Transcription
Footwork is a key element of pickleball. In fact, the best players in the world always have the best footwork. So, think about players like Ben Johns, Christian Alshon, Connor Garnett, Federico Stakrew, and then also on the women's side, we have players like Annalie Waters, Katherine Pento, Judith Castillo. All of these players have an enhanced ability to move on the court. And the way that you know your footwork is good in pickleball is if it looks effortless. An effortless pickleball comes down to knowing what to do, when to do it, and having the muscle memory to be able to do it without even thinking. And one very important thing to remember is that a 10% improvement in your footwork will give you a 100% improvement in your game.
And in this video, I'm going to be breaking down the basics behind pickleball footwork, what you need to be doing in specific situations, and then I'm going to be sharing with you drills that you can do so that way when you get out onto the court, you don't even have to think and you can just do. And again, remember, just a 10% improvement in your footwork will give you a 100% improvement in your game. So, this is really important stuff. Be sure to stick around.
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The first key element to pickleball footwork is our positioning. So, where we want to start prior to making contact with the ball every single time, and what that comes down to is making sure that we are on balance. It's all about being on balance. So, if you ever feel off-balance while you're out on the court, typically, and not all the time, but majority of the time, it's because you feel uncomfortable and you're going to end up missing the shot. And so, if you can stay on balance majority of the time, you're going to win majority of the time.
And so, what that comes down to is spreading your feet apart. A lot of players will stand straight up and down just like this. And this isn't a horrible position to be in, but the best way to think about it is if someone were to come and push me, which you're not going to be pushed when you're playing pickleball typically, unless you really piss someone off, but you're not going to be pushed. And if I get pushed in this position, I'm going to be off balance. So, how can I be on balance? All it comes down to is simply spreading our legs apart. And I like to go just outside my shoulders. So, this might look weird because I haven't done everything that we're supposed to do yet, right? I don't think we've ever seen a pro standing like this playing pickleball. So, what's the key element that I'm missing? It's obviously bending my knees. And now all of a sudden, whoa, that looks like a pickleball player, right? We also need to be leaning forward on the balls of our feet. So, the top part of our foot, the ball, is where we want to be putting all the pressure so that we're leaning forward. Now, if our opponents hit the ball super deep and we have to lean back, well, now we're running to that ball, which we'll cover a little bit later. We're not going to be on the balls of our feet anymore. But it's important to always have that position so that we're trying to move forward into the court. Our whole goal is to move forward. So that's why we want to be on the balls of our feet. If I'm on my heels in this position and my opponent happens to hit the ball short into the court, well now I'm going to be late making it up to that ball because now I have to go from heel to ball of my foot to toe to make it there. Whereas if I just take away the heel part, now I'm already on the ball of my foot and I can get there much faster.
So, first things first is making sure that both feet are just outside your shoulders. Next, you're going to bend your knees. Now, if someone were to come and push me in this position, I could probably hold myself up from here. I wouldn't have to take a step. Whereas, if I'm in this position, I'm going to probably fall over or at least have to take a couple of steps to hold myself up. So, if you can stay balanced, you're going to be way more consistent hitting the ball. Whereas, if you're not balanced when you're making contact, it makes it extremely hard for your eyes to focus. So, this is super overlooked. I know that this is pretty basic, but you need to make sure that you are in this position with a slight knee bend. Now, notice again, I'm not like this. I'm not doing a squat, right? Nobody likes to do squats anyway, but it's also not effective to do a squat. If you think about if you want to jump super high, and in fact, if you watch an NBA player go to dunk a ball, they are not going down into a squat to jump and dunk the ball. They're actually just doing a slight knee bend. I mean, if any knee bend at all, but there's a slight knee bend there. So, they'll do a slight knee bend, then they'll jump, and then they'll dunk the ball. So, this is important because it's the same exact thing with our ready position, with our positioning, with our posture, is we want to have a slight knee bend. We're going to be able to move faster. We're going to be able to jump higher and further laterally to be able to get to balls by having a slight knee bend instead of a big squat knee bend. Also, that's going to put a ton of fatigue on your legs. you're not going to be able to last throughout that match. Specifically, if you're playing singles, but also doubles, it can be super draining if you're playing, you know, 10 matches in one day. Especially if you make it to the gold medal match, you're probably playing 10 to 12 to 15 matches just in one tournament in one day. It's going to last the whole day. So, if you're constantly in a squat, first of all, it's not going to help you. And second of all, you're going to be super fatigued. Your legs aren't going to be able to outlast throughout that match. So, remember, just outside our shoulders, a slight knee bend, not a huge one. and then paddle out in front of us.
All right, step number two is understanding how to move towards the ball. And that's going to be different dependent on where we're standing on the court. So, it's going to be different at the baseline in comparison to running up and transitioning through the middle of the court. It's going to be different at the kitchen line. That's what sets pickleball apart from a lot of other sports, specifically tennis, is the vast majority of points in tennis are played here at the baseline. And so the footwork is going to be slightly different when now we transition in towards the net and specifically up at the kitchen. Vast majority of points in pickleball, even at lower levels, are played in transition. Okay, so as we're transitioning to the net, and let me just say this as a side note, that's one of the least practiced things for players that are below the 4.0 level is the transition zone. So make sure that you're practicing drills in the transition zone because it's extremely important. and you're playing majority of your points in that trying to get up to the net. And so if you have a perfect reset, it doesn't matter if you don't have a perfect drop or even a perfect drive because if you have a perfect reset in transition, you can continuously get up to the net. And as soon as you can get up to the net, majority of the time, you're at that 4.0 level or at least you're really pushing it.
So let's start with how to move towards the ball at the baseline. The very first thing that you're going to do is a unit turn. You're turning your upper body towards where the ball is going to land. So, as soon as you know that your opponents are hitting to your backhand side, you turn. Then it's the same exact thing on my forehand side. As soon as I know it's going to my forehand side, I do that unit turn. And notice my paddle is high. Back at the baseline, your paddle's going to be high as you make that turn and then ultimately run towards wherever the ball is. And this is where people get it wrong is that they overcomplicate it and they think, I need to step with a specific foot first. It really just comes down to literally running towards the ball. And the most important part is that unit turn. You're going to run. And something interesting with actually running is if you watch an Olympic athlete, they actually start off their races with small steps that gradually build into long strides. So obviously when we're playing pickleball, we want to play and get to the ball as fast as possible. The way that we're going to do that is by copying these Olympic athletes, okay? They have the best blueprint for us to follow, which is we start with small steps to rev up the engine and then they slowly turn into large strides. One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make when they're specifically focused on their footwork is that they try to make a large stride initially. So, they're coming out towards the ball as fast as possible. Obviously, it doesn't look that ridiculous. I'm super overexaggerating it, but you're going to be able to move faster towards the ball if it's a small step. Small step, big step, big step, bigger step as you move towards the ball, whether on the forehand or the backhand side.
So, now I'm going to show you what that looks like on both the forehand and the backhand side without talking. And so something to pay attention to with both of these motions is that I'm keeping an open stance towards where my opponents are. An open stance is where both feet are open towards where the net is. A closed stance is where I close one of my hips towards where the net is. And so I'm actually pointing towards where I want to go with that hip. In pickleball, you want to hit the vast majority, if not all, if possible, with an open stance. If you can hit all of your shots with an open stance in pickleball, it's going to allow you to be able to recover faster towards where you need to go and you can stay open towards the court. Same exact thing on that backhand side. I'm hitting and I'm recovering faster because I have an open stance instead of a closed stance. Now, you'll see so many pros who actually hit with a closed stance on the backhand side. And it's not a bad thing, but I do think that pickleball is slowly moving towards strictly open stance, especially at that top level. So, if you want to play top-level pickleball, you need to keep an open stance because you have to react so much faster. On the forehand side, you really won't see a pro hitting with closed stance. They're almost all strictly I'm sure someone will comment below and be like, "This player does it." I'm sure there is a couple out there. Vast majority of them are open stance on the forehand side. So, why wouldn't they be on the backhand side? It's just simply because the footwork hasn't caught up to the age of the sport yet. And so it's my belief that everybody's going to be hitting backhands with open stance at some point. And that's just because it's going to help you to be able to recover quicker back into the court. And the reason that you need such fast recovery is you might be asking yourself, well, pickleball, you don't have to react that fast, right? It's it's you're playing with a slower ball. In fact, your reactions have to be a lot faster when you're up at the kitchen in comparison to tennis. So here's an actual statistic. The fastest serve ever hit in tennis was by Sam Groth. He hit a serve at 163 mph. No one's ever done a serve like that again. I'm sure people have done like 160, but that's the fastest that it gets. Now, take into account he's hitting that serve on a court that's literally double the size, if not a little bit more than a pickleball court. And so, the player at the opposite side of the net that's returning the ball has a little bit more time to react. And so if you take into account that they're standing 15 to 25 feet behind the baseline, they have about 0.3 seconds to react to the fastest serve tennis has ever seen. Now with pickleball, the fastest serve ever recorded was actually by Ben Johns, who's the GOAT, so it makes sense. 68 mph. Now, if you think about the gap, 163 to 68 mph, that's a pretty huge gap. But then you have to take into account how close you're standing to your opponents. Also take into account that we're only talking about the serve. We're not talking about standing 14 feet away at the kitchen line. Now, if you return this serve, you have 0.5 seconds to react. So, tennis, it was 0.3 seconds to react. Pickleball is 0.5 seconds to react. Only a difference of 0.2 seconds to react. Both are pretty much the blink of an eye. And so, as we move forward into the court and our opponents are up at the net, we have way less time to react in pickleball in comparison to tennis. So, it's really important that we keep an open stance. And that's why I think it's headed that direction. specifically with keeping an open stance as we're hitting backhand drives.
Now, let's talk about the transition zone. Okay, now let's talk about when we're actually in the transition zone. We're trying to come forward. This is what's known as no man's land. We don't want to be here. We want to be up at the kitchen or we want to be behind the baseline. Preferably up at the kitchen because, like I talked about before, you have an advantage up there. You're able to hit down on the ball. You're closer to the net. Your opponents are back, right? And and if they're up, then it's at least a neutral position. You don't ever want to be back. You want to try to get up. And so the transition zone footwork is going to be the same exact thing as back there, except for we're trying to stay open as much as possible. And since in doubles, we only have our box to cover. We're spreading our legs apart in that ready position, and we're moving towards wherever the ball is, trying to keep an open stance if possible with every single shot. So, I'm simply shuffling back and forth, moving heel in to heel out. Heel in, heel out. Heel in, heel out. That's all that the movement is. Now, if I have to run and get to a ball, maybe I'm covering for my partner. Run and get to the ball. It's as simple as that. We're just simply running towards wherever that ball is. Notice I'm crossing my legs. Sometimes I'm going to be close as I'm making contact with the ball. It really doesn't matter so long as you get to the ball because you're hitting a reset from this position. You're not speeding up the ball in transition as you're on defense. So, since you're hitting a reset, it's going to be a soft shot. you have all the time in the world to get back to this neutral position and this open stance facing towards your opponents. So that's the footwork at midcourt when you're making contact with the ball. We're resetting typically. Sometimes we're swinging through our shot. But in general, we're trying to keep our body open towards our opponents like a goalie would as much as possible. If you're scrambling to get to a ball, just run towards the ball. It's as simple as that. The simpler you keep it, the better player you'll be.
Now at the kitchen, what we're going to be doing is very similar to the transition zone and also to the baseline with a key difference between the baseline and the kitchen. That being our ready position is up here at the baseline. Reason it was up here is so that we could create that C motion and hit through our drives. Now here we don't need to hit drives. If we hit this huge C motion from here, the ball's going long. Okay? And so instead here, what I like to do and do whatever is comfortable for you is actually point the tip of my paddle towards my opponents wherever they are and have that second hand on there majority of the time. Typically, if I ever feel like they're going to speed up the ball or we hit a dead dink, a dink that's lobbed, I'm going to put that second hand on because I'm going to be countering with two hands. And also, it helps me to be able to react to the ball faster. So, whenever you have two hands on the paddle, you can react faster with those unit turns, right? And so even if you're detaching on that backhand side or on the forehand side, you're going to be hitting through the ball here and detaching. But make sure that you're doing that unit turn with both hands on the paddle and a slightly lower paddle. The reason that you want it slightly lower than back there is because the ball is either landing in the kitchen, which is low, so our paddle's already going to be down and ready for that, or it's going to be coming directly at our body. And so we're covering our body from this position. So if it comes at my knees, I'm ready to reset the ball. If it comes at my chest, I'm ready to counter the ball with topspin, right? So, this is the perfect position. Whereas, if you're up here, you're going to be late getting to those resets. It's just a really long way to travel. So, do whatever's comfortable for you. But typically, this is where you want your ready position to be. And when you're moving out towards the ball, we want to stay as open as possible. But again, it comes down to if you're in a scramble to get towards the ball, cross your feet over and get to wherever the ball is. You can absolutely cross your feet. If you've heard before that you can't, just go watch Ben Johns. You'll see that he crosses his foot on his backhand side almost every single time. There's actually a really specific reason that he does it on his backhand side. And that's just simply because that's what's most comfortable for him. And again, like I mentioned before, I don't think that we're going to see that in the pros as much, but you can still absolutely do it when you're hitting a dink because you have time to get back. That dink allows you since you're hitting your dinks into the kitchen to have time to get back to this open stance. And so it's not as important up at the kitchen to keep an open stance when dinking in comparison to being at the baseline and hitting drives. So I'm just going to show you guys what that looks like on the forehand and the backhand side.
The last thing that I'll say about moving towards the ball is sometimes it comes down to your dominant eye. Everybody has a dominant eye. an eye that can see the ball better and doesn't have a blind spot. Whereas your off eye actually has a little bit of a blind spot in certain positions. And so if you can keep your dominant eye in front of where you're hitting, you're going to do a lot better. And so I don't know this for 100% certain, but I would guess that Ben Johns, since he crosses on his backhands, his dominant eye is his right eye because he's keeping his right eye forward and that's optimal for his game. Obviously, he's the best player in the world, so it doesn't necessarily matter that he's crossing his legs so long as he can see the ball perfectly. And I think that that trumps it. So, if you can see the ball perfectly, it's going to make way more sense for you to keep that dominant eye out in front and cross your legs. And so, for me personally, my dominant eye is my right eye. And so, that's probably why I like to cross a little bit more on that backhand side because I can see the ball better. It gives me the best chance of winning the point. And so an exercise that you can do to figure out which eye is dominant, because this is really important, I think for making sure that you put that eye in front of every single shot so that you don't get that blind spot, is you put your hands together creating this diamond shape and you're going to pick a point in the distance. It doesn't have to be super far, like 20 feet away. You pick that point in the distance and you look at it, okay? Through this hole. Once you've done that, you're just going to slowly move your hands towards your eyes as slow as possible. And that will automatically go to your dominant eye. So for me, it's my right eye because for that far distance, I'm automatically focused on that on that right eye. So that tells you that that's your dominant eye. So with that specifically, you're going to be wanting to turn your head a bit more when hitting backhands if if your right eye dominant and you're a righty player. Um, if you find out that your left eye dominant, right, and you're a righty player, you're going to want to turn your head more towards the right so you can keep that left eye out in front and avoid that blind spot.
All right, the next key element is called the law of attraction. So, I want to be attracted to where the ball is going to be. I don't want to wait for the ball to bounce. I don't want to wait for the ball to come over the net before I start moving towards where the ball is. And you'll see this happen a lot at the kitchen line. And honestly, majority of the time when people are on the baseline, so they'll be hitting maybe a third shot drop. They just barely served the ball. Now they're hitting a third shot drop or drive. And they'll wait for the ball to come to them before they drop the ball. Instead, you want to act like you're a magnet to wherever the ball is. So, if I'm hitting my third, I want to move towards wherever that ball is. Whether that's in towards the court or it's out prior to the ball actually getting there. Like a magnet, I'm moving as the ball is moving so that we can meet up together in the most optimal position. And the most optimal position is obviously going to be forward. So if they hit a short return, I'm moving forward towards where the ball is. I contact that ball with a drop or drive and I'm again moving forward. The most important thing is making sure that we are moving towards the ball as quickly as possible. Not waiting for the ball to bounce and come to us. That's not how it works. So, like I said before, we want to think about it just like a magnet. A magnet is attracted to the other magnet. We need to move together 50/50 and meet at that optimal spot where we can make contact with the ball. And now I'm at midcourt making contact with the ball instead of with a couple of feet inside the kitchen making contact with the ball, waiting for the ball to come to me. So anticipate and make sure that you're moving towards where the ball is going to ultimately be as quickly as possible.
Okay, now we're going to talk about the footwork at contact at the baseline, at midcourt, and then at the kitchen. So at the baseline, the very first thing to understand is what's called the mogul step. The mogul step is what you're going to be doing if you're ever thrown off of the court by your opponent. Maybe they hit a really good return in doubles or maybe in singles it's just like every single shot you feel like you're thrown off the court because you have way more court to cover. But essentially all that the mogul step is is where you're starting and finishing facing towards your opponents. So it's a little hop shift towards the side. Same exact thing on the backhand side, a hop shift towards the side. So if I were to show you this is all that the mogul step is. And the reason this is so effective and that you want to do it is because if you're ever pulled off of the court, you can recover so much faster because you're instantly open towards where you need to go. It's the same exact thing on this side. I'm already open towards where I need to go. I can push off of that outside leg and jump back in towards where I need to go.
So, what do we do if we're not being pulled off of the court? We're just hitting a normal backhand or forehand drive. That's where it comes down to utilizing our base and leaning forward through contact. So only with the mogul step are we going to be leaning towards the side as we make contact because we have to since that's where we're running. But if we can easily get to a ball, we always want to be leaning forward. If you lean forward, you're going to be able to create more spin. You're going to be able to create more power because your legs are generating all of that power forward into the court. It's adding RPMs and it's adding MPHs into your shot just simply because you're utilizing your legs as you're lifting forward through the shot. So, if the ball is close to me, I'm going to be stepping in towards where that ball is. Notice I'm in an open stance, a completely open stance for this position. Forehand side, you need to be open stance. I go from right foot to left foot to right foot. It's as simple as that. Contact left, right. So, contact on that right foot, left foot, right foot. So, to show you what that looks like. Okay. So, it's almost as if I'm doing a mogul step, but I'm just simply moving forward into the court. Same exact thing on the left side, except for I'm going from left to right to left, left, right, left. That's just simply that recovery to get my body open towards where I need to go. Left, right, left. And I'm essentially uh putting all the weight on my outside leg of whatever side I'm hitting on. So, if you can just remember that, your body will take care of the rest. All the weight there as I make contact. And now I'm just simply recovering and trying to face forward towards where I want to go. All the weight here. And I'm simply recovering and facing forward towards where I want to go. So these are balls that are short in the court or they're close to you. If they're close here and I don't have to run way far out wide, I want to give myself the opportunity to hit into the shot and move forward into the court. Now, if you cross your leg over as you hit a backhand, which again isn't a bad thing at all, you can automatically put yourself back to facing towards your opponents after you make contact by just swinging your non-dominant leg forward. So, you're swinging that non-dominant forward as you make contact. So, it looks like this. Closed, swinging it forward, and now you're open towards the court. So, there's no problem in having a closed stance. But again, like I mentioned before, I do think the pickleball will ultimately result in people staying open the entire time and hitting open stance. So use your best judgment, but do whatever favors that dominant eye. And a lot of the time, if you have a right eye dominant and you're a righty player, it's going to make more sense for you to close that foot and hit with a closed stance and then swing through.
So now at midcourt, when you're making contact with the ball, the main focus is just to keep your feet open through contact. You have to kind of keep your feet out of the way. is sometimes you're going to be doing a drop step. So you're stepping back, closing, hitting, and then coming back to an open stance. Stepping back, hitting, coming back to an open stance. It's literally that simple. It doesn't need to be overcomplicated. Again, we're just trying to stay open as much as possible. Sometimes that isn't possible. So, we need to implement the drop step and then come back to that ready position. When we're up at the kitchen, it's the same exact thing, but maybe you're more comfortable closing that leg through contact. And so, what you're going to be doing is you close and you step back. Since you're hitting a dink, you can close and step back. That's going to be the the fastest way to recover. If instead you swing around like how you would for a backhand drive, you're pulling yourself off of the court. So, look at the difference between the two. swinging and now I have to recover in comparison to hit and recover. Keeping all the weight, all the hinge on this outside leg on my non-dominant leg. Hit and I recover instead of hit. Recover pulls you off of the court. So, it's going to make way more sense to just use that back leg to come back into that flush ready position. Now, keep in mind, as soon as you get into a hands battle, we're here. We are not crossing. And that's one of the main differences between tennis and pickleball is in tennis, you're turning and you're cutting underneath the ball as you do what I like to call squashing the bug. Okay? So, you're stepping, you're crossing your feet as you make contact. You're never open as you're making contact in tennis like this with volleys. You're always closed. But in pickleball, and what makes it a little bit more difficult in my opinion is that you have to stay open the entire time. So, we're keeping our feet open towards wherever our opponents are as we're making contact. And then the other key difference is in tennis, we're cutting under the ball, hitting underspin as we hit volleys, whereas in pickleball, we're hitting topspin as we hit volleys, which is a whole lot harder to time, but it's going to ultimately put the ball on our opponents low and uh at their feet because we're creating topspin to bring the ball down into the court. The first team to hit down, and I've said this so many times, but the first team to hit down is most often the team that's going to win the hands battle. So, in hands battles, stay open. It's okay to cross your foot. On the backhand side, just make sure that you're recovering back with that outside foot. Forehand side, it's the same exact thing. Sometimes you have to cross to get to the ball. Just remember, we're recovering back on now that dominant foot. So, whatever foot is back is the foot you want to just keep planted and recover. You're going to recover so much faster.
Okay, now we're going to talk about specific drills that you can do to lock in that muscle memory. That way, when you get out onto the court, you're in a tournament or you're in a rec game, you automatically know what to do without having to think about it. That way, you're not going out and hitting a shot that's way out wide on a drive and you're like, "Oh, how do I mogul step again?" Instead, your brain already knows exactly what to do because you've gotten a thousand repetitions at least of hitting that shot. So, the first three drills that we're going over are going to help you to be able to get the muscle memory to move correctly at the baseline, at midcourt, and at the kitchen line. And then I'm going to be breaking down two specific drills that you can do either with a ball machine like I'm doing today, or with a partner so that you can really lock in that muscle memory. What's great about these first three drills is that you don't need a ball. All that you need is a paddle so that you can shadow swing. You're just simply focusing on building that muscle memory for your feet. And so this first one is going to be the mogul recovery drill. So we're going to be going out, hitting our forehand, recovering back to the middle, going out again, hitting our backhand, and recovering to the middle. So making sure that we start in that open stance, and then we just simply go from there. Split step here in the middle. I didn't mention that, but split step here in the middle and then take off again. Hit with that mogul step. So, typically what you want to be doing is getting as many reps as possible. But what I literally suggest is setting a timer. A timer for 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off, or if all you can do is 3 minutes on, 3 minutes off, or 1 minute on, 1 minute off. All that it comes down to is getting as many reps with it as possible. And once it feels comfortable where you don't have to think about it anymore, you then need to do a thousand more. And that's where so many players get it wrong is that as soon as it starts to feel comfortable, they'll be like, "I'm good." And they'll move on to the next drill or they'll move on to the next thing or they'll move on to the next match.
Okay. The second drill is going to be our mid-court drill where we're practicing that transition. So, you're going to hit a forehand drive or a backhand drive. And then you're going to hit a forehand or a backhand reset at midcourt. Not actually hitting it, but it's shadow swings. Then you're going to crash the net again and hit a dink on the backhand or the forehand side. And so what this is simulating is you're actually visualizing every single time that you make contact with the ball, not actually making contact, you're visualizing that ball going in. And visualization is one of the biggest best tools that you can use to perform better in matches and in tournaments. And so what I'm doing is I'm practicing moving forward through contact, going from right to left to right as I make contact. Then I'm coming to just past midcourt. Split stepping. I'm stopping my momentum. And the time that you split step is right when your opponents make contact. So I'm coming in. I'm hitting. Split step. They've made contact. I stop myself so that my eyes can focus on the task at hand. I'm resetting on either the forehand or the backhand side, depending on what round you're on. Visualizing that reset going in, crashing, splitting at the kitchen line, and then I'm hitting a dink either out of the air or off of the bounce. And again, I'm visualizing that dink going in. So, you're going to be doing this on the forehand side and on the backhand side. And then you're going to be doing it where you're alternating, starting with a forehand, then a backhand, then a forehand, starting with a backhand, then a forehand, then a backhand. So, what that looks like is this. We run towards the ball, hit, split, reset, run in, dink. It's as simple as that. That's the forehand side. Let me show you one more. Run towards the ball. Hit. Reset. Dink. Visualize those balls going in. Same exact thing on the backhand side. Run towards the ball. Hit. Reset. Dink. We're just getting This is This is the most common thing that you're going to be doing in pickleball. If your muscle memory can do this consistently, you're going to consistently get up to the net. And that's why I mentioned before a 10% improvement in your footwork will give you a 100% improvement in your game. So, one more time on that backhand side. I run in, hit, reset, reset. Make sure that you're split stepping as they make contact with the ball. Okay, last one's the dink. And it's very similar to the one that we just did on the baseline, but we're just simply moving out towards the ball and recovering back to the middle of the court. Again, we're recovering back to the middle of the court, not only to practice our singles game, but to make our doubles game even better because if you're playing singles, you have to cover more court. And so, if you practice covering more court, it makes doubles feel like a walk in the park. As easy as pie, right? And so, what we want to do with this drill is we start in that ready position. We're moving out, acting like we're dinking a ball, and we're recovering this ball. So, we want to picture actually dinking this ball up the middle of the court into the kitchen. Actually picture it in your mind. Again, visualization. Same exact thing on the backhand side. Dink. Picture it back to the middle. And we're back here. Recovered to the middle. And then make sure that you're split stepping in the middle every single time. So here's what that looks like. Dink. Actually picture that ball back to the middle of the court every single time. If you have to cross because you're way pulled out wide all the way on this foot and then we're back to the middle. So those are the three visualization drills. They'll help you build that muscle memory.
Now let's talk about the ball machine drills. All right. So this drill that we're doing now is called slinky. And what you're going to be doing is just like a slinky. Slowly moving forward, hitting drops until you hit a dink. And then you're slowly moving back towards the baseline. In specific with this drill, you're hitting three shots moving forward, three shots moving back. The main focus is to face forward through every single shot. So, we don't want to turn around and run and then hit the next shot. The only time that you turn around in pickleball is if someone lobs the ball over you. That's when you turn around, run, sprint, hit, and then now you're open again towards your opponents. But a lot of pickleball footwork just comes down to staying open. So, we're practicing that. We drop, run to the middle of the court, split step, hit another drop or a reset, run to the kitchen, split step, hit a dink. By the way, if you want access to hundreds of different drills just like this, I have an app called the Pickleball Drills app. In it, you'll get video instruction just like how you're getting with this video that will help you take your game to the next level, all while you're getting those reps to build muscle memory. You can access the app by clicking this link right here. It'll give you a 7-day free trial. You can cancel anytime, no questions asked. I know you're going to absolutely love it. What are the odds?
All right, this last drill is called singles scramble. So, you're going to be scrambling just like how you would in singles, but it correlates even better to doubles. So, you're hitting a return, you're running forward, you're hitting volleys, covering the entire court, focused on your footwork, focused on keeping your feet towards your opponents throughout the entire thing, and split stepping. So, notice how I'm keeping an open stance through every single shot that I hit. That's my last two. Then, it gives you time to come back returning, crashing, split, right when they hit. And then I'm rolling this next shot. And I'm rolling this next shot. And then it's two really fast ones. You can choose what you want to do with them.
All right, that's everything for this video. Be sure to download the Pickleball Drills app, start a 7-day free trial. I promise you guys that it is worth it, and I promise that it will help you improve your pickleball game. It's honestly the best value that I can give you. And again, don't forget to subscribe if you really enjoyed this video. We do new videos just like this every single Monday. So, don't miss out and watch this video right here if you want to continue improving your pickleball game. Peace. [Music]