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Collin Johns Strategy Against Bangers, Hardest Loss Of His Career | Pickleball
531 Plays1 year ago
Collin Johns, brother and doubles partner to the number one pickleball player in the world, Ben Johns. Collin goes into processing tournament losses, losing to Christian Alshon and Zane Navratil at the PPA, how to stop and beat aggressive players (attackers and bangers), playing against Ben, other business ventures, the current climate of coaching in pickleball, and his new paddle and lead tape setup.
#pickleball #pickleballhighlights
Chapters 00:00 intro 00:54 processing tournament losses 01:32 losing to Christian Alshon and Zane Navratil 04:24 hardest loss of Collin's career 05:49 playing against ben 07:14 stopping aggressive players 09:16 new interests outside of pickleball 10:50 what it's like working with JOOLA 11:36 other business ventures 13:47 the current climate of coaching in pickleball 16:42 what does he look for in practicing outside of with Ben 18:13 foodie 19:16 CJ's scorpeus paddle 20:32 CJ's lead tape set up
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Transcript
Identifying the Top Men's Doubles Team
00:00:19
Speaker
Can you name the number one men's doubles team in pickleball? Let's do a quick run-through of what they've accomplished so far.
00:00:29
Speaker
So then why are they losing
Interview with Colin Johns
00:00:31
Speaker
now? I sat down with Colin Johns, doubles partner and brother to the number one player in the world. And he goes into some of the recent match losses, practice, and what he's currently working on. And I'll give you a hint. It just might end up changing the game of coaching for Pickleball.
00:00:54
Speaker
Is it kind of a pain in the ass when you have not the performance that you're hoping for and then you got to go like straight to like a media event instead of like being able to like take time to dissect what happened?
Coping with Losses in Pickleball
00:01:03
Speaker
Because there's so many tournaments I don't feel like it's a big problem for us. Keep it in perspective it's like you can always remember what happened last year it's like we won 13 tournaments last year if we lost one yeah it hurts but there's a tournament in two weeks that we can try to win that one and we've had a great couple years so you can't expect to win every single week it's not realistic because
00:01:23
Speaker
Conditions are always changing, they're new players and they're trying as hard as they can as well. So it's always disappointing, but I don't feel like we put that much pressure on ourselves.
Analyzing Matches and Strategies
00:01:32
Speaker
Yeah. What do you think it was with Zane and Al Sean?
00:01:36
Speaker
I mean, they're two very streaky players that will attack a lot and they both have good drives. So in the conditions that day, I'm not going to say that it was unfair because obviously they had the same conditions. But anytime you throw your routine out of whack, I feel like that makes for more upset. So there was a lot of rain in the morning. We had to go play our first two matches at Dreamland. And then we were told, OK, you're going to get to go home.
00:01:58
Speaker
And then they change, and they're like, actually, you're going to go back to the venue. You're going to play your quarterfinal. And then they're like, all right, you're going to start at six. And the previous match went long. We started past six. And then it started to get dark. And they didn't have lights. And all those factors will or can throw you off your game more. And then they just played smart. We didn't play well. And things can happen. If players are at a certain caliber and they have aggressive shots, if you're not playing well, they can expose you. So I don't think that it was.
00:02:28
Speaker
Anything magical about the partnership was more that both of them played well at the same time and we didn't and they handled the conditions better than we did. Does it seem like they kept going like cross body on you? Both of them hit with a lot of spin so like Zane would pull the forehand off the bounce so they can create some angles that a lot of other players struggle to create. What would you have done differently?
00:02:53
Speaker
One, I guess, probably played the right side person a little bit more. Both of them are uncomfortable on the right. And Ben's very comfortable going cross court to the left side player. It's one of his best shots. But if I'm having trouble picking up the ball or they're having a lot of success pulling the forehand, then
00:03:17
Speaker
you got to do something else. So because both of them are uncomfortable over there, I probably would have exposed whoever's over there more often. But it's tough. At the same time, Ben doesn't want to get away with heat from what he does very well. So there's that. And then probably have Ben take a little bit more of the middle balls. I felt like he wasn't moving his best in that match or as aggressively as he can. Yeah. So if I'm not seeing the ball well in a particular match, that's when you want your partner to pick up the slack.
00:03:47
Speaker
So that's the great thing about a team is that it's not dependent on just one player. You can have the other player play really well and cover for their partner and certainly goes both ways. If Ben doesn't have his best day, then I might need to take more of the thirds that day. So I would have tried to involve Ben more in the match and then probably played the right side player a little bit more.
00:04:07
Speaker
Their right
Reflecting on Career Challenges
00:04:08
Speaker
side player? Their right side player. Oh, gotcha. Because they both play the left better than they play the right. Oh, okay. And when somebody's just twitchy and uncomfortable, you want to expose them. Yeah, damn. It was cool to watch. I think the Minnesota one was dope. You and Ana? Yeah, that was the hardest loss of my career, though. Dude, that... Six match points. I hated that.
00:04:32
Speaker
I hated watching that. And then the one we had an overhead that I hit a backhand at Hayden, he was at the baseline, match point up, he hits it high, it goes right like this far from the net. Anna sees it and then she earnings it at the last second and smacks it at Leia, she gets it back, I drop them, they get to it and we lose the point. And that was one of the match points. We had five other ones and then we were up 9-2 in the third. And then...
00:05:02
Speaker
Oh, at the end, yeah, there were some tough misses at the end. But, you know, pickleball goes that way. I've been on the winning side several times in that same scenario, so I'm not gonna say I haven't, but it is tough. It's very, very frustrating afterwards, especially because the draw was wide open. The team that we were gonna play in the next round, the semifinals, I had beaten three weeks before with Brooke. So I like my chances of beating that team with Anna, but you never know.
00:05:32
Speaker
It's just if you're playing Ben and Annalee in the next round, you're like, well, probably would have lost anyway, but when it's somebody else that you feel like you have a good chance against, it hurts that much more. Yeah, it was. I mean, I was like trying to look back at the last time you had played against Ben and Annalee. I don't know if this was the most like recent one, but it's like you and Elise Jones and you're in that covered space. Dude, that was so entertaining to watch because you were doing stuff that like you typically
00:06:00
Speaker
maybe you reserve it for, it's been just a little bit more dormant, but then you just pulled out everything. I don't know, if you're just like, I'm just gonna go for broke.
00:06:09
Speaker
Well, that was the last time I played Ben in Italy in the tournament. Yeah, with Elise, she played great that day. And we went into that match having won 30 matches together. So we were feeling confident and good, but it's Ben in Italy. So we knew that we were going to have to be more aggressive than normal. So I think that part of it was that. And obviously, I have a level of comfort playing Ben as he does against me. So we're going to have different exchanges than anyone else because we know what's coming.
00:06:37
Speaker
I told Elise that she had to lob a lot if we were going to have a chance, so she definitely threw up some lobs and some work, some didn't. But I can definitely play a more aggressive, different style than you normally see. How I play on the right side is definitely by design. It's not that I can't do other things, it's that I choose not to because we have a game plan that...
00:06:57
Speaker
pretty much always works, so why change it? But in mixed doubles, you'll see a little bit more aggressive play come out. So dope to watch that, like firefights between you and Ben, so cool. They're really long because we know where the next ball is going. It's like, all right, we've done this before. When you said you're playing a little bit more aggressive, or even when you're facing someone who's playing more aggressive, how do you guys look to mitigate that?
Inspiration Beyond Pickleball
00:07:23
Speaker
Have you seen this video that Viore just released on their YouTube channel? It follows the story of this pro surfer and it's a pretty incredible story because at the age of 15 he got back surgery because he got in a skateboarding accident that could have potentially paralyzed him. He didn't let it stop him. He just kept going. He kept up with his dream and aspirations of being a pro surfer.
00:07:42
Speaker
and he actually ended up winning this big wave competition and he rode this massive 52 foot wave and he won the entire competition and the entire video follows this idea of the body follows the mind and it's an incredible video because the video captures how he changed his mentality
00:07:59
Speaker
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00:08:19
Speaker
You can do a few different things. One would be fight fire with fire, where you attack even more. You attack first, because some people attack better than they defend. And if you beat them to the punch, you can do it that way. Another would just be adjusting your positioning a little bit. Some teams will switch sides so that a certain player is not in front of a certain player. We wouldn't do that. But you can fade more backhand, fade more forehand.
00:08:47
Speaker
center up with the ball more, dink more aggressively to the side that is giving you problems or just avoid it. So if Christian's forehand is giving us problems, we're not gonna give him a sitting duck to his forehand. We're just gonna make sure it either gets to the backhand or when we go to the forehand, it's aggressive to where he can't do any damage. So there are a few different ways you can approach it, but if somebody's hurting you with a specific shot, you gotta be aware of it. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, definitely notice that on the two forehands.
00:09:15
Speaker
Have you picked up anything new lately outside
Exploring New Ventures and Hobbies
00:09:18
Speaker
of Pickleball? I was talking to Ben, he's picked up Fortnite. I would say the thing that we've been doing the most outside of Pickleball would be playing Padel. Oh really? We have a couple sports in Austin. Yeah, we have a couple spots in Austin actually. And we've really started to enjoy playing.
00:09:37
Speaker
Certainly, racquet sport, paddle sport, I'm getting to try it no matter what, but I feel like Patel is a lot of fun. I played platform tennis for three winners when I worked at Baltimore Country Club, so there's some similarities there. I even dabbled in a little bit of squash, which tends to help, so I'm familiar with the concept of walls or wires at least, and you can translate that and mix it with tennis and pickleball and
00:10:00
Speaker
We're not good by any stretch. We basically just started, but we've been out a few times and we've been enjoying Padel. Was it like that polo club? The polo club. And then there's another place. There's Discovery Land property that is opening before too long and they have Padel now. So for some reason they put the courts in first, which we were like, yes, we can go there now.
00:10:19
Speaker
That's dope. Yeah. Have you done any like out the wall shots where you go out the door? Oh, I wish that I could say yes, but no. So we played with Patrick recently in Austin and he was really good. He was like on the national team, like national level. And we're not anywhere close to that, but he was trying to set us up to go for the shot around to where he would tell us when it was coming. He's like, run, run, run. And Ben was close to making contact with one. So that's as close as we've gotten to that. That's dope.
00:10:50
Speaker
Dude, I think it's been like almost one year or maybe like last time we spoke it was like June.
00:10:57
Speaker
Probably, yeah. How's the year been with YOLA? It's been awesome, yeah, working with them and their engineering team. If you give them feedback on something, they're always keen to hear that, learn from that, we'll get you prototypes if you need them. And we're just talking shop about the different technology and as somebody who really enjoys talking about that sort of stuff, I always appreciate that. So they've been great to work with and this new Gen 3 technology is pretty darn cool.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah, that was dope. I mean, that's Scorpius 16. I was a little biased just because you're playing style and everything, so I was like, this is definitely my favorite. Yeah, I remember last year you were saying the decision to go with YOLO was a global brand. Of course, you'll be with Ben. It was interesting. You guys have Pickleball 360 getaways with YOLO. You have your pro career. There are other business opportunities that you're seeking out.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yes, it's funny you bring that up actually. We are launching a design and consulting company with YOLA, so Ben and I are soft launching that right now, so you'll hear more about it in the coming months, but essentially giving advice and consultation to different facilities that are either pre-existing or starting from scratch and making sure they avoid any common pitfalls and
00:12:17
Speaker
educating the staff or providing certain equipment certainly, getting people started on the right foot. I think there's definitely a space for that and it's something I could see us doing for quite some time. There are a lot of different things that can be the result of that so we're really excited about that.
00:12:35
Speaker
something else, coaching education in that same vein where if you go to a facility a lot of times the staff needs to be trained to coach pickleball and there's not been a really comprehensive revamp of the coaching manual
00:12:51
Speaker
of late and I've been working on a project to essentially educate staff, not just for players but people that are working with players. So I think that's going to be really exciting to launch and see the coaches apply that because I feel like there's a lot of bad knowledge out there right now. There's a lot of good knowledge too but it's hard to really sift through it and know what's good and what's not. So I feel like a credible course that is well laid out, there's a real place for that and I'm excited to launch that eventually.
00:13:20
Speaker
where people might find more information about both of those, like the design concern and the coaching. Both of those, more information in the coming months. Definitely be on the lookout for social media announcements. YOLA is going to be a part of both of those. So the YOLA channels will definitely be promoting those. But we're going to have a website up here before too long and the coaching course yet to be determined on where that's going to live. But definitely be on the lookout for
Coaching Philosophy and Education
00:13:46
Speaker
it.
00:13:46
Speaker
there's something that like sticks out like top of mind as far as coaching and the approach that like most the coaches have now as far as mistakes they make or working with players yeah working with players I mean I could probably
00:14:04
Speaker
I could probably land on a couple specific things but I think the more general issue is people are too sure of their knowledge to where they think that oh this is the way to do it or that's the way to do it instead of stopping and being a little bit more humble about it and say what am I missing here or what do I need to
00:14:22
Speaker
look at to know the right answer. And what I've always done with any sport, but especially pick a ball, is what are the generalities among the top players? All the top players, or almost all the top players, are doing something a specific way to where when they're dropping a third shot, they're all dropping the paddle head below the ball.
00:14:39
Speaker
that's correct. There's no way that if everyone's doing it that are the best players that it's not correct. So I would be a little bit more hesitant to say this is the right way and be a little bit more humble about the coaching and always look to learn the next thing because as much as I've learned over the past several years by playing at a high level I always feel like I am still learning stuff.
00:15:04
Speaker
I'm still learning stuff from other top players or even when I'm coaching because a lot of times when you're teaching, somebody will ask a question that sparks an idea and as long as you're approaching it in that sort of growth mindset, I feel like that sets you up to learn the right things rather than being a little bit too dogmatic about what you teach.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely something I look for and I'll dig into sort of from a mechanics perspective. All right, everyone's doing it a certain way, but why does that work? And what are the different dynamics that go into the architecture of a specific stroke or a strategy?
00:15:41
Speaker
to where you have to understand each component of it to where you can explain it to somebody else. Otherwise, you don't thoroughly understand it. You might understand, hey, it's effective. And that's how I think a lot of players and even coaches approach it, which is fine. You don't have to be interested in all the architecture of it. But for myself, I know that I am. And I want to understand not just how to do it, but why it works.
00:16:04
Speaker
And from knowing that, I feel like you can tweak or not tweak depending on that to improve it and just teach more about it and teach about it in a more educated way. So I really like to dive into the details as much as the overarching principles. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. Like placing more importance on the why versus the how. Like the how can vary depending on people's body types and like the constraints of like you're a taller person. Like myself, I'm a little shorter, different like athletic,
00:16:35
Speaker
Traits and features. Yeah, and then just figuring out like why like why are people making the decision to do a certain thing? Yeah There's definitely some more videos of you coming out of you practicing with like more players tradition I think like in the past it was always like you and Ben like what do you like look for now in practice if you're gonna be like invited or joining other people and
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, so my standard practice hasn't really changed over the past few years. Ben and I, as long as we're in the same city, which we most often are, we're going to do our traditional two and a half to three hour drilling session one on one. Now, if I want more than that, I will either drill by myself, a ball machine or what have you.
00:17:18
Speaker
or I can go and practice with some other players. So if I feel like I want some points, there's plenty of players in Austin that I can go play points against. And that can be helpful at times, especially right before a tournament, you might want to play a couple of rec games. It's not something Ben does at this point, but it's something I do occasionally. And certainly a good friend of mine is Decobar, who lives in Austin. So
00:17:40
Speaker
He and I will drill occasionally, certainly AJ Kohler when he was in town some last year. So it's not like I only practice with Ben, but Ben pretty much only practices with me because he does his routine, he does his two and a half, three hours, he gets what he needs and certainly we do some off court stuff in the gym religiously to make sure that we stay injury free and we're as strong as possible for what we want to do.
00:18:04
Speaker
definitely playing with other players has a benefit and it's just a matter of working it in based on what I want to get out of practice at that time. Yeah. You have foodie like Ben? Not like Ben, no. I certainly enjoy food. What's that? He was talking about like Vietnamese food. He's like on a kick on Vietnamese food now. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. So if it tells you anything when we go out to eat, especially if we go to like a sushi place, Ben orders for me and
00:18:33
Speaker
He's the foodie enough to where he knows what to get and he's never really gone wrong. Do you have any favorite
Lifestyle and Equipment Insights
00:18:40
Speaker
spots in Austin? Favorite spots in Austin? Definitely a few. Naturally the Tex-Mex and the barbecue is going to be
00:18:49
Speaker
the leading contenders for the top spots. But I live very close to Terry Black's barbecue. So that's one that's pretty well known. People come to visit it. So as far as barbecue, that's really good. The Tex-Mex place that I really like is Vera Cruz, a little natural. So it's more or less pretty healthy. And there's one pretty close to my house. So I would say those two. You got to go Tex-Mex and barbecue if you're living in Texas. Those are some great spots.
00:19:16
Speaker
I guess talk about what's the difference between this one and the previous one and what that like kind of like testing and iteration processes like. Yeah. So the biggest difference between the Gen 2 Scorpius and the Gen 3 would be the propulsion core.
00:19:31
Speaker
So this being the alpha version of the Gen 3, this does have the propulsion core and it does take some getting used to. So if you're switching from the Gen 2 to the Gen 3 eventually and you're struggling, I feel your pain. It takes a while because it is definitely very different. But I do feel like it's more of the future because the panel face reacts
00:19:52
Speaker
differently based on the shot that you're attempting. So if you're hitting a really hard drive versus a soft dink, the paddle face responds in a certain way and takes some getting used to, but overall, I feel like that enhances the shot and it allows the, or at least it feels like the ball is on the paddle face longer, more dwell time, which results in more spin and more feel for the ball. So definitely have to set up the weight distribution, at least for me to make myself comfortable. So on this particular paddle,
00:20:22
Speaker
I have probably a six inch strip starting here near the bottom that's a half inch wide and then I have a quarter inch strip going up the side here and I've had to tweak this a little bit. I put a little bit more lead tape on the Gen 3 model to stabilize it in certain places that I didn't really need to on the Gen 2 but once you get the weight distribution right for you I feel like this paddle performs awesome and the added power that you get from this propulsion core is definitely noticeable.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, I remember yesterday you had a different paddle where you had like a strip on top. I did, yeah. So that's a good point. If you don't know how to set up the weight for a new paddle, just in general, you have to experiment with putting it in different spots. So if you put it at the top, it's going to have a very different effect than if you put it in the bottom corners.
00:21:08
Speaker
So until you experiment and know, okay, this does this to this particular model, you're not going to have a good sense of how to set up your paddle, because every paddle is more or less different. Unless it's basically the same paddle, you may very well want to put lead tape in a completely different spot, which makes the paddle play completely differently. It changes the sweet spot, it changes the stability. So I would really encourage people to find what works for them.
00:21:32
Speaker
what works for me may not work for you. So I would maybe start with what you see certain players have set up on the particular paddle that you're using and go from there. But there's no reason why you shouldn't experiment. And I don't think enough people experiment with their lead tape set up if they even have one at all. A lot of people are like, what's lead tape? And for me, I don't know how I would play without lead tape. I'm just so used to it at this point. It feels like a toy without lead tape. So definitely want to experiment. That's dope. Appreciate it, man.
00:22:02
Speaker
Good stuff? Yeah dude, it's great catching up. Alright, I gotta find my next people that I don't know where they are.