4 Years Of Pickleball Lessons In 15 Minutes

Today marks four years that I've been playing pickleball. In those four years, I went from a brand new player with no racket sport background to now training for the Pro Tour. I'm going to give you the most important concepts that I've learned so that you can improve quicker than I have. First up is the body serve. 90% of players prefer their forehand and you should be taking advantage of this. Where you hit this ball is very specific. We're not just talking about anywhere on the body, but there's actually a very specific location that you want to target. If this person's returning and you aim on the outside of their left foot, this makes them have to make a decision. Either A, they'll take it with their backhand like this, or B, they'll have to step across and take it with their forehand. And this is really difficult for several reasons. First of all, this footwork is difficult because to step across and do this properly, it takes a lot of practice and most people haven't done this. So whenever you hit a ball over to the side of their body and they want to take it with their forehand, they're going to have to figure out a way to move to get to that ball and oftentimes they'll do this incorrectly. The second reason this is important is because when someone steps across their body like this, their momentum is now traveling horizontally. So after they hit their return, they won't be running towards the kitchen, they'll be moving away from it, which makes their approach much slower. And finally, this horizontal momentum causes their return to be less powerful because they're not moving towards the kitchen. So all the power they would normally be generating by going forward is now going to the side. So the returns you get are also less effective. Finally, a pro tip, whenever you're hitting a serve and targeting this part of somebody's body, if you put side spin on it, the ball will be traveling through the air and moving in this direction. So even if they are to step across their body like this, the ball is still coming this way and they're going to end up getting jammed by that shot. Shot peaking is the number one thing that pro pick ball players do that everybody else doesn't. So this concept applies to your dinks, it applies to your third shots, and it applies to most shots that you hit from the transition zone. But it doesn't necessarily apply to your serves or drives or any sort of powerful shot. So whenever you're in a dink rally, most people are trying to be super aggressive. And what this does is it makes the shot peak on the opposite side of the court. So say you're hitting a forehand dink from here, probably something like this, what's probably happening most of the time is this shot that you're hitting is rising, rising, rising, rising, rising, and then peaking over here, and then it starts to fall. And this is bad for two reasons. Number one, if it continues to rise, then this person can take it out of the air, usually at your partner and speed up. Or number two, if the ball is rising from your side of the net and you're hitting it super low, then it might not have time to actually rise above the net and you're gonna be clipping the net. Instead, what pro players do is they make sure that the balls peak on their side of the court. So whenever they're hitting dinks, this ball is rising, rising, rising, rising, peaking, and now it starts to fall over the net. Because of that, the trajectory of the ball is going to be downward, and so it's going to stay lower underneath the net after it bounces. The same thing applies when you're hitting third shots and resets from transition as well. Whenever you're hitting them, you want the ball to peak on your side, probably somewhere around the kitchen, and then fall over the net like this. What if I told you that you could nerf the biggest advantage that tennis players have in pickleball? This is how to hit a very effective third shot drop whenever tennis players have a really harsh backspin return. Oftentimes, people that come from a tennis background will be able to hit really good backhand slices. So because of that, the ball is traveling and it's staying super low to the ground, and we have to let it bounce. So it's really difficult to get underneath it and hit an effective drop. So what most people try to do is stay up like this and then just try to hit it more flat or maybe with a topspin, but there's two problems with this. Because that ball has so much backspin, if I try to hit it flat, then it's going to kick off my paddle and go towards the ground and I won't be able to get it over the net. And if I try to hit it with a topspin, but I'm standing up, then I won't be able to get underneath the ball and my topspin also is going to go into the net because I'm not actually applying true topspin. So the solution to this are two things. Number one, you need to get super low to the ground. And typically I would take it with a closed stance. So if the ball's coming, I want to turn my body and get low to the ground. And then number two, keep my paddle face open towards the sky and make sure I'm beneath the ball. So now that I'm beneath the ball and I'm low to the ground, I can apply topspin and hit up on the ball. And what you've really done is nerfed the advantage that the tennis player had because of spin continuation. So their backhand has so much spin on it that when it gets to you, you're going to be able to apply all that spin from the slice plus more that you've applied with topspin. And now you're able to hit drives that land in the court or you're able to hit third shot drops that are super aggressive as a result. The same thing applies when you're hitting drops off of someone who's hitting a fourth shot with heavy topspin. Same exact thing. All you have to do now is get underneath the ball and slightly poke at it with a locked wrist and keeping your paddle low. And this way, all the topspin that they're generating is going to convert to backspin whenever you hit it. And this shot's going to be a lot easier to control rather than trying to add topspin to a shot that they're already adding topspin to. There's a very specific shot to aim your drives that will win you more points. Whenever you're hitting drives and there's someone at the net, one of two things often happens. Number one, you see that there's someone at the net and so you start hitting your drive differently and your technique breaks down. Or the second thing that happens is that you try to hit such a perfect shot because now there's someone at the net and you hit it so low that you're likely going to hit the net. Both of these things are wrong and it only changes because there's someone there. So there's a better spot to aim at that will make you more consistent and also give you a better chance of winning the point. First of all, you need to make the mindset shift that you're not trying to win the point off of the drive, but actually just set up an easier shot. So whenever I'm hitting this ball, I'm no longer trying to pass him and hit a clean winner, but instead, it's counterintuitive. I want to aim towards his forehand, around his hip, right around here. The reason that we do this is that most people hold the paddle with a continental grip, which means that any shot hit to their backhand is super strong because their wrist is straight and they're able to generate a lot of power and a lot of force off of this shot. But when they go to their forehand, specifically around this side of their body, their wrist tends to bend and they don't have quite the same amount of control and power behind it that they would have on their backhand. So this shot, even though it's on their forehand, becomes a very appealing location to hit the ball to because the ball that comes back is usually not as aggressive. You should steal this strategy from the number one pickleball player in the world. Ben very rarely hits a third shot drop that goes near the sideline. And this is for a few reasons. Number one, the most obvious answer is that whenever you aim for the sideline, you're going to not have the same amount of margin that you would if you aim somewhere else. And so you're likely going to hit a few balls out and miss wide. Number two, if you hit a shot that's close to the sideline, it's really easy for this person to step across and hit an Ernie off of it. Number three is whenever you're hitting shots over here and it bounces up high, then this person now has so many angles they can attack from. They can hit hard cross court shots, they can hit hard down the line shots, and they can hit a hard shot literally anywhere inside of the court. So there's a better solution. Most of the time, you're going to want to be hitting your drops anywhere from the middle of the kitchen to about three quarters of the way towards the sideline. This area makes it super safe to miss because if you miss wide, then you actually are going to be hitting that perfect shot to the sideline. And additionally, the net is lower in the middle, so it's easier to actually get shots over the net and to stay low from this position. And finally, whenever you aim it towards the middle, then the attacking options that your opponents have are limited. 99% of pick ball players can't name the two types of dinks. What are they? The two types of dinks are lift dinks and push dinks. Every single shot you hit is going to be one of these two. A lift dink is a shot that you hit, usually it's going to be below the net and you're just lifting up with your paddle, kind of like this. All right, there's not a lot of pace on this ball and I'm hitting it nice and high over the net and keeping it well within the kitchen and not trying to be very aggressive with it. The second type of dink that you might hit is a push dink. And this is the dink where you're going to be adding topspin or maybe backspin and you're trying to push your opponents back. The really important concept here is that whenever someone hits a lift dink to you, that ball's likely going to be bouncing a little bit higher and that's whenever you would hit a push dink. And the flip side of that's also true. Whenever someone hits a aggressive push dink to my feet, that's when I would want to use a lift dink because it takes away all that aggressiveness and turns it into a neutral ball that just barely goes over the net and into the kitchen. What you don't want to do is hit a lift dink off of a lift dink. So if someone were to hit a really easy dink to me, I don't want to just easily hit it back to them because now I'm giving them an opportunity to hit a push. And also what you don't want to do is hit a push dink off of a push dink. So if someone hits a very aggressive shot to me, I don't want to try to hit a very aggressive shot back because I don't have that same amount of stability and I likely won't hit a very accurate or effective shot. I guarantee that you've never heard this pick ball tip before because I just realized this yesterday. Everyone knows that when you're in a dink rally, you should have a primary location where you want to hit the ball constantly. But what you probably don't know is what this opens up. So the most common strategy is to figure out which of your opponents have the worst dink and then target that dink over and over and over again. This is your primary dink that you would hit in pretty much any situation. So if for some reason I think that Josh has a bad forehand, every single ball I hit, I want to hit to his forehand. So if we're just dinking, I want to consistently hit balls back to his forehand. And all I'm doing is looking for a pop-up or looking for a ball that goes slightly slower than normal that I can push. But what you probably are not realizing is what's happening here is that this person across the court, by having this shot go there consistently, it's going to open up an opportunity on them. So every single location on the court that is a primary location has a secondary location that corresponds to it. So if I'm aiming at this guy's forehand, what's going to happen is this guy steps across to start supporting, and now the secondary location, whenever I get a chance, is to hit a shot to his backhand. And because I did that, now he has to move to make that shot, and he's going to be a lot less balanced, and the shot he hits is going to be less effective. Same thing happens over here. If I were to be targeting this guy's backhand over and over and over again, then this guy's going to step across to the middle, and now all of a sudden his forehand opens up for a shot. So if I'm just hitting back across the net consistently to his backhand, then this guy's still sliding across towards the middle, and now all I have to do is hit a redirect to his forehand, and that's going to open up opportunities for me. This same concept applies to the middle as well, but it's a little more nuanced. If I aim at this guy's left foot over and over and over again, he's probably going to step across to his left foot. This guy's probably going to move this way, and now that opens up shots to this guy's forehand because that's where the open space is. Just consider this the next time you're dinking. Watch what happens whenever you have a primary target and you just hit it over and over and over again. What the secondary options are to open up. I guarantee that someone you play pickleball with does this, and you can take advantage of it. Every situation in pickleball has a most dangerous threat. So if I were to hit a shot to the sideline right here, and I'm standing on the sideline, the most dangerous threat is a shot that's hit down the line. And so because of this, I usually want to shade my paddle in that direction. But what a lot of people do is they go all the way and fully commit to it. And so now they're opening up opportunities on the other side of their body. So this is what people typically do that you can take advantage of. If you have a threat that you know that you can make, that person is likely going to guess in that direction. And when they guess and fully commit to it, then you just go the other way and you usually win the point. So what you want to do is anticipate where they're going to go and shade in that direction, but don't fully guess and commit to it. Instead, stay balanced and ready. And that way, no matter which shot they hit, rather down the line or across your body, you're able to respond to it because you haven't fully committed to one of the sides. This is the worst piece of pickleball advice that I hear. Don't back up. Here are three scenarios where you should be backing up. So the first scenario that you might want to back up on is whenever you're in a dink rally and someone hits a ball that's a little bit too high. Oftentimes, whenever that happens, people will stay locked in at the kitchen line here. But what you're doing is you're giving yourself less time to react to the shot that comes at you. Instead, all you have to do is just take one or two steps off of the line, knowing that they're about to hit a speed up at you and you have more time to reset the ball. On the off chance that they do just hit a dink, even though you're off the line, you have plenty of time to react and go up and get that shot. What you probably don't want to do though is take a couple steps off of the line and then try to get into a hands battle from this position. Because you're back off the line, you don't have the same variety of angles that your opponents will have, and you're likely going to lose that hands battle. The next time this is most obvious is when you're in the mid-court and you're resetting or you're trying to hit drops to get to the net. Oftentimes, what people do is they stay locked here and they take balls out of the air super low to the ground. But the reason this is bad is because that ball has so much pace and it's very hard to control. Instead, what you should do, a better option, is to let the ball hit the ground and then short hop it. Whenever a ball hits the ground, the friction of the court is going to take away a lot of the pace from the ball, and so that ball that's coming to you is significantly slower than if you took it out of the air. But an even better option is to take a step back, let the ball hit the ground, and then as that ball is starting to drop, then you can hit a good third shot or a good reset. The final place you might want to back up is when you're in a dink rally at the kitchen line and someone hits a high shot to you. Rather than staying here and hitting that ball off of your short hop, all you have to do is just step back and now let that ball rise and you can hit an aggressive push dink wherever you want. This is what makes pickleball like chess. I think that speed ups are the most undervalued and underdeveloped part of the game. Depending on your opponent's position, there are a lot of moves you can make. Some are brilliant and some are blunders. The first thing to know is that a speed up doesn't have to be hard. If they move, it's just out and you've lost the point. This is the equivalent of playing for a scholar's mate and then being in a worse position because your opponent knows the trick. It's way more reliable to pick apart your opponent's position by playing consistently accurate moves. So depending on your opponent's paddle position and how they grip their paddle, there's a lot of attacking potential. So most people tend to shade their paddle towards their backhand side, and whenever you do this, that exposes your right shoulder for attacks. Similar thing if they were to hold their paddle at their right shoulder, this exposes their left hip for attacks. And then also how they grip their paddle changes things as well. So most people that have a continental grip, it makes your backhand slightly stronger. So if you hit a shot to their forehand where they have to bend their wrist, it's going to be more effective. But if you look for the tactic, you'll often find a quick checkmate as a result. If you want more tips like this, sign up for my free newsletter. I give away a free paddle there every week, plus a ton of valuable information just like this. And if you've made it this far into the video, please consider subscribing to the YouTube channel. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.