From Practice to Performance, Part 3: Why Learning to Compete in Pickleball Is a Whole New Game

On a recent interview, Collin Johns offered a simple but resonant truth about pickleball: "Tournament experience matters, and it is something you can only acquire through time."

That line stuck with me.

"Tournament experience matters, and it is something you can only acquire through time."
— Collin Johns

I grew up in the ultra-competitive world of Canadian hockey—bone-cold rinks, tough-as-nails coaches, relentless bodychecks, and the constant hum of ambition. In our small town, nearly every boy dreamed of the NHL. Some made it. Competition wasn’t optional; it was the air we breathed.

So when I first picked up a pickleball paddle in 2023—playing barefoot on Nicaraguan courts with friends and family—my nervous system coded the sport as joyful, light-hearted, and low-stakes. Just fun.

But something shifted. I began watching players like Ben Johns and noticed how his movement was more efficient than others, how he had a full arsenal of shots, and how smartly he constructed points. I became a student of the game. I started drilling at least three times a week. In rec play, I turned into a beast on the court.

Fast forward to 2025: I’m now competing in PPA tournaments and building a business around the sport. Somewhere along the way, the easygoing vibe got replaced by pressure—lots of it. Results, a DUPR rating, social optics, cameras, business implications. A game that once felt like play now tests every part of me.

At my first PPA event in McKinney, Texas, that pressure boiled over. I played tight. My decisions were off. I got frustrated—at myself, at my performance, at the disconnect between what I knew I could do and what actually happened on the court. We often assume that if you’re good in practice or rec play, that’ll translate to competition. But the arena changes everything.

McKinney wasn’t a failure. It was an education.

I brought those lessons to my next event—the PPA Challenger in Columbia, South Carolina—and saw real progress. Jeremy and I placed fourth in men's doubles (4.0) out of 17 teams. Not perfect, but better.

This shift—from practice to performance—is a documented psychological transformation. It requires rewiring how the body and brain respond to stress, and learning how to win not just with skill, but with composure. For me, it meant reprogramming my mental model of the game. I had to reawaken the inner competitor honed in my hockey years and bring him to the pickleball court.

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Neuroadaptive Stress: From Casual Play to Cognitive Load

If your journey mirrors mine—starting from fun, casual play—then competitive pickleball will likely feel jolting at first. That’s okay. That discomfort is part of the growth. In fact, it’s necessary.

So let’s break it down. What separates seasoned tournament players from the new competitors just entering the fray?

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What an Experienced Tournament Player Does

Early-stage competitors try to win by playing their best version of the sport. Veterans win by playing the highest-probability version of it.

Especially at the 3.0 to 4.0 levels, experienced players aren’t always more technically skilled—they’re just more strategic. They grind out wins with boring, high-percentage plays. They don’t chase highlight reels. They close. They don’t force pretty points unless necessary. They play to their strengths and your weaknesses. They’re scrappy. They’ll win ugly—and they’re not ashamed of it.

They’ve also logged enough reps to groove their patterns. When pressure hits, they don’t overanalyze. They stay locked in. They manage momentum, control tempo, and sense when to press and when to reset. As Van explored in Part 2, they might also pay attention to the subtle patterns in their opponents’ games and exploit them.

Contrast this with newer competitive players like myself. When the bracket is called and it’s time to compete, their heart rate spikes. Their hands shake. Their mind starts racing with internal chatter. Self 1—the overthinking, analytical mind—takes over. Suddenly, basic shots break down. Fear of losing or looking foolish creeps in. And that fear sabotages performance. That's what happened to me in Texas.

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Stress Responses Hijack Decision-Making

Let’s break it down with the science. If you’ve ever felt like I did at my first PPA tournament—tense, rushed, out of rhythm—what you’re experiencing is your nervous system reacting to unfamiliar stress. It doesn’t yet feel safe in high-stakes pickleball, and that’s not a flaw. It’s biology. When you step onto a tournament court, your body perceives the environment—spectators, reputations, and high consequences—as a potential threat. Your heart rate climbs. Your breath shortens. Your mind races. That’s your sympathetic nervous system—your fight-or-flight response—doing exactly what it’s wired to do.

The brain’s anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC) plays a central role in all of this. It governs how we process threats, manage stress, and bounce back from setbacks. It’s the switchboard between challenge and composure, between chaos and control. Neuroscientists refer to this area as critical to the "performance-resilience loop"—a neurological feedback mechanism that allows us to adapt under fire and build durability over time.

Here’s the catch: the aMCC can house both helpful and unhelpful wiring. Good neural patterns in this region allow us to stay calm, focus on the task, and make clear, timely decisions even in high-pressure moments. Bad wiring does the opposite—it triggers hesitation, emotional spirals, panic responses, or cognitive overload. When stress ramps up, your body doesn’t suddenly learn new behavior. It reverts to the patterns it knows. In sports, that means you fall back on your wiring.

The good news? You can change that wiring. And not just theoretically. Neuroplasticity—the brain’s capacity to reorganize itself based on experience—is on your side. Through repeated tournament exposure, targeted pressure training, and thoughtful post-match reflection, your brain learns to recognize these situations not as threats, but as familiar territory. With enough exposure, the aMCC becomes more efficient, sending faster and more accurate signals in response to pressure.

You can also train this region proactively. Tools like breathwork and mindfulness help signal safety to your nervous system in the heat of battle. Cold exposure, such as cold plunges, helps you practice regulating your response under discomfort. Over time, these practices build a resilient feedback loop—one where your body no longer panics under fire, but steadies.

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Neuroplastic Conditioning and Identity Rewiring

This is where the true transformation happens. You’re not just refining technique or learning new shots. You’re rewiring your emotional and physiological response to pressure. You’re shifting your identity from someone who “plays well in practice” to someone who “performs under pressure.”

In short, you’re not just improving your game. You’re reprogramming your internal operating system for competitive excellence.

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The Bottom Line: Tournament Play Is an Entirely Different Game

In rec play, you flow. You make clean, intuitive choices. Your body feels loose, your movement natural, and your mind relatively quiet. The game feels like a dance—rhythmic, fluid, and free of pressure. But in competition, everything changes. Your stress response activates. You second-guess. You tighten up. Your feet freeze. Suddenly, the drop you’ve drilled a hundred times feels foreign. The drive sails long. The paddle feels heavier in your hand.

This is the body's way of responding to perceived threat. Tournament play elevates the stakes, and with that, your nervous system shifts into high alert. Performance under pressure becomes a different sport altogether—a test not of your technical ceiling, but of your psychological floor.

“Performance under pressure is not a test of your technical ceiling, but of your psychological floor.”

If that happens to you, don’t panic. Don’t internalize it as failure. It’s not a verdict on your talent; it’s a signal—one telling you that your nervous system hasn’t yet learned to interpret competition as safe. What you need isn’t just more practice. You need more stress reps. More tournament mileage. More fire in your bloodstream.

You’re not broken. You’re becoming. This discomfort is part of the upgrade. It’s the clunky software install before the system reboot. You’re crossing a threshold—from casual play to performance identity—and that bridge is built on discomfort. Like all transitions, it’s messy before it’s clean.

You’re not just learning how to play well. You’re learning how to compete. How to show up under fire. How to make clear decisions when your body is screaming and the score is tight. You’re training your inner systems to stay calm, calculated, and dangerous when it matters most.

And here’s the hard truth: the players who win tournaments aren’t always the most technically gifted. They’re the ones who show up with calm under pressure, who stay composed in chaos, who make fewer mistakes when it counts, and who close. They impose pressure. They don’t flinch.

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Mental Resilience Isn’t Built Overnight—and Science Backs That Up

So give it six months. That’s not just a motivational throwaway—it’s a neuroscience-backed timeline. Research into neuroplasticity, particularly in relation to stress exposure and emotional regulation, suggests that meaningful, lasting changes to the brain’s stress-response systems—especially structures like the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC)—tend to occur over a period of 12 to 24 weeks of consistent exposure and adaptive response.

In clinical psychology, this is why cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure-based interventions are typically framed around multi-month programs. The brain needs repeated stimulus-response cycles in real-world conditions to downregulate overactive fear patterns and establish new, stable neural pathways. Similarly, in the realm of elite sports, high-performance coaches know it takes months—not weeks—to develop true competitive resilience. The aMCC doesn’t change overnight. But give it six months of consistent exposure to tournament pressure—and thoughtful recovery—and you will have literally restructured how your brain responds to stress.

“The aMCC doesn’t change overnight—but give it six months, and you’ll rewire how your brain responds to stress.”

Commit to the fire. Watch what happens as your physiology adapts and your mindset evolves. This isn’t just about performance. It’s about resilience. And that’s a skill that will serve you long after the tournament ends.

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