Drill Baby, Drill

 I did some dink drilling with Robo the other day.  The drill is simple, stand in front of each other and dink the ball back and forth.  Use half the court and a point is scored if the ball does not land in the kitchen - it's bad if it's wide, long, or in the net.

The drill is not as easy as you might think.  If I'm dinking for real, I'm happy to hit it a bit beyond the kitchen line (KL), but in the drill that was a loss of a point.

I've looked into athletic training and the current theory is that drilling is not preferred to a more random, game like scenario.  If you need to learn a basic skill, for example a wrist position while dinking, then the drill is probably a good idea.  But the more the activity matches a real game, and is a more random in nature, you will improve faster and you''ll remember it better when you are back playing.  Retention of the skill is a major problem.  Things learned during drills have proven elusive to long term behavior habits.

This theory seems to have been born out as time has passed.  Having said that, my pickleball skills are such that learning a wrist position for a dink, is still a good idea.  And since I'm happy to hit dinks that get past the KL, I don't mind crediting Robo with those points, I'm hopefully picking up the experience.  I appreciate his willingness to pass on knowledge and time.  "You're trying to win the points!  Just get them back and don't be wimpy!"

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The above was written a while back.  I was talking to one of the up and coming players today and he was talking about getting better and I brought up some of the stuff above.  An approach that I'm going to try is to concentrate on a single thing while I play a game.  For example if I'm trying to use a looser grip, I'll play an entire game and judge every shot based on how my grip was rather than the usual successful measurements of a shot.  I think this approach may provide a way to incorporate a new skill.  One requires an understanding partner as I can see it being a bit unproductive in the short run.  We'll see what tomorrow will bring.

If you are interested in the research behind learning physical skills, there are posts by researchers on YouTube and I'd also point you to Tim Gallwey, who has written a couple of "Inner Game of" books, one on skiing, one on golf.  He suggests ways to use your mind to provide feedback and make changes.  I've got the golf books and they are different and interesting and I think quite useful.  They are worth a read.