This week, I want you to do something different.

This isn’t a true pickleball performance session, but instead a fantastic announcement we are making today.

Instead of just hearing or reading it here on Substack, I want you to experience it with the brainwave entrainment process.

Today I’m going to tell you about something we’ve been building behind the scenes.

So get comfortable.

Sit or lie down somewhere you won’t be disturbed for the next few minutes. And put on your headphones if you have them.

You don’t have to do anything. Just let me guide you as I have in the past dozen sessions.

We have a new partnership. A big one. One I believe is a real step forward for how pickleball players train.

I’ll share exactly who, and exactly what it means for your game, in just a few minutes.

But first — I want you to understand why it matters. And the best way to understand it… is to let your own brain show you.

Let’s start with your breath as we always do.

Breathe in slowly through your nose… 1,2,3,4

Hold for 1,2,3,4,5,6

And let it go… 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

And hold for 1,2

Again, in slowly… 1,2,3,4

Hold for 1,2,3,4,5,6

And let it go… 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

And hold for 1,2

Good.

Now, just let the breath do the work naturally.

Here’s the truth I’ve come to believe more than almost anything else about this sport:

Our mental game is trainable.

Not “just to think positive” trainable.

I mean neurologically trainable.

As I have proven to you through my story, most players aren’t losing because they don’t know the shot.

They lose because pressure changes the state of their brain before they ever execute it.

The player who drills beautifully in the comfort of practice… doesn’t always quite show up the same way when it counts.

First, they rush. Then they tighten. Then they overthink and finally everything just speeds up where they can’t catch up.

We’ve been talking about this for many weeks now.

Question,

when I started talking about quickening; did your breath quicken also; or did your breathing stay slow and natural as before?

Either way, you didn’t force it. It just happened.

Those whose breathing stayed calm, that’s the whole idea behind this Brain Fitness series.

The higher-level players — the calm 4.0s, 4.5s, 5.0s you’ve watched or maybe even played — they aren’t trying harder.

They’re operating in a different rhythm.

The game slows down for them.

They see patterns earlier.

They recover faster.

And here’s what we’ve learned:

that calmer rhythm isn’t a personality trait.

It’s a brain state.

Which means it can be trained.

Up to now in our series, everything I’ve guided you through has used audio entrainment. Binaural beats. Isochronic tones. Layered solfeggio frequencies.

And it works — that’s why you’re here, because you’ve felt it work.

But audio is one sensory pathway into the brain.

Another is through light and to be specific, patterned light sequences.

This brings us to our announcement.

While I was studying brainwave entrainment and guided visualization, I came to know Patrick Porter PhD, a neuroscientist and expert in the study and applications of how sound and light frequencies coordinated with guided visualization can change the way the brain interprets the world.

Your auditory system and your visual system work together to pull your brain into the target rhythm depending on what you are working on in your life.

In our case, it is for our pickleball performance, but these processes work for all parts of your life.

What this gives you is three things I care about as a player and coach.

The first is speed.

When you’re entraining with audio alone, it takes time for the brain to settle into the target state. Eight, ten, sometimes twelve minutes before you’re really there.

When you add synchronized light, that window shortens. The brain finds the rhythm faster.

Why does that matter on the court?

Because you don’t always have twenty minutes before a match.

Sometimes you have five.

A pre-match session that used to need fifteen minutes can become a sharp, focused five.

Recovery between matches now becomes realistic instead of aspirational.

The second is depth.

I’ve talked a lot in this series about Theta — the state where skills install, where mental rehearsal actually takes root, where the patterns we want to own get encoded.

Audio alone can get you there. But for some players, especially when you’re newer to this kind of training, Theta is hard to access consistently. Some days you get there. Some days you don’t quite.

The combined light-and-sound entrainment helps you find that depth more reliably. The state you’ve been chasing in our sessions becomes more available, more repeatable.

Which means the installation effect — the part where the work actually sticks — gets stronger.

And the third is what I’ll call precision.

Through Dr. Porter’s invention called the BrainTap platform, we now have access to a deep library of sessions Dr. Porter and his team have built over decades — targeted protocols for stress regulation, sleep, focus, recovery, heart rate variability training, cognitive sharpening — the foundational brain-fitness work for our whole body and our whole life, including, of course, our Pickleball performance.

Layered with the pickleball-specific sessions I’ve built for the DUPR Brain Fitness Series, through BrainTap you get something we couldn’t offer before.

A complete system.

The general brain fitness underneath.

The pickleball-specific performance training on top.

Tournament tomorrow morning? Run a BrainTap sleep protocol the night before,

then our new pre-match activation session in the morning.

Tough loss in the first round?

Run our updated recovery protocol, then our reset session, before round two.

Working on your dink patience?

Layer focus training with our new Dink Mind session.

Each piece reinforcing the other.

There’s one more thing I want to say about Dr. Porter, because credibility matters here.

This isn’t a new tool that just appeared. Dr. Porter has spent more than four decades in neuroscience brainwave research. The BrainTap technology has been used by hundreds of thousands of people — clinically, in wellness practices, in performance settings — long before pickleball came calling.

What we’ve done is bring that proven brain-fitness foundation… and built pickleball performance on top of it.

It’s the partnership I would have wanted to exist when I started this work.

And now it does.

So when you put the headset on and run one of these enhanced sessions, you’re getting:

The protocols I built specifically for your DUPR journey…

On top of the brain-fitness foundation Dr. Porter spent a career building…

Delivered through technology that uses both your ears and your eyes to guide your brain into the state you need…

Faster, deeper, more reliably than anything we’ve had access to before.

That’s the partnership.

That’s what’s different.

As we close out this session.

Breathe in slowly through your nose… 1,2,3,4

Hold for 1,2,3,4,5,6

And let it go… 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

And hold for 1,2

Let’s come all the way back now.

Feel your body again.

The surface under you.

The room around you.

Eyes open when you’re ready.

Now — what you just felt as in all of this version of the brain fitness, that small drop into a deeper, quieter state… that’s a taste. That’s audio alone, guiding you.

Imagine that same state, found faster, held longer, more reliably — with BrainTap added.

Imagine running that before your next match. After a tough loss. The night before a tournament.

That’s what’s now available to you.

So here’s how you experience it.

We’re opening the enhanced BrainTap DUPR Brain Fitness for Pickleball program with a two-week free trial.

No commitment. No catch.

You get full access to the whole BrainTap program, over 2000 sessions guided by Dr. Porter, plus the pickleball-specific performance sessions, the pre-match protocols, the recovery sessions, the skill-installation work, and prep for your best nights sleep— for fourteen days.

Once you’re in the app, search for pickleball, or search for whatever else is going on in your life you’d like to get some relief from.

Run them. Feel them. Decide based on your own experience whether this belongs in your pickleball training, as well as in your life in general.

To start your trial, go to:

https://sports.braintappartner.com/

One web address. Two weeks free. Everything included.

After your trial, if you choose to stay, the program becomes part of our membership — full ongoing access to the brain-fitness library, every new session we add, every protocol Dr. Porter and I develop as the partnership keeps evolving.

And if it’s not for you, you walk away with two weeks of training you didn’t have before. No harm done.

Also, you still have access to the original series here on Substack.

But here’s what I’ll ask you to do — and this matters.

Don’t think about whether this is for you.

You have felt whether this is for you over the past several weeks, when the court opened up in your mind and you have already started accelerating your love of the game through better performance.

Trust that.

Go to

https://sports.braintappartner.com/

to start your free trial, and let the next two weeks of training show you what your real ceiling looks like when your brain isn’t getting in the way.

I’m grateful you’re on this journey with me.

I’m grateful that Dr. Porter and the BrainTap team chose to build this with us.

And I’m grateful that the most important part of your game — the part nobody’s been training — finally has a system worthy of it.

I know, I’ve experienced it myself.

Remember to reset fast and play free,

This is now the rhythm of your life.

Today I want to walk you through something that I think is going to help a lot of newer pickleball players, especially those of you who are starting to play more, getting into better games, thinking about leagues or tournaments, or just wanting a better idea of where your game really stands.

But, this is also for those who have been playing awhile, but for some reason have not thought to track your progress through the DUPR system.

We are going to talk about your DUPR starter rating and how the My DUPR Coach starter assessment can benefit you.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

Now, if you have been around pickleball for very long, you have probably heard people ask, “What’s your DUPR?” And for a lot of newer players, that can be confusing.

You may know you are getting better. You may be beating some people at open play. You may be losing to others. You may have people telling you, “You’re probably a 3.0,” or “You’re playing more like a 3.5,” but you do not really know where you are.

That is where this process comes in.

This gives a new player a way to get a Coach-Assigned DUPR starting point so you can begin your DUPR journey with more clarity. It does not mean your rating is fixed forever. It simply gives you a starting baseline so you can understand your game, find appropriate competition, and keep improving from there.

So in this video, I’m going to walk through the simple checklist you need to complete before your rating session.

This checklist is for players who are preparing for a DUPR Rating Session with me.

The key phrase here is Pre-DUPR.

This process is designed for players who do not already have an established DUPR rating from logged matches.

So let me make that really plain.

If you already have a DUPR rating because you have been logging matches in the DUPR app, this is probably not the process for you. Once you have actual match results in the system, the DUPR algorithm is already working off your results.

But if you are new to DUPR, you do not have a rating yet, and your doubles rating shows as NR, which means Not Rated, then you may be eligible for a Coach-Assigned DUPR.

This is especially helpful for players who are ready to move beyond casual open play and begin understanding where they fit in structured play, leagues, tournaments, and skill-based groups.

So before you show up for the session, we want to make sure all the setup work is done.

That way, when we get on the court, we are not spending your time trying to fix apps, accounts, passwords, and login problems. We can actually focus on your pickleball.

The first step is simple.

You need to have a DUPR account.

You can do that by downloading the DUPR app from the App Store, going to https://dupr.com on your computer, or completing the DUPR account setup inside the My DUPR Coach app when prompted.

The big thing I want you to check is this.

Once you are logged in, look at your Doubles Rating.

If it says NR, that means Not Rated. That is what we are looking for if you are going through this starter assessment process.

The Coach-Assigned Rating applies to your Doubles DUPR Rating. It does not change your singles rating.

Also, and this is very important, do not create a second DUPR account if you already have one.

If you already have an established DUPR rating from logged matches, do not try to start over with a new account just to get a Coach-Assigned Rating. That can create problems for you, for your account, and for the coach.

So the first step is: get into DUPR, make sure you can log in, and confirm that your doubles rating is not already established.

That keeps everything clean and legitimate.

Now we move to the second app, which is the My DUPR Coach app.

This is the app we use for the coaching side of the starter assessment process.

On this slide, you will see my unique app link and the QR code. You can either scan the QR code or use the link to download the app.

https://link.myjourneypickleball.com/pjr95iJWxOb

This is where a lot of players get tripped up, because they think, “I already downloaded DUPR. Why do I need another app?”

The answer is that the DUPR app is your main player rating account. The My DUPR Coach app is the coaching and assessment connection that allows me to evaluate your skills and submit a Coach-Assigned Rating when appropriate.

So think of it this way.

The DUPR app is where your rating lives.

The My DUPR Coach app is where the assessment process gets organized.

You need both connected properly so the rating can actually show up where it is supposed to show up.

So on this slide, scan the QR code or use the link, download My DUPR Coach, and then we go to the next step.

Once you have downloaded the My DUPR Coach app, it will ask you to choose whether you are a player or a coach.

You want to select I am a Player.

Then, when you are setting up your account, you will enter my coach code.

You can see the code on the slide.

My Code: 6hpu6tg

That code connects you to my team inside the My DUPR Coach system.

After that, go ahead and complete the account setup. Answer the registration questions, including the section about your DUPR goals.

Do not rush through that part. It helps me understand what you are trying to do with your game.

Are you just trying to get placed in better games? Are you trying to play your first league? Are you preparing for tournaments? Are you trying to move from recreational play into more competitive play?

That information matters because the rating is not just a number. It is a starting point for your development.

One little technical note. If the app gives you an “invalid name” alert, remove special characters, spaces, or periods. The name fields may only accept letters.

That is not a big deal. Just clean up the entry and keep going.

Once the account is fully set up, you should be taken to the dashboard home screen and guided through the app.

This next step is one of those simple checks that saves a lot of headaches.

You want to make sure your account is actually connected to my team.

Open the My DUPR Coach app and go to your dashboard.

On the right side, under DUPR Coach, you should be able to confirm that my first name is listed.

If you are assigned to the wrong coach, or if something did not connect correctly, you can switch teams.

Open the menu, select Find a Coach, and that will bring up the DUPR Coach Map. From there, you can search for the correct coach and select Get Your DUPR to update your team assignment.

After that, close the app and reopen it.

That refresh step matters. Sometimes apps do not show the update right away until you restart them.

So the key point here is simple.

Before your rating session, make sure you are connected to the right coach.

If you show up and you are connected to the wrong person or not connected at all, we have to stop and fix that before the assessment can move forward.

This slide is probably the most important technical step in the whole process.

You need to link your My DUPR Coach account to your DUPR account.

This is what allows your Coach-Assigned DUPR to appear properly.

There are two ways to do it.

The first way is from the app dashboard. You will tap the plus sign next to NR on the left side, then select Connect.

The second way is through the menu. Open the menu, scroll down to DUPR, tap Connect, and then tap Connect again.

From there, you will either sign in with your existing DUPR credentials or sign up if you do not already have a DUPR account.

After you log in or create the account, you will grant DUPR access to complete the connection.

Once that connection works, you should see a confirmation message.

Then the plus sign should disappear from your dashboard, and the DUPR menu should show that it is connected.

Here is the part I want everyone to hear clearly.

This step is required.

If your My DUPR Coach account is not linked to your DUPR account, your Coach-Assigned DUPR may not appear correctly in the My DUPR Coach app dashboard or within the DUPR system.

So if you only remember one technical thing from this video, remember this.

Download the apps, enter the coach code, and link the accounts.

That is what makes the whole process work.

Once all of that is done, now we get to the fun part.

You come to your rating session.

During the session, I will evaluate your pickleball skills across the areas listed under DUPR Skills inside your My DUPR Coach app.

This is not just me watching one shot and guessing.

The goal is to look at the key parts of your game.

How do you serve? How do you return? Can you handle the transition zone? Can you dink with control? Can you recognize when to attack and when to reset? Can you keep the ball in play under pressure? Can you play with a partner? Can you make good decisions?

A starter rating is not about embarrassing anybody or putting a label on you.

It is about giving you a fair starting point.

And for a lot of players, that is incredibly helpful, because now you have a baseline.

You are no longer guessing.

Once the assessment is submitted, you should receive your rating, coaching insights, and, if we record footage, possibly video feedback from gameplay.

And this is where I really want players to understand the opportunity.

Your DUPR number is not your identity. It is a tool.

It helps you see where you are today so you can start building toward where you want to go next.

After you receive your Coach-Assigned DUPR, you have a couple of different pathways.

The first pathway is to start competing and logging matches.

That means you can use your Coach-Assigned DUPR as your starting point and begin playing in DUPR events, leagues, tournaments, and other competitive settings.

Once you start logging official matches, the DUPR algorithm begins adjusting your rating based on real results.

At that point, your performance begins to speak for itself.

The second pathway is to maintain and update your Coach-Assigned DUPR through additional assessment sessions.

Some players may not be ready to jump straight into tournaments or official match logging. That is okay.

You may want to keep developing, attend another session, and have your rating updated as your skills evolve.

That is one of the reasons I like this process. It gives new players a structured way to enter the rating world without feeling like they have to know everything on day one.

Whichever path you choose, the larger goal is the same.

We want to help you grow as a player.

We want you in the right games, with the right level of competition, where you can enjoy the sport, improve your skills, and keep moving forward.

So here is the bottom line.

If you are a newer pickleball player, or you have been playing for a while but still do not have a DUPR rating, this is a great opportunity to get started the right way.

Get your apps set up.

Create or confirm your DUPR account.

Download My DUPR Coach.

Enter my coach code.

Make sure you are connected to my team.

Link your My DUPR Coach account to your DUPR account.

Then come to your rating session ready to play, learn, and get a clearer picture of where your game stands.

This is not about chasing a number.

It is about understanding your game.

It is about getting a fair starting point.

It is about giving yourself a pathway to better games, better competition, and better development.

Pickleball is more fun when you know where you fit, when you know what to work on, and when you can see your progress over time.

So if you are ready to begin your DUPR journey, go through this checklist, get everything connected, and I look forward to seeing you on the court.

Let’s get your game measured, get your baseline set, and start building from there.

Remember, reset fast and play free.

This is now the rhythm of your life.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

Welcome to our session on Building a Strong Diaphragm for your pickleball game..

I am Dr. Gordon Jones, your brain fitness and pickleball performance coach.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

This session is going to do two things.

First, in the next few minutes, you will understand more about how breathing affects your body, your brain, and your performance than most pickleball players ever learn.

Then we will move into the practical work with exercises that build the muscle responsible for everything we just discussed.

Find a comfortable seated position. Your back should be straight and tall, but not rigid. Your feet should be flat on the floor with your hands resting on your thighs. Your eyes can be open with a soft gaze or closed, whichever helps you stay present in your body without drifting, because we will be working.

Let’s start with what most players never get told.

The way you breathe is not a passive function happening in the background of your life. It is one of the most powerful regulators of your entire physiology. Every breath you take sends signals to your heart, your muscles, your brain, your blood vessels, and your digestive system.

The breath is the one input you have into the autonomic nervous system, the part of your body that controls your heart rate, muscle tension, hormone release, and emotional state.

You cannot directly slow your heart, but you can change your breath, and when you do, the entire system responds.

This is why the way you breath matters in pickleball, and in everything else in life.

When you breathe shallow and high in the chest, which most adults do under any kind of pressure, your body interprets it as a threat signal and your sympathetic nervous system activates. Adrenaline and cortisol release into the bloodstream and your heart rate climbs.

Blood is pulled away from your brain’s higher reasoning centers, sending it toward the large muscles of your arms and legs in preparation for fight or flight. Your peripheral vision narrows. Your fine motor control degrades. Your sense of time speeds up, which is why everything feels so fast under pressure even when the actual ball speed has not changed.

This is the breath that loses points, Not because the player ran out of skill, but because the player ran out of access to their skill.

The skills are still there. The pathway to them has been narrowed by the swallow breath.

Better is slow, deep breathing where the breath fills the abdomen first and then the chest, drawing air low into the belly rather than high into the chest. This breath tells your nervous system that the situation is safe enough to perform at your full capability.

Your heart rate slows, the blood returns to your brain. Your peripheral vision widens. Your fine motor control sharpens. Your sense of time slows back to normal and you can think clearly. You can see the whole court. Your dinks land soft, your placement is refined and exact. Your decisions are clean.

Why is this?

There is a specific muscle at the center of it all. It is called the diaphragm, and it sits just beneath your lungs. It’s a dome-shaped sheet of muscle that separates your chest from your belly. When the diaphragm contracts and flattens downward, it pulls air into your lungs. When it relaxes and domes back up, it pushes air out. Every full descent of the diaphragm physically stimulates a major nerve called the vagus nerve, which is the main pathway your body uses to calm itself down. The diaphragm is literally a calming mechanism built into your body.

But here is the problem most pickleball players don’t know they have.

The diaphragm is a muscle. And like every other muscle in your body, it gets stronger when you train it and weaker when you don’t.

For most adults, our sedentary jobs, chronic stress, decades of shallow chest breathing has made the diaphragm weak. It has difficulty descending fully. It cannot generate the pressure needed to stabilize your core during athletic movement. It cannot sustain long, slow exhales without fatigue. So when you walk onto a court and ask it to perform, it cannot.

Instead, your body recruits the small muscles of your chest, neck, and shoulders to do the work of breathing, something those muscles cannot do as well as the diaphragm does.

Additionally, contracting those muscles produces more complexity to your overall movements causing reduced control of your shots.

The good news is for those who have been working through each of the series sessions, you’ve already started training your diaphragm. The same way your legs respond to training, or your arms respond to practicing specific pickleball shots, the diaphragm gets stronger and more reliable with progressive, consistent work.

A few weeks of dedicated practice can produce measurable changes including increased lung capacity, more efficient heart-rate-variability, more productive recovery time, stability of your core, and in your ability to stay composed under pressure.

Today’s session is designed to help you make that muscle strong, so that the breath does what it is built to do, not what today’s world dictates it to do.

Let’s begin.

Place one hand on your lower belly, just below the navel. Place the other hand on your upper chest, just below the collarbone.

Take a normal breath, however you naturally breathe. Notice which hand moves more. If the chest hand moves more than the belly hand, you have been breathing high and your diaphragm has been underused. That is exactly what we are going to change.

Now, deliberately, breathe so that the belly hand moves and the chest hand stays still. Inhale through your nose, and let the belly rise. Exhale through your mouth, and let the belly fall.

That is the diaphragm doing its job. Feel where the movement is coming from low in the torso. Deep behind the navel. The muscle pulls down, pushing the belly outward. That is the muscle we are going to strengthen.

The first quality of a strong diaphragm is full range of motion and the muscle’s ability to descend completely on each inhale. Most adults use only a fraction of their available range. We are going to expand yours.

In this exercise, you will perform six breaths. Each one fills the belly completely, then empties it completely. The inhale is four seconds, full and unhurried. The exhale is six seconds, slow and controlled. Between each breath, pause for 2 seconds of stillness before the next.

Hands stay on the belly and chest. The belly should move significantly. The chest should barely move at all.

Begin.

Inhale through the nose, 1, 2, 3, 4,

fill the belly completely...

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale out the mouth completely for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale, fill the belly...

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale out the mouth completely for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale, fill the belly...

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale out the mouth completely for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale, fill the belly...

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale out the mouth completely for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

Pause again for 1, 2

Two more. Continue the pattern. Belly rising fully. Belly emptying fully. The diaphragm working through its full range.

Inhale, fill the belly...

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale out the mouth completely for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale, fill the belly...

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale out the mouth completely for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

Pause again for 1, 2

Now let your breath return to normal for a moment.

Notice how the diaphragm feels. It may feel slightly worked or even a bit tired if this is your first time doing breathing exercises.

That is the muscle responding to load. That is the training effect beginning its work.

The second quality of a strong diaphragm is endurance and the ability to sustain effort across long breath cycles without fatigue. This is what allows you to maintain composure during a long rally, or to recover within seconds after one ends.

You will perform eight breaths. Each one has a longer exhale than inhale, which trains the diaphragm to control its release rather than just dump the air. The inhale is four seconds. The exhale is eight seconds — twice as long. The longer exhale is where the strength is built. Resist the urge to rush it. Let the air leave slowly and steadily.

Ready, begin.

Inhale through the nose, 1, 2, 3, 4,

fill the belly completely...

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale out the mouth completely for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

Now exhale for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale,

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale,

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale,

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale,

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale,

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Inhale,

1, 2, 3, 4,

Pause for 1, 2

exhale 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Pause again for 1, 2

Let your breath return to normal.

Your muscle has been working under a sustained load. Do you feel the difference between this rest and the first one?

There may be more warmth in the torso, more fatigue. That is the work showing in your body.

The third quality of a strong diaphragm is the ability to work against resistance. We add a small amount of physical resistance to the exhale, which forces the muscle to work harder for the same output. This is the most challenging set in the session, and it produces the most strength gain.

You will perform six breaths. The inhale is four seconds through the nose. The exhale is eight seconds through pursed lips as if you were exhaling through a narrow straw.

The pursed-lip exhale creates back-pressure in your airway, which forces the diaphragm to work harder to maintain steady airflow.

Some warmth or mild fatigue in the torso is normal. Light dizziness is a signal to soften the effort, never push through dizziness. The goal is productive load, not strain.

Ready, begin.

Inhale through the nose filling the belly, 1, 2, 3, 4

Now hold for 1, 2

And exhale through pursed lips and steady airflow…

For 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

All the way out and then

Hold for 1, 2

Inhale through the nose filling the belly, 1, 2, 3, 4

Now hold for 1, 2

And exhale through pursed lips and steady airflow…

For 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

All the way out and then

Hold for 1, 2

Inhale through the nose filling the belly, 1, 2, 3, 4

Now hold for 1, 2

And exhale through pursed lips and steady airflow…

For 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

All the way out and then

Hold for 1, 2

Inhale through the nose filling the belly, 1, 2, 3, 4

Now hold for 1, 2

And exhale through pursed lips and steady airflow…

For 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

All the way out and then

Hold for 1, 2

Inhale through the nose filling the belly, 1, 2, 3, 4

Now hold for 1, 2

And exhale through pursed lips and steady airflow…

For 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

All the way out and then

Hold for 1, 2

Inhale through the nose filling the belly, 1, 2, 3, 4

Now hold for 1, 2

And exhale through pursed lips and steady airflow…

For 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

All the way out and then

Hold for 1, 2

Release the pursed lips and let your breath return to its natural rhythm.

The work is done.

Let your hands fall to your lap. Feel the whole of your body. It may feel warm and even slightly fatigued. The diaphragm has been worked through its full range, through sustained load, and through resistance. That is the muscle responding exactly as muscles respond and exactly as it needs to in order to become strong.

Before we finish, the most important part of this session.

A single workout does not build a strong diaphragm, any more than a single workout builds strong legs. The muscle responds to consistent, progressive training over time. Here is the protocol that produces real, measurable change.

For the first three weeks, practice this session once a day. Every day. This is the building phase. The muscle is adapting fastest during this window, and consistency is what drives the change. If a day is missed, return to it the next day without trying to make up the missed session. Steady is what works.

For the next three weeks, practice four to five days a week. This is the development phase. The muscle continues to strengthen, but recovery days between sessions become more important. Choose your days however suits your schedule. Many players use weekdays and rest on weekends, or take one rest day after every two practice days.

After six weeks of consistent work, you have built the foundation. From that point on, practice two to three days a week to maintain what you have built. The diaphragm, like any muscle, requires ongoing stimulus to hold its strength. Two sessions a week is enough to maintain. Three is enough to keep building slowly. Less than two, and the strength will gradually fade.

To summarize. Weeks one through three: daily. Weeks four through six: four to five days a week. After that: two to three days a week, for as long as you play the game, or actually, the rest of your life for overall longevity with your health.

If you follow this protocol, you will feel the changes on the court. Faster recovery between rallies. Softer hands under pressure. Wider vision when the score is close. Better endurance deep into matches. Composure that holds when others lose theirs. These are not promises. They are the predictable result of strengthening the muscle responsible for them.

In a moment, you will return to the room. The diaphragm has done its work for today. The benefits of this work do not stay in the session. They follow you onto the court, into your matches, into every moment your body asks you to perform under pressure.

Begin to notice the sounds around you. The surface beneath you. The temperature of the air.

When you are ready, open your eyes. The session is complete. But return to it tomorrow.

And remember, reset fast, and play free.

This is the rhythm of your life now.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?If so, please go to brainfitness.gordonjones.org

5-Minute Close | Dr. Gordon Jones

Excellent work!

The playing is done for today and you did great!

However it went, whatever the scores were, whatever moments you are still carrying as you sit here right now, this session has one purpose.

To help you close out this playing day completely. To file what is useful, release what is not, and walk away from the court as a whole person rather than someone still running the last match in the back of their mind.

This is not a debrief. It is not a coaching session. It is a close out. A clean, honest, compassionate ending to today’s play that honors the effort and releases the residue.

Find your seat, get that back straight with shoulders back and chin level. Hands in your lap, palms open, fingers relaxed.

Let your eyes close.

A round of breath. Long and fully complete. Let this one carry the whole day out with it.

Breathe in through your nose. All the way in filling your abdomen and then your chest.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Exhale completely through your mouth. Everything you have left.

3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Feel what just released. Not just air. The accumulated tension of every point, every game, every moment of effort and competition and emotional investment that today held. You do not need to carry that into the rest of your day. You just released most of it with that one breath.

Let’s do that again,

Breathe in through your nose. All the way.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Exhale completely through your mouth. Everything.

3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Let your awareness settle into your body now. Not scanning for readiness or performance. Simply noticing how your body feels after a day of play.

If your legs are tired, let them be tired. They worked hard and they deserve acknowledgement.

If your hands are still holding some residual tension from the paddle, let them open now, fingers uncurling, palms soft.

Let your shoulders drop. All the way. Let your chest release. Let your jaw unclench. Let your eyes rest softly behind their closed lids.

You are done competing for today. Your body can stop performing now. It can simply rest.

Before our last breath, let’s do something brief and honest with today.

Think back over your play without judgment. Not looking for mistakes to fix or moments to replay. Simply letting today move through your awareness like a slow river, noticing what it carried.

What are you genuinely proud of?

Not necessarily a result. A moment of composure. A reset that worked. A shot you trusted. A time when you felt your training show up exactly when you needed it.

Find it. Acknowledge it honestly. That moment is real and it belongs to you permanently. File it.

What do you want to learn from today? Not a list of everything that went wrong. One clear lesson. The thing that, when you return to the court, you will approach differently or practice more intentionally.

Note it once, without drama or self-criticism. It is information. Valuable, useful information.

File it.

And now, everything else, the frustrations, the missed opportunities, the points that did not go your way, the emotional moments that the chemistry of competition produced, let all of that go now with your next exhale.

Breathe out. Long and complete.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Exhale completely through your mouth. Everything.

3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Now, let your breathing get back to its post matches natural, relaxed state.

The day is now done. Filed where it all belongs. In the past, as information, as experience, not as weight.

You showed up today. You competed. You played the game you love and you did the work that most players never do. You trained your nervous system, practiced your tools, and brought the best version of yourself available to you today onto the court.

That is enough. That has always been enough.

The next time you play, a slightly better version of you will walk onto the court. Because tonight, while you sleep, your other-than-conscious mind will do what it always does. It will organize everything from today. File the lessons. Strengthen the patterns that worked. Quietly prepare you for the next time.

You do not need to do anything to make that happen. Just rest. Just live the rest of your day as the whole, complete, brain-fit person you are when you are not competing.

Take one full breath now. In through the nose, slow and easy and out through the mouth, complete and releasing.

And let your eyes open when they are ready.

Today is done. It was enough.

Walk away from the court knowing that.

You reset fast and play free, because

This is the rhythm of your life!

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

5-Minute Reset | Dr. Gordon Jones

Alright!

You just finished a match and you have another one coming up soon.

What you do in the next five minutes will determine the quality of your next match more than any technical adjustment you could make. Because the greatest competitive advantage available to you right now is not a tactical change. It is the ability to close out what just happened completely, and open fresh for what is about to happen.

That is exactly what we are doing right now.

Find your seat or a place to lay down away from the courts. Your back is straight with your shoulders back. Whether you’re sitting or lying down, level your chin and place your hands in your lap or at your side with palms open.

Now, close your eyes.

Two rounds of breath for this in-between session. The first one closes out what was, the second one opens up to what will come.

Breathe in through your nose.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Exhale completely. Let the last match go with this breath.

3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

That match is behind you now. Win or lose, it is filed. It is done. It belongs to the past.

Now the opening breath.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

The next match has not yet begun. You are in the space between. Everything is clean and neutral. Ready to be written.

Bring your awareness to your feet. Feel the ground beneath them. Solid. Present. Right now.

Let a steady, grounded readiness move upward through your body. Through your legs. Your core. Across your chest, open. Through your shoulders, down your arms and into your hands.

Let your fingers come together in your relaxed paddle grip. Thumb and first two fingers. Loose. Flexible. Alive.

You are here. The last match is behind you. The next one is ahead of you. And right now you are exactly where you need to be, in the present moment, neutral and ready.

I want you to do one brief, honest thing with the match you just played.

Not a full analysis. Not a replay of every mistake. Just one thing you want to carry forward and one thing you want to leave behind. That is all.

What worked? Find one moment, one shot, one decision, one mental skill that showed up the way you trained it. File that. It belongs in your game permanently.

What do you want to release? One frustration, one error, one moment where the chemistry of competition pulled you somewhere you did not want to go. Acknowledge it once, clearly and without drama.

And now let it go with your next exhale.

Breathe out. Let it go. It is filed where it belongs, as a lesson, not a burden.

The next match gets a fresh player.

Not a perfect player. A present one. Someone who has closed out the last match completely and arrived here, in this moment, with their full attention and full intention available for the next opponent, the next court, the next game.

Your activation anchor is set. Your rhythm is yours. Your reset is ready. Your nervous system has been returned to neutral.

With your shoulders back, your chin level. Your fingers together in your relaxed paddle grip.

Take one full breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

When we’re finished with this session, hydrate, move your body gently. Shake your muscles, and when the time comes, walk onto that next court the same way you walk onto every court.

And open your eyes when you are ready.

Close and open. That is the skill. And you just practiced it.

So, reset fast and play free.

This is the rhythm of your game today!

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

5-Minute Activation | Dr. Gordon Jones

Hey, it’s Doc.

You are about to compete and these next five minutes are going to make sure you walk onto that court as the player you have trained to be, not the player your nervous system defaults to when it is left to its own devices.

So, find a seat wherever you are right now, a bench, a chair, or your car. Your back is straight and shoulders back with your chin level; hands in your lap, palms open, fingers relaxed.

Now, let your eyes close.

Let’s work your breath first. Two rounds so make them count.

Breathe in through your nose.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Out through your mouth, completely.

3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Again.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Your nervous system just received its first instruction. You produced the Calm you need throughout the match. This is something you produced.

Bring your awareness to your feet. Feel the ground and let it be the court you’re getting ready to play on. It is solid and familiar, it is yours.

Feel a readiness moving upward through your legs. Your core is engaged and centered. Now across your chest, open because your shoulders are back. Now through your arms and into your hands.

Let your fingers come together in your relaxed paddle grip. Thumb and first two fingers loosely touching, flexible and alive.

This is your activation anchor and your body already knows what it means.

You’re saying to yourself: I have been here many times on the court and in my mind. I know how to do this. I am ready.

Take thirty seconds now and find your best playing memory. A real moment when everything was working. When you were loose and free and your game expressed itself exactly as it should.

Step inside that memory. Feel your feet on that court. The weight of the paddle. The sound of the ball. This is now you today.

Let those fingers come together again in your relaxed paddle grip and anchor this feeling into that touch.

This is yours, available by design, not by chance.

[Silent a moment]

You are not walking onto that court hoping it comes together. You have trained for this, your breath is practiced. Your reset is ready. Your rhythm is yours. Your identity is set.

You are a brain-fit player and brain-fit players show up the same way every time. Present. Grounded. Ready to compete.

With your shoulders back and chin level, take one full breath — in through the nose, out through the mouth completely.

Open your eyes when you are ready.

The court is waiting.

So, remember, reset fast and play free.

This is the rhythm of your game today!

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

Hello and welcome back.

I’m Dr. Gordon Jones, your brain fitness and pickleball performance coach.

Today we are going to talk about something that happens to every player on every court at every level of this game. Something so common, so universal, and so consistently misunderstood that it costs more points, more games, and more enjoyment than any technical weakness ever could.

We are going to talk about emotions on the court.

Not how to suppress them. Not how to pretend they are not there. Not how to be the kind of player who never feels frustration or pressure or urgency or disappointment. Those players do not exist. Every player who has ever competed at anything has felt all of those things and more.

What we are going to talk about today is something more powerful and more practical than suppression. We are going to talk about understanding. Because once you understand what an emotion actually is, at the neurological level, at the chemical level, in the real biology of what is happening inside your brain and body when you feel frustrated after a missed shot or pressured at 9-9 in the third, you will never be controlled by those feelings in the same way again.

That is not a promise. That is neuroscience.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

Find your seat. Back straight. Shoulders back. Chin level. Hands in your lap, palms open, fingers relaxed.

Let your eyes close.

Let’s begin with the breath. Slow and deliberate. The breath of a player who is about to learn something that changes everything.

Breathe in slowly through your nose, filling your abdomen first, then your chest.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Exhale completely through your mouth.

3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Again.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

One more. Let this one carry you all the way in.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Now let your breathing return to its natural rhythm and give it back over to your other-than-conscious mind.

There will be moments during this session where my voice pauses. That is your time to process, to feel what we are building, and to let it settle into the deepest layers of your nervous system. When my voice returns, we continue. Be patient. Stay relaxed. Take it all in.

In the background, your Brain Fitness tones are guiding you toward theta, that deep, open, receptive state where the most important learning happens at the most permanent level. Your other-than-conscious mind is listening, absorbing, and believing. Stay here. Breathe. Receive.

Shift your awareness down to the balls of your feet.

Feel the ground beneath them. Solid. Supportive. Present.

Let a wave of easy relaxation begin there and move unhurriedly upward. Through your calves. Your knees. Your thighs. Not the readiness of a pre-match state, something quieter today. The settled, receptive openness of a player who is about to understand something important.

Through your hips and your core. Your lower back releasing. Your abdomen soft and moving gently with each breath.

Across your chest, open and easy. Through your shoulders, back and down. Let them drop a little further than feels necessary. And then a little further still.

Through your arms. Into your hands. Let your fingers come together in your relaxed paddle grip. Thumb and first two fingers touching lightly. Loose, flexible, alive.

Up through your neck, long and easy. Let your face soften completely. Your jaw loose. The muscles around your eyes at rest. Your forehead smooth.

You are here. You are settled. And your mind is ready to receive something that will change the way you play this game permanently.

Let me tell you what actually happens inside your brain when you feel an emotion on the court.

Deep in the center of your brain lives a structure called the limbic system. This is your emotional brain. It is ancient, fast, and powerful. Its primary job is not pickleball. Its primary job is survival. It is scanning constantly for threats, for danger, for anything that signals that something is wrong and action is required immediately.

The limbic system does not think. It reacts. And it reacts in the only language it knows, chemistry. When it perceives a threat, it releases a cascade of neurochemicals into your bloodstream. Cortisol. Adrenaline. The chemistry of urgency, of alarm, of fight or flight.

On a pickleball court, the limbic system cannot tell the difference between a genuine physical threat and a missed third shot drop at a critical moment in a tournament match. To the limbic system, both of those situations can generate the same chemical response. A surge of cortisol that tightens your muscles. A shot of adrenaline that accelerates your heart rate and narrows your focus. A chemical cocktail that was designed for running from predators being delivered into your nervous system because you popped a dink up at 9-9.

That chemical event is what you experience as emotion. The tightness in your chest. The heat in your face. The urgency that says do something, do something now. The frustration that replays the error. The anxiety that projects forward to the next point before this one has even begun.

It is real. It is physical. It is happening in your body.

And here is the most important thing I am going to say in this entire session.

It is not a fact. It is a chemical event. And chemical events are temporary.

Here is the other side of this story. And this is where your power lives.

Just above your limbic system, in the front of your brain, sits your prefrontal cortex. This is your thinking brain. Your observing brain. The part of you that can step back from an experience and look at it rather than simply being inside it. The part of you that can notice an emotion, name it, evaluate it, and decide how to respond to it rather than simply reacting to its chemistry.

The prefrontal cortex is the CEO of your brain. It does not move as fast as the limbic system. It cannot. Thinking takes longer than reacting. But it is more accurate. More strategic. More capable of making the decision that serves you rather than the decision that simply responds to the chemical alarm.

Here is the relationship between these two systems that you need to understand.

When the limbic system fires and sends its chemical cascade through your body, it does not have to take over. The prefrontal cortex has the ability to observe that chemical event, recognize it for what it is, and choose a response rather than simply executing a reaction. That ability is not automatic. It is trained. It is exactly the kind of skill that your Brain Fitness sessions have been building since Session 1.

Every time you took your breath between points instead of reacting to a missed shot, you were using your prefrontal cortex to regulate your limbic system. Every time you used your reset ritual to return to neutral after an emotional moment, you were choosing the thinking brain over the reacting brain. Every time you held through the discomfort of the capacity breath rather than releasing it early, you were training the exact neural pathway that allows you to observe a feeling without being controlled by it.

You have been building this skill the entire series. Today you understand what it is and why it works.

Now I want to give you the three-step practice that makes this real in the middle of a match.

The first step is notice it.

When the limbic system fires and the chemical event begins, the first skill is simply recognizing it. Not judging it. Not fighting it. Not trying to make it stop. Just noticing it clearly. There is a feeling here. My chest is tight. My jaw is clenched. There is an urgency I can feel in my hands.

Noticing an emotion without immediately reacting to it creates a gap. A small but critical space between the chemical event and your behavior. That gap is where your prefrontal cortex operates. That gap is where choice lives. And without the noticing, the gap does not exist. The chemistry flows directly into behavior without any filtering at all.

The second step is name it.

Once you have noticed the feeling, give it a name. Not a story. Not a judgment. A name. Frustration. Urgency. Anxiety. Disappointment. The act of naming an emotion has been shown in neuroscience research to measurably reduce its intensity. When you label an emotional state, you activate your prefrontal cortex and simultaneously reduce the activation of your limbic system. The name itself is the intervention.

Not, I am so frustrated I keep making that mistake and I always mess up at this score. Just, frustration. One word. Clean and clear and without a story attached to it.

The third step is let it pass.

Emotions are not permanent states. They are waves. Every emotion, if you do not feed it with additional thought and story, will rise, peak, and subside on its own. The chemistry that produced it metabolizes. The wave passes. The typical emotional response, if not amplified by thinking about it, lasts somewhere between ninety seconds and three minutes.

On a pickleball court, between points, you have six to eight seconds. Which means the wave is going to pass long before the next match, the next game, and certainly before the tournament is over. Your only job is not to feed it while it is rising. Notice it. Name it. Let it pass.

Notice it. Name it. Let it pass.

Now let’s take this into a match. Stay relaxed and follow me inside it.

You are in the middle of a competitive game. The score is tight. You have been playing well and the match has been close throughout. You are at 8-9, serving, second serve, third game.

You serve. The return comes back deep and heavy. You set up for a third shot drop and the ball catches the top of the tape and drops back on your side of the net.

In the same fraction of a second that the ball hits the tape, something happens inside you. A surge of heat. A tightening in your jaw. A voice that says, not now, not this point, why does that keep happening. The chemistry of the limbic system is already moving through your body before you have consciously registered that the point is over.

You feel it. It is real and physical and present.

And then something else happens. Something that this session is building in you right now, in this deep and receptive state.

You notice it.

Not from inside the feeling, overwhelmed by it, but from just slightly above it. The part of you that can observe experience rather than simply having it, steps forward quietly and says, there is a feeling here.

You name it. Frustration. One word. Clean. Without a story attached to it.

You turn away from the net. Your exhale comes, long and complete. Not suppressing the feeling. Simply allowing it to begin its natural arc. Rising. Peaking. Beginning to subside.

Your fingers find your relaxed paddle grip. Thumb and two fingers. Loose, flexible, alive. Your reset word arrives. Your word. The one that belongs to this moment and this moment only.

You turn back to the court.

And here is what is remarkable. The feeling has not completely gone. The chemistry is still metabolizing. But it is no longer in the driver’s seat. Your prefrontal cortex has stepped forward. Your thinking brain is back online. And the question it is asking is not why did that happen or what does this mean, it is simply, what is the smart play on this next point.

Not the emotional play. The smart play. The simple, high-percentage, trust-what-you-know play that a calm and clear mind always finds faster than a reactive one.

You step to the line. You breathe. You serve with intention.

That is the composed mind in action. Not the absence of emotion. The observation of emotion without submission to it.

Now let’s go one level deeper.

I want you to think about the emotional patterns that are most familiar to you on the court. Not to judge them. To understand them.

For some players the primary emotional challenge is frustration. The feeling that arises after a repeated error or a string of unforced mistakes. The chemistry that says something is wrong and needs to be fixed immediately, and which, when acted on, typically makes the technical problem worse rather than better.

For others it is urgency. The feeling that time is running out, that the score demands action, that patience is a luxury the situation cannot afford. The chemistry that shortens swings, rushes serves, and turns a manageable dink rally into a forced error.

For others it is anxiety. The forward-projecting feeling that anticipates negative outcomes before they have occurred. The chemistry that creates the very tension it was trying to protect against.

And for others it is what might be called emotional contagion, the tendency to absorb the energy of an opponent, a partner, or a crowd, and lose the internal tempo to an external source.

Whatever your primary pattern is, notice it now without judgment. It is not a character flaw. It is a chemical tendency. A limbic response that developed because at some point in your competitive history it felt like it was protecting you from something.

And it can be observed. Named. And allowed to pass without governing your next shot.

Notice it. Name it. Let it pass.

Your other-than-conscious mind is receiving everything from this session right now and organizing it at the deepest level of your nervous system.

The understanding that emotions are chemical events, not facts. That the limbic system fires fast and the prefrontal cortex observes clearly. That the gap between feeling and response is trainable. That notice it, name it, let it pass is a skill that becomes more automatic with every practice.

All of it is being encoded now, in this deep and receptive theta state, where the most permanent learning happens. Not as information you need to recall consciously on the court. As a practiced, automatic orientation toward your own emotional experience that will surface when it is needed most.

You observe emotions. You are not controlled by them.

You remain calm under pressure because you understand what pressure actually is, a chemical event in a nervous system that has been trained to regulate itself.

You choose clarity over impulse because your prefrontal cortex has been practiced, session by session, in stepping forward at exactly the moments when the limbic system is loudest.

You trust simple, smart, high-percentage play because you are no longer making decisions from the chemistry of urgency. You are making them from the clarity of a composed mind.

That is who you are now. That is who you have been building across this entire series.

Before we close, your capacity breath. Let it be the breath of a player who has just understood something important and is carrying it into everything that follows.

Breathe in through your nose.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Exhale completely.

3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Now hold the breath out. All the way through.

4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10.

Excellent. You are getting better at this with every session. And notice what that held breath asked of you. A feeling arose, the urge to breathe, the chemistry of mild discomfort moving through your body. And you observed it. You did not react to it. You held through it and came out the other side clear and steady.

That is not a breathing exercise. That is a rehearsal of the composed mind. Every single time.

Begin to bring your awareness back to your surroundings now. Wiggle your fingers. Feel the weight of your hands in your lap. Roll your shoulders gently back, up and down.

Take one full breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth completely.

And let your eyes open when they are ready.

The next time you step onto a court and the chemistry of competition moves through your body, you will know exactly what it is. Not a verdict on your ability. Not a prediction of what is about to happen. Not a fact about the situation.

A chemical event. Temporary. Observable. Nameable. Passing.

Notice it. Name it. Let it pass.

And then choose your next smart play from the clearest, calmest, most composed mind available to you.

That mind is yours. It has always been yours. This session has simply reminded you of how to use it.

Reset fast. Play free.

This is now the rhythm of your life.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

Morning Activation — Rise, Prime, and Play

Morning Activation Session | Dr. Gordon Jones

Good morning.

You’re awakening to the voice of Dr. Gordon Jones, your brain fitness and pickleball performance coach.

Keep your eyes closed and stay in your early morning calm state.

In this moment, you are in one of the most valuable neurological states available to you all day. You may not feel that way yet. You may feel soft, slow, slightly suspended between the world of sleep and the world of waking.

Hopefully, your thoughts are gentle and unhurried. If not, let’s get you back to that state as the day has not yet fully arrived with its demands and its noise.

This mind state, that is quiet, open, still-warm-from-sleep, is not something to rush past. It is something to use. Because right now your brain is lingering between the delpa state of your sleep and the theta and low alpha rhythms that the morning gives you for free.

And you’re doing great, because what you chose to do with the next twenty minutes will set the tone, the rhythm, and the identity of everything that follows for the rest of the day.

So before the day begins, before the phone, before the news, before the noise, know that you are here. Present. Open. Ready to prime your nervous system for everything today holds.

Stay where you are. If you are still in bed, stay there for now. If you have moved to a chair, let yourself settle. Let your eyes stay closed. Let your body be exactly as relaxed as it is right now.

This is your morning upgrade. Let’s begin.

Let’s start with the breath. But not the releasing breath of the evening sessions. This morning breath is a waking breath. It begins gently, where you are, and builds gradually into something more alive and purposeful. Follow me through it and feel the difference.

Start with a soft, easy breath. Just a little fuller than your resting breath.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold gently... 2... 3.

Out slowly... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Hold softly out... 1... 2.

Again, a little fuller this time.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Now for your full 4-6-8-2. Your rhythm. Your anchor. Your signal to your nervous system that today is intentional.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8.

Hold out... 1... 2.

Now let your other-than-conscious mind take over your natural breathing again.

Feel the difference between the first breath of this session and the last one. That progression, from soft and easy to full and deliberate, is your nervous system receiving its first instruction of the day. Not forced awake. Invited awakening. Drawn upward from rest toward readiness by your own breath, on your own terms, at your own pace.

In the background, your Brain Fitness tones are beginning their morning arc. Where the evening session guided your brain downward toward delta and deep sleep, this session moves in the opposite direction. From the residue delta into the quiet theta of your natural morning state, upward through the focused clarity of alpha, and toward the energized, purposeful, ready beta state that will carry you through your day and onto your court.

Your only job right now is to breathe, receive, and rise.

Now bring your awareness gently into your body. Not a scan for tension or release, a scan for life. For the energy that is already present even in this quiet morning state.

Start at your feet. Feel them. Not heavy and released the way they were last night, but present. Alive. The feet that will carry you through today. Whether you are playing today or simply living today, these feet are preparing to move. Let that quiet readiness be there without forcing it.

Up through your calves. Your knees. The long muscles of your thighs each begin to remember their purpose. Not fully awake yet, simply coming online. Like a morning stretch that has not quite happened yet but is already as present as possibility.

Through your hips and lower back, which held you through sleep, now beginning to find their daytime strength. A natural small movement here is welcome. A gentle shift. Your body finding its waking alignment.

Through your abdomen and your core. Your breath moving through it more fully now with each cycle. Awake and easy.

Across your chest. Feel it expand a little more with each breath. Opening. The chest of a player who is getting ready to face whatever today brings, not braced against it, but open to it.

Through your shoulders. Here is where the morning invitation lives. Let your shoulders roll back gently. Just once. Feel them settle back and down into the position that says, I am here, I am ready, I am not carrying anything I do not need to carry today.

Through your arms, your hands, your fingers. Loose and alive. The hands that know how to hold a paddle. The hands that have been trained through every session in this series to respond with soft precision and quiet confidence.

Up through your neck, long and easy. To the crown of your head.

Feel the full length of your body now. From the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. Present. Progressing. Coming alive from the inside out.

This is your morning body. Not the performance body of a match day, not the released body of a recovery night. The morning body. Full of quiet potential. Ready to become the day.

You are in the most receptive state you will be in all day right now.

Your analytical mind has not yet fully engaged. The noise of the day has not yet arrived. The to-do lists and the notifications and the demands have not yet begun their work of fragmenting your attention. Right now, in this window, you have something rare and valuable. Complete access to your other-than-conscious mind. The part of you that runs your heartbeat and your breathing and your instincts on the court. The part of you that responds to identity and intention rather than information and instruction.

This is the window we are going to use right now. And what we are going to do with it is set the story of your day before the day gets to set it for you.

I want you to think about who you are.

Not what you have to do today. Not what happened yesterday. Not what you are worried about or looking forward to. Who you are, as a person, as a player, as someone who has chosen to show up for this work and do something most people never do.

You are someone who has trained their nervous system. Who has learned to breathe with intention. Who has built a reset ritual that works. Who knows the difference between a ceiling and a current address. Who understands that the identity leads and the results follow. Who has a mental court with skill anchors, an activation anchor, a reset word, a personal cue bank, and a come-back mind.

You are a brain-fit player. And that is not a title you earned in a tournament. It is a quality you have been building in the quiet, in the sessions, in the moments when nobody was watching and you showed up anyway.

Feel that for a moment. Not with arrogance. With honest acknowledgment. You have done the work. And the work has done something to you. It has made you more capable, more resilient, more present, and more reliable than the player who started this series.

That player is who wakes up this morning. That player is who walks through today.

Now let’s look at today specifically.

I do not know what your day holds. Maybe you are playing today, a morning session at the club, an open play afternoon, a league match this evening. Maybe you are not playing today and today is a day of work and life and the ordinary demands of being a person in the world.

Either way, today is a day when the brain-fit player you have become gets to show up. And how you show up in the first hours of the morning shapes how you show up for everything that follows.

So let’s set your intention for today. Not a goal. Not a task. An intention. The quality of presence and engagement you want to bring to whatever today holds.

Take a moment now and let a word or a short phrase arise that captures how you want to show up today. Maybe it is steady. Maybe it is present. Maybe it is open. Maybe it is strong. Maybe it is patient. Maybe it is simply alive.

Whatever you think, let it come without forcing it. The right word is already there in the quiet of this morning state. Trust it.

Feel it settle into your body now. Not as a thought in your head but as a felt quality in your chest, your shoulders, your feet, your hands. This is your intention for today. This is the story you are setting before the day sets it for you.

If you are playing pickleball today, I want to spend a moment with you on the court.

See yourself arriving at the club or the venue. The particular energy of a playing day. The familiar sounds, the squeak of court shoes, the pop of paddles, the laughter from the far court. You know this place. Your nervous system recognizes it. And today you arrive with something extra. The intentional morning behind you. The breath already practiced. The identity already set.

You warm up without rush. You are calibrating, feeling today’s court, today’s light, today’s version of your game. Whatever arrives in the warm-up is information. Not judgment. Just information.

The first rally begins. And you are already in your rhythm. Not because everything is perfect. Because your internal tempo was set before you left the house. Because your breath has been moving with intention since you woke up. Because the player who walked onto this court this morning set their story before the day got to set it for them.

Feel the court beneath your feet now. The weight of the paddle in your hand. The relaxed paddle grip, thumb and two fingers, loose and flexible and alive.

Your activation anchor is set. You are ready.

If you are not playing today, I want to spend a moment with you in your day.

The same tools that make you effective on the court make you effective everywhere else. Your breath is available in the meeting that runs long. Your reset ritual is available after the conversation that did not go the way you hoped. Your rhythm is available when the day starts moving faster than you intended. Your identity, the calm, grounded, present version of you that you have been building in this series, that player shows up at work, at home, in traffic, in the ordinary moments that make up the majority of your life.

You are not training brain fitness just for pickleball. You are training it for everything. And today is a day when everything gets the benefit of the work you have done.

Feel that in your body right now. The steadiness of a person who starts their day with intention. Who knows how to breathe through difficulty. Who knows that every situation has a reset available if they choose to use it.

That is you. Today. In all of it.

Now let’s bring this session home with an energy that matches where the day is going.

I want you to feel a progressive aliveness moving through your body. Not forced. Not manufactured. The natural energy of a nervous system that has been primed and is ready.

Starting at the base of your spine. A warmth. A readiness. Moving upward through your lower back, your abdomen, your chest. Each breath drawing it higher. Through your shoulders, which are back and down and open. Through your arms, which are loose and alive. Through your hands, which are ready.

Up through your neck. To the crown of your head. Feel the full length of that energy now. From the base of your spine to the top of your head. Present. Progressive. Purposeful.

This is your morning energy. Not the scattered, reactive energy of a mind that woke up to its phone and immediately started processing other people’s priorities. The clean, intentional energy of a nervous system that was primed first. That chose its story before the day got to choose it.

This energy belongs to you today. All of it. For the court and for the life around it.

Before we close, one final breath. Not the holding breath of the sessions. The energizing breath of a morning that is ready to become a day.

Breathe in through your nose. Fuller than any breath so far. All the way.

In... 2... 3... 4... 5.

Hold at the top... 2... 3.

And exhale through your mouth with purpose. Not releasing, but projecting. Sending your breath forward into the day.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Again.

In... 2... 3... 4... 5.

Hold... 2... 3.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

One more. Make this one count.

In... 2... 3... 4... 5.

Hold... 2... 3.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Begin to bring your full awareness into the room now. Feel the surface beneath you. Feel the temperature of the air. Wiggle your fingers. Roll your shoulders back and down one more time. Take in a full, easy breath through your nose and let it out through your mouth.

And when you are ready, open your eyes.

Sit up if you have not already. Let your feet find the floor. Feel the ground beneath them. Solid. Supportive. Ready to carry you through today.

Shoulders back. Chin level. Your intention settled in your chest.

You are awake. You are primed. You are ready.

The day is waiting. The court, whenever it comes, is ready for you. And you are ready for it.

Go be the brain-fit player you have built yourself to be. In every moment today. On the court and off it.

Reset fast and Play free.

This is now the rhythm of your life.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

Hello, and welcome.

I’m Dr. Gordon Jones, your brain fitness and pickleball performance coach.

Tonight, we are going to do something different from the other sessions in this series so far.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

Each session we have shared together has been building something, a skill, a tool, a mind state, a new way of showing up on the court. And in every one of those sessions, I have sent you back out into your day with more capacity than you arrived with.

Well, tonight I am not sending you anywhere.

Tonight, your only destination is rest. Deep, complete, restorative rest. The kind of rest that takes everything you have been building in this series and consolidates it. Organizes and files it for tomorrow’s use. This process strengthens it and makes it permanent in your mind.

Because here is something most players don’t understand, at least intuitively.

The true work of improvement does not actually happen on the court. It does not even happen in these sessions.

The work of improvement happens during sleep. The court and the sessions create the raw material that the brain absorbs and the other-than-conscious mind accepts.

But sleep is where the brain processes all that material; sorts it, organizes it, and transfers it from short-term experience into long-term mastery.

Every skill you have practiced both on the court and in your visualizations, every neural pathway you have been strengthening, every identity shift you have been making, all of it gets its deepest and most permanent encoding during the hours you spend asleep tonight.

That is, if you get a good night’s sleep, and after listening to this session, you may well get the best night’s sleep you’ve had in years!

That is the job of the brain fitness tones you are hearing and with that the guided visualizations you are listening to.

So tonight, sleep is not only recovery from the work. Sleep is the work.

Your only job is to let it happen.

Find a restful, relaxed and comfy position now. If you are in bed, let yourself settle into your pillow and your covers. If you are in a chair, let your body find its most natural resting position. Let your hands rest wherever they fall most easily.

Whether in your bed or in a chair, your room should be settled, lights dimmed or off, all other electronics put away, as many sound distractions around you, silenced.

Now, let your eyes close.

And let your breath begin to slow.

Tonight the breath is gentler than usual. We are not building capacity. We are releasing. We are letting go of the day, the effort, the doing, and moving toward the simply being.

Breathe in slowly through your nose. Not a full performance breath. A soft, easy, natural breath. Just a little fuller than your resting breath.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold very gently... 2... 3… 4.

And release slowly through your mouth. Let it drift out rather than pushing it out… 3... 4... 5... 6.

Hold it out, but softly... 1... 2.

Again.

In... 2... 3... 4.

Hold gently... 2... 3…4.

Out... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6.

Hold softly ... 1... 2.

Now let your breath return completely to its own natural rhythm. You do not need to control it anymore. Your other-than-conscious mind has been running your breath your entire life without any help from you. Let it do its work tonight. Just as it always has. Just as it will while you sleep.

There will be pauses during this session where my voice steps back for a few moments. Those pauses are on purpose. That is where the deepest rest lives. When my voice returns, we’ll continue, but if you drift into sleep before I return, that is not a mistake. That is exactly what this session is designed to do.

In the background, your Brain Fitness tones are moving through a special sequence tonight. Guiding your brain from its current state gently downward, through alpha, through theta, and toward the deep delta rhythms of restorative sleep.

Your only job is to stay here, stay soft, and allow it to happen.

Let’s begin with your body.

Tonight the body scan is not about readiness or activation. It is about release. Complete, unhurried release of everything your body has been holding today. Every contraction, every effort, every unconscious tension that accumulated point by point, game by game, hour by hour.

Bring your awareness to the very top of your head.

Notice the muscles of your scalp. You may not have thought about them all day. They have been working quietly in the background, contributing to the overall effort of simply being alive and alert and present. Let them release now. Feel the skin of your scalp soften and settle.

Move your awareness down to your forehead. Let it smooth. Let any lines of concentration or effort that have been living there today simply release. There is nothing to concentrate on now. Nothing to figure out. Nothing to anticipate. Let your forehead become completely smooth and soft.

Down to your eyes. Let them rest deeply behind your closed eyelids. Not pressed shut, simply resting. Softly closed. The muscles around your eyes releasing any last trace of effort.

Your jaw. This is where so many players carry tension without knowing it. Let your teeth part slightly. Let your tongue rest softly at the bottom of your mouth. Let your jaw hang open just a fraction, heavy and completely relaxed. Feel the release move through your cheeks, your temples, the hinge of your jaw.

Your neck. The muscles along the back of your neck that have been holding your head up all day, let them lengthen and release now. Your pillow or your chair is doing that work tonight. You do not need to help. Let your head be completely supported and your neck completely free.

Your shoulders. Breathe in gently, and as you exhale, let your shoulders drop. Not a forced drop, a released drop. Lower than you think they need to go. And then a little lower still. Feel the weight of your arms pulling them gently down and away from your ears. Heavy. Settled. Released.

Down through your upper arms. Your elbows. Your forearms. All the muscles that held your paddle today, that directed the ball, that absorbed pace and redirected it, let them rest completely now.

Your hands uncurling naturally. Your fingers loose and slightly open. Your paddle hand releasing everything it carried on the court today.

Across your chest. Feel it rise and fall softly with each natural breath. Not a performance breath. A resting breath. The quiet rhythm that will carry you through the night without any conscious assistance.

Down through your abdomen. Soft. Easy. Moving gently with each breath in and each breath out. No tension here. No effort. Just the quiet, rhythmic motion of a body at rest.

Your lower back, releasing now into whatever surface supports you. Lengthening. Spreading. Every small contraction that held you upright through the day dissolving away into the support beneath you.

Your hips. The deep muscles around your pelvis that powered every split step, every transition, every moment of explosive movement today. Let them go completely now. Heavy. Wide. Released.

Down through your thighs. The large muscles that carried you through every court today. They worked hard. They deserve this. Let them spread and soften and sink. Heavy and warm.

Your knees. Your calves. The muscles that flexed and absorbed and pushed off hundreds of times today. Let them go now. Completely. Like a slow unclenching that moves all the way down through your ankles.

Your feet. The part of you that was always first on the court, always first to respond, always moving before your mind had finished processing. Let them rest completely now. Heavy. Still. Warm.

From the top of your head to the soles of your feet, your body is released. Completely supported. Completely at rest. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just this. Just now. Just the quiet rhythm of your resting breath and the soft support of where you lie.

Now I want to do something gentle with your day.

Not an analysis. Not a debrief. Just a soft, brief, compassionate review of what today held, so that your sleeping mind can file it cleanly and completely rather than processing it in fragments through the night.

Think back to this morning. The way the day began. Whatever you did before you came to the court or before you sat down for this session. Let it move through your awareness like a slow river, not stopping on anything, just letting it pass.

Think about your time on the court, or in your practice, or in your game today. Not with judgment. Simply as an observer from a distance. You showed up. You played. Things went well in some moments. Things were more difficult in others. All of it was information. All of it was part of the process.

If there was a shot today that did not go where you intended, let it move through your awareness now and release it. It is filed. It is stored as information your nervous system will use to adjust and improve. The emotional charge attached to it, let that go now with your next exhale. Soft and complete.

If there was a moment today that went exactly right, a shot, a rally, a reset, a moment where you felt completely present and your game expressed itself cleanly, let that move through your awareness now and let it settle. Deep. Filed. Permanent. That moment is stored in your nervous system as a blueprint. Your other-than-conscious mind will return to it tonight and reinforce it, strengthen the neural pathway, make it more available, more reliable, more yours.

Every lesson from today is being received now.

Every skill you practiced is being encoded now.

Every identity shift you have been making is being deepened now.

You do not need to do anything to make this happen. It is already happening. Your sleeping brain is the most powerful learning tool you have. And tonight you are giving it exactly what it needs to do its best work. Release.

Let the day go now. Completely. With gratitude for what it held and without attachment to any of it.

Tomorrow is its own day. Tonight belongs to rest.

If you’re still with us, I want to take you somewhere else.

Imagine a place where you feel completely safe, completely comfortable, and completely at peace. It might be a place you know well, a room, a garden, a beach, a quiet corner of somewhere that has always felt most comforting. Or it might be a place that exists only in your imagination, a place your mind has constructed just for this purpose.

See it now.

Not sharply, not vividly, but softly. The way a dream begins before it fully forms. The shapes and colors of it. The quality of light. Whether it is warm or cool. The sounds it carries, or the particular quality of its silence.

Let yourself be there now. Not observing it from the outside, but settled into it. Your body exactly as it is, heavy and released, perfectly supported.

The temperature exactly right. The light exactly right. Everything exactly as it should be.

There is nothing required of you in this place. No performance. No preparation. No anticipation of what comes next. Just this. The quiet, perfect rest of a body and mind that have worked well today and are now completely free to restore.

Feel the weight of your body in this place. Feel the soft, easy rhythm of your breath. Feel the gentle background of your Brain Fitness tones moving through their final arc, guiding your brain into the deepest, most restorative frequencies available to you.

You are drifting now. And that is exactly right.

As you drift, your other-than-conscious mind is doing the work that only sleep can do.

It is reviewing every session you have completed in this series. The breath. The rhythm. The reset. The activation anchor. The skill stations on your mental court. The tournament day protocols. The resilience tools. The dink mind. The identity shift. The self-talk cues. All of it being organized, connected, deepened, and made more available for the next time you step onto the court.

You do not need to be aware of this process. You do not need to direct it or supervise it. Even if you are asleep right now, your other-than-conscious mind knows exactly what to do with everything you have given it. Trust it. Let it work.

Every night you sleep after a Brain Fitness session, the session goes deeper. The tools become more reliable. The mind states become more accessible. The identity becomes more stable. Sleep is not the end of the work. Sleep is where the work becomes permanent.

Let yourself go deeper now.

Deeper into rest.

Deeper into release.

Deeper into the quiet, powerful restoration that your body and your brain are designed for.

You are safe. You are supported. You are exactly where you need to be.

Now I say to you, if you are listening to this session at a time and place when you need to return to waking awareness, perhaps you drifted during the session and need to come back, then begin now to gently bring your attention back to the room around you. Feel the surface beneath you. Wiggle your fingers slowly. Take one easy breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. And let your eyes open gradually when they are ready, knowing that everything from this session has been received and filed by your other-than-conscious mind.

Now, head on to bed and rest well tonight.

If you are listening to this session at bedtime, in the place where you sleep, then you have already begun the journey your brain takes every night into deep, restorative rest. There is no need to come back. There is no need to do anything at all. Simply allow the drift to continue. Allow the tones to guide you. Allow your breath to slow to its nighttime rhythm. Allow your other-than-conscious mind to carry you into the deep, dreamful, restorative sleep that your body needs and deserves.

Every breath taking you deeper.

Every exhale releasing a little more.

Deeper into deep delta sleep.

Deeper into deep restorative sleep.

Deeper into the quiet delta rhythms of true sleep.

Where your body restores.

Where your skills consolidate.

Where your identity deepens.

Where everything you have been building becomes permanently, reliably, and completely yours.

Sleep now.

Your upgrade is continuing.

This is now the rhythm of your life.

Every player already uses self-talk on the court. The question has never been whether you use it. The question is whether yours is working for you or against you.

This session makes explicit what has been building across the entire series. Every reset word, every low and slow at the kitchen line, every activation anchor instruction, every breath taken between points, all of it has been intentional self-talk. Today you name it, own it, and make it completely deliberate.

You will learn the three functions of self-talk, instructional, motivational, and calming, and more importantly, how to match the right type to the right moment. Because mismatching the type to the moment reduces performance just as surely as the wrong shot selection does. A motivational cue when you need to calm down makes things worse. A calming cue before a point that needs energy flattens you when you need to be alive.

At the heart of this session is a guided court visualization that takes you position by position through your game, helping you identify and anchor the precise cue that belongs at each moment. Your serve cue. Your return cue. Your transition cue. Your pressure cue. Your endurance cue. Your reset word. All of them felt, chosen, and anchored in your nervous system in the deepest learning state your Brain Fitness Audio Lab can produce.

You are not learning a new tool in this session. You are naming the one you have been building since Session 1 and making it yours completely.

Before the next point, choose your voice. That is the self-talk edge.

What it builds: The activation anchor, the competitor’s ready state, and the ability to show up at your best before any match.

Return to it when: Before any match or important play session. On the way to the club. On the bench before your first game.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

This is the new rhythm of your life.

Your access to this series is freely given, so would you consider making a contribution to our non-profit mission of spreading the benefits of pickleball to the world?

This is the new rhythm of your life.