Foot Not Loose Part II

 In the last post I mentioned not moving your feet in various scenarios.  I've applied what I wrote and I want to explain when and how and why a bit more, as I found that not moving your feet is incredibly strong PB.

Let me sum up the last post quickly.  In various scenarios you want to be stopped with a side split step and prepared to hit balls that you can reach.  You might have to stretch and you will not be able to return a perfect shot hit out of your reach.  Finally, you want to have your paddle ready for the expected shot.

When is this useful?  This scenario arises most often when your side has served and you have returned the third shot.  At this moment in the play, you want to start working your way to the kitchenline.  And to do that, you want to start moving into the court.

There is a view that the transition area, or service area, or no man's land is a place to be avoided.  And the play there is difficult and good players don't play from there.  I disagree.  Even in pro level matches a lot of play happens there.  And as I was experimenting with this "stop and get ready" technique, I was surprised how often I used it.

The real key to this is to stop early enough to be in balance with a wide stance and your paddle ready.  The paddle ready part is important and it's not a single position.

The further from the kitchen you are, the lower you want your paddle.  Let me explain in detail about play near the baseline and that explanation is merely modified as you move towards the net.  

We have hit the third shot and the opponents return it from the kitchenline, as they should and as you should have expected.  You want to still be behind the baseline unless the third shot was outstanding.

If the third shot was good, then you should have followed it a bit into the court.  And stopped.  And have your paddle ready.  

Where should the paddle be?  Well, where is the worst case shot?  At your feet.  So hold your paddle very low and out in front of you a bit and be ready to hit a shot on the forehand or backhand.  Pro tip: if the ball is a lot higher than your paddle position, it's going out, so you want to be ready to duck.  Use your paddle position as a way to measure possible out balls.  Do not reward bangers who can't keep the ball in.  Punish them, it's fun and they deserve it.

If you stopped early and got ready, then shots will be surprisingly easy to return.  You might not be able to smack the ball back, but hitting a drop shot or low shot will be easily possible.  If you hit that shot well, you'll have the time to move closer to the kitchen.  But maybe not, so if you don't hit a good shot, stay stationary and ready to hit the next ball.

So you move towards kitchen when you can, and adjust your default paddle position higher as you advance.  Keep using the paddle height as a measuring device for out balls.

(Note that this is classical pickleball and the shots you are trying to hit, if successful, will allow your side to advance towards the kitchen, you are not trying to win a point from here.  Win points at the kitchen, not from mid court.)

When you reach the kitchen, your paddle should be above net height.  And you may be entering into a dinking point, where you will need to move your feet as the angles are sharper.  There is time for that as the ball is not moving as fast.  Pro tip: watch the face of the opponent's paddle as they hit a dink, as that will show you the direction of the ball before it's hit.

The stop and get ready technique is not difficult.  And hitting a ball when not moving is really easy.  But what is difficult is stopping early enough.  You can't worry about being in "no man's land."  And you can't worry about missing balls that paint the line.  You are happy to trade those shots for the ability to get all the others back. 

When do you start stopping?  I saw one pro in a video state, "Start stopping when your shots reaches the net."  So, as the opponents are reacting to your shot.  And I would suggest, stop earlier rather than later.  This is opponent dependent too.  The harder the shots come back, the earlier you want to stop.  

As I mentioned, this came up a lot as I played and it worked.  This is probably the most useful and powerful technique I've written about.   So give it a try!

Stop Moving Your Feet

 There are four distinct hitting forms in PB.

We have the serve, the return, stuff at the net, and then the shots in midcourt.

The serve can be as much foot movement as works for you.  But from zero to a lot, it's not critical to serving well.  

The return might require some foot movement, but usually the ball is hit from close to the setup position.  There are a couple of exceptions, one being a wide serve and the other the short serve.  Yes, you want to some running before and certainly after a service return (get to the net...).

Dink rallies require a lot of foot movement and you want to be very active and moving side to side as the ball shifts position.  This is the most active case for movement.

Let's talk net play.  If the opponents are not at the net, but you are, there is little foot movement required as long as you setup properly for the expected return.  Setting up properly means, middle coverage for sure, and if the ball is close to a sideline, then both net players should shift a bit towards that sideline.

We are down to one case and I wanted to talk about this, as it's common and not obvious.  This is the scenario where you are not at the net, and the opponents are.  This could be a third/fifth/etc., shot situation, or one where you get pushed off the kitchenline or where you are going to defend a popup or bad lob.

There are a couple of things that true of this case.  The ball is likely to be hit close to your feet -- if it's above your waist, it's probably going out.  

Secondly, this shot is not likely to be hit with a sharp angle, as it's unlikely to be hit softly -- wide hard shots go out.  Most of the action is going to be middle court, but usually with a touch of angle.  And the angle comes into it as the defenders are blocking a large portion of court and usually one defender is deeper than the other.  The ball will usually go to the deeper player.

The new thought I want to share is that the pros usually will not have to move their feet to return these shots.  They setup in the middle of the "open" area where they expect the shot, they use a wide stance for balance and to lower their bodies, and they will also lower their paddles.  

Almost all the shots will be reachable with some stretching to the side. 

The difficult shots are the ones that come straight at you.  To handle these you want to be relaxed and you need the paddle extended in front of you.  The ball is usually coming at a good pace and there is not need to try and hit it back hard.  Think blocking and just solid paddle ball contact.  You are not trying to win the point, but to eventually, hit a shot that will be low enough or soft enough to allow you to return to the kitchenline.

What you really don't want to be doing, is standing up tall, have a raised paddle, have panic in your eyes.  Get low, be ready, and don't try for miracles.

One more scenario.  You and partner are at the net and you are in the middle of a dinking rally.  Your partner hits a bad lob and the next shot will be hit hard and at your feet.  You have time to take a step back, split step and get your paddle down.  Don't try to retreat much more than that as it's better to be ready and low than moving to get to a better position.

If you watch pros, particularly the ladies' doubles, you will see a lot of these defensive shots.  Some are from the baseline and many from the transition area.  

You are not going to get a lot of these back, but setting up properly and being ready gives you a fighting chance.  

When Everyone Dinks (And no one lobs...)

 Last week on the Thursday, I wound up in four or five games where the play was almost all dinks.  (We excluded the lobbers, of course.)

So it was serve, return, third -- sometimes a drive, usually a drop, but then the points became dinking battles.  And the point usually stayed that way until a ball was netted or a sideline missed.  Did I say there were no lobs?  Yeah, well that was true.

There were the occasional speedup, but they didn't work well and were soon discarded for increased consistency with the dinking.  The blocking abilities of speed ups were being flagrantly displayed!  What speedups there were, were reset and dinking resumed.

These were very different games from the usual at the Livermore parks.  Usually there is some dinking, but it's quite common that there is none and it's all about hitting the ball hard and frequently out.

The rallies were quite long, I would estimate some over twenty shots.  Careful play and lots of shuffling back and forth as the ball moved around the kitchen area.

I really enjoyed the points.  However I realized that my usual backhand speed ups were not consistent enough, I was being too aggressive in hitting them.  Once I realized that, I put effort into relaxed dinking and never hit another speed up.  This worked and what little tension I had during the rallies dropped to nothing.  I highly recommend it!

What was really amusing was that after a twenty point rally, no one on the court could remember who had served or even which side had served.  This occurred a couple of times.  It was amusing when this happened.  We kind of worked out the score, maybe, and then just decided who was going to serve next and kept going.  But lots of stunned looks while we were trying to remember.  You might think, ok, you are old folks, this is normal.  Well, there was at least one of us under 50, so I think it's the game and not the minds.  

---- Bonus!

We had the last beginner class today.  I wanted to suggest what folks ought to do after they take the class.  If you are pretty good hitting the ball, then just go and play and build your skills -- note that the class didn't teach you everything!  But there is the occasional student, has trouble getting the paddle on the ball.  I think the best way forward for them is to find a friend and just hit the ball back and forth until you learn the needed eye hand coordination.  Don't worry about being perfect, but you want to be able to hit most of them back across the net.  Then get out and play!

A Down's Downer?

 There was an article in Road and Track magazine many years ago about being good at something, but realizing that you were never the best or even really, really good in an absolute sense.  The "cold shower" of life, one might call it?

The article described a boxer who came up against a world champion and whatever he tried to do, it was not going to work.  But that was boxing and let's return to our mutual sport of pickleball.

One Thursday last, it was late in the morning and I was pretty much done playing.  But Ron, a good friend, came out late and wanted to play a couple of games.  I signed on and he and I played a couple of guys I've never met before.  When the smoke cleared we had lost 11-0, a well deserved pickle.  

I was even more done at this point, but Ron wanted a rematch and once again we were back in the breach.  

This game went 11-2 in their favor.  

I wanted to talk about what their game was like and why the score was as lopsided as it was.

If I have the reputation for not hitting the ball very hard, these guys made me look like an absolute banger in comparison.  They hit the softly unless they were putting away a pop up.  They also had extremely good ball control.  I hit a couple of very nice dropping drives and they effortless volleyed from knee height at the kitchenline, dropping the ball about a foot into my kitchen, two inches inside the sideline with some clever spin so the ball bounced outside the court.  

And they did it more than once.  That's a tough shot to get right...  Hmm.

The other shot of which I was the victim, was a soft shot landing about a foot out of reach, two inches inside the sidelines and the perfect depth, i.e., at my feet.  

Needless to say, though I will say it anyways, none of these shots came back.  And they were all hit with minimum speed.  They didn't hit any shots out?  Maybe.

There was no shot I could hit that gave these guys much trouble.  Oh, the games had a few side outs and such, so they didn't play perfectly, but the results were never in question.

I've said in the past that the best scenario as to ability and the game you are in, is to be the second best player on the court.  You'll hopefully learn something from the better guy, but have a pretty good chance to win the game.

Playing in the game last Thursday frustrating, not in the sense that I would lose the games, but that I lacked any tools or skills that were competitive at the level these guys played at.  I was the worst player on the court, and I had ball control that was poor.  

There are two directions to go from this point.  One being to not play at that level again.  The other, embark on acquiring skills to move up a level or two.  

Obviously the first option is the easiest and more practical.  Whatever level you are at, there are probably games you shouldn't play in.  Lower level will bore you, and too high a level will scare you.

The second option is to get better.  Now, no one is as young as they used to be and athleticism doesn't run real deep in my family's gene pool, so that really is not an option either.  And there is a down side to being an extremely good player, with whom do you play?  Yah, at every level of ability there a certain window of skill that makes it a good experience.

I decided a year ago or so that my skills were just fine for the people I usually play with.  I'm happy to pick up the odd refinement here and there, but drilling for hours and never playing is not interesting to me, nor would it lead to more playing options with my peeps.

I'm happy I played in the two games at Downs with excellent players, but I would have a more enjoyable experience playing at a lower level.  You have to learn to say, "No!" on occasion and stick to it.