Pickleball Basics

[Music] [Music] hi i'm lisa palsic and this is michael magnini we're coming to you from pickleball zone in bend oregon and the oregon pickleball academy we're teaching professionals here and we regularly teach an introduction to pickleball class however we know that with the current pandemic going on we're doing some online learning for lots of things so the deschutes county public library asked us to film an online intro to pickleball class for you so michael and i are going to take you through our intro to pickleball session as we normally would when we teach it every

week here at the zone so first few things we're going to talk about is equipment for pickleball once you're ready to get out and start playing you're going to use obviously a pickleball paddle they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and when you get ready to play and you come on into pickleball zone we've got demos that you can try out so that you can find the paddle that is right for you okay so when you go out to play pickleball it's important that you choose the right equipment so there are different styles

of pickleballs based off of the type of court surface that you're playing on if you're playing on a hard court surface which is just like a tennis court surface you're going to use a ball called an outdoor ball why they call it an outdoor ball is because if you see the size of the holes in these three pickle balls you'll notice that they're a little bit smaller than the ball that michael's holding the reason for the smaller holes is that when you play outdoors you want to cut down on the wind resistance on the ball

this particular ball we refer to as an indoor ball however that can be slightly misleading this type of ball with the large holes in it is only meant to be used if you're playing on a wood surface or more of a multi-surface more like a plastic gym style floor so if you're playing on that plastic style floor or a wood floor you're going to use this ball that has the larger holes because it is going to bounce up a little bit higher and be better for that particular playing surface the other thing that we mention

at the start of every class is equipment we talk about the types of pedals that you can play with however we also talk about the importance of wearing a court shoe a court shoe is a shoe that is going to work on the type of surface that we're playing on it's a tennis shoe or a pickleball shoe it's basically the same thing with a nice hard rubber sole on the bottom that will not allow your foot to roll when you're moving from side to side it's not ideal to wear a running shoe or any other

soft soled shoe as the court surface is like sandpaper and your foot can stick and you can end up hurting yourself so we always like to mention wearing court shoes when you play pickleball okay so a few important things about ready position how to hold the paddle and grip pressure scale for pickleball number one when we're in our ready position the most important thing to keep in mind is that you always want this top tip of your paddle pointing in an upward direction that means that i'm starting out on offense and in a neutral position

that way i'm really quick to get to any shot that i need to just like this now the grip pressure scale in pickleball is a scale that goes from one to ten one being a very soft grip where i would almost loosen my fingers and let go of the paddle a 10 being such a tight grip that i could probably not squeeze any tighter when to use what number on that grip scale anything soft you're going to keep that grip about a five or less for any of your dink shots your drop shots or any

of your blocks that you're trying to drop soft for anything that you're trying to hit that ball hard you're gonna squeeze six to a ten on that grip pressure scale helping to give you a little extra power on those shots that you're trying to win the point with the basic way to hold a pickleball paddle has two variations number one we're going to hold this paddle as if we are giving it a handshake the v of our hand right here is going to be lined up right in line with the edge of our paddle now

the second variation to this grip is called a v-grip in pickleball what that means is i'm simply going to take my pointer finger and i'm going to put it up on the back of the paddle making a v between my fingers still holding in that same handshake position both grips have their positives so pick the one that feels right to you okay so now michael and i are going to take you through the basic rules of pickleball now keep in mind that the rules in pickleball were made for one of two reasons one if something

is simply too easy to win a point they made a rule that would make it a little bit harder so that the points could last a little bit longer or if one team has an unfair advantage over the other team they've made a rule that will help to take a little bit of that advantage away from that team so now we're going to take you through each of those rules and show them to you as well so the first one that we're going to talk about is about this area right here we as pickleball players

refer to this area as the kitchen however that is its nickname what this area is really called if you were to look it up in the rulebook is the no volley zone now what is a volley in pickleball anything that we've hit out of the air so with this rule you can never beat inside the kitchen and hit a ball out of the air because it would simply be too easy for you to win the point michael can you demonstrate that so if we were allowed to stand in the kitchen and hit that ball out

of the air it would simply be too easy so anytime you are hitting a ball out of the air you must remain behind the no volley zone line or as we call it the kitchen line so michael will now demonstrate hitting a volley and staying behind the line he maintains his balance so that he does not fall in the kitchen because the other part to our kitchen rule is if michael strikes the ball out of the air and his momentum based off of that shot brings him into the kitchen they consider that the same thing

as being in the kitchen and hitting it out of the air so we're going to demonstrate what not to do okay so just a reminder anytime you want to hit a ball out of the air in pickleball it's okay as long as you remain outside the kitchen line and you regain your balance right after that shot okay now we're going to talk about when it's okay to go into the kitchen anytime your opponent has hit a ball to you that is a ball that's going to bounce in the kitchen it's totally okay to go in

the kitchen and play that ball michael and i will demonstrate that right now so as you can see as we were playing that point we were able to step in the kitchen because every one of the balls that we hit we allowed to bounce before we hit that ball now keep in mind the kitchen itself is not illegal so if someone hits you a ball that's going to land a little bit shorter in the kitchen you can step into the kitchen ahead of time before it bounces just make sure it does bounce before you hit

it i'll demonstrate that now okay so just as a reminder anytime you want to hit a ball out of the air you can do so but you must remain behind the kitchen line anytime you'd like to go in the kitchen to hit a ball it's okay but that ball must bounce before you hit it and if you do hit a ball out of the air not step in the kitchen as a follow-through you must hit that shot and regain your balance before you're able to step in that kitchen for that next bouncing ball okay i'm

going to demonstrate a ground stroke style serve for you today why we refer to it as a ground stroke style serve is because it resembles our return of serve now i'm going to start so that my feet are in a diagonal position as if i had already taken a step towards that ball a way that i can check my feet and make sure that they're proper in this serve is by simply taking my paddle putting it down with my feet and making it point to my target if it's pointing directly at my target i know

that my feet are lined up properly now i want to make sure within the serving rules that my ball is always below my waist or below my belly button when i start and that my paddle tip is starting beneath the ball i'm gonna have a nice tight grip with this one i'm gonna hang onto this ball pull the paddle back simply let go as my paddle is coming forward and finish by following through okay now michael will demonstrate for you a front of the body style serve all right this serve is called the straight ahead

front of body type of serve now the way it works is you will stand and point your toes at your target which is the middle of that left rectangle on the side that side of the court and you will look at your target which is the middle then put the ball below your waist slightly in front of you and then watch the ball in the paddle arc the paddle back swing from the ball and fall through okay feed straight at your target look at the target ball and paddle below your waist swing back strike the

ball and follow through okay so one more rule that applies for the serving team is called the two bounce rule what the two bounce rule is is that when i serve the ball to the other side that's considered bounce number one the person returning serve on the other side must let the ball bounce before they hit it then when they return the ball to our side of the court we have to let the return of serve bounce bounce number two before we are able to hit it so at the very start of the game if

our team is serving we are both going to be starting from behind this baseline because after we serve we're going to stay in our ready position back here waiting for the return of serve to come over and bounce before we strike that next ball and remember what we talked about with the rules if something is really easy especially when it's for the serving team they've taken that shot away from us so there is no serving running in and volleying in pickleball it would simply be too easy to win the point if you were allowed to

do that okay now it's time to talk about scorekeeping when you're saying the score out loud you're going to say three numbers you're going to say your score first your opponent score next and then you're going to say which number server are you are you the first person to serve this term or are you the second person to serve this turn so before i serve each ball it's my responsibility to call out the score if i am on the right side of the court when the side out has happened and my team is now ready

to serve whoever is standing on the right side of the court will become the first server for this term zero zero one okay now if we win that initial point we are going to switch and i get to serve again now i'm going to call the score 1 zero one because i remain the first server of this point one zero one now if we lose this point michael and i are going to stay just as we are in this position and michael is going to be the next server i'm done serving because we did not

win the point so now michael is going to call the score now that lisa has finished her serve it is my turn to serve and i would call the score out as one zero and i'm the second server on the team [Music] just to recap when you say the score you're going to say three numbers your score your opponent's score and what number server you are are you the first person to serve the turn or are you the second person to serve the turn and remember that number doesn't stay with you throughout the entire game

it's based off of who is standing on the right side of the court when the side out comes back to you for serving okay so we've already talked about score keeping but now we're going to address what happens at the very start of the game so if michael and i are the team that's going to be the first team to serve we're at a bit of an advantage over our opponents so when we call the score instead of referring to myself as the first server i'm going to refer to myself as the second server the

reason for that is because we're at an advantage that we get to score points before the other team they're going to take away one of our servers just for this very first turn so just remember at the very start of the game when you are in this position and you call the score you're going to say zero zero two you're referring to yourself as the second server because as soon as you are done serving it's a side out going to your opponents zero zero two [Music] [Music] thanks for watching the introduction to pickleball class with

michael and i here today we'd love to have you come on out and see us here at pickleball zone we offer all sorts of private lessons clinics camps and so much more come on out and see us [Music] you