Pickle W Me

My outdoor hobbies have always been sports related. When I was growing up, I played a lot of soccer and tennis. After high school was over though, I only played tennis now and then but it was a lot less then before. After moving out of my parents place, I was kind of a potato and barely did any exercise. Fast forward to now, I picked up pickleball a few months ago in November 2024. At first, it was very casual; I played once a week with my cousin and his friends. Then around two weeks ago, it just wasn't enough for me. I started to play more and I was willing to play with strangers. At first, it was a bit uncomfortable but after today it seems I'm relaxed now.

Today, I went to play pickleball at Pickle W Me. I used the reclub app and found a session for RM6 for 2 hours. This is a steal because normally it would cost me around RM17-25 for splitting the cost when I played with my cousin and his friends. Even joining other reclub sessions can cost a lot since the hosts try to make some profit and I find it disgusting that some can get away with doubling the court fees.

It was a social session so it was really relaxed. I don't want to sound arrogant but I believe I was one of the stronger players there. I had to adjust my playstyle and go a bit easier in some of the matches. The thing that surprised me today was that I was not tense. Before this session, I did have some nerves when I played against strangers. Recently, I got my DUPR which is like the pickleball rating system which is kind of like a chess rating system where your rating goes up if you win or goes down if you lose. I was super tense for those DUPR games and I ended up starting out around 3.1. I believe the average is around this level but I feel I should be at least 3.5 so let's see if I can bring that up in the future.

One of the ways, pickleball places will try to get your money is through the drinks. You can see the prices of the drinks in the photo above and if you buy these from the supermarket, you can probably get them at half or even less than half the price.

Anyways pickleball has been trending really hard lately in Malaysia. I remember my mom asking me in 2023 where to play pickleball and there weren't that many places. Now just in the last 3 months, there are probably over 20-30 locations that have opened up around where I live within a 15km distance. Even the government started to take action to have some courts built up.

Pickleball is super chill to play. I saw some cute kids playing it the other day and they were playing fine because you don't have to hit super hard to get the ball over the net. This is one of the reasons I like to play the game because it's super age friendly. You can also see the other side of the age spectrum with people that are up to 80 years old playing! There's a lot of love and hate for the sport. I know some people hate it because they don't think it's elegant like tennis because it uses plastic balls and maybe just tennis people think it's a cheap version of tennis. I'm honestly not sure what's up with the hate and you can see some of this hate in the comments of pickleball videos. I'm sure this sport will make its way to the Olympics and other notable sports events so once that happens people can wake up and chill.

If you haven't played this sport, I hope you give it a try. I genuinely think you will enjoy it. That's all from me. I hope you have a great week ahead.

Posted Using INLEO