The first time we came across the kids from East Borneo was at an airport, moving through security, sleepily scrolling through pickleball Instagram. They wore red uniforms. The court was on the edge of a road, there were motorcycles. Was it even a pickleball court? They were moving without a ball — shadow strokes, shoulders tracing through air, swinging at imaginary balls. The movements were jerky. But it was all so vivid. The video of their movements made you stop and pay attention. And then, like anything really good on social media, it was gone.
Weeks later, they surfaced again. Same red uniforms. A different set of drills. The kids had grown. This time they had paddles. Their movements were more fluid. Some of the girls wore hijab. In some videos, they had begun to hit real balls. Not in any kind of conventional rally or game. Creating topspin off training partners' paddles. They had the kind of focus you can't manufacture.
This is how we came to find Captain Harris Sibuea.
Student at Rangkong Pickleball Academy practicing footwork drills on outdoor court in Balikpapan, Borneo.
Balikpapan sits on the eastern coast of Borneo. It's an oil city. A port city. A city where the sea is a livelihood, not the backdrop to a holiday. Captain Harris Sibuea, M.Mar. has spent his professional life navigating it.
M.Mar. stands for Master Mariner — the highest professional certification in the maritime world. Licensed to command any vessel, any size, any ocean.
In 2022, he created a pickleball academy.
Rangkong Pickleball Academy & Club looks like no other pickleball training in the world. But it’s maybe exactly what you'd expect from a Master Mariner turned coach in a country where badminton is practically a national religion.
We began to identify with different kids in the videos. We didn't understand exactly what they were practicing for, what happened beyond the periphery of those 30-second Instagram videos. We had a similar feeling the first time we saw Quang Duong's early Facebook videos — his father's voice in the background. Something unpolished and authentic that heralded a sea change. Southeast Asia continues to post mesmerizing pickleball content — not just for the drills and the training and the context, but for something harder to name. There's a sense they're unlocking a secret level of our sport.
What catches our attention isn’t a particular drill. It’s the culture. The emphasis on movement, discipline, and a seriousness of purpose that most pickleball content doesn't attempt. Like everybody we’ve invited to the chat, we reached out to Captain Harris because we really wanted to understand how someone builds that from scratch, in a city most pickleball players couldn't find on a map, in a country that already has a racquet sport it worships.
Each new detail we learned about Rangkong created more questions. The motto is Ksatria Mulya Satya — “Noble, Honorable, and Truthful Warriors.”
We’ve watched kids develop on Instagram over the last few months. The results are stunning. The potential is limitless.
On July 4, Captain Harris joins our Saturday Squadron Breakfast Call. We'll talk about how he discovered pickleball, why he chose it over every other sport he could have coached, what leadership looks like when you're responsible for a ship and when you're responsible for a court, and what the pickleball scene in Indonesia actually looks like right now. Harris is clear about what he's building: "For us, pickleball is much more than learning how to hit a ball. We use the sport as a platform to develop discipline, character, responsibility, resilience, teamwork, and respect."
Pour yourself a cup of coffee. Join us for a conversation with Captain Harris. Reply to this message with any questions for the discussion.
Meeting chat link: https://us06web.zoom.us/launch/jc/89396329610