Transcription
These are the five things that you can do right now that will immediately improve your game. No complicated drills, no overthinking. If you take these on the court right away, within minutes, your confidence and consistency will go up.
All right, this first tip that will instantly improve your game that actually will lead to higher consistency is stabilizing your wrist on all shots. Now, no matter if you are hitting open dink, push dink like this, a slice, or a topsman dink, what you will notice is my wrist is very stable before, at contact, and after contact. Right now, I'm going to show you a couple of dinks of me lifting or pushing through the ball with my wrist stable. Okay, on those you can see I'm coming through that contact zone and my wrist is not moving. So those are more lift dinks. But even if you're hitting top spin or slice, the same thing still applies. So when I'm hitting top spin dinks, I'm actually brushing up on the ball. And you will notice I'm not actually using my wrist to create top spin. I'm really using my shoulder motion. Okay, so here we go. Here's a couple top spin dinks. Okay, so obviously having good footwork and prepping early is really important, but you will see even as I'm applying top spin on my shots, I'm not using my wrists. Now, I'm going to show you the same thing when I'm hitting my drops. Now that I'm in the back of the court, I'm going to show you a couple of drops. And the same thing still applies. Again, the more stable we can keep our wrists through contact, the more consistent we're going to be. So, I'm going to show you just a couple of lift drops here. Okay. So, again, through that contact zone, super stable wrist. And now I'm going to show you a couple top spin drops. So again, no matter what, if you're lifting, if you're hitting top spin, the big key takeaway is is players need to make sure that they stabilize their wrist and swing more from the shoulder. This will lead to higher consistency and more balls in play and more balls landing exactly on the target that you intended to.
The second thing that will instantly improve your game is something that players know, but they spend zero time on the court practicing, and you guessed it, it's your feet. So, this tip here is focus on your feet. And you can't focus on your feet if you don't do it the right way. So the first thing I want to talk about is why it's important to actually focus on your feet and dial in that footwork. And that is because our footwork affects our contact point. If your contact point is away from you or you are hitting balls from very tough positions, you can't be very consistent. So remember, hitting consistent shots is a result of having good footwork. So, for example, here, let's say I'm on the left side and I have the ball pulling me out wide and I want to be really consistent on my backhand dink. What do most players do? They focus on their technique. They focus on their elbow position, wrist position. But if they're actually out of position and their contact is really far away, they're super inconsistent. So, like you just saw there, the contact point is away from me. I'm off balance and I feel really rushed. So, now I'm going to show you an example of how to move my feet correctly. And when you do move your feet correctly, and when you have good footwork, you want to think of these two things. Number one, it creates you the space and time that you need. And number two, it creates you the ideal contact. For example, hitting a two-handed backhand, I'm going to make sure it creates that space in time, and I'm going to make sure that that contact is well out in front of me so that I can control the ball. So, like you saw in those examples, you see me actually moving my feet the correct way, creating that space and time. And we do that with the shuffle step, right? I'm not just moving my outside leg. I got to make sure that I'm actually moving that inside leg first and then actually creating space with my outside leg. A lot of players don't understand that they need to actually create more space than they need with that outside leg as well. So, I'm not only moving over laterally, but I'm moving over back so that I can create that space and time for every single [music] shot. Now, this goes for two-handed backhands, one-handed backhands. Whatever shot that you're hitting that you need to create space and time for the shuffle step is going to be the most important footwork that you're going to need up at the nonvolley zone line.
This third tip, which will absolutely transform your game and instantly improve your game, is stopping early. That's it. Just stopping early. One of the mistakes that we see players of all levels making all the time is that they are just not stopping early enough. So, they're late or they're unbalanced. And this typically has to do when they're coming through this transition zone. [music] So, when I'm hitting a drop or a drive and I'm coming through this transition zone, a lot of the times our opponents will be hitting the ball and they're going to be going right at our body or right at our feet. And if I'm not prepared early and not balanced, it's going to be very hard for me to hit consistent shots from here to actually get up to the nonvolley zone. So it kind of looks like this. So those are some examples there of me not stopping early enough. And I know a lot of you out there know this, but you still don't do it. So how can we actually practice this and put it into practice? Well, I'm going to show you something that you can think about, especially when you're making your way through that transition zone. Since a lot of you actually stop really late, I want you to stop a lot earlier than you're used to. So, when I hit my drop and when I'm coming in, I'm actually going to stop before my opponent hits the ball. Most players stop actually when they're hitting the ball or after they're hitting the ball, but right after it bounces and right before he hits, that's when I want to stop my feet and get set. So, it's going to look something like this. So, like you saw in those examples there, I may not be making the same amount of progress, but I am super balanced and I'm prepared really early before the shot. If you can just do this, this tip alone will totally transform your game, especially when you're coming through the transition zone.
This fourth tip that will instantly improve your game is what I call anchoring or being really balanced and stable with your feet at contact when you're at the kitchen line. Now, the common example where I see players moving their feet a ton or too much is when they are getting attacked at the kitchen line. Okay? So, when they're in a hands battle or when they are receiving a drive and their opponents are attacking them, they're jumping. They're moving their feet and their feet are coming off the ground. When you're doing this, it's not only not stable, but it's also very hard to put the ball exactly where you want it to go. So, that's what it looks like when I don't have a stable base and I am actually coming off the ground and my weight's either going to my left or to my right or back. This is not what we want, especially if we're trying to be really aggressive back to our opponents for are trying to be offensive towards us. Instead of that, we're going to anchor both feet on the ground. This is why it's actually really important to be shading correctly and make sure that you're in the right place at the right time. If you would like to learn more about that, check out pickleballframework.com or go into the description below and we talk all about how to be in the right place at the right time. So along with being in the right position, anchoring those feet and keeping both feet on the ground during contact is the most important thing that you can do. So here's a couple examples of that. Here we go. You'll notice in those examples, I'm super stable. I'm relaxed. And the main thing is I'm actually pushing that ball back and I have both feet on the ground, which gives me the power that I need in my shot. So whether I'm in a hands battle up at the net or I'm prepping for a drive that my opponent is attacking me, it's super important that I'm in that wide balanced base and I have both feet anchored in the ground when I am trying to hit my counters.
The last tip that will instantly improve your game and certainly not the least is to always above everything else prioritize your balance on every shot you're hitting. Now, I know this game is really fast and there's a lot of different shots that our opponents are going to be hitting us. We're going to be on the move on the run at times, but if we can focus on setting up for the shot really early and then quickly preparing for the next ball to get set up for the next shot, that is how we stay in control and also be as consistent as possible in every shot that we hit. No matter where you are on the court, you're at the baseline, you're in transition, maybe you're hitting dinks up at the nonvolley zone, the main priority is that we try to set our feet, get set up early so that we're balanced on every single shot. Now, I know if you follow these five tips and go out on the court today, it will instantly improve your game. And to help alongside that, we made a free video series. Just go to pickleballframework.com. I know it can really help you out. Or click in the link in the description below. What? Oh no.