Pickleball – No AARP discount needed!
Now I am aware that this blog post is really going to get two primary reactions; what is Pickleball? and isn't that for the older folks?
For those who don't know, Pickleball plays a lot like tennis, only it uses a wiffle-style ball and solid paddles rather than racquets, and it uses a much smaller court. It's actually the third of the size of a tennis court, and yes...a lot of the players are perhaps a wee bit older, but that doesn't mean it's not a great game for all ages!
I am here to break down that stigma and shine light on one of the funnest games in existence!! Although, in fairness...as a 30 year old man, my partner and I are usually the two youngest players there...by decades haha. But that's ok, because as the sport grows, so does the player pool. We have seen others younger than retirement age playing, and even some young children being shown the basics!
It's just amazing to think how I got into it, because I've been to gyms where people are playing and have never actually had any desire to sit in and watch or participate in any way, until one random day when my buddy and I were at the gym and saw people playing. For whatever reason, we decided to walk in and watch, and eventually got invited to play a game and we both fell in love. Now I look up paddles online, watch tournament videos on Youtube, practice my "dinking" (lightly lobbing the ball over the net), and sometimes I even play with the wall like Forrest Gump did when he was practicing for Ping Pong.
Then this sport for me thinking about living life and just trying EVERYTHING, because why the hell not!? I never thought I would like Pickleball, but it's becoming an obsession now and consuming a lot of my free time with a passion, and now I just want to experience everything and see what else out there I may not be considering but will actually fall in love with! So the moral here is just do it. Go for it. Do that thing, say hi to that person, make that first move, ask for that promotion, buy that thing, and just live and experience everything, because life's too short for regrets...