Target Dink Drill

Make practice fun...

Jordan Briones continues his Primetime video series with another dink drill. This drill focuses on hitting targets in order to to move your opponent around. The video is called "3 Cone" Dink Pattern Drill | Pickleball. 

The drill starts as other dink drills do - with a player positioned at the NVZ line on each side of the net. But prior to that, 3 cones are positioned on the side of the feeding partner. The cones are set close to the net within the width of a half-court and dividing the half-court into thirds.  The set up is shown below.

Two-Ball Dink Drill

Make practice fun...

The next video from the Jordan Briones Primetime video series is focused on two key parts of the game - dinking and hand-eye coordination. The video is called "2 Ball" Dink Control Drill | Pickleball. 

The drill starts with just as you would expect in a dink drill - a player positioned at the NVZ line on each side of the net. Both players simultaneously starts the drill by hitting a dink to their partner...so two balls are active at the same time. The objective is to keep the two-ball rally going as long as possible by hitting simple dinks back to your partner. 

Third Shot Tutorial

Getting the fundamentals right...

The Jordan Briones Primetime series continues today and features Dave Weinbach in 3rd Shot Success with Dave Weinbach | Pickleball. The topic is the third shot drop and the keys to a successful shot. I often say that the third shot drop is the hardest shot in pickleball. I'm glad to hear that Dave's thoughts align with mine. But he also says that it is the most important shot in the entire game. So let's see his suggestions to make ours better.

Dave has 3 keys to a successful shot. We will go through them one at a time.

1. Light grip pressure

The drop shot is part of the soft game. A soft shot requires a light grip to take energy off the ball. Dave recommends a grip pressure of 3-4 on a scale of 1-10. A tighter grip will be noticeable as the ball will rocket off the paddle face.

Recycle Sunday - Transitioning from Tennis to Pickleball

A blast from the past...

This week's Recycle Sunday article was originally published January 28, 2016.

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As discussed in Pickleball vs Tennis - And the Winner is..., more and more tennis players are also playing pickleball.  Some do it just to see what pickleball is all about. Others make it a permanent transition as their aging bodies are better suited to the smaller court.  These players have an edge over non-tennis novices due to their court experience, but there are 5 big differences to which they must adjust.

1. The stroke

A tennis stroke is much longer than a pickleball stroke.  The pickleball court, at 1/3 the size of a tennis court, is a much quicker game that does not demand the power needed to hit a ball the longer distance.  The tennis stroke starts with a long backstroke and a long follow-through as shown below.

Backhand Slice

Getting the fundamentals right...

This week, the Jordan Briones Primetime video series again works from the baseline. Instead of the servers, though, this post focuses on the return of serve and, in particular, the backhand slice by viewing his video Backhand Slice Success | How To Hit A Great Pickleball Backhand Slice. We will follow along through Jordan's presentation as he breaks the shot mechanics down and then puts it all together at the end.

But first, why even bother with a slice? Why isn't a regular backhand good enough? Simply put, the slice puts additional pressure on your opponent. It has a couple of benefits.

The Importance of Proper Technique

Hard work and proper technique will beat bad technique every time...

Daniel Joseph (DJ) Howard is an IPTPA instructor in Michigan. He is also a member of the Pickleball Forum where he offers a weekly tip. DJ has kindly agreed to allow me to include his Forum tips on this blog. Last week's tip - "It works for me" - was about the importance of biomechanics. This week's tip takes it to the next level in a discussion of proper technique.

DJ's weekly tip: (FYI, this one is long and I contemplated breaking it into 3 parts, but figured y'all could handle it.)

Tip: Yes, good (proper) technique (still) matters. A lot.

This week's tip is a piggyback of last week's tip on biomechanics being important.

"It works for me"

Hard work and proper technique will beat bad technique every time...

Most readers have not been following this blog since the beginning. I started the blog soon after I discovered pickleball. One purpose was to chronicle my learning experience. As a former tennis and racqetball player, I was able to learn pickleball very quickly. That early success made me a little hard-headed, though. I was able to beat many players by playing my way - grip, hitting technique, footwork, and strategies were all meaningless. "It works for me" was all I knew.

Then I started studying the game. I watched videos. I watched matches. I read everything I could get my hands on. I started to change my game. Many of the changes have been discussed in these pages. But I still experience the "it works for me" attitude...with students at my clinics. I used to show proper techniques but ended the demonstration segment with a statement similar to "whatever works for you". But I gave that up a long time ago. Instead, I now show the proper technique and explain the limitations of failure to adhere. I can't force anyone to adjust. But I can let them know how they will ultimately fail.

All of that is an introduction to the substance of today's post. I have used some tips from DJ Howard, an IPTPA instructor in Michigan in the past. This is a particularly good one.

Recycle Sunday - It Should be Called Dinkball

A blast from the past...

I have been posting Offbeat Sunday content for a long time. While it may continue sporadically as new material becomes available, I am starting a new series called Recycle Sunday in which I will repeat some old articles. This article was originally published November 29, 2015.

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Recent posts have been about moving from the baseline to the kitchen line. Prem Carnot’s article in a recent post made clear why you need to get there. If you haven’t read it yet, please do. Prior to my recent tournament, I planned to follow those posts with a series on kitchen line play ultimately leading toward several posts on dinking. However, my experience at the Holiday Smash has caused me to move dinking to the head of the line.

So, what is dinking and just why is it so darn important? A dink is a ball hit low and soft into your opponent’s kitchen. It is important because it is effective either in a defensive or offensive mode. Its importance grows as the skill level of your opponent rises. It provides you a significant competitive advantage against opponents who can’t or don’t prefer to dink. I saw match after match won and lost by the dinking game in Concord.

From Drills to the Game

Don't overthink, just let it go...

I have been posting a lot about drills...and that will continue. But there is a question that always comes up - "How do I make sure that my practice sessions improve my play during games?" Sarah Ansboury had a recent article on just that subject. Below is an excerpt from Taking Your Pickleball Drill Practice to the Game.

Give Yourself a Break…Play!

When you are working to improve your game, you may do very well during pickleball drill sessions, but you find that your old habits seem to resurface when you are in recreational or competitive play. Remember, that these ebbs and flows are common, and in fact necessary, on your journey to improvement. You need to give yourself a break!  Accept that this is part of the process, and play.

Targeting: Practicing Serves and Returns of Serves

Be sure to positively identify your target before hitting the ball...

I mentioned yesterday about the priority order of implementing targeting strategies and that players should move down the priority list as their skills improve. In addition to the drills shown in Chapter 2 - The Serve and Chapter 3 - The Groundstroke and Return of Serve, this post discusses how to practice these shots to improve your skills.

We will start with a Keith Bing video - Serve & Return Serve Drill: Hit the landing zone. This video shows 2 players marking off an area 5 feet from the baseline with the objective of hitting both the serve and return of serve into that area. The video cannot be embedded so click on the link above to view.

A Topspin Drill

My mind is spinning in circles...

One of the most significant uses of spin is a topspin groundstroke, particularly when hit as a driving shot instead of a drop shot. Adding topspin to a low hard shot will cause the ball to dive down below the top of the net and help to prevent the opponent from making a winning volley. Today's post will be a review of some basic drills to learn topspin through tennis training techniques. These tennis drills can be used for pickleball without change. Temporary nets may need additional support if they cannot be tightened sufficiently.

Keep Your Eyes on the Ball - How to Do It

Keep your eye on the ball - even if you can't see it...

As we have learned, keeping your eye on the ball is easier said than done. Coaches talk about the need to do it but I have rarely seen anyone talk about how to do it. I will mention the one exception I've seen below. But today we will turn to the tennis world to get some ideas how this is done. The video we will review is from Ian of Essential Tennis and is called How To Watch The Ball Part 1: The Process.

Ian spends quite a bit of time in the video explaining how the field of vision is divided between "focused vision" and "peripheral vision". In a separate article, Ian writes:

The human eye is able to view almost 180 degrees of vision. Out of those 180 degrees, only two or three of them are actually finely focused and used for daily tasks such as reading, driving, or whatever else your “focus” happens to be on at the time. I often demonstrate this to lessons by picking up two tennis balls, each with a different number on them. I present one to the student about 3 feet away from their eyes and ask for their focus to be on the number of the ball, and to keep it there. I then take the second ball, and start about two feet away from the first one, and ask if they can read the number on the second ball without moving their eyes from the first. The answer is always “no”. Then I slowly move the second ball towards the first, to see how far away they can read the number without moving their eyes. Most students can read the second ball once it gets about 2-4 inches from the first. Thats it! From three feet away, you’ve got about 3 inches of focused eye sight. If that small percentage is not locked on to the ball as it is traveling towards you and meeting your strings, you’re using blurry vision to see the ball, and sometimes (depending on your habits) no vision at all! Your focused vision will ONLY stay on the ball if you move your eyes along with the ball through out its path to your racket.

Keep your Eye on the Ball to the Paddle - the Real World

Keep your eye on the ball - even if you can't see it...


Keep your eye on the ball. We have seen the coaches talk about it. We have seen that science says it is impossible - at least in some circumstances. Now we will continue our discussion by looking at what happens in real play. We will do this by reviewing 2 Pickleball Channel videos that show the moment of impact and give a pretty good idea of where the eyes are looking. The first video is called The Forehand with Slow Motion - Scott Moore.

As the title suggests, the video shows Scott hitting some forehands off of easy shots from his drilling partner. As we discussed yesterday, these shots are slow enough and of such a distance (note his position behind the baseline) that Scott's eyes can follow the ball the whole way to the paddle.

Now watch the video and pay particular attention to Scott's eyes.

Keep your Eye on the Ball to the Paddle - the Science

Keep your eye on the ball - even if you can't see it...

We will continue our discussion about keeping your eye on the ball by looking at what science says about the concept. You may or may not be surprised depending on your own experience with the technique.

The source for the materials discussed below is Catching Flies And Hitting Fastballs Have A Lot In Common and Baseball Brains - Hitting Into The World Series, both from 80 Percent Mental Consulting. 

Most studies on the concept of keeping your eye on the ball have involved baseball and that is topic of these articles.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball to the Paddle - Part 2

Keep your eye on the ball - even if you can't see it...

We started discussion yesterday about keeping your eye on the ball based on an item from The Best Advice You Ever Got. Today we'll show another example of a coach preaching the philosophy.

This video comes from Keith Bing and features Coach Cat. It is called Keep Your Eye On The Ball.

Keep Your Eye On The Ball from Keith Bing on Vimeo.

Keep Your Eye on the Ball to the Paddle

Keep your eye on the ball - even if you can't see it...

Last week we used an item from The Best Advice You Ever Got to go into detail on the "paddle up" instruction philosophy. This week, we will use that same source to discuss another instructional philosophy - keep your eye on the ball.

This must be the single most universal instruction in all of "ball" sports. From the first time baseball players grab a bat, they hear "keep your eye on the ball". The same is true of tennis, football, and all other sports, including pickleball. One example is shown below in a Tip of the Month from Coach Mo (my emphasis added).

Hitting Techniques "Do's and Don'ts"

DO: Make a split step at the point of contact of your opponent's shot. A split step is when both feet are shoulder-width apart and parallel to each other. DON'T: Always try to hit the ball while backpedaling or running forward.

Serving with Power

Power creates problems for opponents...

There remains at least one more step in the development of my serve - power. While my new service motion allows for harder, lower, and deeper serves, I have yet to try to generate the power created by top players. The reality is that I may never get to the next step, but it never hurts to learn about it.

Yet again, Mark Renneson has done the analysis and created a video he calls Pickleball Pro Serving Technique from which the following images were taken. Mark's analysis is that top players generate power with 2 techniques the rest of us fail to use.

Most players use only the dominant side of their body when serving. The "bowling" technique uses the right arm exclusively to generate power. By comparison, top players use their entire body to create power. The next series of images shows Morgan Evans opening his body from the beginning and then finishing with the paddle over his opposite shoulder.

Serving Focus

Concentrate on the work at hand...

This week's posts have centered on reinventing my serve by hitting it harder, lower, and deeper. A serve with those factors increases the risks...by a lot. I ended an earlier post by mentioning how a lack of focus often results in my serve carrying well beyond the baseline. Today's post will discuss the common elements used by pros in their service routines and how they can be used to improve our games.

Mark Renneson has a video that analyzes pros' serve routines called How to Serve Like the Pros, shown at the bottom of the post. The following photos are taken from the video.

The first photo shows Christine McGrath with her pre-service routine of bouncing the ball. It doesn't matter what the routine is. It can be as simple as staring at the ball. The purpose is to ensure mental readiness prior to serving.

Reinventing my Game - The Topspin Serve

If I wanted a soft serve, I would go to Dairy Queen...

Yesterday's post Reinventing my Game - The Serve discussed how a new grip allows me to hit a lower, flatter, and harder serve. That post did not discuss one other tool that I have the potential to add to my service game - topspin. 

I generally have talked about spin in a negative way. That remains my position for players below 4.0 skill levels. There are other parts of the game for which additional practice will add a quicker and better return for the effort than practicing spin. But some of those parts of the game become second nature to players as they advance. This allows advanced players to practice more esoteric parts of the game - like spin.

Yesterday, I mentioned that my service motion vaguely resembles Rob Elliott's as shown below. I used Rob to make a point that the grip allows such a powerful serve.

Reinventing my Game - The Serve

The serve is the last time you will have full control of the ball...

My earlier post Reinventing My Game - The Grip discussed how a few small changes allowed me to make dramatic improvements in my game. Since then, I have mentioned some of the setbacks but have yet to get to the real improvements. Today's post will start the discussion with the improvement in my serve.

First, let me revisit the grip changes because they are fundamental to the new serve.

The photo on the left shows my original grip - called a claw grip - and the photo on the right shows my new grip - called a handshake grip. The difference is obvious as the handshake grip is much more aligned with the arm and seems to be a more natural extension of the arm. The claw grip forms makes the paddle form a right angle to the arm.