The REAL Reason You Aren't Progressing at Pickleball

my wonderful partner here when we were finishing that take says oh I'm actually learning something so really I'm I'm learning a lot paddle tracking and shadowing say it again paddle tracking and shadowing there we go these are the five most common mistakes I see holding players back from improving and ultimately reaching the 5.0 [Applause] level mistake number one is the drop volley it's when you're at the net your opponents are back you can keep hitting power but you decide to try to use finesse and just drop the ball over the net ultimately it gives your

opponent a free ride to the kitchen I had an advantage being at the kitchen line since I tried to drop the ball I completely gave my advantage away and gave him a free ride to the kitchen ultimately making the point even the proper thing to do if your opponents are back keep them back never even give them the chance to approach the kitchen if I decide to try to be cheeky it may work one out of every 10 times the other nine out of 10 times you're pretty much just losing the point on purpose mistake

number two is driving two balls in a row consecutively from the Baseline the proper thing to do is if you ever drive a ball you should always drop the next one I see players especially in that 40 to 45 range be at the Baseline and just endlessly Drive balls what it does is it puts you into this washing machine cyle of your opponents just hitting harder deeper balls at your feet you're just popping it up more see that's it he got a good shot over here I'm off balance I'm never really gaining an advantage and

I'm never really taking any ground completely got to the kitchen with no harm done I was in complete control of that point whenever you're driving the ball you should always drive it at 70% power with the intent to get an easier next ball to drop I see most players swing at 100% power with the intent to win the point it's the wrong mindset when you have that thought process you're either going to swing into the fence or WR at your opponent in their sweet spot you're never going to be able to get the ball to

dip over the net I prefer 70% power and maximum spin my whole goal is to drive the ball so it dips over the net so my opponent has to hit up on the ball when he's hitting up it gives me an easier softer neck shot mistake number three is I see so many people dink with no intent and no purpose they just dink to dink there's no thought process behind it or a reason why they're hitting the shot the kitchen is broken up into two separate zones if we put our foot one step in like

this and we draw an imaginary line all the way across all of this colored in space right here is called the pressurized Zone and everything on other side of that is called The Dead Zone we want to be aiming all of our dinks in this pressurize Zone and the reason is if you can get the ball to bounce here it's going to cause indecision in your opponent's brain so do I take the ball out of the air do I step back do I let it bounce as opposed to when the ball's Landing here in The

Dead Zone your opponent just simply steps in and dictates the point here's the pressurized or aggressive dinks watch where they land oh forget that one bam bam now here's the dead dinks so look at the difference look at the trajectory of the ball way different so when we're dinking step step one is to try to get the balls all Landing there good this makes our opponents feel pressure bam good good and then you'll see as soon as I hit a bad dink like that it allows him to really take control the next intent we should

have when we're dinking is we shouldn't be trying to win the point this is what I see all 4.0 do they try to win the point with spin when they Dink it's like this they're really chopping at the ball wanting their opponent to mess up it's the wrong mindset the pros aren't doing that so really dink with me watch what I'm doing I should not be trying to cut it like that keep thinking look so much cut I have like no control the proper thing to do is you don't want to prioritize spin or power

with the dinks you want to prioritize placement when I'm dinking with Ridley here my whole goal is to make him take more steps than me so what I want you to try is never dink the ball into the same spot more than twice so if Ridley hits a ball out here he should not hit the ball out here again he should go to the middle of my body he should go here he should try to keep me guessing bring him wide I go middle wide good next time you're out playing a game and you get

to the kitchen line and all four players are dinking I want you to try only hitting your dinks to the middle of the court and in front of your opponent's body I want you to avoid dinking wide for the first five balls you'll see that your opponent will beat themselves before you can even try to win the point or make something happen mistake number four is the confusion of which player should cover the middle I'm playing with Ridley here somebody speeds the ball up it goes right down the middle we stare at each other like

this who should have got that ball that is the number one most asked question question that I get on my page and I'm going to explain it for you the easiest simplest way to break this down is whenever the ball is diagonal from you it's your job to cover the middle I dink the ball this way we think the opponent May speed it up it's my job to step here it's his job to cover the line and his body if he ever has to do this that means it's my ball the reason is the opponent

in front of him is the shortest distance so if this player attacks Ridley he doesn't want to have to guess where the ball is going he wants to think to himself and have the comfort that if he gets attacked he's only reacting to his body and to his line he's not having to guess to a forehand it's too much going on that's why I'm here so I dink one I dink another one he speeds it up good I practiced closing middle so see I'm coming over the line I am not standing here pretending this Line's

a force field no forget this line the cord is 100% 100% it's not 50/50 the next steps to make covering the middle as simple as possible are these next two things shading and paddle tracking what shading is is wherever your team hits the ball so r and i team wherever he or I hits the ball we want to take one step in that direction okay so if I hit the ball that way let's just say I dink It Wide to the corner I see so many players do this this is all they do they don't

move they just stand and look at it the ball's over there all of this is open the proper thing to do is i d a ball that way I take a step Ridley takes a step notice where my paddle tip is facing this is the paddle tracking the ball is that way my paddle tip is that way so if the ball gets sped up down the middle look I'm here I don't have to go and guess last minute I dink the ball this way okay I'm not going to stand there like this I'm going to

step and have my paddle pointing toward the ball this way all the areas of most common speed ups are locked down there's no if ANS or Betts and if they speed the ball up and it gets through the middle we know whose fault it is cuz now we've established a plan a very common mistake for most players is when the ball gets sped up at them sometimes they get chicken wings the root cause of this issue is they're not paddle tracking properly what I mean by that is if the opponent is in front of me

let's say we hit the ball here catch it Ridley bam like that most players the ball goes there what they'll do is this when they do this it's basically telegraphing to your opponent that you're sitting heavy backand so this is more advanced but if he is going to speed up the ball simply speed it up over here cuz I'm going to get caught doing this if we paddle track properly now look at the difference my paddle is here as opposed to here so if Ridley now speeds up the ball ready bam but if he does

this look at my paddle that happens it's too hard to react we need our paddle to be more neutral so we can go either way mistake number five is hitting out balls oh my God oh my is dodging out balls just like that this is a hard skill that nobody has mastered but if we can minimize the amount of out balls we hit just by 10% that could be the difference between winning and losing a match the key to dodging out balls is pre-shot qes which means if I'm dinking with Ridley here and he's dinking

normal and then randomly he gets a gigantic back swing that ball is going out he did something before he hit it that's telling me it's going out now obviously it might not be as concrete as that but it's those little things that tell you if the ball is going out now there's two very specific examples where if this scenario happens in a game you can almost ensure that the ball is going out so here's the first one this is what it is it's if Ridley hits a drop okay good he comes in I hit it

hard now he hits a reset from the middle of the Court hit a reset that lands in the kitchen if he hits one that lands in the kitchen and this opponent steps back and looks like they're going to hit it hard the ball is going out a very hard skill for people to learn is when they should concede the kitchen meaning hit a dink or when they should try and still keep them back by hitting it hard many people will freak out that they just lost their advantage and resort to just going crazy cuz their

opponent's at the line here's what that would look like good perfect the correct way is I see he hit a great reset I'm off my back foot I should tap this ball into the kitchen and go into dinking that's a very common example that you can use in your own game and you'll score so many points good thanks for watching if you found value in this video make sure to like And subscribe to my channel I post one just like it every single week