A Q+A with Mariko Wakefield, Director of Jamboree Practice Culture

Over the past year, some of you have had an opportunity to work closely with Mariko Wakefield. Some of you met her for the first time this week on Zoom. Some will get the full Mariko experience at 6am this Saturday.

PBJ: “Director of Practice Culture.” Where did that come from?

MW: I knew Andre and Joceline and a bunch of other players had asked Chris for something high performance a couple years ago. Some type of training environment that focused on more details — court movement, tools for the mental game, sharper practice habits, more opportunities to push themselves with others who wanted the same thing. So when I approached Chris last year, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard already. 

PBJ: What exactly did you want Chris to help you create?

MW: I knew there were players that practiced the way I wanted to practice, but I didn’t know who they were, and even if I did, I hadn’t earned my invite. That wasn’t going to stop me. I knew I could piece something together and make it work. I had this romantic vision of a court — any court — and we’d just recreate game situations with my doubles partners and play out real tactics, apply strategy in the moment, and sit on the court at sunset and talk about our games and connect and improve together. 

PBJ: Everyone eventually gets this idea.  

MW: This wasn’t a new idea! I had versions of this when I was younger playing tennis, rowing, track, swim and it made all the difference. It sounds so simple.  

Last spring, school gyms, community centres and public courts at very awkward hours was the best I could get. The people part was a challenge. I knew this was the case for  all the players who had approached Chris. He had been promising “high performance” for ages. Why had it taken so long?

Last spring, I began to finally understand the challenges. A group of us had begun  playing tournaments and Jamborees together. We were asking Chris for guidance. We were working hard, drilling with intensity, but no matter how deliberately we approached it, there was no lasting structure. The sessions were fun, but it felt like we were missing out on all kinds of opportunities, and just couldn’t quite get the right environment or mindset to practice with intention.  

Chris began to more actively guide the experience. In particular, he'd help us in the days leading up to a big tournament. In those weeks, we would get into a rhythm, I could see improvement and the training just felt smooth. It was like a dream. Some of those weeks it felt like we were being treated like professional athletes. Some of those weeks.

PBJ: You were chasing the vibe of those special weeks? Why didn’t it stick in the other weeks?

MW: Everybody’s got such different needs and I wanted the furthest thing from an assembly line structure. 

I’d done the camp in Baja a few months earlier and was hoping to participate in a version of the camp that had that same feeling of those weeks where I got to feel like a pro athlete. Our little group had become guinea pigs for a lot of the ideas they’d use at the next camp. We were creative and workshopped different crumbs. Because of schedule, we never quite got our little training group together for that December’s camp. 

But week after week, after tournaments, training on walls across downtown and early morning reps, I looked forward to Chris asking me for updates and we’d inevitably get to talking about possibilities and “what ifs.” 

I decided to get certified as a coach through the IPTPA; I enjoyed coaching tennis while travelling and competing and thought it could help me understand the game better.  I filled in a few classes with Chris and those weekly possibility conversations and “What Ifs” got more ambitious.

What if I went to Mexico that year as a coach? I'm not sure what level of involvement or creativity Chris had expected from me when he first pitched the idea. My experience in high-performance tennis was a great reference for building a training environment.  I understood frequency, repetitions, attitude, structure. There were things that were frustrating and rigid. I was drawn to how pickleball could disrupt any sport. And also, what ACTUALLY goes into planning a pickleball camp?

PBJ: It seems pretty simple, right?   

MW: From the coaching side I began to realize how many different levels there really are to this type of training. And that they were all interconnected. At one point, Chris showed me a map of every “moment” and “lesson” we wanted to create at El Camino. There were hundreds of sticky notes on his map!  It seemed impossible, could we even do a quarter of it? And how would those moments even coherently connect?  

Let me tell you about this map. I think most people would have seen total random chaos. Maybe it was but it made complete sense to me. In the months leading up to the camp, it was amazing to see how much work went into preparing to create almost every single one of those moments. It was like having a screenplay. Some days when we were there it almost felt like the coaching team was directing a film.

PBJ: How did you begin to graft your unique vision onto that map?

MW: When Chris began asking me to create little pieces of the week, I told myself I was ready for this! One of my roles working at lululemon is leading goal setting workshops, people development and activating potential. So this was in my wheel house. The more I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the map, the more my little pieces became co-creation.

I’ll admit, moments were chaotic but the coaching team worked so well together and found levels of creativity and lots of jokes to keep us going, which the campers began to riff on themselves. I wouldn’t have done it any other way,  it was a truly magical experience.

PBJ: Having done the camp a year earlier, and then helping organize, you had a good sense of the opportunities to add and refine layers.

MW: The theme for the camps was “Meeting the Moment.” Me included. 

Leading up to the camp, we took time to make sure the group was better prepared before they arrived. We had a few new ideas that I hadn’t experienced in the previous year when I attended as a participant. Everybody arrived with a mission. Each group turned into this amazing team. Each week was equally amazing. Profound. Genuinely.  For some it was actually a transformative experience. The stuff that happened before and after and around and beyond the court time was the true value.

PBJ: Over those two weeks in Baja, some of the campers began to ask why this couldn’t be created back home? 

MW: At that point, Chris began to explain the ideas behind Troop Culture, Practice Culture, Merit Badges, the Practice Atlas, the way pickleball communities were about to change. 

When it was over, we traded a lot of messages just trying to understand the total context. My own training experience had begun to change. New facilities were popping up throughout the city, so I could find courts regularly. I’d earned my invite to a few groups and found myself welcomed into troops, travelling to tournaments together, training late at night and early in the morning — and  belonging. 

We found an amazing ally at Fairgrounds. Even though they were based in Toronto, they seemed to understand this Vancouver Jamboree thing. We began collaborating with Evan and Shawn. Slowly—then suddenly—the Jamboree Practice Atlas came to life. 

PBJ: Practice culture. What exactly are we practicing for?

MW: I adore everything about pickleball culture. What I truly love, though, are those players at every age, every skill level who are just out there practicing! They’re out there at dawn. Or after work. They’re doing clinics, watching pro matches together. They’re hustling between different crews of players. I adore it. Never have I ever played a sport with that much pull.

I like to ask people what they’re practicing for, and they don’t always know, which feels so pure to me. 

But part of me—the part that’s spent years building environments for people to grow and activate their potential—can’t help but ask the next question: what if that energy had a direction?

PBJ: What if that energy had a direction?

MW: I guess we’re about to find out.

Everyone is already doing the work. But there’s something missing—and it’s not passion, or volume, or love. It’s the intention and the focus on the simple things. The idea of building a new skill, a new strategy, a new sequence where I “float” on the court — that type of practice culture is what I’m searching for.

You read stories about Serena or Rafa or Steph Curry — these elite professional athletes — it’s not just about hitting 10,000 balls. 

They understand something much larger about practice. 

PBJ: Instead of simply practicing to practice, we’re going to practice how to practice?

MW: Yes.

That’s the culture I’ve been searching for.

PBJ: When you ask people what they’re practicing for, is there an answer that’s stuck with you?

MW: So many. The question is really that centre North Star square in the Practice Atlas. 

But there’s something kind of perfect about the way this dude explains it.

We read every reply to these emails. What are you practicing for? The best answer will win a bag of Jamboree Treats.