The GUP

 My father, who never heard of pickleball, nonetheless passed on the term "GUP" as part of the oral history of the family.  There are a lot of items in our oral history.  Not all of them unique to our family: "No free lunch," "Rich or poor, money is good," "Frequently wrong, never in doubt." But I digress.  

The GUP is short for [the] Great Unifying Principle.  As I've wandered through life, I've looked for the GUP in the various activities that I've attempted to master.  And I would say that many activities can be divided into areas that you must seek to master to ascend the stairway to glory.

A wag suggested that golf had five separate games in its structure.  Putting, iron play, driver, sand shots, woods, etc., well you get the idea.  Does each game of golf have its own GUP and problems to solve?  Well, there is a large amount of overlap, but there is subtlety there, which makes golf interesting in the long run even if you only want a "walk spoiled."

Let's return to the sport du jour, our beloved PB.  In my estimation we have rather simple game compared to others.  And there are a couple of GUPs that I'd like to comment on as being really, really, good things to practice.  I don't think any of these items require much in the way of physical strength or speed and are well within the abilities of any who've taken up the sport, even casually.  However, I don't see people doing a lot of this, myself included, which is why the post is here.

Let me digress for just one moment before I climb the pulpit to preach, I've run out of things to say about PB.  The topics below will be found in the earlier posts, if you're a careful reader.  One could look at this post as guide to the important basics in the game.  Let me get to the writing and we'll see if that bares out...

- Grip - it must allow you to deliver a strike to the ball with a paddle face pointing a bit towards the sky.  Smashes are not included in this.

- If you return a serve, start running to the kitchen line.  Your partner is there, join her!

- If you are serving a ball, stay behind the service line after the serve, only start to move up as the point develops.

- Move (up) with your partner.  If the second shot is short, then expect/make a soft third shot and move to the KL.  (Let's talk about this some more below...)  Otherwise, evaluate the third shot and move appropriately together.

- How to hit a ball...  1) You are stopped and balanced and have evaluated the incoming ball, 2) Move to the ball, 3) STOP, 4) hit the ball with weight moving into the hit, 5) maybe move and get ready to stop and get balanced before the opponents hit the next shot.  This is true for ground strokes, dinks, half volleys, etc. 

- When in doubt, dink.   

 That's about it!  Oh, there are a couple of more topics of which to be aware.  For example, where should you hit the ball?  What spins are best?  How to hit various spins?  But if you do all of the above most of the time you will do quite well in the game of pickleball.

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A couple more points about third shot choices.  You have two traditional styles, those being drive or drop.  A rule of thumb would be to drop if the second shot is deep, but drive if the second shot is short.  But those same folks would say that after a third shot drive, you would then drop the fifth as you should be a softer/short ball to hit.  Which might lead a shrewd reader to suggest just drop when the second is short.  If the main goal by the serving side is to get to the kitchen, then any drop shot would be more constructive than a drive.  And in my opinion, a dinking point is more interesting than a hitters' dual, so I like the drop third for any position.