5 Common Mistakes Beginners Make (Part 2)

this is five mistakes beginners make part two and if you think you don't make any of these five mistakes or you're not a beginner my guess is you're probably making mistake number four and if you saw part one a five or six beginners make you met my friend Danny who I found off Craigslist well today I have my friends Jack JT and Lili except I'm paying them way more than I paid Danny let's do this here's mistake number one big swings in fact in all of pickleball you should be taking shorter swings not bigger swings

here's the first one it's on your volleys a lot of times we're at the kitchen line and somebody hits a hard ball at us and we take here and that's typically what happens sure I over exaggerated a little bit but not really right we take that big swing because pickleball is so fun to hit the ball as hard as we possibly can so when you're at the kitchen line right and you're in your stance you want to make your swings tight and you want to make your swings compact so ball comes here and here boom

notice I'm in a stance right now and I'm moving my feet in order to allow myself to take short compact swings if you take elongated swings you're gonna make more errors here's the second place you should take shorter swings it's on your third shot drop I want my paddle out in front and I want a shorter swing right shorter swing notice I'm just lifting the ball right now a shorter swing we don't want this when we're hitting a third shot drop because when I have a bigger swing I'm adding more energy I'm adding more Force

which is going to Sky the ball in the air and not allow us to get to the kitchen and in turn is going to create pop-ups for our opponents to put the ball away now here's the third place you're probably taking swings that are too big when you're at the kitchen line we have four people here at the kitchen line in a stance all right that was a little too much sorry so make sure you're watching all right so let's say you're playing right and we're dinking right when I'm at the kitchen I have short

swings when I'm dinking and I also short swings when I'm speeding the ball up notice I was able to create some deception because my short swing dink looked like my short swing speed up which put them in a bind and they didn't know what was coming all right here's mistake number two and it's the one that I'm probably the worst at of all the mistakes I'm going to teach you and it's not even just a beginner thing it's an everybody thing I played in tournament last weekend a ball was literally going over the mountains behind

me and I hit it mistake number two is hitting out balls so most of us have heard the phrase shoulder High Let It Fly or eyes High Let It Fly or way up high Let it Fly all those things but it's easier said than done to just say those words and then do the action of letting out balls go out so I'm gonna give you two cues or triggers that you can look out for when your opponents are about to hit their ball to help you realize when you should get out of the way so

let's assume that we're at the kitchen line in our opponents which oftentimes happens in beginner play or still in the mid Court they think it's still fine to hit it hard there which is fine right so let's say I'm gonna give a ball to JT and JT takes and this is your cue this is cue number one JT takes a huge backswing from the mid courts the chances that JT a beginner that I found off Craigslist is about to put enough topspin on the ball to get it to dip in is next to Impossible I

have a better chance of being struck by lightning right now foreign big swing JT boom Jack and I are in position today taking a big swing all right exactly right beautiful how did that feel this is which is so fun it's so fun exactly and Lily said it people want to hit the ball so hard when they're first starting out we all want to hit it hard you will get a chance to hit it hard okay that's not the point of this tip the point is Lee Lee is taking this massive swing if you see

that in your brain you should be thinking that Ball's flying out easier said than done I know but it's the first trigger to think about here's Trigger or cue number two so number two is about what your opponent does with their footwork it can apply to when they're hitting a drive okay it can apply to what they do when they're up at the kitchen hitting a ball whoa that's pretty cool that was awesome change in full work because it's very obvious especially at the beginner level what it looks like when a player is dinking by

what their feet are doing so right now all right I'm probably not going to be speeding this ball up my feet aren't really doing a lot what beginners do a lot of times is they get a little more frantic take a big swing and hit it as hard as they can so if you can get good at recognize one swing path big swing and two of a change in their footwork you're going to get really good at letting out balls go out okay so I might see a ball here my C and notice if my

third shot dropped footwork is different than my drive footwork okay now I hit that one in but a beginner that you're playing against isn't gonna hit that one in so when their footwork changes and they go to hit that ball be thinking it's probably going out now sometimes it will go in right but a majority of the time just start letting it go out here we go ah so next time you go out and play wreck let the first or second ball go out or just let a few go out and just see what it's

like if you turn around and the ball lands in that's fine that's data because over the course of 10 shots what you really want to be doing is winning 60 or 70 of those so if you let 10 go by and six go out that's good and if it goes in just say Kyle that random pickleball guy told me to and your partner will say yeah it's fine here's mistake number three short returns now most players at the beginner level don't like when they're playing against bangers bangers are players that just hit everything really hard

at their opponents let's do a quick example of that go ahead and serve it just return it I'll be the Banger foreign what's going through your head right now I hate that so one way to beat bangers is to eliminate short returns because here's what happens let's go ahead and just walk through this Jack go ahead and serve the ball and then return it Lily if Lily returns it short which she did right there the ball landed inside of the kitchen a few things happened if she returns it there number one she doesn't give herself

a lot of time to get to the kitchen so right now Lily's standing in the transition zone and I'm about to come make contact with the ball here that's a very difficult shot for any player much less a beginner player if you return the ball short and then you're like coming in at the mid Court not only do you have a tough time like gonna you're having you're gonna have a tough time getting that ball this ball that I hit at you right that's that's a hard shot yeah right but it helps me in this

case say I'm a banger right who just wants to hit the ball hard but even if I'm not a banger cool I'm just a smart player if I see somebody return the ball short I'm going in and I'm hitting a drive to the player that's running in beginners often will say like I hate playing against bangers well no bangers exist at every single level right like like I I played a pro tournament last week if you hit a short return any pro players hitting that ball hard at the person who's running in all right so

let's go ahead back to that let's run that example ah right so what do you do instead well it's easier said than done for sure but you try to return the ball deep and when I say deep I'm talking somewhere maybe three feet from the Baseline so that you give yourself time Lily to get to the kitchen and our job on our third shot serves the first Returns the second our third shot isn't as easy a ball that gets returned up there so easy while it gets returned back here it still can be quote easy

but it's it's much more difficult than that shot and it gives you guys time to be more aggressive and at the beginner level most the time when players serve it they step two or three feet in anytime I get a deep return back I gotta back up which often leads to a pop-up or a missed shot there's so many benefits to hitting a deep return so I'm gonna serve it JT's looking for a deep return JT's going to give himself time to get to the kitchen and they're both in a stance looking for short compact

swings to block our first ball or to handle it here we go good come on good and now you see that we're into a point right they made us work a little bit more by giving us a deep return in fact if we rewind that one more time you actually saw me after my serve have to back up a little bit if you ever see your opponent backing up off your return that's a very good sign if they're ever moving forward Panic so I'm serious okay just kidding but really here's the fourth mistake no communication

the most persistent problem with communication is the illusion that it took place right so when we're in any possession on court whether it's off our server we'll just start here at the kitchen I like to communicate on every single Ball even when it's obvious it's not mine it looks like this you happy you me all right it's a bit counterintuitive but we actually communicate less with players that we're playing with that we don't know and we typically communicate more with the players that we're more comfortable with but in reality we should actually be communicating more

with the players that we don't know because we have no idea how they're going to play so you get a ball here in the middle right that can oftentimes be a confusing ball and all of a sudden what you hear you see is a lot of times blog goes to the middle will clap paddles here ow so the reason I'm saying communicate on every single ball is because you're building the habits of high level communication and I'm also removing any pressure ball goes over to Jack yours right of course it's obvious that's his that I

can release any pressure of whose ball it is on every single ball that we hit so next time you go and play wreck avoid the mistake of no communication and communicate just try it on every single ball throughout a point you me me no I'm just kidding all right we're just we're joking Let's Get Serious I do have it though me here we go me it's you you me flop me you you you you you you give me that oh let's go you is that you you me watch out [Music] here's mistake number five see

if you can identify what the mistake is before I tell you what it is watch out so Lily told me a story earlier today it was about a game she was just in about when a pop-up in fact you just tell the story I popped the ball up I told my partner watch out and he said no I'll take it like a man and then got crushed right in the chest okay so if you don't get hit right in the chest and you see your partner pop a ball up back to our spots it's okay

you in fact it's more than okay at least they come up here okay if a baller gets popped up and you notice that's why you always keep your eyes on the ball right you should Retreat immediately to give yourself more time and more space from your opponent right if JT's here up at the kitchen line and I go to hit a ball like this there's a zero percent chance that JT is gonna get that ball now if JT sees a Paul fly up and he Retreats four or five steps and then gets balanced do it

this time I'll pop the ball he has a chance of actually getting the ball go yeah all right boom right and he's able he's able to retreat and then he can work his way back to the kitchen line don't be like our friend out there and I won't say where you're located thank you a sixth mistake beginners make I see this so much at public parks in fact hearing one player lecture another player about how you can never go inside the kitchen as if this this is like some like black hole or something that if

you jump in it boom you would fall through that's wrong you can step in the kitchen okay what you cannot step in you cannot hit the ball out of the air when your foot is in the kitchen okay but if the ball bounces you can step in the kitchen to go get the ball now another thing I hear is that you can't step in the kitchen until after the ball bounces it's like a little dance move oh shoot I messed that one up it's a lot no it's not a violation it's not a violation all

right you can anticipate the ball going in you can do this all day you can do this this is you can't do that you cannot do that you can do this come here okay you would never do this obviously because the moment JT wants to he would do that and we'd lose you also would never do this because if he tries to hit you with the ball right Glenn big swing yep out and that's the end of the video if you want to learn the rules of pickleball or you have a friend that doesn't know

the rules of pickleball click this video right here I'll explain all of the rules of the game thanks for watching