A Quick Tip to Help Scott be Happier

Scott has a pet peeve that he passed along to me.  I've got something to say about the play, so I'll kill a couple of avian type critters with one post and maybe Scott will sleep better...

What Scott would like to pass on to all you players is how to play the nearly out ball.  Imagine that you are by the baseline and shot comes your way.  "Is it out?  I hope it's out!"  But you don't hit the ball and it's in.  Or worse yet catch the ball and shout out "Nice Shot."

What Scot would like you to do, is to always hit the ball back and let your partner worry about its being in or not.  If the ball is out, you can call it after the shot, or your partner can, or you can just keep playing the point.  In all cases, work on returning the shot and nothing else.  This is very important in a tournament where every shot is valuable.

What I would like to add to this, is if you are not in a position to hit the ball easily, then you were too far into the court when the shot was hit to you -- one of my pet peeves -- stay deeper in the back court if you are expecting a deep shot, for example a service return.

 

When Partner Errs

 The question has come up, "what to do when your partner misses the easy ball?"  And we could intensify that to "what to do when partner misses three in a row?"

I've played a lot of bridge, a sport where the partnership is everything.  Bridge divorces happen and it's probably a reasonable idea not to play with your real spouse!  (That's not quite correct, but I'm exaggerating a bit here.)

PB is a silly game and to get upset about a partner who misses a few shots is a path to madness.  Why?  Because you are probably going to miss three in a row in the near future.  How do you want your partner to react?  

Besides the play, every game is a chance to enjoy the synergy of a partnership.  There is a lot of individual effort in life, but here is a chance to work with someone to achieve something together.  This is a great thing.  A nice shot to setup partner's put away is a rewarding achievement.

Now let's flip this a bit.  It's easy when it all goes well, but not a lot of fun when nothing seems to work.  First case is partner screws up.  To lessen the chance of that happening again, you want to support partner, encourage them, concentrate on the next shot.  As my grandmother used to say, "No sense dwelling on the past."  Of course she had little short term memory, so she couldn't dwell on the past, but that doesn't make her wrong.  Bottom line, help your partner!  And being critical is rarely helpful.  I think beginners are interested in help and if it's something basic, talk to them after the game.

And what if you err?  You try the stroke again, you are not happy with the miss.  If you've missed a couple before, you question your choice of hobby and wish for a quiet place to recollect.  If your partner is not supportive, it makes it worse.  You've already chastised yourself, you don't need partner to pile on.

Bottom line in all of this is to work to make your partner have the best game you can.  It might not be a win, but there ought to be the satisfaction of working to a common goal and hopefully spending a fun ten minutes together.

There is one more situation that occurs and that is your team is out classed by the other side.  Maybe the good players wanted to get a game together instead of being split up and you should encourage that on occasion as you get a chance to see two players moving about the court properly.  Ok, you don't expect to win, but here is a chance to bond together and do the best you can.  Think of it as a learning experience and don't worry about the result.  You might find that you put up a better fight than you expected and at some point realize that you might actually win the game.  Good times then...  

The final point I will make is that the difference between a good shot and a poor one is very small.  A great dink and a netted ball is measured in millimeters.  This is a simple game that you can't be perfect while playing.  There are bad bounces, strange skips, opponents who work miracles and partners who turn you into a pin cushion.  You cannot expect to be perfect or always be rewarded for a good shot.  All you can do is try to make a good shot and then...  move to position to defend the next ball.  This is true for all levels of play.  I've seen video of Ben Johns miss the simplest shot twice in a row.  Of course a soft touch shot is not really simple, but he didn't expect to miss either much less both.  We will all miss simple shots, so no excuses, just take a breath and get ready for the next chance to play well.

Paddle Angles

 When I'm not at the PB court I am frequently found at the driving range.  There is much to practice in life...

What you get from golf clubs is a fixed angle to the ball.  Then, of course, the golfer screws that all up by not presenting the club to the ball properly.  But there are some parallels to this in pickleball that we might find useful.

When dinking is taught, the current theory is to freeze wrist and elbow and swing with the arm.  This puts the paddle into a fixed state of loft and with an arm swing ought to provide more consistency.  The "wrong" way to do it would be to move the wrist close to impact.  This is OK, but when you move the wrist and how much you move it are additional variables and make the shot more complex.  So an unbiased observer might cautiously state that, the more wristy shot is not for the faint of heart.  If you have this shot, fine, but it might not be the best way to learn to dink without any paddle sport background.

Let's go one more step with this paddle angle and golf stuff.  The golf swing is likened to a sidearm ball throw with emphasis on leading the action with the body and doing the throw late in the swing.  If you were tossing a ball around in the backyard, you would probably have a nice long motion with plenty of body even if you were not throwing the ball very far.  

PB ground strokes are much the same.  Ideally, you want to get in position to hit a ball, then there is a chain of events that use the lower body to shift weight and provide a nice solid platform to rotate the upper body and finally bring the arm through to hit the ball.   Your weight should be on the foot closer to the net before you hit the ball.  The added benefit to this is that your momentum should be moving forward and that will make it easier to follow a good shot towards the net of required.

I might suggest that the angle of the paddle is important here as you need to clear the net with its initial trajectory.  Getting the ball to land in is another topic, but first let's get the ball over the net.  Its height and how fast the ball will be going are the output of the paddle angle and the swing speed.  Whatever spin you might put on the ball is more important to control where the ball lands, than where and how it crosses the net.  

If you golf I would suggest think of putting the paddle in the face angle of a eight iron (say 35 degrees to the sky) or so, to ensure that you will drive the ball over the net.  If you are hitting a drop shot, then you want to toss a pillow into the air, with a nice high follow through and a paddle angle that is maybe sixty degrees open.

This all applies to the serve too.  Whether you bounce the ball and hit it or you hit it right from your left hand, you want your body to be doing some movement and the strike should be pretty close to your body; don't be reaching towards the net to hit it.  If you're off balance after the serve, check where you are hitting the ball and whether you are using your body.  This is the easiest shot in the game, there is no pressure to get it low to the net and not a lot of pressure to hit it deeply.  Oh, we'd prefer deep to shallow, but for rec play, being in is all that is needed.  I see a lot of new players struggle with this, so jump back to the fundamentals and make sure you're not making this shot a difficult one.