Here is how pickleball taught me to have fun

Kate Spencer, Tribune News Service

“Find some calm, Kate,” my pickleball coach, Roland, cajoled me from across the court a few months ago. He thwacked another neon-green ball in my direction. “Do less.” “But I am not a calm person!” I shouted back, a complete understatement. I am a tightly wound, neurodivergent, people-pleasing extrovert who lives in fear of making mistakes. I’m stressed about work, my kids, family, finances — and sending packages back to Old Navy before the return window closes. I do not enjoy being bad at something, especially not in front of other people. But that morning I tried to focus on hitting the ball softly, with mixed results.

I came to pickleball the same way most other middle-aged people do: through buzz. My retired, 71-year-old dad is an avid player who won’t shut up about it, and I was swayed by the gushing headlines. What I did not expect were the ways pickleball would change my thinking about fitness, movement and my mental health.

For many of us, these things are intrinsically connected. I’ve done my fair share of digging into our cultural obsession with thinness, fitness and food, and their lifelong impact on how I think about my body and my self-worth.

While I’ve let go of much of that baggage, certain habits linger. Take, for example, my dutiful tracking of exercise on my smartwatch and phone. Obsessing over my step count and logging every bit of exercise is as much of a daily ritual as walks with my dogs (which I’m tracking, of course).

The first time I forgot to wear my Apple Watch to a pickleball lesson, I panicked. “If a workout happens but isn’t tracked” suddenly became my own personal “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it.” During class I fidgeted with my paddle, riddled with angst over my naked wrist. What was the value of playing pickleball for 90 minutes if the work wasn’t registered in my fitness database? Did it count? But halfway through that lesson, I began to realise that letting go of tracking the class was itself a form of finding some calm, of doing less. I had even more fun than normal, cracking jokes with Roland and gossiping with my teammates between dinks. The following week I wore my watch, but I didn’t track the class, and I silenced notifications, just to see how it felt. The panic was still there, but I was also struck by how pleasant it was not to have my watch constantly vibrating, what a relief it was not to feel as if I had to constantly be checking my texts or emails on the court. I simply played, and it was pure joy.

At another lesson Roland made a declaration to our group. “There is no more saying ‘sorry’ in pickleball.” Shockingly, I learned I am not the only person who dreads making mistakes around other people. So my friends and I practiced something new that day: screwing up on the court and living with it.

Because pickleball is most commonly a partnered sport, I struggled with being responsible for losing a point, or worse — a whole game. Resisting the urge to apologise, or to trash-talk myself every time I whiffed a serve, felt impossible. But I started muttering, “I’m not sorry,” every time I made a mistake, until, miraculously, I sort of began to believe it.

Pickleball has not come easy to me. At times I am utterly terrible at it. But being a true beginner has given me a dedicated, unbridled focus. There can be no multitasking on the court. One time, we did an exercise that required us to look only at the ball as we tried to volley it across the net. The feeling reminded me of a focused meditation I did years ago, sitting on a cushion and watching a candle flame flicker.

During pickleball, my head clears and I am completely present. The fun transcends into something almost euphoric, reminiscent of moments from my childhood, racing down the street on bikes in the fading summer light.

This, I think, is the real reason so many of us are flocking to pickleball, the thing the raving headlines can’t quite capture. There’s fun to be had on the court, for sure, but also in the self-discovery. For me, it’s a place where movement has become less about “the workout” and more about what’s changing internally.

Over the last year, my serve has improved significantly, and I now know what a “third drop shot” is. I even nail it occasionally. But I’ve also become more present and confident throughout my daily life. The elation that comes with existing in the moment, without giving in to the urge to track it, now counts more than any calories or steps I could have logged. I’ve even, dare I say, found some calm. And I’m not at all sorry about it.