Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, your place for free, expert, tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Welcome to episode number 377 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about how to play the best tennis of your life at any age, and it's a conversation between myself and Nate Bowling, who's a tennis coach over at PlayYourCourt.com. Nate just recently started jumping back into competition
after focusing on being a coach for the last several years. So it's a story similar to mine, and so I thought it'd be a lot of fun to just kind of have an open, candid conversation together about the mental challenges, the physical challenges that we've been having, and give advice and perspective to tennis players about how they can play their best as they
age. So without further ado, let's get right into the conversation. You'll notice the audio is a little bit different, and that's because it was recorded as a video originally, and so it's not going to sound quite as nice, but the conversation was really excellent, and so I thought you'd appreciate being able to listen to it here on the podcast. So without further ado, enjoy. Special guest with me today is Nate Bowling from PlayYourCourt.com. Nate, what's up, man?
Anybody how are you? Good to see you. Yeah, YouTube. Yeah, really looking forward to this conversation. So recently I was scrolling through YouTube, and I was watching this video here from PlayYourCourt, and it's called Nate's Come Back to Competitive Tennis Part One. I was actually watching Part Two, and I've since gone back and watched Part One. And Nate, I love what you're doing here. I essentially text right away because I just identify it
really strongly with it, because you and I are pretty much in the same boat. We're both in our 40s. We both had our heyday a long time ago in terms of players, and we've since become coaches, and now we're trying to pick up the player, rack it again, and work our way through. You know, injuries and fitness, and just figuring out how to be respectable
on the court again as a player after spending all this time as a coach. So I thought it'd be a lot of fun to kind of sit down together and talk about it, and give some ideas to our audience about how to be more successful as we get older. So we're going to jump right into it. But first, can you please give us like a minute or two of background on yourself as a player, as a coach, and just let everybody know where you're coming from and what your
experience is like? Yeah, happily. So, man, when I was a wee little lad, four scorers and seven years ago, I grew up as a competitive junior, nationally ranked. I ended up, my senior having this pretty gruesome accident at severing like my right arm, and really, I won't get into details, but super narrow injury. But I ended up playing some D3 ball, walked on to some D1 tennis, and then suffered. Really started the
kind of the gauntlet of navigating injuries specifically with the playing arm. But it was fortunate because it lit a passion for the inside of the game. When you kind of have these physical capabilities that are limited and what you identify with, I had to think of the game on a different level, and really started appreciating the pieces of what happens behind the scenes. What the coaches are doing, and as far as technique, the mental game,
the strategy and everything else, so I entered the coaches world. And I think like a lot of coaches, like early on, I mean, it's a little just shy of 20 years with coaching and a full time profession for a little over 15 years. When I started, I loved to play. I mean, I loved tennis. So, I wanted to teach tennis. I wanted to come home and break and watch
tennis and then eight o'clock at night, and play with a buddy. And that lasted for like six years, and you know, between having a wife and then injuries that were creeping up, it just became too much. And you know, coach or teacher, excuse me, playing took the back seat. And honestly, in the last like three years, I've tried it over and over again where I'm like, I really miss it. I want to get back into playing. And I'm not talking about just
like, you know, coming out and hitting like playing, competing. Like there's a definitive outcome. There's a score. And just injury after injury, you know, in the video, I talked about the hip and the back. Those, those, the, the hip was a large one. But I'm falling into place, getting pieces put back together to where I feel solid. And I just want to get back, back to playing. You know, we, we are launching this bracket challenge. And
I told Scott, I was like, we should play in it. You know, this bracket challenge is going to be a win. I was like, how cool would it be? It's one thing for us all for this service, service where people can come in and play. But I was like, why don't we play? Like, how amazing would that be if we get to interact actually with an audience? You know, so that, I was a training for that became kind of an idea. Or I was like, I'm going to put the wheels
motion to get back on court. Yeah, similar, similar for me. I wasn't like a high level junior. And I, you know, kind of barely walked onto my college team. So for me, walking onto my college team was like huge accomplishment for me. But similar, like I had such huge passion as a junior for tennis. I just kind of started late. My family didn't really have the funds,
you know, for me to do the whole high performance junior thing. So when playing took a backseat for me to start becoming a coach, there was always that little voice, you know, in the back of my head. And you know, year after year after year, you wonder like, I still have it, you know, could I could I go back and play the way that I did before? And could you talk a little bit about what that's been like for you experiencing, oh, hey, could you
give us a little bit of context? Like you said, you've tried it kind of a couple times, but had the injuries kind of pop up. How long of a stint are you currently in and really kind of making a concerted like push or effort to get back into playing? And what's it felt like for you after having that experience and that passion as a young competitor like in your, you know, in your prime, athletically, what's it like to feel those like competitive
feelings again at your age now? It's so multifaceted, right? It's, it's exciting, but it's just immensely frustrating some days. Yeah. I think we're probably liking the same words. Like, our mind knows what to do and what we want to do it. Body limits it to where it's like, I want, I want it now, right? Like I'm, and honestly, I've had a setback. I haven't, I've had done much in about two to three weeks. Actually, since that, that video two days after that, the back fired up
again, but it was exactly that. Like I just went after it too fast. Where was like, I'm going to do two days, you know, I'm back in doing some yoga, I'm doing some PT, which your your course has been really helpful. Like really cool. Like direct to the point and like, I'm kind of using the stretch part in the morning now. Like just opening the day with that routine. But definitely, it's, you know, the mind wants one thing, the body's going to deliver another. And that's the piece that's, I've
kind of come to terms with where I'm like, it's just little wins every day. Every day, it's like whatever I, even if I don't get on the court, if it's just doing core for 20 or 30 minutes, it's one step closer. And I think that's where there's a little bit of peace right now. Nice. Yeah, I like that mindset. And I feel like, you know, as coaches, that's something you and I probably preached our students constantly is like, you got to be patient, you know, give it time.
But it's a lot more difficult when you're trying to, you know, kind of receive your own guidance, of course, your own coaching. And so yeah, thinking back for just for context for everybody who hasn't been following my match play videos, my training videos, it's been, I think about 14 months. No, probably more than that. Maybe almost a year and a half, about 16 months or so. And I would say for me, the first, probably three or four months were really touch and go.
The same thing as you're describing. It was like day to day, I might feel like, oh man, this is the best I've felt. And at first, like the first month or two, it's like every next day is like the best that you felt because you just haven't been training or hitting, you know, you don't have the timing, you don't have the fitness. And so when you're really competitive, like sounds like you are and I am, it's tough not to push yourself too hard. How are you
managing that? How do you, what kind of reminder, like practically speaking in the moment, like on the court, how are you kind of managing that disagreement between the internal voice that wants to go harder, wants to push stronger, but the kind of the physical reality? It's two voices, right? And I'm sure you haven't. There's a coach, right? So there's, there's this very analytical side and that's the voice that's actually the most problem.
So I think people have this kind of general idea that when you become like your coach and you're in the court all day and it's improving your game and our brains switch, it switches into a different direction because we start looking for problems. It becomes very analytical and it's hard not to turn that inward. I'm late on a forehand, what is my elbow thinking about the backswing? And now like you're trying to like practice reps and you're thinking technically and that piece,
that'll draw me crazy. And it's like, even when I was full-time on the court 40 or 50 hours, I feel like everything I, what I was improving was like utility skills. Bolly got better, chip got better, lob got better, but like, you know, percent of my lessons was I hitting a semi-western forehand. So it's like the all-allow that that kind of got dulled down. So when I can put the analytics kind of side, the, you know, the professor of it and overthinking what I'm doing,
because that's what it is. It's overthinking. The physical component is that's a, that's a trust issue. It's like getting pulled, getting pulled to the outer thirds of the court and we're physically, I think, you know, when we were kids, it'd be like, I will kill myself to get this ball. And now you can feel the, how limited, like you're like, I just don't want to get hurt. And now we might actually die. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can pull a break my head and never play.
It's brewing that realm. And I think it's that little voice that's afraid and it's, you get trained that way. You get injuries that take you out of the game and you just don't want to get injured again. And that, you know, that part of it's really difficult. Yeah, for sure. So I, how are you like in the moment? How are you kind of getting yourself to kind of pump the breaks a little bit? Any practical like reminders or is it just like minute by minute by minute you're
having to kind of remind yourself? Well, before each session and I'm just scathing the surface right now, I'm giving myself just little goals, right? Where if you keep the ball deep, if you're keeping the ball ball relatively deep, you're not, you shouldn't be doing a ton of running. Right? So it's like, I'm going to control what I can control. Can I, can I keep the pace in the ball? Can I keep the ball heavy? Can I keep it deep? You know, obviously when the serve comes in play,
you can't stay in control of every point. You have to accept those losses. But I'm definitely, I'm getting to every ball that I can. And then I definitely, if it's a foregone conclusion, I'm letting some balls go, which I hate to admit. But the goals to see the six-month mark, the year mark, it's not, it's not about winning every single point right now. And that's its health mentality to swallow, but to stay in the court, I think that's where I kind of have to be.
Yeah, I love that that idea of like being big picture mindset, having a big picture mindset, instead of like needing to prove to your own ego, like shot after shot after shot, that you still have it or whatever. I think that was maybe the hardest part for me was just wanting to prove. I didn't really care so much, even though I was publishing everything to YouTube, I didn't
really care so much if Joe, user on YouTube was impressed with how I was hitting. But I wanted to, like, there was something inside of me that I wanted to prove to myself that if I want to at age 40, if I really pushed myself and really worked hard, I could still play for me good tennis. And that was, it kind of sounds like similar to you. It took me at least a couple of weeks, probably a couple of months before I allowed myself to kind of let go of that and just enjoy
being there instead of having to make everything perfect. And is that kind of sound familiar? I mean, one definitely, CUDA-ZU, I mean, what you're doing is groundbreaking. And I don't think people may be quite understand how difficult it is to take the relationship of the coach and the player and separate them and then still be relevant in the one. One pays the bills and the one is just a self-fulfilling thing. But I do feel like there's a lot to learn from the player piece of it.
I think people watching and seeing the obstacles that we face and everything else that they can start to be encouraged. And that, you know, to be a really good coach, you don't have to be better. You don't have to be. We're all battling. We're all on the same team. You know, Peloton has their tribe. It's like, within the day, we're all in this tennis community. We're all in this same thing together. And if we're playing for ourselves and we just, we want to continue to
grow in anything in life, you know, I'm recently started trying to learn Spanish. I'm horrible at it, but I'm trying because I want to do it. But I hate it. It's the same thing with tennis. I like the challenge. I like that ability to learn. And you know, you're really the first one to say, hey, like, I'm going to show you this aspect of it. And I think that's amazing because there's so many coaches and forget YouTube or anywhere else. I'm talking about even boots on the ground coaches
that they won't even, they won't play. They won't compete because they're afraid if they lose Johnny at the club next door, will people take lessons with Johnny? And it's, it's really ashamed because grab the kids at the sport. And that as an advocate of the sport, you can't, you can't fall into that line. So, so kudos to you, man. I think that piece. I've enjoyed it. I mean, that it definitely was motivational for me watching you, you know, just go at it. Get back on the court.
Awesome. That's great. Thanks. Thanks for telling me that. I appreciate it. So, last, last, I'm not used to getting that so many compliments. I appreciate it. Last last my train. I thought a little bit. So, yeah, I've been talking about the bearded. Yeah, bearded grooming tips. Yeah, facial hair grooming tips coming later. But not from me from from Nate. So, so yeah, you've been doing it on video. And I'm curious to hear your perspective from somebody who's
generally, you know, generally career wise, like it's been your profession. People have looked up to you as a resource as an expert, as a source of knowledge and information. What has it been like for you to make that transition over into like training mode or like I'm going to be a player mode and then kind of second part to that question. Actually, watch it back later. You know, I'm sure you've watched your own or maybe you haven't. I shouldn't assume that. Do you watch your own
trans sessions? What's that experience? Yeah, I filmed, we filmed today and I actually did a review on on what I saw. You know, I think it's it's it's entirely different. You know, I touched on them before that. I think coaching, you have to be completely selfless to be a good coach. It's not about pride. Everyone you work with, you, you hope they're better than you, right? Like, that's the Couture Girl. Like, they're better. You've done your job and in plain is one of the most
selfish things we can do because tennis is a funny one on one sport, right? I mean, it is. There's no pressing the ball. There's nothing else. Like you have to own it and you have to be, you know, you have to almost be a little bit arrogant. And that's a very different hat than being
a coach that those two don't align whatsoever. So that part I struggle with, but I'm, you know, moving away from when having been out of the game for a year, when I was getting out and kind of testing the wheels, it was definitely like we play kind of hitting games amongst friends, you know, beer tennis. And now I'm kind of getting back to where I'm just trying to really stay focused and one every single point and not overly engaged with, you know, that particular video,
more than I were having a good time. It was day one. I'm now, before getting the little bit of a set back, getting to where it's, it's, there's less hitting, giggle. There's more like I'm 100% in or what we're doing. Did I answer the question? I feel like I went off for an attention there. You know, I don't know. As far as being, you know, kind of in the line light and people having expectations, then my past was my past and it took me a long time to accept that. But I mean, I'm comfortable
with who I am as a player. I was a good junior. I had a decent college career. I made the most of my tennis game after a pretty horrific accident with my arm. And now I'm, I'm, I'm, I pride myself in being a coach and, you know, if I come back as a player, whether that's an intermediate or advanced, it's, I'm doing it because I enjoy it. I love the game and I hope it helps other people
learn from it. I think that's the win at the end of the day, right? Yeah, I'd love to drill a little deeper on that topic with you because I think it's a trap that a lot of tennis players fall into where psychologically and it's totally, you know, understandable. And I love your description, by the way, of like very, very selfish versus very generous being a player versus being a coach. I totally agree. Like you do have to be selfish and kind of greedy, you know, on the court. Like,
it's your, every ball is your ball. And when, in particular, when you have a family, when you have a career and time is precious and you're out there for that hour, you know, training, like you have to leave everything else and just focus on you yourself, like your development, your self as a
player. And so I think it's easy to fall into a trap for tennis players, no matter what level, like whatever, two five or five or five five or whatever, to fall into a trap of being after day after day and year after year after, you know, a certain amount of time focusing on yourself and developing yourself, it's so easy to start taking it so seriously. And, and for me, that's when I started getting really unhappy in the past. And that was one of my personal challenges for
myself this time around was, can I take it seriously again? And I like truly like push myself and go hard, but maintain my happiness and my joy around the game and not get to the point where I started being such a perfectionist on the court that I just didn't like it anywhere. Does that resonate with you at all? And how are you viewing this transition back in terms of that kind of trap that tennis players fall into of taking it so seriously?
Yeah, I mean, so when I was a junior, I mean, I had every aspiration I thought I'd be aren't or and you know, I think I think the part of the air is, you know, and it's not, it's just, you have to kind of feel that way, you know, in order to want to get out there and train five hours a day and everything else. And then there's a moment there's, you know, for me, it was, I was playing in a tournament, my senior year of college and I mean, I just got dumped and
I realized the difference. It was just, I have to say it's totally. It's like I'm not, this whole world is so big. Yeah. That's so small in the tennis world. And for me, I think because of the arm injury, I was already at, I knew where I was going to be. I knew that I wasn't going to, I was severely limited and it kind of gave me acceptance with it. So I had kind of an early eye opening experience with it. And that's when the transition
into the the coaches piece. But let's face it, like you said, like we're both super competitive. And I don't care if I'm, you know, 1844, it's 84, like I want to win. And so that piece staying happy on the courts is letting go of expectations for me. You know, I talked about it in that video. Sometimes I think I had a shot. Like I'm set up and I'm missable down the line, opening up, hitting it as absolutely hard as I can. I'm like, how do you miss that?
Well, the truth is I haven't made that shot. And like, so it's like I'm looking back to like what when I was playing, you know, competitively, when I was a junior, when I was in college. And it's like, it's just those things change. And I think my mindset has been do, do what you can. And the little goals for me are everything. Working on first serve percentage, making sure that I'm doing everything I can to put returns
back into play, attacking when my feet are inside the baseline or at the baseline. You know, playing with depth when I'm four or five feet behind the baseline. Like those things, I feel like eventually start making better decisions and will give me the confidence that I need. But I can't, I can't get all pissy when I miss a shot that I really shouldn't be going for. So how about you? Are you like me? Did you, did you used to get pissy? Like, did you
use to be really hard on yourself? Like I went through a period where I got really negative. Did you like go through that when you were younger or not really? I mean, my mom and dad may watch this. So I can't lie. I was an experienced person that was awful. I was so, I mean, like, like the 15-year-old range, I mean, just awful. And the problem was is that when I was winning, I was everyone's best friend. I was the best version of myself. And when I was losing, I was the worst version of myself.
Because it was everything. I loved it. I was blessed in the sense that, you know, I had a dad that served and so aviolate serve and he would kind of give me the break of like, and then like, ways are good today. You don't have to get a practice. And that was like a nice out. My mom is very supportive. But emotionally, I was so invested. But going back to the arm injury, when that happened, I mean, I played my senior year of high school left-handed and I've
played my first year of college with two forehands and serving an underhand. So it just changed. I wasn't good enough to be a hothead anymore. So it's like, currently that guy comes out every now and then, we're like, a good racket toss is still in my repertoire. But I'll laugh about it. I'll smile. I'll be like, yeah, that's ridiculous. Like I'm walking off the court upset because I didn't
win or whatnot. So for the players that are in our communities online and come out and work with us in person, you know, as coaches and watch our videos and that sort of thing, I really resonate with what you said about having that like formative experience. It sounds like you had a couple. You had the one with your arm and then you had the other one as a senior in college, where you had that realization of like, holy crap, like all of a sudden understanding your place,
you know, in the game. I totally had that experience as well. It was just shortly after college for me where I realized like, oh, you know, where I actually fit into everything. What's your thoughts? How do you translate that to a 45 year old, 50 year old adult player who never had
that chance, you know, as a junior player or a college, college athlete. And now they're picking up tennis as maybe their first sport and they're like 10 years into it and they're starting to have that experience of maybe taking a little too seriously or you're getting too hard on themselves because they're pushing themselves so hard. How do you, how do we translate that lesson over to
that type of adult athlete? What are your thoughts on that? How to get them to rain it in, you mean like to find the... I just have that same like epiphany of like understanding the perspective of like the game as a whole and like our place in it. And so we have a greater appreciation of where we fit into the bigger picture. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean for me working, you know, whether it's a college kid, a beginner, you know, an adult or a junior doesn't matter.
If we're, for me playing tennis for the right reasons is one of two things, you know, obviously it's a great social sport to exercise and everything else, but it's an inward sport. And if you're playing for yourself and you're playing for the confidence of it, the self, you know, that you set a goal every time we step on court and it's as long as you're reaching those goals, it's good. But there are, you have to accept the losses. And I think for a lot of players that
you know, they kind of, they end up being kind of the trophy chasers, right? And all they can think about is their next trophy and every time they come up short, their personal identity becomes part of the, part of the trophy. It's, it's hard to rain back. And it's hard to talk to them. But as far as the greater scope of thing, I always remind them that, you know, there's the top 20 in the world.
And then there's kind of number 21 and then 100. And then there's everybody else in the scope, the magnitude of this ecosystem is so massive that, you know, we all want to have the same goal of getting better as good as we possibly can. But we got to keep the expectations realistic. Like, what is our end goal? Like maybe you're three, five and you want to be a four oh in the next year. I give it two years. Why make it so finite? Like why give it such a micro, give it a macro.
So for me, it's always identifying goals and then having hard talks with people about, is that goal realistic? Is it something that you know, you can attain? Because I think we both have counter plenty of players that we work with that are like, I want to be a five oh and the truth is it's really, really difficult to be a five oh and you tell me, I'm just three or two year olds and they've been educated themselves.
Made it happen that they just started playing at 30 and they made it happen by like 40, 45. But it's there's a career behind that. There's a pedigree behind that. Yeah, let's shift gears a little bit. I want to go back to you, you brought up stretching, kind of body preparation. Sounds like you're just starting to experiment with yoga a little bit.
And yet you've had some setbacks and I did too. I had, I've been wanting to go back through my early videos and just watch like, I'm sure you can see like the frustration on my face because it's like, it was just like a revolving door of like neck or back or or foot or, you know, ankle, shoulder or whatever until my body finally kind of got up to speed again. How are you managing that kind of ramp up period? Like physically, what's what's worked the best for you
practically speaking to kind of feel as good as possible? Yeah, so I guess going back to where you know, the overdoing it that that happened pretty quick out of the gate. So just to back up, I guess with it early on. So two years ago, I guess I actually missed three now was the discovery of the hip that I impinged mid the socket, all that good stuff. And that just, that side-lawed me. I got back into it. All of a sudden it was the back and the back was a long
layoff. So that's been about a year. So a lot of PT, a lot of core training. But what I realized too Ian was like a lot of the core stuff I was doing is wrong. You know, you get set up with a doctor, physical therapist, rather, and you work through it and then you get home, you do it on your run and then you're overarching, you're ever extending, you're actually inflaming the back. So started having a lot of problems there. But enough time off, I felt good. So I got back
around the courts and I just went at it and ended up in the same place. My approach this time is, I'm almost doing like periodization, like a professional would. I'm spinning a substantial amount of time in the gym and getting the body right before I even had a fall. And then when I'm getting on the courts, it's all very slow down. Like I'm working through just making sure everything feels right, making sure the footwork is falling into place appropriately, then ramping it up
competitively. But also being okay, putting myself in a situation to where I'm okay, saying, that's good for today. And that's tough to do. You know, you get out there with a buddy and they've allotted an hour and a half to get their reps in. And at 45 minutes, you're like, I got to pull it. Something's up. I got to pull it. So we were talking a lot about yoga. I mean, that's fairly new to me. Really enjoying that. Our social media director has, we've been talking a absolute ton
about, you know, different Pilates and things like that. So I actually have my first Pilates private lesson next week. I started all about the core. It's all like build the core and then build outward from there. Hopefully that holds up. We'll see. I'm praying for you. What was your, I mean, like, because you your ankle, that set you back, I mean, that was,
that was kind of out of the gates, right? Yeah, that was probably, it was about two months in, then to the whole process and like the whole intention of I'm going to ramp up and push myself and see, see what I got, you know, see what I can do. And in hindsight, I had the same realization that you just articulated and that is I went too hard, too fast. And I could, I can basically trace that injury back to a combination of like a bunch of different things.
My eyes and hands and not being up to speed yet. I got to know if you can picture like when I hurt myself, I was close to the net and somebody hit a passing shot right at my face. And I was like a split second behind like on the split step. And so I was basically still on the way down from the split step when I realized I'm going to get hit in the face if I don't do something. And the edge of my foot caught and I like pushed like against it to try to move my body out of the way.
And so that happened because a combination of several things. It was late in the second set and I was just overall physically tired. Like my whole body was just behind in terms of my ability to put out that kind of intensity for that amount of time. So my whole body is tired. My timing with my feet is a little bit late, a little bit off. My eyes and my hands are responding a little slower than what I would like them to. And so you like stack up all those things and it was kind of like
bound to happen at some point some way. Like I was probably going to end up hurting myself. And so it wasn't until probably a couple of months after that when like I naively I kind of expected that I could jump in the deep end. I hired like a high performance coach in the area. I was like man I'm just going to have him push me super hard. I'm going to run for every ball until bounce is twice just like I did back in the day. And I'm just going to like ramp up
super fast. And similar it sounds like to you that just resulted in me hurting myself in lots of various different ways. Because my body just was not attuned and primed and ready for that kind of intensity. After years and years of not doing it. I didn't I took for granted how hard I had
worked for for how long you know exiting college and going into like my mid 20s. And 15 years later you know looking back you know wistfully on those years you just kind of assumed that well I'm still a hard worker like I'm still I still have that that competitive you know like I've still got the the fire in my belly. So if I just push myself hard enough I'm going to get right back there. Yeah. And I just understand.
Yes. We thank the chapter has just oh I'm moving on picking up from 15 years ago. It's all good. Yeah. I mean yeah if you would ask me I wouldn't have like literally said that out loud. But my actions basically mapped to that you know attitude. You know what I mean it but it is it's like I can do this. I want it totally. Totally yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was looking at it like it was maybe a two or three month project and in reality.
You know looking at it now you know I'm almost a year and a half in and I realize that to maybe I actually think I could still play at that intensity level and that amount of like strengths, balance, stamina that I had in my 20s. But now I understand it's like a two to three year project
and that like a two or three month project. Yeah. Yeah. No I think that's right. You said something in a video maybe a month ago that really resonated with me where you were talking about I can't remember if it was a match or you were or practice but you were talking about being too ramped up and then being too ramped down and that's definitely something I experience as well where it's like I get too keyed up where it's like intense I don't think we talk about it enough you can try too hard.
It's not wrestling or boxing like exertion doesn't produce an outcome because it's it's a it's a you know marathon it's not the sprint and that's something I've definitely run into is like you know I'm like hey just relax man like be fluid be you know I'm more than I'm hitting within the video who doesn't even tie his shoes when he hit.
It's serious like has not tied his shoes ever in a competitive match that I've witnessed he has big feet but like just I'm like just be smooth and then it's like I'm scared cron I'm not even bending my legs like and then you try to get you know you ramped it up but for me the ramping
up is the dangerous piece because that's when the injuries occur and it's almost as if to to your to what you're saying it's like it's you ramp up in the energy it's it's mentally exhausting and then it's physically exhausting and things get tight and they get rigid next thing you know
you're going down for a lovali and the back is gone or whatever it might be but that piece I think is is something for every player to be aware of it's a third gear right we don't want fourth we don't want second can we just idle there in that third gear because that's the sweet spot.
Yeah that was a huge unnamed obstacle that I got in I never came up with that before I came up against that before you know in my past but but after you know a decade and a half of basically taking off from competing and and then jumping back into it again kind of in the deep end
I was just so like excited to be competing again and especially with like you know the camera is around and the the we do the commentary you know booth and I was just so excited to be competing again that I was going zero to a hundred it wasn't so much like the physical
taxation and like burning myself out it was more so that because I was just pegging like the the red line I had no ability to control what the heck I was doing and I was just like you like you said like super tight super rigid I had no smoothness or flow to my swings and I was I was
just like spring balls are over the place and I'd be like okay relax calm down calm down and but then I would lose the edge I needed to be competitive with the person I was playing against and so yeah it was probably like a solid two three months yo yo in like back and forth and matches before I
started to kind of find a middle ground a little bit that that was tough for me it was super challenging yeah I think that's something that's that insights good though because I think people have a hard time you know vocalizing like what that is but that's exactly it's the energies on control too excited or too you know I'm not excited enough but I was it was interesting watching that so I was like yeah man I know I know that feeling I know that well so I'm hoping to get back
sorry that's yeah that's exactly what I was gonna ask so tell us tell us what's next Nate like what's you're you're relatively early still in this journey of jumping back in so what do you see down the like what what are you hoping is gonna happen six months from now a year from now and how big
is this project like are you are you thinking like age group you know whatever regional or national tournaments or is this just kind of like a more a personal a personal thing you're doing just for your own enjoyment and it's not gonna go you know big outside of your your own hitting and
your own competition yeah so it started personal it definitely you know I'll tell you just a quick story I had a buddy that was putting together a softball team and he asked another mutual buddy who you know played like a triple a like a really good baseball player he asked him if he wanted to play
he was like never playing softball I'm I was I was an elite player my sport I would never bring myself to that I was like but it'd be but it's fun it's a good time and and for whatever reason you know his answer it kind of resonated with me where it's like I think we get caught where it's
like we we for for us having a history in playing you know we get caught with what we used to be and then therefore because we can't be that we just don't do it all and I think that's a awful mindset I enjoy it way too much just way too much and I don't want to bother weave you know
you know I'll play once a month because like what what are you doing if you're playing with you're never really growing so it started off personal just I want to get back out playing and then when we started putting together this idea for the bracket challenge it's it's
essentially I don't want to call it a league I think that underserves it it's this cool concept that's going to allow everybody from state to state to compete in a local you know locally regionally then state in the national and Scott and I got so keyed up like putting this together
I was like how fun would it be to play and then I caught myself where I was like why why won it I like because is there preconceived notion like what's the worst case scenario I played you know I travel to the state over even maybe locally I get drummed they were like well I'm not listening
to that guy coach anymore look I should take lessons from that guy that drawn to him like that's worst case scenario right like that's that's kind of how I think the public perception is and I realize like it's how ridiculous that is and how difficult it is to be an ambassador of the sport
and talk to our coaches to put those things aside if we can't do it ourselves how can we possibly work with the student be like don't worry about what the captain of that team says or what you know just play so that's where the idea came was like I want to I want to play in this bracket
challenge and Scott and I are both going to do it we're going to play locally and as it advances if we advance we'll play you know potentially audience or whatever else and try to document a little bit out of it and hopefully get back on to what would be like you know a little tour you
know that between us T.A. and U.T.R there's a lot of stuff out there but I think the end goal of all of them is like you can navigate and test yourself against multiple other humans you know you have a you have the carrot and that's what that's the goal right now is to say healthy
enough that I can play several several matches a week to be back in a plane shape to when I go and go okay this is legit this is a challenge match it's a tournament that I feel adequate yeah I totally hear you well I know I was fortunate enough to go to Midwest
regionals on the the four five team that I played on this this past U.S.T.A season and I'm in I can't tell you how how fun and gratifying it was to you remember the college you know days you'll pile into a a van and everybody's bags are in there it's it's way too small and you got
the camaraderie and like the joking and making fun of each other and then you pile out of the van and you go play a bunch of other guys cheering for each other and you know you got each other's backs and that sort of thing all kind of fighting for a common you know common goal and to be part
of that kind of team you know travel competitive environment again it brought back so many good memories and I enjoyed it and just like every minute of it and to feel the extra pressure you know the extra stress I get is one thing to play on camera on my own court against somebody but to go
to a a third party you know a neutral place and to have a team you know watching me and hoping that I win because we want to go to nationals and hopefully Ian doesn't blow it that extra layer of pressure also I guess so it was so much fun to be part of that so so I'm looking forward
to hearing you talking about that Nate because it's like it's like layers you know of challenge and I'm really happy to hear that it sounds like you learned your lesson a lot sooner than I did on the the ramping side of things so I'm really looking forward to seeing you continue to document it
and hopefully have those that kind of like ladder of experiences going back to the good old days of team competition or personally you know individual competition too yeah no I mean that's that's the win right and it's hopefully gets back to a point where you know it's like you said you
you're playing for it man like you've got the ball what are you doing with it and embracing it and not being disappointed that you you know just just being happy to be out there and to compete but we'll have to get you down here maybe we'll get some some tennis going we'll have to
get you down here to purge and to be each some time and and get some tennis yeah we'll be talking to you guys yeah I'm sure you guys have like five feet of snow right now so I think I think I'm going to sell you on the beach it was below zero just a couple days ago and yeah not fun here
right now for sure key key shift to your right a little bit please you're just a little bit out of yeah there you go yeah I'm totally going to come down by you guys I'm I'm start I'm the early stages of planning kind of a tour around my book launch in May so I'd like I'm thinking
about doing like a road trip all around the country and stopping a different youtuber tennis youtuber locations and like doing a lot of playing shooting lessons or playing matches or doing training sessions or whatever so you guys are definitely on my list we'll we'll make it happen for sure
yeah we'll show you a good time I'm sure I expect another one less out of you in scat but by chance we play the night before really we're playing first yeah well Nate please please let us know where where's the best place obviously play your court calm everybody watching should be
subscribed to the play your court YouTube channel to follow along with with Nate and his journey but also you know just to be able to take advantage of all the great resources and lessons and you guys are starting to do like some tour news reporting and and stuff like I it's been fun to
watch you guys experiment with your content where besides YouTube and the website anything else that you want to make sure to plug no I think those are great and look be on the lookout for the the bracket challenge we're hoping to get that up and we're meeting about February and March and
that'll be you know local tournament play I think it'll be a little bit different but uh now I say I really appreciate you you have me on and and sharing your experience I'm a fan of what you're doing and hopefully I can stay healthy to uh to to follow those past I'll
be I'll be hitting you up to get some advice on the ramping up and ramping down as we go along yeah of course yeah anytime well I really appreciate your time a lot thanks for taking time out of your day and I know people are really going to enjoy hearing your insights and continuing to watch
and and see what you learn as as you push yourself forwards uh so thanks for sharing yourself Nate thanks for forgiving us your time and we'll be seeing you on the YouTubes thanks so much man thanks for having me and pleasure you bet take care for more free game improving instruction be sure to
check out essential tennis.com where you'll find hundreds of video audio and written lessons also be sure to subscribe to essential tennis on iTunes and YouTube where we are the number one resource in the world providing passionate instruction for passionate tennis players thank you so much for listening today take care and good luck with your tennis.