Making Changes

 A lot of PB shots requires some interesting wrist angles.  Most of which we are not aware as we are cleverly evolved monkeys and do a lot of things automatically.  

The basic need is to present the paddle face to a position that is roughly parallel to the net.  Usually there needs to be a few degree of tilt in the paddle face so that the paddle faces the sky.  (Obviously there are exceptions to that, exempli gratis, over heads.)  This is true for forehands and backhands, dinks and long shots.  You are using the full range of your wrist's ability to bend outward and inward.  For full shots you take the ball from a side position, which does the same job of aligning the paddle.  But at the net when dinking and your arm is extended, then there is a lot of wrist play involved.  (Usually not "flippy" wrist play as it's another, complicating variable.)

In my own PB strokes I find that my forehand shots have a side spin to them, rather than a pure top spin.  This is always a surprise and I "feel" that I'm getting the paddle parallel to the net, but the spin says that I'm wrapping the paddle around the ball from right to left and not bottom to top.  

  I'd prefer a bit of top and side spin in a perfect world.  I'm not getting the paddle where I want it for a forehand roll.  As I mentioned above, the only way I can see this is when hitting a soft shot and watching the spin.  This is my feedback.  I need to repeat this and get a feel for the proper stroke and wrist position.  Maybe I can do this, but maybe not as wrists don't bend in both directions the same.  It may be that I need to use some body rotation to get the paddle in the proper position.  I won't know until I figure it out.

How to change something?  Ah, the great philosophers' question dating back to the days of cave dwelling. 

If you want to change something you need some feed back.  If the ball keeps going long, we do something.  If it's wide, we do something.  But if it seems ok, we don't see the need for a change in the stroke and probably will never thing about what is really happening.  Lack of critical observation is a problem.

The pattern to make a change is: identify the want, figure it out at slow speed with feedback, speed it up as long as you get it mostly correct (slow back down if you regress), then build some trust with some repetitions.  

Transitioning to a Better Game

 I watched a match at the Downs on Monday.  It was Jimmy and Sammy against Roger and Puneet.  On paper I would see this as a very even match.  There are some style differences between the players, but all of them are good players and not prone to excessive errors.  Both teams did some banging to start the game...

Jimmy's team builds rather quickly to a 5-0 lead.  Sammy and Jimmy tend to speed up play and they are doing it well.

But then Puneet starts to hit drop thirds instead of the drives that everyone else had been using.

Well, that changed the game completely.  The ability of Jimmy and Sammy to speed up was suppressed and they were forced to hit more touch shots and dinks.  More errors were committed and in short order, the score was tied.  It didn't take much longer and Puneet and Roger ended up winning by 11-8 or so.  Good play by Puneet to shift the speed of the points.

The solution to the puzzle was the soft game, which took away the main weapons of the other side.  Banging and speed ups work up to certain levels and after that you have problems.  As all skill levels rise, then counter attacks are more routine and being selective is more important than being aggressive.

Fast forward to Wednesday.  I'm playing and there is a lot of dinking.  Everyone is about the same skill level and I'm doing my usual speedy roll stuff but more balls are coming back than I'd like.  It was clearly another case of dink first, dink second, wait for an opening, and then selectively try for winners or faster shots.

As I mentioned in the post about style of play, this style is my favorite.  I like the dinking and the selective speed ups.  What I didn't like was my inability to be more selective as to when I did it.  Bad player!   I thought of playing a game and doing nothing but dinking.  I didn't try it, but I thought it might be worth a doing.

The bottom line on this is, that after a certain level of ability, you have to embrace the soft game or you are going to start losing.  There are upsides to being selective, your paddles will last longer, shoes stay cooler, you sweat less, and you don't have to run as much.    

Interior and Exterior Thinking

 I'm stealing some of this from a golf video I saw on YouTube.  

Interior thinking is "I want to hit this shot down the line with some top spin.  Let's see, to do that I need to rotate my body and swing from low to high and then..."

Another solution to this problem is available.   Consider just writing something down.  We know all the letters and we've done it before, so we just start writing.  We don't internally think about the shape of the letters or spacing to make it all fit, we just imagine what we want and it happens.  And this is what the golf pro defined as external thinking.  The desire or goal drives the mechanics and the less you interfere with it, the better you are.  

Now back to a PB point and we can "see" the ball scooting up the line and then we just do it.  Ben Johns has been quoted as saying, "When I'm playing, I'm not thinking."  

Now this is not a perfect method as we might not have the skills needed to hit the shot we can "see," but I'll suggest that if you embrace this view and feeling, that it will work surprisingly well.  Dinking skills are based on strength, but it's delicate work and you have to be fearless to do it well.  The same with drop shots, trust and go for it are the proper attitudes.

I spent a couple of minutes at the driving range using this for golf practice.  I'm pitching the ball about thirty yards and I want to just carry it over a small hill.  As soon as I adjusted to just doing that it happened and I could do it many times in a row.  I played around with other shots and was quite happy with the results.  My golf skills are roughly on par with my pickleball skills.  So I'm thinking that more of "I want the ball there" rather than "how do I hit that ball there?," is the way to go.  

There are a couple of areas in my PB game that I would like to improve and they are dink consistency (I usually hit the ball too low), and service returns.

I'm going to go more with a "shot shape and destination" and less with a stroke generation model of play.  Time will tell if I have sufficient skills or trust to bring this off.

Now is this a good way to develop skills?  There is some evidence for this in the golf area as well.  "How do I hit the ball lower?"  Here is the classical answer: "You reduce the loft of the club and get your hands further forward, add some pressure to the left leg and then quieter wrists through the shot."  (Very complex and how does that really help even if it's all true?)  Or with an external approach. "Here is a ball, you've played with balls in three different sports, so step up and hit it lower.  You can do this."  The second approach has much merit and is usually successful.  The teacher can add in all the other bits after the skill is "discovered" if required.  

If we  divide up the world into player types, we have those who are technical and those who play by feel.  The feel players frequently can't tell you how they do something, but they can repeat it.  The technical guy can probably describe the whole thing, but I'd guess loses the ability to perform well on occasion.

There is a series of books written by Timothy Gallwey called "The Inner Game of xxxx."  He wrote about golf and skiing and maybe one other sport.  His terminology is backwards from the internal v. external.  Thus he wanted you to embrace your inner voice and liberate it.  He said that you have one of the greatest processors and hardware systems every created and if you trusted it, you could get it to work for you and quite well.  I've read his golf book and there are some interesting methods for creating your own feed back loops, etc., and if you are serious about performance in sports, you might find it quite useful.  He embraced the "imagine the shot and then hit it" approach.

I'm signed up to teach at one of the pickleball 101 clinics this weekend.  Shall I try: "Ok, here is a ball and a paddle, bounce the ball on the paddle."  That works.  "Stand here and hit the ball to the right side of the court...  Now hit it to the left.  Not too difficult, was it?  Now, let's move to the kitchen line and we want to hit the ball to the right, then left then forward and we want it to land at the other kitchen line."  

"How do we do that?"  

"You already know enough to do it..."  

Will that work?  It can't be worse than, "Keep your wrist firm, rotate your body to the left, swing in an underhanded fashion."   Probably will work great for artists, not so much for engineers!  We shall see.

 

Skill versus Knowledge

 My other problem in life is golf.  Sadly the Master can shed no light on that topic.  Perhaps an auld Scottish caddy might be the way to go...

Back to the topic at hand.  One might summarize it simply as, "I knew I needed to stop before I hit the ball, but didn't."  We have here a case of knowledge, but not enough skill.

Skill might then be thought of as the incorporation of knowledge into one's play and its application in a useful way. 

There are several paths to skill production and there is a lot of scholarship out there in re this.  For example using drills as a path to skills.  Research has found that drills ain't so good.  The skill takes longer to be absorbed into the apperceptive mass, but along the path from knowledge to skill, it's been found harder to remember.

Remember?  I hear you say.  If I can return to golf for a moment, a sport that is less dynamic than PB, still requires a few movements in a certain order.  But try to remember the simple 45 steps and their order and see how well you do.  Dave Pelz is a golf researcher and his expertise was in data and quality control.  His research suggested that for something to become second nature or fully integrated, you needed 20,000 repetitions.  So if you are trying to copy my backhand roll, don't start unless you are still young.  :-)  Now you can do these things after just a few reps, but in the heat of the moment and in times of stress, it's really hard to think of doing the "new" thing.

I'll argue with that a bit.  For example you stumble across a better path, and it hurts less and the ball goes better, I think  a lot of minds would incorporate that solution to the problem quickly.  Will it toss the old way?  Maybe, but I think that's a struggle too.  Things you want to remember and things you want to forget.  It would be nice to have better control over these things.

So what to do?  You are a player who wants to get better.  I think the emotion of desire will help you remember the new thing.  But let me start in on the official second part of this post.

How to become a master?  When I was working there was a lot of training of customers, whether they knew it or not.  My co-worker Bob and I saw a lot of this.  We had a definition of a genius as someone who made every mistake, but only make it once.

The path to skill that all children take is try stuff.  And deliberately try the wrong thing.  This is just a boundary search for the truth about something.  They learn how far to go by going too far.  Watch a baby move those arms and hands.  They start off with a lot of excess movement and soon become more efficient, smoother, and faster.

Think of a top spin shot at the net.  You need to hit it hard enough to get enough spin.  Hit it too soft and it goes long because of the lack of spin.  It's really difficult to say, "Well it's going out, so maybe I need to hit it harder?"  But that well be the answer.  A kid might just keep banging the ball and find the answer by exploring the "wrong" answers and getting past them.  

But as adults we don't do much of that type of learning.  We can relate what we already know to new things.  But we rarely explore, go past, or push boundaries like a kid would.  We could probably hit a ball harder or with more spin, but we rarely try.

The converse is also true.  In occasional moments where the ball puts me in a awkward spot I've managed to return it with some unreal spin.  I therefore know that a lot more crazy, other worldly, shots are doable, but do I seek to figure it out?  Sadly no.  Even when we are aware of secret knowledge, it's hard to explore it.

In a more obvious example, there are people who cannot dink.  Everything is a hit and it's very hard for them to address the lack of a soft game.  Even if it would bring an immediate boost in ability.  I think it's a bit of fear and of looking foolish or not getting it right immediately.  Kids don't have those problems.  They've failed at everything they've tried initially, but somehow managed to gain skills on the way out.  If you struggle with this, you have to grit your teeth and be willing to take a short term hit to pride or fear and concentrate on the long term benefits.  What's the worst case scenario?  Someone laughs at your dink?  Golly, everyone misses dinks and by everyone, I mean all players from the worst to the absolute best.  Go be brave!  Think of your partner!

This post gets long...  What have we learned here?  The path to skills is built on the experience of failure, testing, retesting, being brave, and showing no fear.  Book learning is fine, but time in the trenches is still be required.  OK, a post about exterior thinking next time.

The Power of Stopping

 I discussed a style of service return in the previous post.  There are two wonderful things that come from hitting a deep soft service return.   One of them is allowing you to get to the kitchen line in time to...  stop.

As I hit that soft return more often, I am amazed at the ease of returning all shots from the kitchen line when I'm nicely stopped, balanced and ready for the moment of truth.

If we extend this to other shots and you look around, you will see a lot of shots when hit on the run that are really ugly.  The usual problem is long or in the net.  The running adds paddle speed and it makes any shot more complex.  

If you watch the pros, they are very good at stopping before hitting.  Move your feet early, not late.  It's true for ground strokes and dinks.

Next time you are going to hit the ball, pay some attention to your setup.  Are you stopped?  Will you contact the ball at the side and the height you want?  The mantra is: Move, stop, hit, recover for the next shot.

In seasoned partnerships you might hear your partner say, "Look out!"  This usually follows a pop up.  If you were moving in anticipation of a good shot from partner, that would be a real good time stop and get ready to defend.  A lot of smashes can be returned as long as you have some room and are ready to take it on.  

If you are trying to get to the net and it will take a fifth or seventh shot to do so, make sure you've stopped and gotten ready for each step as you move in on your opponent.

Stopping is involved in all shots and probably needs to be studied a bit more.

Finding Style

 As one wanders through life, one may find their style at some point.  Is it required that this be discovered?  Can you live, or love, without style?  I guess that is a deep subject and beyond the scope of this blog.  Perhaps commenters may speak up.

Back to pickleball.  I've found a style of play that suits me.  And by style I would define that as the types of serves, service returns and other elements of play that follow from those.  "The Elements of Style" has a familiar ring, does it not?

Let's begin with serve.  I favor a lobby type with some top spin.  It should land as close to the baseline as I dare.  The crime being being too long.  Note that I'm not too worried about a short ball, as my lobby trajectory with top spin provide a high, deep bounce that should be effective.

The serve is also not a fast shot, which allows me time to recover from the service stroke and get ready for the return.  This is valuable.  Finally, this serve is hard to miss.  I don't want more than one bad serve a day.  The lobby shot with some top or side spin is easy to hit and difficult to hit out.  I can hit it to either side or hit it with enough curve to cause the returner some minor problems.

Service return:  I also favor a soft, high return.  That provides me with more time to move to the kitchen, stop, and get ready to defend, and it removes the net as an obstacle.  The opps have to let it bounce and I want to use that rule to my advantage.  I'll usually hit this shot with some top spin so I get a high bounce which will push the opps backwards.  I'll use a cut spin on occasion as people like to hit that shot into the net.  Note that the cut shot is more dangerous to me as it brings the net into play.  Hitting a high cut shot is difficult and it seems to be attackable as well as the bounce will be more upright.

The next element of style is the third shot.  I'm much more comfortable to drop this shot than to drive it.  I really don't enjoy hitting the ball hard, I don't do it all that well, and drops allow me to express my gentle side.  

If my drop is not very good, then I'm happy to defend from near the baseline.  Defensive type points are fun as are the "drop and then advance" ones.  I'll follow all drop shots into the court.  The better the drop, the further I go.  I want to volley the next shot if I can.  I should be able to unless the drop is really had.  I'm happy to drop the fifth and seventh shots off of a volley.  If I can't volley, I'm happy to half volley and still work my way in a step or two.

Dinks and things...  Dinking is fine and I'm happy to do it.  The key to being a great dinker is to be ready to move to the location of the next dink.  I want to move, stop, dink, and move back to a neutral ready position.  If you are waiting for the next dink, make sure your feet are not glued to the ground.  Be ready to move in either direction.

Anti-style Tip: I usually won't lob from the kitchen line.  I think it's a useful shot, but I not interested in it or lob points in general.  I'll leave that to others.  :-)

Speed ups:  While dinking one has to look for opportunities for speed up the play.  My favorite time is when the dink is directed to partner, but the shot is too high over the middle.  I want to reach in and hit this up the middle gap.  I gain a time advantage and hopefully I'll hit this shot down, which makes it awkward to defend.  Otherwise, I'm happy to dink and I try not to give the opponent the same dink twice in a row.  Move them around and make them work...

Other speed ups are to hit the ball straight at an opponent.  I don't have a problem with this as the ball will not hurt.  My target is the waist to shoulder, usually on the dominate side.  This requires a fairly high ball, so wait for it.

If the dinking point gets sped up but not finished, the ball usually starts to get higher over the net and moves faster as the point is played.  I will look for a chance to reset if I can.  I'm happy to return to a dink point.

Finally, I'm more than happy to hit a backhand roll at almost any time.  I can hit this from marginal shots; its spin makes it difficult to defend.  

I think that's about it.  But now we come to the big, expensive question...  What is partner doing in the mean time?  

With my lobby type shots, I'm providing partner with a lot of time to be in a good position at the critical moments early in the points and should result in points that are fairly relaxing.  We have time to setup and execute shots.  We're not on the run and we've not allowed the opposition to hit hard shots off of our shots.  They can try to speed up the service return, but they will be doing so from deep in the court and I like my chances to defend those shots.  This is also true for drop thirds, which require the fourth shot to be fairly soft.  In all cases, I'm trading shot speed for time to move.  I'm happy with that trade.  I don't have to sprint to the kitchen, which would be required if I hit a hard service return, for example.

So, the issues revolve around how partner serves and what his third shot style is.  If partner is a banger, then I will remain in the back court until I have a good opportunity to move forward.  Note that soft shots allow you to move forward earlier than hard shots.  Hard serves require you to be further behind the back line than soft ones.  A hard return can skip if it's returned deep and flat.

Same with partner's third.  If he's a banger, I stay back.  If partner bangs the fifth and seventh, I'm just hanging out and wait for the point to ripen.  If the ball is hit to me, I want to drop so our side can get to the kitchen line.  If we are not there and the opponents are, then we are at a disadvantage.  My first goal when serving is to get to parity.  I don't try to win points with my serve, or third shot. 

I've stumbled into this approach by watching Melissa serve and playing around with it and extending it to other parts of the game (she tells me her service returns are soft too, but I'm not convinced. :-)).  I've used it quite successfully against some good teams who bang.  But mostly it's the type of pickleball I prefer to play.  I'm removing pressure during the point and the need for speed in my movements for the next shots.  It then becomes more like chess then dodgeball -- not that there is anything wrong with dodgeball!

Three on Three Pickleball Game

 It had come to our attention that there is a 3 on 3 pickleball game.  We tried to play it, but were unsure of rules, etc.  I looked it up.

The game I found was named Mortimer pickleball.  Each team has three members who are all on the court at the same time.  The third member is called the Mortimer.  Old Mort does not serve nor return serves.  The three players will rotate exchanging the Mortimer role as points are played.

Serves are done normally with all three players staying back.  The idea is that two will move up the kitchen line and Mortimer will stay back as extra middle coverage and to field any lob.  (I'm liking this already!)

That's about it.  I read about it here: https://monmouthpickleball.org/can-more-than-four-play-pickleball-at-once/

I think it sounds like a lot of fun and gets more people on the court.  Might be worth trying when the courts are busy.

Defense Thoughts

 The style of PB that I enjoy the most is one where there is the struggle of servers getting to the kitchen and engaging in a dink battle.  

This style requires drop shots.  They is not a lot of room for error with a drop shot, so things can go wrong on occasion.  What should/can we do in that case?

Let's look at a typical scenario of the drop that is a bit deep.  As servers we want to be cautious in moving towards the kitchen line in all cases, but especially with a bad drop shot.   So we are hanging back as we are expecting a deep return from the defenders.  (If the drop shot was great, we move together into the court.)

I would suggest being further back based on the quality of the drop shot.   If it's really bad, we probably would like to be behind the baseline as we are going to defend against a smash.

A step or two into the court would be reasonable if the drop is mediocre.  We are expecting a deep shot, but a normal ground stroke or half volley or volley would be a reasonable way to defend.  

And to continue that, as the fourth shot is shorter, it allows us more time to move into the court.  

My preference is to volley the fourth shot if possible.  I don't want to do that off a smash, but anything that is marginally short will allow me to get in and volley.

If they are smashing the ball, then there is a court coverage problem.  If they angle it off, we probably can't return it.  But shots that are inside the sidelines are probably returnable.  

We are happy to hit another bad drop shot as a reply.  Think of it as a bad lob.  Another smash by the opponents is usually not a big problem.

Returning smashes is a lot of fun and one should embrace this kind of point.

The idea, of course, is to still get to the net.  We'd like to hit better and better returns until the other side cannot put a lot of pressure on us.  Their shots might be short, or they might have to hit from below the net.  We will work our way up, still trying to get into a dink battle and turn the tables on the opponents.

I've never practiced the defensive shots, but there is room for error as the return height doesn't matter much and you usually have a lot of time to return the ball as it won't bounce into the stands like a tennis ball.  I would think those of us who like to lob would be good at this.

Another thought is that to lose these points is not a disaster.  As the serving side we are playing at a disadvantage due to the two bounce rule, so our expectations should not too high.  If you get a couple of shots back, that is probably a good result.  If you can blunt the attack and get to the kitchen, you've done very well, indeed.  These points should be recognized as a normally frequent part of the game at the amateur level.  Obviously, a very good drop shot is the best way to get to the kitchen, but even the pros miss about 10% of those.

Drop shots are a touch shot.  What you want to do is avoid all of the drop shots into the net.  Easier said than done, of course.  But if you are not great at them make sure you hit them too hard.  Better to play some defense than give the opps an easy point.  Doing that gives you more opportunity to practice some defense and not fear a drop shot that is too deep or too high.

What I learned from 16 Hours of Pickleball

 I didn't play 16 hours, but I watched it this weekend at the Harvest Crush tournament.

For those who were not there, I was one of the runners.  We had several duties.  The first being to get new players out to the proper court, making sure we had the correct players, talked them through the coin toss routine, and then to collect and check over the score cards when the match was over.

I decided early on that doing those tasks inside the fence was good idea.  I could quickly see if a match was over and grab the score card and I could keep a few balls from running into the neighboring court.  And then I had a better view of the action.

There was a mix of beginners, the intermediates, and then the advanced players.  I'm using those terms loosely as I'd like to contrast the playing styles of each group.  

With the beginners, the ball was frequently hit quite high over the net.  There was a lot of shots hit either straight across the net or lobby in nature.  We don't see much of the lobby shots at the Downs except in folks just starting out.  

Beginners were also unable to hit the ball towards an opponent's feet.  The shots were waist level and above.  I didn't see a lot of poaching either.  The feet move more the better the player on average.

Beginners hit a lot of balls long.  Also there were some dinks, but not a lot.

The intermediates hit their shots more flat and lower to the net.  There was very little dinking, maybe less than the beginners, as these players could get the ball down and could hit the ball harder.  They poached a bit and were very willing to hit long balls.  The points were pretty quickly over as "smash it until it hurts" was a common mantra.  A lot of out balls were played as rallies were frequently done with no players at the baselines.  It was kind of bang the third shot and then hit everything else harder.  

In both the beginners and intermediates, there were very few third shot drops.  Drive, drive drive for glory!

If we look at the best players out there, I finally saw some drop shots, but it was not a universal strategy.   There was still a lot of banging.  The people who did drop, did pretty well with it.

Finally as for strokes, I saw very little backhand rolls or top spin backhand shots.  Backhands were struck as a swipe, or cut shot.  There was one guy who had some roll to his backhand and it was quite effective.  I've become convinced that this is a very useful shot.  I saw a lot of dinks that bounced quite high to people's backhands and the return shot was invariably a dink.  I would have rolled a bunch of them.

Let me talk about speedups for a moment.  This was not always in a dink battle.  No one was hesitant about hitting the ball harder at any time.   However, I saw some great block shots and counter shots from everyone out there.  It maybe that these counter shots were within my ability, but it since I can't see myself play, the speed of the counters seemed to be scary fast.  It seemed that the people who first sped up the point were quite likely to lose it too.  The blocks were better than the speed ups.  One might want to be more careful about when to speed up a point.  But back to the prevalent theme, it was hit as hard and as often as possible!

Serves were nothing important relative to all the other play.  I didn't see a lot of service errors, except in a couple of the beginner matches.  There was one guy with a spin serve, but he never aced anyone and no one had problems returning his shots.  My philosophy in re serves is to get them in at all costs seems vindicated at the tournament level with these players.

Heat...  I was out on the courts for a long time.  Saturday was very hot and I was feeling it and I was hanging around in shady spots whenever I could.  If you are playing, don't waste energy in warming up for more than the first match.  I drank a lot of water too.  I wasn't running much, but I managed 14,000 steps per day.  Find shade, a breeze, and wear a hat!  There were folks with no hat and no sunglasses out there -- perhaps they were made of sterner stuff than myself.

Let me pass on a couple of suggestions to the tournament organizers... I think the tournament was run quite very well.  All the players I talked to were very positive about that.  There was not much waiting for the next match.  Food, snacks, water was well done and welcome -- they took care of the players and volunteers quite well.  

The sound system was good, probably could have been louder when calling players to matches, though this was a minor matter.  

It would have been useful to be able to pass scorecards to the scorer by passing them through the fence rather than having to walk them around every time.  If you ever build a tournament court system, it's something to keep in mind.

There were a couple of instances where the rules came up and it would be nice if a couple of the club members had referee credentials /experience so that on court disputes could be handled quickly.  We runners were in the middle of a lot of it and having one or more of us with more rules knowledge would have been useful.  

If there had been more courts and if they had been spread out, having a radio to call a rules judge to a court would have been useful.  It didn't matter at May Nissan, but I could see it at a larger venue.

If you play tournaments, let me pass on the role of the players and runners and directors.  It is the player's job to make line calls.  If the ball is too close to call out, then it is in.  If the calling players split on the call, then the ball is in.

 You cannot dispute a line call by an opponent.  An agreement to "play the point over" is to me a gray area.  If it's like golf, then you don't get to vote as the rule is absolute.  I suspect that as soon as someone calls a ball out, the point is over.  (I could use some rule learnin' myself!)  If they call it out, play stops, then they reverse the call, I'd still guess the point is over and goes against the calling team.

If you are in a situation where a lot of calls seem wrong, then have a runner talk to the director and get a line judge or referee to judge the rest of the match.  Note that asking a runner or spectator if the ball was in or out is not part of the game.  If a runner sees a bad call, they should not speak up or pass on their "view" if asked.  I saw one bad call that I was close to and a few others from distance that didn't look correct, but my opinion was not relevant to the play and I wasn't asked.

There was one interesting point upon which I was consulted.  It was in the intermediate play and the teams were stacking.  The wrong player served the point and the point was played out.  At that point the opposing team called the service error.  

My understanding of the rule is that as soon as the wrong player hits  the ball, a fault has occurred and the point is over.  I don't know what happens if the next point is played before the error is determined...  

OK, but what happens if the proper server serves but the opponents are positioned incorrectly?  The point ends when the wrong person hits the service ball.  But suppose the server hits the serve out to the wrong person?  My guess is that there is no receiver fault since the incorrect player never hit the ball and the normal service out ball is the end of the point.  You're allowed to stand where ever you like, so in this case no hit, no foul.  One more reason to always serve in!

There was an incredible amount of work that went into running the tournament.  Kudos to the organizers and volunteers who put up and took down both days, fed and watered the volunteers and made it all happen with ball blockers and signs and ladders and tie-wraps and a thousand details that had to be done.  My part was tiny, but I could appreciate all the effort the board and their helpers put in.

It was fun to volunteer and I'd encourage others to try it.  The job of runner is a good one as there are a lot of movement and you could get a good view of the action.  More runners are a good thing, so try it if you have an interest.  

Did I want to play after watching it all close up?  Nope!  It looked like work to me and medal hunting is not an interest of mine.  I'm more than happy to play with friends where the result is almost meaningless!

Po Learns to Control Bangers

The weather was turning cool in the valley where the monastery has existed for hundreds of years.  The leaves had turned to various colors and the river was low due to the summer's heat.

Po and his fellow acolytes had finished another year in their quest to master the sport, game, and life of pickleball.  Of course there were always problems, as the game is difficult and how much can anyone learn in a mere few years?

"Master, I am playing well, but some games are not in the style that you and the other masters teach," said Po.

"What elements of the divine style are lacking in these points, Po?" replied the Master.

"I find that many of the players from the village only want to hit the ball and hit it hard.  I struggle to play as I have been taught, to caress and guide the ball, without excess speed or effort."

"Ah, you've finally realized that bangers are detrimental to the game?"

"I think that now.  I used to like hitting the ball hard, but now it seems just wrong."

"Po, I am pleased with your progress.  In only seven years, you have seen the light.  Many don't see this until the tenth year.

"Let me pass on some thoughts and we will find some wisdom there, hopefully.  Firstly, let's talk about the serve.  What is it for?" asked the Master.

"Well, to start the rally and to try to move an opponent around a small amount.  The emphasis is to get the serve in, with a modest bonus of pressuring the opponents if possible," replied Po.

"That is good Po and this was an early lesson, but fundamental to the play.  A rally where the serve is out, is not a rally, it is a cry for help and perhaps, a symptom of a wounded psyche or deep set problems.  Fortunately Po, you are not affected with sick spirits.

"Now, we move to more detail.  The serve also sets the initial path of a point.  If the serve is spinney, we expect a spinney shot back.  If it's hard, low to the net, and deep, we might expect the point to be framed around such shots.  But Po, what kind of point to we expect if the serve is a modest lob?  One where the ball is fairly deep, coming deep into the court with some top spin and a nice high bounce?  We don't teach that serve to our beginners, but the time is right for you.  What will the return be like?"

"Hmm, a high shot near the baseline can be quite awkward to return.  The fence can get in the way and it's impossible to hit top spin with this kind of ball.  And very difficult to hit the ball hard and flat.  So the ball hit back might be fairly soft with a lot of height to it?  Would that be correct Master?"

"Yes Po, it is very difficult to hit a hard shot from deep in the court.  A "banger" to use the crude term, would much rather have a low shot that they can hit up on a bit and put some top spin on it.  So with just a soft, high serve we have pruned the weed of the banger just a bit.

"Now Po, let's look at a service return.  We turn to the other side of the court and we are receiving the ball.  How do you normally return it?"

"I will hit a deep shot that is close to someone's backhand, usually up the middle of the court," answered Po.

'Very good, and if the players are bangers?  What do they do with that ball?"

"They usually drive the ball and we try to block."

"Try to block?"

"Often I can't get all the way to the kitchen line and It can be difficult to hit a hard shot from off the kitchen line."

"Po, let me suggest a new service return.  Try hitting a lob back.  It doesn't have to be very high, but like the soft serve, hit it deep, with a nice high trajectory, into the middle of the court.  How would that change things?"

"Well, we discussed that it's difficult to hit a high shot hard, so I would expect less third shot drives," said Po.

"You also get one more thing from this type of return, Po, what is that?"

"Umm, oh, I see, the shot is slower, so I will have more time to get to the kitchen line!"

"Excellent Po.  Not only have we blocked the bangers from their favorite shot, but we've made it easier for our side to get in position to defend against the third shot.  A third shot that should be easier to hit rather than block.  Also bangers might easily hit a lot of balls long from being pressed into the fence, so watch for those."

"Thank you Master, your words of wisdom are always shrewd and useful."

"You are welcome Po.  Go fourth and teach all bangers you come across the error of their ways.  Heh, heh.  Now, as it is getting a bit chilly in here, would you mind fetching a pot of tea for these old bones?"

------------------------------------

The lobby serve and the lobby second shot are obviously nothing new to me and I'm sure to all of you.  However I was playing with Melissa this week and she is using the lobby serve and it's been effective in my judgement.  Since she can hit the ball with anyone, I was surprised by this choice of shot.  If I had her reflexes I would seek to play as many "bangy" points as I could.  

But I'm slow and old and when I realized the usefulness of the soft serve, I thought about the second shot too.  One of the cardinal sins (from where does that phrase come?*) is to hit a serve return into the net.  And like Po and the Master, I'd rather not play a banging game, so it occurred to me that with the serve and return being anti-bang, that I could control the early tempo and style of a point.

I trotted this out the last couple of days on court and I found that I could get much easier second shots back with a lobby serve, which made my third shots easier.  And if I used a lobby second shot, I could easily get all the way to the kitchen line and would never net a service return.  The third shots that were "forced" with a lobby second were much easier to return as well.

So there were a lot of points where my side got easy to handle third shots.  Oh, we didn't win them all, but we were better off with the shots that were not being banged at us.  

(Ok, you will get a full lob back on occasion.  There are people who hit them, but it's not the end of the world and with the point being a bit a slower in pace, you have more time.  We are talking of disrupting banger a bit, we will deal with lobbers another day!)

If you like to bang or not, there are ways to bend the opponents to your preference for the point style.  This is worth playing with I think, so give it a go!

* (Cardinal sins are a common phrase referring to the seven deadly sins which are not quite in the bible.  Sadly missing a service return in the net is not one of those, but it could be...)

About That Roll Shot

 The shots that people bring from other paddle sports to PB are quite interesting to the thinking, pondering observer.  

I wanted to discuss the roll shot today.  I have this in spades due to a table tennis background.  In table tennis there is a lot of "half volley" shots on the backhand side that require the paddle to be stroked vertically and then rolled to a "shut" position.  A shut position is where the paddle is pointing more to the ground than the net.  Open is pointing to the sky.  Note that almost all PB shots require an initially open paddle face, which you will learn rather quickly or give up the game.

The important features of the roll are:

• The paddle must be parallel to the net all through the stroke
• The paddle face is open a little bit
• The Stroke is mostly vertical
• You can roll the paddle after you hit the ball, but it's optional
• You need to bend your wrist a lot for this shot if you are going to strike the ball in front of your body, aka at the kitchen line

Let me elaborate on the last point.  Let's discuss the backhand first.  Some worthy opponent hits the ball too high (for them) to the backhand.  I'm at the net and I want to roll the ball.  I want to use this shot as it will put the ball in the court and it's good for hitting at feet.  My wrist will bend to about a 90 degree angle.  If I were to extend my arm towards the net, the paddle face will be parallel to the net.  When I hit the ball I rotate my forearm to create the upwards stroke.   The is not much push forward or effort trying to hit the ball deep into the court.  This is not a power shot, it's designed to control and confuse.

If there is an opponent in front of me at the kitchen line, the ball may not travel much past their feet.  It will be fairly slow and it will have a lot of topspin on it.  It will dive quickly to the feet.  This shot is frequently a winner as the dipping nature is hard to return.

The forehand is much the same -- the wrist must be broken, then the forearm is rotated to generate the stroke.  Again, don't try to swing at the ball, you are brushing against it.

I don't hit the forehand shot very well, and I'm trying to improve.  In writing this it seems that the two key points to this stroke are the wrist bend and then the forearm rotation.

Without the wrist bend then you can still roll the ball, but it is more like a tennis stroke and you have to let the ball get along side your body, id est, it's not a shot where the arm is in front of your body.  Watch Randy play, he has this shot and you will see a long stroke from low to high.  It's the basic tennis topspin shot.

Todd seems to have the forehand roll at the net.  He is able to take very low balls and hit them aggressively with the topspin he generates.

Give this shot a try.  It is mostly a shot when at the kitchen.  If you do it correctly you can hit balls from below the net level and easily get them in.