Pickleball Obsession
Pickleball advice and insight for recreational players who want to play better and understand the game. Hosted by obsessed amateur Tracie Hotchner, each episode delivers short, useful answers from certified pickleball pros that actually apply to your game.
Pickleball Obsession
Stack to Get Unstuck
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#1034: Tracie welcomes her newest pro, IPTPA coach James Moore, whom she met by complete accident at PickleCon — and who turned out to be one of her best pickleball “blind dates” ever. James shares a brilliantly simple strategy he uses whenever a team gets stuck on a score: after two rounds of serving without scoring, stack. They talk about why changing positions can change the energy of a game, throw off your opponents, and even get you or your partner out of your own head. Plus, James explains why he calls it stacking on offense but switching on defense — and why understanding the difference between offense and defense may be one of the most overlooked skills in recreational pickleball.
Welcome to Pickleball Obsession. This is the first podcast created just for recreational picklers with quick useful advice for amateur players from a variety of certified pickleball coaches. Whether you're a social player out there just to have fun or a competitive one trying to sharpen your skills and win more, the more you know, the better you'll play. I hope this show will get you up to the kitchen faster, dink with a purpose, and help you win paddle battles. I'm your host, Tracy Hotner. You might know me as the pet wellness expert on NPR Sirius to my own pet podcast network, but here I'm no expert, just another admittedly obsessed player picking the brains of top coaches for advice we can all use. This show is brought to you in partnership with the IPTPA, the International Pickleball Teachers Professional Association, and the Association of Pickleball Players, the APP Tournaments. Sign up at pickleballobsession.net for the weekly episodes of the podcast, along with bonus content. Embrace the obsession. My newest pro, James Moore. It is such a treat to find out that a man that I randomly played with in Kansas City at PickleCon, probably one of the best partners I've ever had on the court, as a blind date, the absolute best. You're also a big deal at the IPTPA and you're a coach. So I'm thrilled to have you be part of Pickleball Obsession Podcast. It's just a double whammy treat. James, you did something really unusual when we were playing, and I thought, ah, this is such a great topic. I have never heard the idea, and it worked like a dream, and anybody can do this. I don't care if you're 3-0 or 5-0, you can do this. If you're stuck, you explain it. But if you're stuck on a score two times, two twice you've had the two serves and you haven't gotten off your s off your your score, you suddenly out of the blue stack. James, when did you come up with this idea? It's so great, and anybody can implement it.
SPEAKER_01You know, I've been playing for over 10 years now, so I don't really recall when, but it's been quite a long time. And um the idea is that if you go two rounds, you've served a minimum of four times. That's right. You've served twice, you've tried, and maybe a fifth time because maybe you know you got stuck on the last one of the um three times ago. But the the idea is that regardless of who's where, you just stack. You just stack to change the energy up. Um, you just you just change things up. And and there's a really nice way of saying it. Like so you and I played together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We were a blind date. We took on a couple guys who were years, years younger than us, um, combined, especially. You know, we had a good 50 years on them easy. And uh and we handled them pretty well. There was a time in our game where you and I got stuck, and but we were in a deep lead. We were playing great defense, so they weren't really scoring, but we weren't scoring either. And so on the third time around, with with with no care about who was forehand or backhand, I uh I just said, hey, um uh can we stack? And then I kind of politely said, because we didn't know each other very well at the time, uh, if I go two rounds and don't score, I just stack to change the energy. And sure enough, we did it. It instantly changed the energy. We broke off of our nine and got right to 10 and then finished the game out. So so I liked your synapses. Uh I I liked your title of Stack to Get Unstuck. I think I'm gonna start saying that little phrase. Good. Uh so it was fantastic. And that's that's the basic idea is it doesn't matter who's forehand and backhand, you've just gone two rounds. Just just stack, just change it up and do it on the first server. Don't don't do it on the second, and then you'll feel like, oh, well, it didn't work, so should we should we abandon it? Just just do it.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And what I loved about it, as you you point out a couple of things that I think are really crucial to rec players. And you know, blind date. This was a blind date in open play. We weren't playing in a tournament in Kansas City, but people who go to tournaments, small local ones or or bigger regional ones, you often have a blind date and you haven't met that person before. You've maybe texted. I used to get on the telephone with blind dates, and we'd both discuss what what were our strengths, what were our weaknesses, and then we get on the court and it was irrelevant. We didn't match up. I mean, it's just so rare to get on a court with a complete unknown and now be in a kind of pressure situation. And I didn't consider pickle con pressure, but now that you remind me, we were playing against two young guys, one of whom had meddled in what was actually a tournament going on there. And I have this kind of blindness about myself. I don't look at my age, I don't look at my gender, but it is relevant. Come on. And there we were playing these two young bucks, and they were good. These were not slouches, they were not making errors, they weren't giving us great opportunities. So when we were stuck on the score, and this happened just yesterday in me in open play, people go, oh, we're stuck on the score. Like, there's nothing you can do about it. You're just stuck. But there is something you can do. And when you say it changes the energy and dynamic, that was true, but it also really shakes up the other team. They're suddenly, wait a minute, you're over there and she's there. And by the time they figure it out, because you you're allowed technically to stack at any time in a match and stop stacking, right? The laws, the bylaws of of pickleball. So it's not like you have to make this commitment, and if it doesn't work, you're stuck with it or don't try it because it's too late, you're halfway through the game. And it's interesting when you called it a deep lead. I haven't heard that phrase before, but that's an interesting way of putting it when you're quite a bit ahead of another team, which I think puts you, which is another interesting point, puts you in a kind of mental jeopardy where you stop trying as hard. This is just natural to any sport. So do you think that's part of why people get stuck? I've been stuck with other guys in open play, in rec play, and it it occurs to me we've been stuck at 7-3, and you're like, well, it's okay. I mean, gosh, we're 7-3, but the truth is you're stuck. Something isn't cooking the way it did to get you to where you are. Is that a possibility?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, in fact, you bring up another uh good point that I think of very often, and that is uh uh uh just to answer that question, I would say simply is yes. But then to bring up another point is how often do you really definitively beat another team in the first game, and then you get waxed the second. Yes. And it's the same sort of mentality where it's like you've gone into this and you dominated it so hard and you run 11 to 4, 11 to 3, and then you get into the second game and you lose that. And that even happens in the pros. You know, you'll see where pros are pickling other pros, and you're like, how are pros getting pickled? But I think it's a mental thing where it's like you you you beat them so badly that you ease off the gas. Yes. And when you ease off the gas, then they come back and win, and then they actually have the momentum shift going into the third game. So I try to be uh aware of that, especially in tournament situations. It's like just because you beat them now, like it's it's pressure time right off the bat. You have to destroy their will before you ease off the gas and let them actually take control of the match.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's an interesting uh balance, and I think that the stacking is part of it because let's say you have won a game definitively or close. Now in the second game, you're somehow you've lost some of your mojo. Would that be a time to also stack? Because almost then you aren't stuck on a score, you're stuck emotionally, you have lost your will to dominate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, part of um yeah, you know, uh uh I'm a coach, and so when I play with players, part of what I do is I try to get them out of their head. And so uh I find sometimes that if I'm playing with a partner and and they're particularly stuck in their head, because some people do get that way, is if I can give them a singular thing to focus on immediately, um, like like a like a quick command, it takes them out of their want and worry and all that. And and I'll say something, you know, we'll just say something like a quick, like, um, okay, uh, we're gonna switch or we're gonna stack, and just changes it up just enough to where now they're not thinking about the score, they're not thinking about the fact that we just lost three points, they're not in the momentum swing. Now they're thinking about this instant like order, and it supersedes whatever their worries were, and it just comes in, occupies their brain, and it gets them out of their own head, really.
SPEAKER_00That's so cool because even in rec play, when also when any of us is playing with a coach, we're self-conscious. You may not be my coach, but I know you're a coach, so now you're judging me. Now, of course, you know, you are not judging me. You got your own life to live, you want to hit your own balls, but we always think the coach is like, oh boy, that's not my life, really. What's what's where's her topspin or something?
SPEAKER_01But people ask all the time that they're like, oh, well, give me pointers. And I'm like, I'm not gonna give you pointers while we play.
SPEAKER_00No, and first of all, that's so fun for you. And second of all, uh, no, you can book a lesson with me or take a clinic. But but that but the idea of getting unstuck is not just on a score, it is when you get stuck in your own head. And in the same way that the people on the other side of the net suddenly see you in a different configuration. What? It's his serve? Why is he serving from over there? Oh, they're stacking. By the time they figure it out, and the fact that the ball will come at a different angle and they think, oh, I'm gonna nail the person who's sliding over. But if anybody's pretty adept at stacking, they're there early or on time. So that backfires because now they try too hard and maybe their ball goes out or short or what have you. But in in red play, some of us can play with other people who get freaked out by themselves. They make two or three errors, including maybe a miss serve. And it's like, you really should not be missing the serve. In pickleball, ever. It's just too easy a shot. And you say you're 4-0 or you say you're high three, how can you be missing the serve? And that's what they're saying to themselves. Yeah. So if you say to them, hey, let's stack, not because I'm better than you or you're bad, but because this is going to help you now. Oh, wait, now you have to think about where to serve from, where to slide to, where the ball will be coming at you differently than you expected. And now the person can't be full of self-hatred anymore, right? I mean, that's a stuckness in itself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I listened to a podcast you did a few days ago. Uh, I forget with the uh who you did it with, but it was specifically on stacking. And um and I was just listening and kind of just reaffirming everything new. But yeah, one of the things that's really nice, um uh or or one of the things that she said the other day is that just one person needs to know what to do. Uh when you're stacking. So one person just says, Oh no, you're over there, you're over there. So both people don't have to know what to do. And then that's another way to sort of throw people if if they are overthinkers, to kind of throw them out of their world. But I did want to, I I did want to mention one thing that I this is the way I see pickleball. Um, and this has to do with stacking and switching, is that um whether I'm on offense or defense, I actually call them different things. So if I'm on defense, if I'm receiving a ball, we don't stack, we switch. Isn't that interesting? We're stacking. So there is no switching on defense. You're you're I'm sorry, there is no stacking on defense, you're just switching. Does that make sense? Yes, no different than how you would switch if you were in the middle of a point and and a ball gets kicked over and you switch sides. That's a switch, right? It's not really a stack. Whereas a stack is on offense, you're the serving team, you are stacking to get whatever desire you want. But on defense, I don't call it stacking, I call it switching. And I think for amateur players, it helps define two things. One is what we're doing, we're switching, we're not stacking. Two is it really helps define the difference between offense and defense in pickleball. And I find that to be one of the biggest missed uh missed opportunities for amateur players to uh be really good at the game is to not under so many people don't understand. Am I even on offense or am I on defense because they think it's the same thing and it's not. They're played very differently.
SPEAKER_00I would love to do a whole I would love to do I would love to do a whole episode on defense versus offense because not only are people confused in terms of how they handle the ball any place on the court, but per particularly if your partner is serving, you don't run in, people. You know, they gotta very different play. Uh there's so many things that change. And if your partner's receiving, they have to run up. And so these are totally so you so we are considering the receiving team always on defense?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the receiving team is the defensive team because they're defending the uh the serving team from getting a point. Right.
SPEAKER_00Okay, we're definitely gonna do an episode. Stay tuned, folks, because James Moore and I, this are it's a really good because if we have that in our head, we're playing with a different intention. Our mind is working differently than just they're all balls. I've got to hit all the balls at some point as well as I can.
SPEAKER_01No, they're they're too and mentally there's a difference. There's a whole yeah, that's a whole different style of play. It's fun, it's fun.
SPEAKER_00It's great. So what so all I can say in closing is if you're stuck on a score for two sides out, you have you both serve, no score. You both serve again, no score. Stack. Even if you don't know exactly how to do it, just throw the confetti in the air and see where it falls. Just do something different, just change up what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01If you're on the left side and and it's not an ego thing against your forehand or anything, it just has to do with the situation. Maybe they are particularly good at this or that. It has nothing to do with that. Just drop your ego, just switch, just stack immediately. So and you can do it nicely. If you go two rounds and don't score, you just stack. And it works great for us.
SPEAKER_00And even if we hadn't immediately scored and then won, it's that it changed the energy, like you said. It gave a whole new perspective. And uh I if anyone says it to you guys, if if you say it to someone else, make it clear. Uh this is not a comment on the way you play. This is like a tactic I learned on pickleball obsession from Coach James Moore. Because when you said it to me, I I had never heard this idea. It took me totally by surprise. I'm like, sure, whatever, why not? Little did I know, you were, you know, like a top certified coach. You had all this knowledge, but you were so humble and and cautious in how you brought it up. So it was very gracious and lovely, and and uh it's wonderful to have you as part of the show. And I look forward to more interesting conversations with you and thank you, James. You're the best. Take care. Thanks for listening. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I'm proud of our partnership with the APP, the Association of Pickleball Players, which provides world-class pickleball competitions for professionals and recreational players. I'm also grateful for our partnership with the IPTPA, which is the world leader in developing standards and certifying coaches across the world. If you subscribe on Apple or Spotify, please also sign up at pickleballobsession.net to get the weekly email with the podcast and bonus content. Embrace the obsession.