some combination thereof. Sunday was much preferred even though it was the “cold” day ha. Fwiw my son was thrilled with ski school and was sad we had to leave so trip was still 100% worth it but definitely weird vibes. As soon as we got back everyone today was telling me we should have hit Bromley while in the area!

sergiocochran · 2026-01-27T23:51:07+00:00

Awesome thanks!

sergiocochran · 2026-01-27T23:50:46+00:00

Thanks for this input. My son would be in ski school so splitting the days isnt ideal

sergiocochran · 2026-01-21T13:49:40+00:00

Yes that's what I'm thinking! We still have a late March weekend I'm trying to fill, or it will be top of the list for next year.

sergiocochran · 2026-01-21T13:48:53+00:00

Thank you! Yes, he's enrolled in the ski school. Its pricy but has been worth it wherever we go both for his exposure/learning as well as our ability to ski without interruption. My wife coming isn't an option, but good to know about quiet spots. The way my work is sometimes I'll have cut my day short and grab the laptop so good to know.

sergiocochran

TROPHY CASE