11 Game-changing Drills to Master the Volley | Briones Pickleball

Hi, welcome to Brionis Pickleball. My name is Jordan Brionis and in today's video I'm going to show you how you can develop pro level control on your volleys. You're not going to want to miss this so now let's jump right in. Just like I said in the intro this is a video on how you can practice and develop high level volleys. This video includes lots of drills that me and my friend Caden Nemoff put together and in this you will see a complete volley training routine that he and I go through. I think you're going to learn a lot and also you're going to see how high level players train. Remember this is more geared to players that are 4.0 and above but even if you aren't at the 4.0 level this is going to be very helpful for you to see how we train and how we develop and work on specific shots. Don't forget if you really like this video please hit that like button and also don't forget to subscribe. Now let's get right to it. All right here we are in Pickleball Kingdom in Chandler Arizona and we are starting off just with warm-up volleys. Now these are straight on volleys I call it and we are just aiming towards the torso of our opponent. So again we are not moving our feet we're balanced and we are just trying to really control the ball. You can do this how fast or how slow that you need to but somewhere around waist level to chest levels where we're aiming we're again trying to get it right to the opponent so that we can warm up our hands. This is super important for control and your directional control just trying to get that volley straight and also just trying to get a good rally with your partner. If you don't have the control to do this then this is something that you definitely need to work on because this is probably going to be the easiest exercise in this volley routine. So as we're doing this I want you to notice a few things. Look at our stroke and as we push out it's a very compact stroke okay I'm not we're not both not taking huge swings we're just gently pushing forward and our paddle is going back to ready position as soon as possible and you can see both of us are slightly favored to the backhand around 10 or 11 o'clock which is the correct position when you're volleying up at the non-volley zone. All right this next exercise is called the closing in volleys and you'll see after five or six volleys or so we will take a step in and we are trying our best to get closer and closer to each other. This is just a really fun one to do and it's a good control drill again we're aiming straight to our chest or towards our torso waist area and after every few volleys or so we're trying to both inch in at the same time okay so again with the closer proximity the balls are going to get to you a lot faster so this is a really good drill and this is really going to work on your hands in your reaction time. Look at where we're both looking we're not really looking at the ball but we're looking straight ahead towards our opponent. All right so now this is a different variation of the same drill where one of us stays at the non-volley zone line and the other one inches in so you'll see me do that here and then here we go again Caden feeds the ball and again I'm inching in after every single volley. Of course you wouldn't do this in a real game because you're in the non-volley zone but again this is volley training right we're training our hand eye training our technique and really being relaxed with your grip. One thing that I really had to work on over the past few years is relaxing that grip pressure you know around a three when I'm volleying like this because you will get hand fatigue if you're gripping your paddle grip too tight. All right so for this next exercise we are just going to come a foot or two in so we're about 10 feet away now this is fairly close when you have been used to volleying from 14 feet away so this is just one of the best things that you can do training your hand eye as a high level player you're standing inside the non-volley zone and you can even get closer if you want but right now we are about a couple feet in and this is just a fun one obviously you see us having a lot of fun and trying to do our best to hit the volleys solid back and again very very short strokes you can see especially in this drill there's not a lot of movement all we're doing is pushing the ball forward a few inches or so or even less. Okay so we're going to hop on to the next exercise and this is forehand to forehand volleys. This is a great one for creating space on your forehand side so you don't get jammed up and honestly just to work on your forehand volley. Notice how both of us are very compact and after every ball we go back right into ready position. Notice where our paddles are and you'll see some movement definitely you're going to have to slide to your left at times to get that contact so that you can hit a clean forehand volley. You'll see me here kind of sliding to my left so I can get a good contact on my forehand. All right so now let's jump right to the backhand volleys and here this is actually a lot easier I think for most people as for myself than the forehand side. We're just aiming straight to the backhand this is very good for directional control right we're aiming for one spot and you can see here after every ball we are getting back into ready position quickly and doing our best to control the ball to our opponent's backhand side. All right so this is figure eight volleys this is probably the most advanced drill here and you can see here that Caden right now is going down the line so when he gets a forehand he's going to my backhand and when he gets a backhand he's going to my forehand and I am going cross court so when I get a backhand I'm going to his backhand and when I get a forehand I'm going to his forehand. So again when you're doing this one person is going cross court when they get the ball and one person is going down the line and because of the ball path this drill is called figure eight volleys because the ball kind of moves in an eight. Like I said again this is probably one of the hardest exercises in this pro volley routine but again this is something to work up to so here you can see Caden going across on each volley and I'm going more down the line. Again when I say cross or cross court here we're not really talking about cross court we're just saying when you get a backhand volley you're sending it across to your opponent's backhand and when you get a forehand you're sending it across to their forehand. So whoever is the down the line player will be hitting their backhand to their opponent's forehand and will be hitting their forehand to their opponent's backhand. Hopefully that makes sense and actually we'll run a couple slow-mo clips so that you can see it a little bit better here. All right so now we're going to hop into one of my favorite drills and these are called quick feed volleys. So you can see Caden standing about a foot or two in one or three feet in the non-voy zone and this is an exercise he actually showed me. You can see him here trying to explain what's happening because I've never done this before but this is really really great. So he is inside the non-voy zone and he's quickly feeding it and this is just to get your hand eye very very quick. Again you can see him going to my backhand at times to my forehand. This really helps you not to get jammed up on that chicken and he's showing right here don't take a big swing keep that paddle out in front of you and then just try to react to the ball and you gotta have a really really light grip pressure here. Notice my body is very very still. One thing that this really taught me is I'm trying to see the ball early off his paddle off his feed I'm just trying to react to the ball. Notice that after every volley here I get right back into ready position because he's going to feed it again and again. So he's just kind of looking at different spots looking at aiming on my forehand trying to chicken wing me actually or hitting it to my backhand side. So I really have to be attentive and ready trying to read the ball as early as I can. All right so now we're switching here this is the first time I'm actually trying this but yeah this is a really really great drill. Notice Caden is relaxed now that last one he was just showing not to take a big swing but you can see here as I feed him it's a very very short stroke he's reacting. I'm actually trying to chicken wing him at times trying to hit to that dominant side so it's that right hip and this is the drill that you can practice trying to do that. Look out here I'm hitting three in a row four in a row to that right hip I try to trick him on that left side and then he got it. Okay so remember when you're doing this all you're trying to do is feed it into uncomfortable spots and also right towards your opponent's torso sometimes to their right hip to their left hip and again this is just a really really good drill for reaction time. So now we're going to hop right into leading moving volleys and as you can see here we're leading each other one way from sideline to sideline and you'll see that one of us is taking forehand volleys and then one of us is taking backhand volleys as we lead each other one way. Now you can see here we're going back and I'm taking forehand volleys here and Caden is taking backhand volleys. I'm just going to show the other one one more time so you can see this here right now Caden is leading me to my backhand volley and I'm leading him to the forehand and this is a really really good control drill. Notice we aren't moving as we're volleying we're moving and stopping in between so this is actually just really good for balance and just knowing how to move in between shots because you're going to need to do this in pickleball in general. We are sliding over or moving in between volleys but when we actually volley our feet are stable and we are balanced so this is a really really good drill to do. All right straight on moving volleys now this is almost the same thing but we're kind of aiming straight to the torso so we're not leading each other in any way you could hit forehands or backhands. Again notice our footwork we are moving in between volleys but we are not necessarily moving when we are actually hitting. This is a good skill to practice and again you're going to start on one side try to move all the way to the other sideline and then move back. This is a very very tough drill very advanced but you know as you keep improving and learning improving your volleys in your paddle position trying to get reloaded quickly this drill will become easier and easier as you go along. All right so now we're going to hop into the you go I go volleys. This is an exercise that I kind of formulated a few years ago and you can see we started on the same side and Caden is moving towards his even side until he gets to the even side and then he's going to come back towards his odd side. So you'll see here that one person is moving to the other side and back and then the other is just staying on one side and now you'll see him lead me. So now I started on my even side now I'm going to the odd side and now we're hitting cross court here. This is actually a really tough drill because you really got to punch your volleys when you're cross court to get it to them. Then I'm headed back towards my even side until I get there. All right so the last drill here coined by the Bryan brothers we start cross court from each other and we are trying to volley and move and meet in the middle like you see here and then we are going to go towards the opposite ends cross court trying to volley here. This is very similar to the you go I go except that we are both moving trying to meet somewhere in the middle and then we are expanding out again towards cross court. So this is a really really tough drill. These are really great exercises that you can do to train your volleys and your location of your volleys. Thanks so much for making it to the end of this video. We really believe if you implement these drills and routines you can level up your game really quickly. If you'd like a full workout routine which is going to work on all the pickleball skills that you're going to need to be a high level player head on to bryonispickleball.com forward slash workout. As soon as you go there I'll send you my complete drill workout routine which I think is really going to help your game and make it more fun. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you in the next video. Thanks so much for watching. For a free pickleball workout routine that is guaranteed to level up your game head on to bryonispickleball.com forward slash workout. Before you head on over there make sure you're subscribed to this youtube channel and hit that little bell icon so that you can be notified every time we release a new video. Again thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one.