Play First vs. Learn First: What’s the Best Approach in Padel?

Tom. So in this podcast episode, let's discuss this idea of play first versus learn first mentality. And I'll just explain that a little bit, that when we travel around the world, we, we go to certain places and certain demographics and we're recording this in the US So that's a bit of an indication. But there are, are groups or people that just want to play. Like, they've not had any lessons, they've not learned the game. They just say, I want to play, I want to play, I want to play. And I'm going to learn just through playing. And I say learn through playing. They're essentially just playing social games. They're trying to play better players, but they're just playing social games. And then you've got the other mentality, which is for people that are basically thinking, this is a new sport, I want to learn, learn the technique, learn the tactics, learn the game first, and then I will play more.

Sounds like maybe there's a middle ground. I don't want to spoil the podcast, but is it better to be in the middle?

Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because if you were to say, I mean, what's quite interesting when we go and do our clinics around the world is we see different demographics and the US Is very, very play first. Like, almost no one thinks they need a lesson. They all are focused on the play and we're here with our academy and so many of the players are. I want performance training within a match. I want a match. I want match training, match lessons, because I already feel like I've got it. And we do a lot of ladies clinics and ladies training and particularly in the UK within power, but, you know, here we'll do some as well. And, and I feel like the female mentality is a lot more around. I want to have lessons and I want to understand this game and I want to build confidence in my game and technique first before I go and play lots of matches and guys. And I know this is a little bit of a generation generalization, but men are very much like, oh, I'm just going to go and play. I'm just, you know, going to play these matches. And I think absolutely, there probably is a middle ground. There's definitely a place where we need to say, right, do some learning but also play some matches. And I'm just curious to know what you think in terms of, like, the ratio.

Well, in some respects I understand those players that just want to play first, because if you think about it, and I think a lot of this Comes down to those players in emerging markets where perhaps the knowledge of Padel is, is not quite there yet. And I think the sport is so new that they picked up a sport, they really enjoy it. They, they can start playing games before they've had coaching, which is pretty unique to Padel, which is why it's, it's grown so quickly. And I think that a lot of players, and I speak to them, I speak to lots of players that have never had coaching before, but they're coming in twice a week to play games. And I think that for them their mentality is that I've got two days a week where I can play Padel and I'd rather for pure enjoyment, I'd rather just play matches because matches are so fun and I don't want to give up those times that I can play in the Wii to get training. And I think that I understand that in a way because Padaw is fun and playing games is fun. And so from the one side I understand that now I think that if I speak to those players that combine a bit of both, I think the players that have gone through that, maybe done that for, for some months and realize that their level has plateaued or they haven't improved quickly enough and now they want to beat those players that they're playing matches with, but they don't understand how those are the ones that start swapping in. Perhaps they're going to play one game this week and then they're going to have a training this week and they notice that just by doing that that their level in the game improves and so they start to improve and beat that plateau. So I do understand that. And then I also think going down to the other end of the spectrum where there are those players that just want to learn first. I've also got players that essentially avoid match play completely and they just want to do technique. But I also think that in a way that slightly short sighted too because the game is so tactical, it's so game based and to really understand the game, it's not like a goal for a tennis where it's very, very technical. I think that you do need that element of applying all of those learnings into matches and starting to understand how a point is played. So that's why for me I think there's definitely there's a middle ground that is the sweet spot.

Yeah. And it's funny, I mean you just talking about that then of wanting to beat their friends as the motivation. It almost feels like their seriousness about improving dictates Whether they do these sessions or not, because at the beginning players are, well, like you say, a bit of a time crunch. They've only got one or two days, so they want to spend that time socially. But they also only see it as a hobby. Like for them it's a bit of an outlet. Like they go and they're just gonna run off a bit of steam or have a bit of a workout and they're not that serious about improving. And only when they start competing and only when, when they want to start beating their friends do they think, right now I want to learn the game. And I think that that's probably a crucial milestone. And then almost just to go into what you're saying about the actual game, and we've talked about this many times and the difference between tennis and Padel is that tennis is very technical and we say tennis. But golf, squash, a lot of these sports are so technical that you need lessons in order to get your technique right. Whereas Padel is much more tactical and therefore, yes, you do need to work on your technique. But it's as important, if not more important, that you are putting it into a game like situation and you're doing condition drills and you're doing exercises that help you understand the use of it within a game setting. So you know, there is a time for that technique. But even those game like trainings can only really come from like learning sessions, clinics, lessons, workshops that you might have with your programs. People, I've never seen a group of four that go down for social game think, oh, you know what, I'm going to do this conditioned exercise of doing this and this and hey guys, is everyone okay if we spend the first 20 minutes doing drills and then we play. Now if a coach is there, then they might do that. And there are some very dedicated groups that, that do that and we're always recommending to do that. But it's difficult, right? Like once you get there, there's almost this thing of like, let's get playing our match as soon as physically possible.

Yeah, I think when you're saying that, I'm thinking back to the times that I trained in Madrid at the pro player Diagonal Padel Academy. So that was, that was in Madrid. I was training with top 50, top 20, top 10 players and the program for that was four hours a day and the two hour sessions in the morning and two hour session in the afternoon. If I think about what those sessions look like, we did the, the first part was technical, so they did a lot of basket work. But then There was a section dedicated to these game situations. And I remember speaking to Quan Ma, who is essentially leading, leading the diagonal Padel Academy. And I was comparing my time of training tennis at these academies, and my experience of tennis academy programs when I was within them was essentially much more technical. We did lots more baskets, we focused a lot on the serve, we focused a lot on the technique of specific shots. Of course, there were, there were matches in there, but it's very much for tennis around optimizing your, your form basically to improve each shot. Whereas I was really surprised when I, when I first went to the academy in Madrid for Padel, and so much of it was around game based. And I remember Juan Ma saying to me that Padel is slightly different in the sense that you need these game situations, these condition points to learn the tactics and also adapt to lots of different shots that you can't necessarily create through a basket drill. I'm thinking of all those shots where perhaps it bounces off the fence in a funny angle or something happens in a point, and you're having to adapt and adjust to your opponent's shots. And so I think it's really interesting that at all levels, even going up to pro Padel players, that they're doing these game situations alongside the technique.

Well, I think it's also how we teach, and it's something that I struggle with at the beginning because we come from tennis and we have patterns of play and we say, right, you hit the ball here because you're looking for this next shot and you can be aggressive. And so you do a lot of two cross one line and things like that. And when we tried to bring that into Padel initially, so often, and this happens a lot when players ask us, our members, they send in a video, they write in a question, what should I do on this shot? And almost always the answer is, it depends. It's so game based. It's so difficult to say, oh, you hit your vibra here all the time, because it's not the case. It so depends on the type of ball you get, where your opponents are, where your partner is, what you're trying to achieve. It's really, really tactical. And so it's really important that these game situations are part of the training. And we've kind of moved a little bit into what these sessions look like. But the idea being that almost if you want to improve as much as you can, it's combining these sessions where you're working on something. And even if they're conditioned games or even if it's like we do a lot of, at the PowerSchool Academy, at the Replay Club, we do a lot of these kind of match play situations where we might set up a drill. But you play the point within certain restrictions and you're trying to achieve a certain type of shot so that you can have a focus. And I think that's a great way to almost supplement the match play that you're getting at the same time.

Yeah. And going back to your quote, play first versus learn first, I think that tennis players are particularly susceptible to the play first, I think. And because tennis players can transition quite quickly or at least feel comfortable on the court and I think those players particularly can go through quite a long time of playing first. And I know that from getting on court with players that tennis players get up to a pretty decent level because essentially they're playing tennis on a paddle court. But there does come a time when they start to plateau and you just, you feel like just saying some at the start of their journey when they first start playing, just get some coaching, join some of the programs and start learning it the right way because then your improvement will just long term skyrocket. But if you don't and you just do the play first approach, then you will at some point develop some bad habits that will need changing.

Well, we've had this this week. We've had players that have played for, for years and it's quite a young sport in UK in the US Sorry, but there are players that have played for years, they come into this session, they haven't had a lot of coaching before and we are trying to change their bad habits and it's taken ages because it's so ingrained in them. And you almost feel like saying, look, you should have just got lessons like right when you started because you, your level would be at least like one or two ratings above where you are now if you'd have done this. And we've also got players that are coming quite early in their journey from tennis like great skill set and they are adapting so quickly because they are doing it early on and they don't have those habits. So. And you know, if you are a play first person, then say to yourself, right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get some learning in. And if you're only a learn first person, then say matches are an important part of this gameplay is important to understand how to use these shots, maybe get in some competitive gameplay too.