The HUGE Mistakes 95% of Pickleball Players Make (and how to fix them)

there are three mistakes that 95% of pickleball players make but the good news is they are super easy to fix so easy that we're going to show our friend Carol how to fix them so that she can reach the top 5% after this one video so let's do this that was the best drill I think I've ever had it's totally Game Changer before we get started I want to give a big shout out to wo tennis club in Hawaii for allowing us to film this video If you ever find yourself in Maui this is the

absolute best place to find a game I want you to go to the very back and work your way in okay and we're just going to see how you move coming forward I'll feed you a really soft ball and I just want to watch you come in okay just work your way in yeah so let's talk about that for a second so the first mistake that most people make in pickle ball is just not being ready and that happens in several different places but the number one place is moving from the Baseline all the way

up to the kitchen and so you have a tennis background right yeah um you learned about split stepping in tennis yeah so I see you did it pretty well here very often you're taking a step and then getting your feet wide and then starting to get low and that's really good but one thing you need to be doing is doing that a little bit earlier so there's several times where I'm about to hit the ball I'm making contact and your feet are still moving sideways and so whenever you start your split step as I'm making

contact with the ball you're split stepping a little too late okay so right before you see me make contact that's when we split step because split stepping takes a little bit of time I think you understand the split step for people that don't all you're doing is just taking one step and then putting your other foot out wide and getting in a wide stance and getting low and you're doing that really well right so just make sure that yeah a little lake so before he makes contact go ahead and make sure you're completely set let's

try that let's do a few there it is nice first one's much better nice one thing to add into your split step is this so the reason that we split step is so that we're able to move in any direction that we want to move but to move in either direction you have to start to lower down and then take a step nobody ever stands straight up and then moves like this you always lower before you move so in your split step once you get your feet out wide right before he makes contact start to

lower down into a sort of squat that way you can move either direction whenever you need to y a little earlier there nice sweet I love that one of the mistakes we'll fix later is paddle positioning up here at the kitchen but getting all the way up there looked really really good much more controlled I love that nice here we go oh my gosh that's so good yeah that's amazing sometimes it probably feels like you're giving up time because you're doing it so early but I want you to know that that's a good thing so

best thing you can possibly do is just be ready right and the mistake is that people try to get as as much space as they possibly can and then as a result they're not ready but if you're split stepped a little early and you're just watching him hit the ball that's a really good thing you want to be doing that okay yeah that looks really good let's do one more of those I think we can move on nice that's so good so I think like that's the fundamental thing that's the foundational thing is getting your

feet right and now from here we're going to build on the resets we're going to build on the paddle position but that was a really good job great student thanks okay so your split stepping just went from okay to really good but the only part that's still missing there is making sure your paddle is in the perfect position on top of being on the right position on the court so the easiest rule of thumb to follow here is called the Seesaw effect so we know a seesaw it goes up and down right so the same

principle applies on the pickle ball cord when you're down here we want your paddle as low as possible because the odds are that a drive is going to come all the way down to your feet and you also have time to raise your paddle up if for some reason you need to block so we start low and as we work our way up towards the kitchen line just like you were there we're going to slowly raise our ready position higher until finally we get all the way to the kitchen line where it's just about chest

High because now the net is here and it's very difficult for them to hit a shot that's going to roll all the way to our feet it's the 90% rule that you're going to be Bing or blocking or resetting when you're at the kitchen but do you see that kind of movement so we go here and we bring it all the way back as we approach down and there's a super cool trick with this too on top of your paddle now being in the right position it's also going to be an indicator for you as

to whether the ball is going in or out right which is awesome yeah so that's the funnest part about the Seesaw effect is you not only are in the right spot you now know whether a ball is in or out it's a great indicator yes exactly so if you're here and you have a ball that's above your paddle right now you know we're at the Baseline it's definitely going out right but same thing if we're here and our paddle is about waist high and a ball is now above our paddle odds are it's still going

out so then same thing at the kitchen when we're all the way raised to our chest any ball flown above our paddle is also out so that's why this this rule is so awesome because it tells you two big things one where to be when the ball is coming your direction and two whether that Ball's staying in so if it's cool I'm going to show you a drill I'm going to feed you some balls and we're going to have you do that seesaw indicator and then I'm going to ask you to tell me just by

staying still whether that ball's in or out based on your paddle position okay Shay is going to launch some balls at you and all you got to do is stand there with your paddle on the right spot and without looking at at where the ball is going tell me if it's in or out okay cool awesome where am I starting we'll start at the Baseline and work our way up so we'll do three stages here's a question yes please if I'm standing at the Baseline returning a serve yep do I want my paddle down you

do yes because if your paddle up here think about how much time it's going to take you to bring it down to deflect the serve you want your paddle in a position that gives you the least amount of time to travel to where the ball is going to go so a serve ideally your opponent hits it deep right they hit it so it bounces here if they're good right so your paddle needs to be down here so if you have it up here and then you're trying to react to a low serve look at how

far my paddle has to travel now right oras it should be here worst case they hit a short serve right right so let's say it bounces middle of the Court same rule I start to raise my paddle as I come close and the amount of movement required to make my shot is still very minimal right so does that make sense yeah yes okay any other thoughts on that no I that just that part just kind of confused me not really confused me I just was curious as to the thought process behind it exactly the point

is we just like the split step rule all of this is pointing towards giving yourself the most amount of time to react to any shot coming your way is that's just part of being ready because the more time you have the easier executing any shot in Your Arsenal is going to be so that's pretty much what all this points towards but on top of that we also have outall indicators so we'll teach you that so let's do it yeah so we'll have her start at the Baseline and you just feed some balls and then you

can just hold your paddle where it should be on the Baseline so that's going to be about right above your prob quad like right here nice yeah perfect and the Baseline should be the easiest one so just tell us if that ball is going in she's not making contact for the to I'm not out nice that was a great call that was actually really close not that close in nice look at that yep you can come forward just couple steps Perfect all right right there nice out nice in nice sweet let's have you go like

right here now nice this is where things get a little bit tough air paddle is in a good spot nice out that was in in but do you feel that in your paddle like when the ball is going in it's still kind of in the zone that your paddle is held are you kind of like feeling that or seeing that or how are you making these calls yeah I want to grab it yeah okay there you go okay out nice all right let's go to the kitchen line oh tempting was in that was unfortunate yeah

nice that's perfect let's go Carol I watch other people just like frantic yeah it's true it's so true it's funny you would think going up in the levels would mean like the ball's just moving faster so we have to move faster but it's so not true if anything the ball's moving so fast that we need to give ourselves as much time as possible to be able to hit a correct shot off of their so that's strategizing Planet exactly yeah if we try to rush everything just not going to work so the next biggest mistake we

see is incorrect movement especially when it comes to the kitchen line we already showed you how to be extra ready moving through the court especially working your way to the kitchen now I'm going to show you how to stay ready when you get to the kitchen so you can give yourself even more time to hit the perfect dink maybe volley whatever it is you need to do because let's be honest most of the rallies occur at the kitchen line so we really want to crush these moments My favorite way to learn how to do this

is called shadowing so the goal with shadowing is to be tracking the ball as it moves through the court with the tip of my paddle at all moments so if I'm going a dink rally the ball is bouncing on the other side of the tort so let's say the ball is over here my paddle is actually facing with with the tip towards the ball at all moments so that I can be perfectly ready for the shot coming over let's just demonstrate this for a second so now I'm watching turning watching the Pall ready I have

so much time to hit my shot now cuz I'm just tracking the ball the whole way through nice do you understand what I mean by that pointing towards the ball the entire time really simple rule but the reason that's helpful is because it already preps your paddle to the direction needs to be so if the ball's coming crosscourt and I'm pointing at it the whole way I'm already ready for a backhand because my paddle face starts to face towards the direction and I'm about to send it right so let's have you dink a little bit

and I just we'll focus on that and then I'll kind of fine-tune it so we can get to a better position and then I'll add it a little bit more of an advanced rule on top of that but we'll start with this let's do it nice good yeah I like how you're doing bat to ready position so I noticed there we're applying two things you're running out a bit of time because I think the movement is tough I do see you kind of like missing that shuffling movement so let's still stay low throughout that entire

process but on top of that when you go to ready position don't just hold it in your spot make sure you're aimed at the direction that the ball's about to come towards you so if you hit it out wide for instance and the ball's over there so Shay has the ball out there yeah I want instead of it being here for you I want you more pointed this direction okay okay ready for it here we go yeah there you go yeah show it there you go that's so good yeah okay so once we got that

down it looks like you're getting that pretty fast the next a little bit more advanced trick to this instead of just pointing the paddle tip at the direction of the ball I also want you biased towards your bat hand so by bias I mean just turning your wrist a bit the reason we do this is because we need to be ready to defend our chest at any moment because the ball could be sped up right so by slightly biasing towards our backand it just allows us to block a lot faster because in general we're going

to be blocking with our back hand you want to try to cover your body with your back end and see how much easier that feels oh yeah yeah you see that I block a lot yeah with back end the only risk we run is we don't want a chicken wing so we don't want to buy us so hard that we're doing this movement that does have to be a full switch to the forand other than that we really want to be blocking every other 80% with that thatat can so we go so for this I

want you to apply the exact same principle but instead of just pointing straight at it yeah you got it here and then we'll start to show you how to hit those blocks on top of that and sh's got a great tip for you okay all we ready yeah there you go let's start with that I like that better Perfect Look at that that was a great block out of nowhere yep it's just a little bit here we go good nice I like how you had time there and you still switched to forehand instead of trying

to do the chicken wing much better I'm really confident that this next thing is going to completely change your game and I bet you probably never seen this before okay okay so what I'm going to do is have you stand there I want you to get in the good ready position I'm going to speed the ball up at you and I just want you to defend it okay you ready I'm going speed it up to you here we go one more time I saw it on your video yeah right so so this is the thing

that 95% of people do is they prematurely move the other day we were playing you and I and I had a ball right here and I had so many options and so you tried to guess where I was going to hit that ball and you just never can you might get it once one out of every 10 times but that movement you just did this this if I know that you're doing that then whenever I'm speeding up at you I'm going to always aim to your right shoulder because if you go here and I aim

here you're just never going to get that ball so the trick here is you don't respond to what you think might come at you so if I'm faking a speed up and I never hit the speed up you should be completely still completely still but the second I make contact then you can move really fast in either direction okay so let's just try a couple here I just want you to stand W contact yeah it's the difference between like being scared about what's going to come cuz you think I'm going to speed the ball up

at you so like oh I got to defend everything but then I hit a really light ball to your forehand and you miss it now because you guessed the wrong way it doesn't seem like there's enough time in 14 ft one more thing that just to add here is that the reason that you feel like you don't have a lot of time is because mentally you're already prepared for the wrong shot but if your mind's completely blank here and you're just watching the ball then sometimes you're going to enter that state where it doesn't matter

matter where they hit it you get it back I know you've probably had that moment where you're on the court and people are hitting balls at you and you can just get it back no matter what like that's what we're trying to tap into here where you're just completely free of guessing you're just straight up right I go to hit a ball at you doesn't matter you have no movement at all this is the mistake premature movement just hit a few so I'm going to dink some at you and then every once in a while

I'm going to just fake the ball I just want to see what you do okay little bit of movement there but not bad okay you ready here it comes good you got that easy don't guess talk me through it how are you feeling about this right now it's totally a game changer you really do feel this though yeah nice totally it's totally a game changer but it's also forcing me to be really focused I know that sometimes I get distracted by other things and on those days my game suffers this is forcing me to Stay

Focus right now in the moment yeah next time you're warming up with somebody just try that just fake a ball at them and just watch how big they move everybody has like a little tweak they do and they just do it unconsciously but because they do that you can take advantage of it by going the opposite direction and everybody has it let's try just a couple more of these all right now let's firefight here you go oh yeah she's ready yes good job good job that's solid yeah great job you like that yeah yeah it's

a game changer it's good yeah it applies to the kitchen line it applies to the midc court it applies to the Baseline all right everywhere on this court don't try to predict where the ball's going to go and guess that direction you can have like a gut instinct in your gut and in your mind but don't prematurely move there right good job really good learner thanks that's great a handful of people have tried to show me how to reset with two hands and I'm not as successful with that as I am with one and one

person said why are you trying to mess with two you do it really well with one hand but I'd like to learn how to do it like especially on the backhand side with two and I really struggle with it one thing I noticed from you earlier can you show me how you grip your paddle at the kitchen line you're naturally pretty choked up on the paddle so you're naturally like around here and I think when we're actually hitting you're a little more choked up than that there are some shots where you're really up here putting

your second hand on that's really uncomfortable right a lot of players hold the paddle really low and they put this second hand on there for stability but because your hands already a little bit higher up on the grip I don't think you need that second hand there for stability right and that's probably why it feels awkward to you okay I'm also going to say that I don't often play up here might play up there if my my hand gets there and I don't really have time to change okay I tend to play more back here

okay and my back hand I do a two-handed backand so I pull that one in okay sounds good yeah just from what I saw right here maybe in this specific situation we're a little bit higher I don't think you're all the way up here definitely not you were a little high okay um and so maybe that's that could be a reason in transition as far as specifically two-handed versus oneand I think it kind of depends on the situation of the court and honestly one hand's probably your friend in most scenarios the only time I really

recommend a two hand is when you're covering this zone right here because a one hand just isn't stable to block in between your legs so here is where I like to use a twoand because it provides the stability I need to be able to even cover my legs but past here because your one-handed volleys look really solid and you are a bit choked up I really think you can reset with one hand almost all the way into the kitchen the only time really to provide two hands is when you're trying to cover your feet at

least for most people do you have any thoughts on that a big aha moment for me because nobody's explained it that way really at all no they've not explained that you know it's better when it's like between your feet or when you're around this area they've just said no no you got to do two hands even if you go all the way over here you do two hands and I'm like I mean there are some great two-handed backhand players who do reset with two the whole way I'm just not one of them and and plus

you really feel confident in that two-hander I think this is more flexible right so this is what you want right but what the way you said it was a big aha moment good I'm glad awesome it it really resonated so just general advice I would say if you're guarding really low like you think someone's about to overhead at you then definitely prep really low with your two hands but if you're working your way into the kitchen just really get hone in the one hand and then if you start to feel like this is going to

be a helpful addition down the road then fine but I don't think there's a necessary CU I can actually reach a lot more stabil with one hand if I try to reach this far with two it's just more uncomfortable the final biggest mistake that we see is players lacking Advanced shots so we're going to cover two of the biggest and most important ones we've got resets and roles that we're going to show Carol so let's do it Carol I just want to get a feel for where your resets are so I can provide the most

help to you so I'm going to have you just hit some shots I'm going to feed some balls at your chest I want you to focus on resetting back into this kitchen area let's have you in the transition zone right nice I'm just going to feed you some balls now I just want to see how you reset towards me okay sometimes I have trouble absorbing it this way sure okay stay in that ready position for me and instead of prepping too early make sure you wait till I hit the ball and then prep and block

it's just like a volley here we go nice here we go it's all right like guessing like guessing prematurely you're always shading your back in so because of that is coming to your forehand and you can't get the in time yep still just okay treat this just like you're at the kitchen line you just have even more time now here we go nice I like that a lot better here we go Carol you've got that there's no lack of control there I'm loving that come on I'm not worried at all about your stability on that

backhand honestly the biggest thing that I saw the reason you sometimes were really feeling awkward is one you didn't get your body out of the way so you're resetting like this or like this so just because we're ready doesn't mean we stay still after the ball coming toward us we need to move and adjust so we can get that reach this is a much more staple shot than this it's also just less awkward but on top of that I also just want you not cheating just like we were in Shay showed youa it's the exact

same thing if you prep super super hard toward it worked it was beautiful yeah so it's the exact same scenario if you prep here and then I give you a forehand look at all this motion you got to do and then hit a forehand it seems like your gut Choice when you're doing big swings is to just finish big and smack the ball that's not what I want you to do I want you to stay stable hit those resets really gentle half swing ballies so let's just do a couple more of those I think that's

going to be beneficial I feel like she's got that go I just really want you to nail this feeling so let's do it and then we'll apply it moving forward through the kitchen ready good great let's avoid the chicken wing when possible it is good to bias your bat but when you see it going forehand we go forehand we go great all right let's have you go to the Baseline all right same thing I want you to start with a drop just come through take your time let's focus on those resets and not prepping too

early okay here we go okay okay less punch I'd like to see that swing just a soft volley okay here we go good good yeah hey that was so much better it felt comfortable for you look at that well I did two-handed back Pand so I you know I was in a situation where I would be hitting the ball you know if you hit to my feet and I was doing resets I would probably do them one-handed really okay interesting I feel like that's good I want you to just do what's comfortable for now there's

no reason to mix up what's working as long as you're not pre- choosing a side I really think that's your biggest Improvement area it's just that's helping a lot I see it I see it not prepping too early to another side I think that really is your biggest thing is when you do prep out really wide you're tempted to if it does come to your forehand do a massive swing and then you're kind of forced to just swing hard again and that's not a reset that's that's not a shot that we can hit so when

you're here and you have to do this small swing that allows you to do a small chop and come forward into the kitchen that's the biggest thing then also just the mental reminder we don't have to smash our way forward we're just going to hit that soft shot we're going to land it in the kitchen I feel like you're getting that down really fast so that's awesome big Improvement really big Improvement than you yeah great job and this is the last mistake that 95% of people make it's not having these two shots we just taught

you the reset now it's time for the rolls so talking rolls here I just want to see what your roles look like first of all do you know what a roll is if you had to describe a rooll what would you say um Top Spin oh let me ask you when would you use a roll um typically if I'm at at the net and I'm trying to just drop it to their feet okay often I'm here I'll try to roll it over there with top spins so that it drops pretty close okay I don't know

what's the answer I think that's I think that's pretty true I think there's a couple ways we can use a roll so first of all here's why it's called a roll to get Top Spin you have to have the ball roll off your paddle so it literally rolls off your paddle and the more that I pull away from this ball or up through this ball the more spin it gets and so this is the way that we can take balls that are below the net and get spin so they go up over the net and

then back down towards our opponent's feet just like you said what you're describing is more of like a dink scenario where you're using a roll like maybe a roll dink or you're taking a roll volley for a dink um I think the more advantageous place that you're going to find to use rolls is when your opponents are at the midcourt and you're at the kitchen line and they're hitting drops or resets coming in and you're trying to take balls out of the air but not leave them so high that they could just smash it back

down at you we want it to go up over the net and then back down towards their feet right which you're very familiar with so let's have you hit some of those I'll be back here and I just want to see what it looks like for you okay okay backand forehand two hand one hand whatever feels comfortable for you okay well my backand rolls I'm working on trying to get him down the line but I typically go crosscourt okay I'm just learning how to do a one-handed roll yeah I struggle with that let's just see

what it looks like uh I'm just going to hit some balls to you I want your goal is to get it to my feet okay so let's see how you can do that this is the this is the Baseline good there it is your rolls look great they do you have the motion down you understand so let's just talk for people that don't know things you're doing really really well well you're nice and wide your feet are really close to the kitchen line you can move really far into the kitchen take the spot out of

the air um your motion's good so you're going low to high that's how we generate the Top Spin going low to high cuz you hit the back side of the ball and it brushes over your paddle you're doing that really well follow through is just a little big so you're finishing sometimes up high like really really high or you're uh finishing a little wide sometimes really just hone that in look to get things more straight in front of you and just a small motion so one thing that's going to hinder you a little bit is

how you're holding the paddle you're pretty high up on it where do I want to hold for the optimal roll you would be low on the grip and the reason why is because we're going to use our wrist a little bit to get some paddle head speed and the further down you are on this grip the further you can reach in the kitchen so here's where my paddle is if I grip up I lose a little bit of reach right so a little lower is great but if it's not comfortable don't worry about it you're

looking good right now anyways one thing I will say is naturally your paddle is really pointing sideways I think you're going to get way more spin yeah just by dipping that tip down a bit and you're going to have an easier time doing that if your hand's a little bit lower so if you try to go like this and dip down look how much my arm has to bend but here it's not quite as extreme okay and I don't have to get it all the way down here I think it looks pretty good let's do

a few okay I was poking at it because it just feels so awkward so if I were to teach anybody the rle the first thing I would do is this come up here to the net and we're using a different grip yeah exactly so instead of this wiper motion I want you to start completely straight wrist and just go straight up the net okay wrist doesn't move at all this is the first step yeah that looks good so if we had a ball here check this out ball right here push it and then just rolled

over the net like that exactly so that you can get that Top Spin without flicking your wrist this is a little more of an advanced thing but most people when they're hitting rolls you should be hitting it on this kind of corner of your paddle essentially what I'm doing is I'm pointing my paddle straight down but because this is really awkward for my wrist I can turn my wrist a little bit and this is still essentially pointing straight down right this part of so that's where you're making contact um you don't need a lot of

wrist for now we'll add some in later though straight up and down kind of locked wrist yeah that's great good a little bit lower with your legs uh-huh one thing that's going to help you I want you to be aware of your off hand so your left hand right now is hanging out by your side if you can be aware of it you can give yourself a little more reach and stability so whenever I put my paddle in front of me I tend to go forward if I put my left arm behind me I now

counterbalance that so when you're hitting these shots putting your left hand behind you you see the pros they all push their elbow back it's the same thing they're just giving themselves a counterbalance yeah just right here balls coming at me back and then right here okay this gives you a little bit more stability let me see that motion without the ball just right here okay slight Bend in the elbow just a little under your left elbow yeah yeah that looks [Music] professional yep yep let's see what your forehand like try some forehand that looks good

I like the little movement there yeah so if I just gave you some feedback here I think that um the things you're doing well is you're making really good contact and you're finishing sort of in the right direction you just have some wasted movement when it comes to your follow through so sometimes you're finishing really high or really across your body and all you need to do is just make contact here and finish here it's just a little that's what you said too so it's I'm doing it sides yeah exactly it's just a matter of

refining the movement so you're just getting the foundation correct which is just that little low to high no wrist this is all you need right and then once we get a little better we can start adding some wrist adding some more hips into it finishing a little higher before you play sometimes come up to the net and just use this motion right just get used to that sort of motion on both your backhand and forehand I think in general it looks good you have uh several times where you're hitting really good rolls and sometimes where

you're poking but I think you understand how to hit the roll which just you know the first step right I think when I'm poking at him it's cuz I'm not moving my feet could be yeah I'm not moving Absolutely I'll say in terms of follow through you have that tennis background a lot of it is breaking that tennis foundation chz in tennis we're just taught over and over again follow through follow through you have so much time to follow through in tennis but a roll is actually a unique shot to pickle ball that's something I

had to learn too it's not a one-handed backhand it's not a forehand it is just a short volley that is roll rolling the ball over the net and that's what took me the longest to figure it out is because it's just not a tennis swing so kind of like breaking that mindset I think is going to help you think less about the follow through and more about I just need to flick this ball over the net and that's kind of the goal do that make sense a little bit Yeah would you hit me a couple

of to my backand yeah I might need some guidance on this I tend to have a hard time getting them down the [Music] line she sick that was really good [Music] see I do it again yeah Carol think same shoulder in setad of the cross body let's go up up that's great good dude that's that's so good it's just nice and controlled good job thanks for the help with that that's amazing and those were the top three mistakes 95% of pick ball players make Carol just knocked him out she was an entired champ what did

you learn the most shading shading tracking tracking shading and I think the most valuable to you was waiting until there's contact from my opponent waiting you've got more time than you think 100% so much more time that's actually I think your biggest takeaway it it looked way better that was by far the big takeway yeah so subscribe and uh maybe watch this video this is a good video Carol everyone's going to love it nice