Pickleball SECRETS you will regret not knowing (from a pro)

recently I've had the chance to pick the brain of one of the top pickleball Pros Rosco Bellamy through our conversations we've uncovered some secrets that the pros know but the most of us are completely unaware of we're going to share these secrets with you today so you can apply them to your game and start seeing better results trust me you are going to regret not knowing these secrets the first secret is that there is nothing more threatening than someone with good footwork so the reason for this is is when someone's in the right position they

have so many more options they can attack they can dink they can drop and overall they have more control of that ball this is a really unsettling feeling for the opposition and the person on the other side of the court if someone's in front of me and I get behind the ball here I can do so much more than if it's out to the side of me and this position right here is a lot more threatening so it requires footwork to get behind that ball and to really show my opponent that I can do so

much from this position that control Factor there is unsettling for my opponent which is going to cause them to maybe Flinch to maybe make an air or it's going to allow me to fake them out and do more with the shot how do we use this to our advantage make sure that you're moving your feet and getting behind every ball at the pro level I can attest this is one of the most threatening feelings one of the best kept secrets is that the number one thing slowing down your hand speed is premature movement so in

pickle ball everyone has a tendency that they typically rely on whenever I'm at the kitchen line and someone's about to speed the ball up at me I tend to rely on my backhand and so before that person ever even hits the shot I naturally move to my backand and so many people have this same tendency where before the shot is even happening they make a false movement a premature movement and the problem with this is it makes you really slow to respond to what actually happens on the court a really simple way to see what

your premature movement tendency is just have someone stand in front of you and then tell them to speed the ball up at you but the twist is occasionally have them completely whiff the ball so they don't even hit the ball and just see what you do I guarantee you that if you have someone do this to you you will see that you move prematurely all over the place in different positions just because you expect something to happen even though it never does happen the most common place for this to happen is at the kitchen line

and this is why you see people chicken winging all the time they're covering their backhand it gets hit to their forehand they chicken wing it and this is not an optimal shot but this also happens at the midcourt so from this position the transition zone we're trying to reset and get to the kitchen I might tend to shade to my backand here and the exact same thing happens I rely on my backand too much they hit to my forehand and now I have to make a quick movement to get over here and that shot's not

very effective as a result one thing that's really important to remember is that you can anticipate something is happening but don't respond to it just because they show something so just like Rosco said people will use their footwork so much to manipulate you and if you get scared because someone is actively moving behind the ball and then they fake you out that's going to lead to you immediately losing the point if you overthink your grip in pickle ball you're just like the pros the secret is it's totally okay there's a lot of Pros who switch

their grips in between shots so for a continental grip we want to hold the paddle just like we're shaking its hand for an Eastern grip we want to turn it just one bevel over for a semi-western grip we'll turn one more bevel over and then for a western it's going to be more flat down like a pancake it's the paddle face is going to be facing the ground I have a western forehand from the Baseline and then as I move forward I go to a continental grip this isn't exactly normal and I would say a

lot of people use more of a continental or semi- grip from back here however for me personally the semi-western to Western grips work the best as I move to the kitchen I'm switching to more of a continental grip cuz that allows me to do more up there everyone's unique in their own way and there's different grips for different shots it's totally fine don't overthink it do what works best for you it's a hard truth but your Fitness level impacts your decision- making on the pickleball court and it's the reason that you're losing points that you

otherwise cannot explain talking with Rosco these past few days this has been made abundantly clear to me the higher up you go in level the team that is willing to stay in the dink rally longer is usually the team that wins that point and this is not always the case but it does give the message that you're willing to stay in this point for super long and just grind it out and be very very patient usually at this level both teams have really good counter attacks so the first team to speed up the ball might

just be the team that loses that point as a result the reason that Fitness Matters in this scenario is because in a dink rally we're so low to the ground and we're constantly shuffling and moving around and maybe at your level this is not so impactful but at the pro level when some rallies get over 100 shots and those 100 shots are all dinks this matters so much what happens when you get tired in these long rallies is you start to stand up and when you stand up from this athletic position you start to maintain

an unathletic position and now your consistency goes down your ability to move goes down and the shots you make are less effective as a result to sum this up playing someone who is fit is incredibly tough because they stay so low for so long one of the biggest secrets in pickle ball is that everyone gets nervous even at the highest level this is totally common and something that's hard to avoid if you handle these nerves correctly you can actually get an advantage on your opponent who probably feels the same way you have to embrace the

nerves a lot of times those nerves will fade out after the first few points however those first few points can be very crucial with body language and what you're telling yourself to get through those points one thing to be aware of is when when you get nervous the first thing that slows down is going to be your feet in this moment what I want you to do is start moving your feet even more so what this is going to do is help you counteract those nerves and you're going to be focusing on something you can

actually control which is your footwork this Ernie pickle ball machine changed the way I move on the court here's the situation you're standing at the kitchen line somewhere in the middle of the court and your opponent drives a ball to the sideline looking to pass you if you want to have any chance of getting this ball you have to have perfect footwork using these settings on my Ernie I'm able to practice exactly that it shoots balls alternating left and right so I can work on the movement in both directions the important thing is to always

push off your outside foot and either do a quick Shuffle or a pivot the common mistake is taking your inside foot away from the ball to start the movement and this doesn't work if you found this helpful and you're considering an Ernie to help you practice then you can use my code Shay at checkout for $100 off your Ernie the secret weapon for the best players is consistency in fact we'd argue that consistency is better than power in 90% of situations here are three areas where this is true the first area where this is true

is on the serve having a big serve is good but a consistently deep serve is even more dangerous one of the ideas that Rosco shared with me in our last video is that you want to make the returner make contact with the ball behind the Baseline to be able to do this though you have to make sure that your serve is landing in the back third of the court so that it forces your opponent to take the ball behind the Baseline the other thing you can do with your serve is make your opponent move so

if you can get them moving left or right then their forward momentum is not going to be going towards the kitchen and the return is going to be less powerful we just covered these topics in this other video if you want to watch it after this one I know it's really tempting to go for a big serve all the time and this is something that I've also struggled with in my own pickleball career I'm constantly trying to figure out how to get a bigger and bigger serve but here's the reality of it all as you

get better your Baseline serve the serve that you hit every time is going to get stronger and stronger and stronger so just naturally over time your consistent serve is also going to be a very strong serve so the second area where this is true is going to be drops the perfect drop is probably not what you think when watching the pro game a lot of times you'll see guys hit full swing tops and drops going one in over the net and Landing perfectly in the kitchen yes this is a great feeling and obviously has a

really good result however this isn't the perfect drop cuz replicating this over and over and over is just not doable the best drops are ones you can make every single time when you talk to Pro players and you ask them who has the best drop they'll say names like Andre Desu and Matt Wright these aren't guys with super flashy third shot drops instead they hit lofty High slow drops that give them time to get to the kitchen line and they make them every single time we have to remember when we're at the Baseline our goal

is not to win the the point it's to move forward and establish ourselves at the kitchen line from there we try and work the point and win the point so remember your lofty High slow drops that you might not think are amazing are actually doing just fine the third area where control is going to be better than power 90% of the time is at the kitchen line during hands battles it's really important to remember that during these fast hand exchanges your goal is to give yourself the highest percentage possible ible of winning the point how

you do this is by forcing your opponents to make Errors By the shots that you hit at them so a couple of simple ways you can do this number one hitting down at people's feet when you hit down at somebody's feet they have to take the ball from below the net with their paddle face pointing up and when this happens they're more likely going to pop that ball up back to you and then you can easily put it away the second way you can do this is by hitting specific parts of people's bodies during aan

battle there's a spot on your opponent's body where you can hit the ball and it'll be extremely uncomfortable for them and as a result the ball that comes back to you will be less powerful or they might just pop it up or they might just lose the point immediately by hitting it into the net if you're only thinking about adding Pace during these exchanges then you're not going to be able to control the ball as effectively if you add so much Pace to the ball you might just hit it into the net because you're missing

your spot or you might just hit it super long and your opponent lets it go and then you immediately lose the point the other reason that adding Pace can be bad is because the harder you hit the ball the harder it comes back at you and as this Ball's coming back at you hard you're not going to be able to place it well and you're going to be the one that's popping up the ball and losing the exchange sometimes in pickle ball there's no right or wrong way to play the game the secret is having

your own unique style if we look at all the pros across the board a lot of them have their own unique Styles and tendencies that make them the players that are if we look at a player like Colin John's he's someone who's very consistent has great defense but he's not really attacking or playing a lot of offense at the kitchen line on the flip side you have a guy like AJ koher who I play doubles with occasionally this is someone who lobs a lot who does a lot of stuff that's very unconventional however he's had

a lot of success PPA gold medals and has made it work this is true even at the local level people might say hey you're doing this wrong you should watch this guy and do it this way however everyone has their own unique style and you need to be true to that the variety of pickle ball Styles is changing and expanding due to the introduction of other players from other sports coming into pickle ball paddle technology and of course just higher level of play did you know that you should change your paddle depending on the altitude

that you're playing at here's a secret that I wasn't aware of but it makes total sense so I personally don't use any lead tape on my paddle but Rosco does so this is his paddle he he has tape at the top and also at the bottom the throat of his paddle but when you play at higher elevations higher altitudes the ball just naturally flies further so because of that he actually takes some tape off of all parts of his paddle evenly from the top and the bottom so that his paddle overall has less power and

the trajectory of the ball more closely matches what he's used to so for me personally I don't use lead tape but maybe if I was playing somewhere closer to sea level I might consider it now one of the biggest mistakes that 99% of pickleball players make is being unsure of who has the middle ball however there's a simple solution that will solve all of these disputes we're playing doubles I'm here on the left side Shay's here on the right and I hit a dead dink in front of me that guy's about to speed up through

the middle over my right shoulder it's going to land over there in that corner I have to cover my line and my body because Shay can't cover that area Shay however can cover the middle so he needs to be sitting here cutting off the angle in hitting an effective counter if Shay were to hit a dead dink over there in front of him and they were to speed up through the middle this would then be my ball because Shay would have to cover his line and I would have to cover the middle and his left

shoulder so the simple answer to this whoever is crosscourt from the ball is going to be taking that middle and cutting off the shot so let's say there's a dead dink in the middle of the court and this guy speeds up back through the middle well then both players are going to be covering our bodies and the middle shot I'm G to be covering my portion of the middle and Shay's going to be covering his portion of the middle this way the ball's not going through both sides it's just going to end up on one

side so if they hit it perfectly down the middle that's a great shot we're going to have to do maybe a little bit of uh telekinesis communicating there whatever however most likely it's going to be closer to one person and therefore that person's going to hit the shot so the person diagonal is going to take the middle shot for most of the reactionary shots it's going to be the counters and shots where you don't have a lot of time to react however on third shots when you can communicate with your partner that's going to be

something that's either discussed beforehand or kind of felted out based on how comfortable you are with your partner speaking of communication there are five secret keywords that the pros use during their matches that you should be aware of the first two keywords happen on the third shot so we've just served our opponents are returning and now it's time for either Rosa or I to hit the third shot if that Ball's coming to me and it's a very soft shot I know I'm going to have a really good opportunity to drive this ball I might just

say the word go and that tells Rosco exactly what he needs to do he needs to go up to the kitchen line and look for a poach now let's say that that return back to me was very aggressive and it's at my feet I'm probably just going to drop this ball or maybe lob it up to give myself time in that case I would say the word hold and that tells Rosco exactly what he needs to do hold back don't run up as Rosco and I are transitioning through the midcourt we're going to to have

to hit some resets and additional drops from this area if I were to hit a ball a bit too high or too heavy I would just say the word high and that tells both of us that I've hit that ball high maybe take a step back and prepare for the ball that's coming to us and then finally during kitchen play when we're hitting dinks back and forth there might be times where the player on the left or the right perhaps steps in front of their partner and takes a ball off a short hop or just

switches up the pattern of the dinking in this example I would come across take the ball and I would say the word stay and that tells my partner that I want him to stay exactly where he is because I'm going to go back to where I just was however sometimes you might come so far across that you need to tell your partner to switch so if I come super far across I might say switch Rosco and I switch positions and I communicated all of that with one simple word switch there are two secret hand signals

that the pros use that you should be aware of there's a three basic hand signals the first one is switch so if Shay's returning here and I'm on this side and we want to switch it up meaning he hits the return I go to this side he comes over here that's what I'd use switch for vice versa this is stay so if I want Shay to just hit the return and come up to the kitchen and I'm going to hold my ground then I would say stay the third one is fake which is going to

look like this like a little talking motion if I want to fake the server out by acting like we're going to switch and Shay's going to come over here but really we end up on the same side well then that's what a fake is going to be useful for however there are two really important hand signals that I think every team should use and that's going to be the communication of where the returner is returning the reason for this being one if I want to cross over here and take the ball out of the middle

I'm going to want Shay to return more down the line that's going to give me a better angle here of taking that shot out of the air on the flip side if I want to maybe look for a backhand Ernie or a ball high to my backand I'm going to ask Shay to return over there also you can combine this with the stay or the switch or the fake so how do we communicate this the first signal is going to be the play so if I'm going to stay here I'm going to do this and

then if I want shade to return over there I'm going to put my pinky out like this if if I want Shay to return to the left side over there or I guess the right side in this case I would go like this so this also works for switches and fakes basically you would show what you're going to do which is switch or fake and then you point where you're going or where you want the return to go so if it's going to go over there I would go like this and vice versa over there

all right so those are all the secrets we could come up for this video if you have any questions drop them in the comments and we'll try to get back to them as fast as possible and if you made it this far please consider subscribing and if you like this video YouTube really thinks you're going to like this video next the one that he's pointing to you should click on it thanks for watching see you the next one peace