How to Get Faster Hands

how you think will change the speed of your hands number one is the preparation principle it's really easy in the middle of a dink exchange when your partner is dinking crosscourt with the person in front of you to have a lapse of focus and if you have a lapse of focus because you're standing here and all a sudden your opponent goes and speeds it up at you you can get caught by surprise and then you can lose the point so what do you do instead use what I call Mini Split steps as Zach is dinking

cross court with his partner if you notice I'm just bouncing a little bit it doesn't have to be some big jump bounce I'm just on the balls of my feet and the main reason that I'm doing this is I'm just trying to activate my body and my mind so I stay engaged H right as the dink is in the air and almost like right before contact it's not on contact but I'm preparing cuz the truth is I don't want to be in the air at the same time that he's speeding up go ahead and speed

up that worked out really well actually so what I really want to do is be split stepping or doing a little bounce right prior to your contact so I'm planted so I can use the ground for power and speed right when the speed up does come sometimes if you go three dinks in a row it's like your brain shuts off and then it's like turn it back on brain shuts off turn now as you play more like you don't get surprised as much and you might even stand completely still to like bait them to do

something at a very basic level the mini split step can just activate you so you're more prepared and then all of a sudden sudden the real the reality is then when you're prepared you're ready for a counter and you're not surprised cuz if you get surprised by a counter what happens is then you go home that night and you just got blasted on speed UPS over and over and then you start to think my hands aren't very good but the reality was it was actually just your footwork that was holding you back here's the second

part of the preparation principle it's your paddle position so if again if Zach and my partner it's not just on counters this is on it is on counters but it's also in the middle of a hands battle that if our paddle is completely down it just makes sense we're being inefficient where then if we do get a ball sped up at us go ahead we have to bring our paddle all the way up from down low to up high now that's a dramatic example of a pretty poor paddle ready position what I prefer is I

and I I've gone back and forth with this I would experiment with you but first you want to have the paddle up you don't want toily have it in front of your face I think that's extreme it's also going to encourage you to hit out balls if they're high I'd have the paddle below my chin right and and I personally like it a little bit tucked it's almost like a a clean and jerk when it's closer to my body I have a little more power and speed right so like I'm boom I'm boom some people

also do like having it a little bit out cuz you can just turn it and punch it I would try both I've maneuvered to this but I used to play a lot like this so then when you have your paddle up and you're ready the main thing is you want to be making contact out in front so if JT speeds it up at me boom right you want to do that for a couple reasons one if I make contact out in front I actually catch the ball closer to JT every action has an equal and

opposite reaction the ball's going to hit off my paddle and get back to J JT faster which means then he's going to have to handle a counter that's going to be probably a bit tougher if it comes to him quicker boom right and you notice there how JT flinched because the ball came back so fast now let's get into some of the advanced portion of this some people talk about should I have my paddle actually angled a little bit when I'm preparing for a counter or I'm in the middle of a speed up the short

answer is yes the longer answer is it depends so let's talk about this for a second if Zach is a right-handed player which he is and I'm a high-handed player and we talk about coverages for a second so Zach scoot over a little bit if the ball is on this side and this is just understanding where is the ball in relation to us as a team and then what are our coverages so if Shane is about to speed up the ball on Zach from his wing Zach can start to cheat with his backand so as

you see Zach's position right now he's not in a neutral position he's already turning back in because Zach knows that he can slide a little bit over to the sideline and then he doesn't have to work wor about a forehand if he worries about a forehand the ball's going out right so Zach holds it backhand and Zach knows that my coverage is forehand so in this position as the left side player I don't want to be sitting backhand because the most likely outcome from Shane hitting a backhand speed up from there boom right and I

actually was just doing it right is either Zach has a backhand here or I have a forehand here and as you see in this clip right here Colin John's slides over to the line and you can see right here he's sitting backhand before the ball's even sped up cuz he's anticipating what's going to happen here's another example with Megan fudge who has a two-handed backhand she also slides to the sideline she sits on her two-handed backhand because she's making a prediction that the ball is going to be sped up at her and she can use

her two-handed backhand to counter it's not about having faster reaction speed like I talked about earlier with Albert phol it is a little bit but it's also about understanding where the ball is going to go making that prediction so you're there before it gets there how about this example Matt Wright slides toward the sideline you see he's already sitting backand and then Federico stack Sho slides to the middle for his coverage that's knowing the game now let's flip it is it exactly the same on this side if I'm playing with another righty I'd argue no

it's not because and again this is about faster hands if you have an idea of where to angle your paddle or how to hold your paddle along with your stance and a few other things will get too soon your hands will be faster because you're already going to be into the position where the ball is most likely to go now we're on the left side the main reason I'm not just going to fully cover the line the same way that Zach fully covered the line on that side is because now Zach has his backand in

the middle if he was a lefty go ahead and just right that would be a little bit different I probably would cover line more so we're back here now right JT goes to speed up a ball in this position I like to hold more neutral if I start to hold a backhand grip right here and the player across from me is any good they're going to aim at my my shoulder or at my hip or in this middle Zone and they're going to create a chicken wing scenario I'm holding backand boom and then that is

going to be bad news for us cuz it's either going to lead to an error or a popup which is inevitably going to end the point so as the left side player I know this is more advanced stay with me I'm staying a little bit more neutral so I can cover one if he goes line I can cover the line and I do like a two-handed backhand for that coverage which I have another video on the channel that goes into the the technique of that or I can still cover my middle Zone boom now if

the ball goes directly in the middle Zach has his coverage in the middle boom nice and you see where he's leaning his paddle to because of where the ball is quick Interruption I'm curious how well whether you're a beginner or an advanced player you really know the game that's why I put together the pickle ball IQ test 10 questions very few people ever get 10 out of 10 I dare you to try and after you take it I will tell you the answers and give you a video breakdown of why those answers were the correct

answers give it a shot the link is in the description below now back to the video number two the everything principle the everything principle two things number one everything's being sped up and number two everything's coming back so if I adopt the mindset that everything's being sped up I will have faster hands if Zach and JT are dinking in my mind I'm thinking that's sped up nope okay that's sped up no okay pause so I'm constantly preparing for speed up recovering to dink so boom I'm preparing for speed up and if JT hits me a

ball boom I can recover to dink I'm preparing for speed up right now I'm ready for it boom I can recover to dink if I prepare for Dink it's hard to recover for speed up so if Zach and JT are dinking in in my mind I'm thinking this is a dink and then he speeds it up all get surprised often and then I'll go home and I'll think man my hands are really slow no they're not really slow and if you think man I don't have fast enough reaction time to play at the next level

that's not true you don't need to have Elite hands speed pure reaction time to have faster hands you have to understand these things here's the second part when you get into a hands battle a lot of times we hit a ball and then we relax right we're in the middle of a hands battle and you think it's going to be over and then you relax and all of a sudden you end up losing the point or popping it up the point is never over everything's coming back until the ball goes through JT's chest okay so

we're here boom stay in the point up into it's completely over it's going to happen it happens to me all the time especially as you play better players you get up against somebody and you're like oh man I thought the point was going to be over it's not we lost oh shoot the everything principle here's number three the patterns principle and here's what helped Albert Pooles become one of the greatest hitters of all time he looked for the indicators or the patterns he looked for the pitcher's body movement the way they held the ball the

angle of their arm to inform his swing and pickle ball is similar there's reoccurring patterns that are happening over and over I alluded to it earlier but if we can start to recognize those patterns we can make a better prediction of what's about to happen and again making our hands faster when we're surprised we have Slow Hands when we make predictions we get ahead of our opponent's thinking we're at the spot often before they even go there and then we turn to our teammates after they win a hands battle and we're like well I probably

wouldn't do it to you but I'd be like man you have great hands does have better hands there's no camera to zoom in on your face but I'm sorry Zach's a great guy I'm just kidding so what are some of those patterns let's talk about three of them and the first pattern is if you recognize your partner hits a dead dink boom boom right so as you just saw Zach floated a ball that landed deep into the kitchen and also had a height there was probably 2/3 up of the net most times if you're playing

somebody pretty solid if they recognize that ball they're going to attack off of it so the moment you see a dead dink again remember your bounce and your paddle position it should be alarms going off in your head dead dink prepare for speed up recover to dink all right so that's not a dead dink not a dead dink boom not a dead dink that's a very dead dink boom boom right but the moment I recognize it I verbalized it in that situation but in a real match in my head I'm saying oh that's a dead

dick and if it's that dead truthfully I'm probably going to back up about a foot or two off the kitchen line I'm going to get a bounce and then I'm going to look to counter to give myself a little bit more time to handle that counter that does lead to the next one which is if your partner is dinking the person in front of you is often going to look to attack you and so it's going to happen where your partner is going to leave one a little bit high and then if one gets left

High a lot of times your partner might say like watch it that's an alert system but as somebody paying attention the moment you recognize the Flight of the ball is higher than usual that's an alert system is get prepared to counter let's go again if I'm the person across from you and you know I'm we'll say 5'8 in stature but I have a very short reach I'm less likely or less effective to take the ball out of the air versus someone like deal bar or Ryan Finley or even Kyle that my reach might go to

here whereas de or Kyle's or Ryan might go to there so therefore there's less margin for air for that dink to travel and make it in the kitchen yeah and that's just something as you're playing a match you you're you're paying attention it's right a lot of this game is about paying attention to patterns that you happen over and over paying attention to who are you playing what are the things they like to do these are all things that lead to faster hands if they're really tall they're going to take more balls out of the

air here's number three I have the wrong cast member in this video right this is JT but let's just superimpose a picture of our good friend Tyler right on his head okay if you have a friend like my friend Tyler that's JT but Tyler you know is not here right now it's understanding who you're playing against and if the person that you're playing against loves to speed up say extra more than most people then that's a pattern that you can go into your game or maybe you even recognize it early in a match saying this

person speeds up a lot maybe let it go out if it's flying but also you need to be prepared based on who you're playing so as we're going my alert system right I'm still going to get my mini split step I still have my paddle position up right I'm prepared for speed up I'll recover to dink too much like Tyler too much like Tyler that was so Tyler right but I'm my alerts are higher I'm preparing for a counter just that alone right here will get you faster hands without doing any of this how you

think will change the speed of your hands all right come here real quick whoo K drone camera amped Pro this video is brought to you by cirk check out the amped Pro it just recently came out I love Selkirk paddles and I also appreciate cirk for sponsoring this video check it out ck.com use my code advv Das that pickle ball guy for a digital gift card toward a future purchase now back to the video number four is what I call the coefficient principle basically I tried to combine the words Compact and efficient so maybe it

should have been like competi the competent principle it's basically being compact in your swings and efficient in your movements okay so the main thing when we're in a hands battle or I'm working on counters I do not want to be taking massive swings right and one of the main reasons is massive swings leads to less control we're 14 ft from each other the ball's going to travel less than 26 seconds on a speed up in a hands battle we don't have that much time to do big motions or lose control or even truthfully generate that

much opposite reaction back because the ball's going to fly we want to be compact boom boom out in front because we don't have a lot of time and because we don't have a lot of time if you take big swings that means you have to invest more time resetting for the next ball that's coming at you right so if I'm here my paddle all over here right I'm being dramatic but you can see it changes right away and I get quicker just by being more compact that had nothing to do with my jet Le hands

right it just had something to do with the way that I move quick advaned tip one thing you'll see from some of the top level players go ahead and hits my backhand and my forehand right they're actually just twisting their core more than they're taking big swings keep going right because trying to use the power from their core not the power from their arms to get more basically quick reactions then here's the other one on the Compact and efficient our grip a lot of people probably play with a continental grip but one of the things

is and you can just play around with this right so if you have your hand here right that's kind of Continental you start to move it to Western sorry semi-western like way Western like how people hold a tennis Racket and then some people move like Eastern backhand I think I said that right I don't know I didn't play tennis but basically you can move your paddle into different positions that will affect how you hit the ball so if you have your paddle let's just call it like a semi-western grip right which is how some people

hit forehand if you do that you're going to have a heck of a time trying to hit a backand with any Force because of the way your wrist is bent okay so if that's how you hit you might want to go to a two-handed backhand to get more power on your counters or and this is something I'm experimenting with right now I've actually started working on changing my grip I'll tell you how I'm changing it okay so I have the paddle here I'm actually changing it where the paddle goes like this so then it's almost

like I'm punching now there's downside to this because if I they hit it to my forehand I'm screwed all right so the grip impacts the type of shot you hit but I personally have I had some wrist issues so I have a little less power with a bent wrist like this but I have more power if I can move the the grip from here to here so I can do more of a punching motion now my wrist isn't bent I typically do that when I have a little bit more time right so I see it

coming boom and now I'm pretty much committed though to hitting backand it's going to be really hard for me to switch back over to my forehand so the game's experimental that's not the only way I have a friend named Danny that Danny hits every ball like this and he's really good at it he hits mostly forehands is how he covers his chicken wing so I would mess around with how you actually hit your backhand counters and then and trust me all the pros most of the pros they switch their grips often multiple times during a

point based on the ball that they're receiving how much time they have you don't have to be a pro to to change your grip midpoint does it take some time absolutely but sometimes changing your grip and knowing where the ball's going can actually help you have faster hands because and maybe the more Force you can generate here's number five the down Vol principle when you get into a hands battle or a counter let's go ahead and have you guys just get into a a counter here a hands battle nice pause as you just saw Shane

was hitting every ball up Zach was hitting every ball down Zach is winning that exchange because of the down volle principle if I hit down that forces my opponent to hit up and if my opponent hits up often that will give me a better opportunity to end the point when I was first in hands battles I feel like I was just hitting it to the person I don't really care where you hit the volley as long as you keep in mind to try to get the ball down okay here we go let's go like here

we go let's go full out yep good down right boom and then you have to hit up that was really good those are insights to help you have faster hands I'm going to make a video about some drills you can do but those insights will help you win more hands battles and hit more counter winners or counter Advantage balls in the game hope that helps thank you guys thanks everybody for coming thank you guys hey appreciate yall and one final thing before I let you go I'm starting an online pickle ball school that has beginner

topics advanced concepts drill libraries and a community feature to answer every question you've ever had so if you want to be a part of that get your email on the priority list you can find the link in the description below I'm stoked about this I'm making this for you all so you can improve faster and have some of the insights quicker than I had them as I was getting started you're going to love it thanks for watching excited to do more with you I kind of panicked there at the end but all right see you

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