Transcription
If you want to win in pickleball, you have to be able to control the court from the kitchen. And the main shot that you do that with is the volley, like I just did there. I personally believe that volleys are the most important shot to playing good pickleball. Whether you're using aggressive rules, counterattacks, or resets, volleys are fundamental to our success in games. So, if you really want to improve, you need to make sure that you understand all the different types of volleys, which I'm going to go over in this video. Regardless of your level, there's going to be a lot that you can take away. Helping us today, we have my sister Kennedy, who's a pro player and an expert coach. So let's start volleying.
Like I said, the volley is a versatile shot that you can use in a variety of different ways, and I'm going to get into all these later. But first, I need you to understand the techniques that apply regardless of what type of volley you're using. The number one most important aspect of our volley technique is our grip, or the angle in which we're holding the paddle. So, Kennedy, what is the grip that we use when we volley? The Continental. Correct. So, guys, the Continental grip is where I align this knuckle, my index knuckle, with this angled notch of the paddle. So when I put my hand on it, it ends up looking something like this. A lot of people say the Continental grip is like you're shaking someone's hand. And what this gives you the ability to do is go from backhand to forehand without changing your grip. And why this is so important is because when you don't have to change your grip going side to side, you can move a lot faster. So pretty much, the Continental grip increases your reaction time and makes you have faster reflexes. So you can see as I'm volleying side to side, the Continental grip gives me the ability to simply react without having to change my grip. So if I was having to change my grip going side to side, it's not going to be as automatic, and I'm going to react a lot slower.
The next most important aspect of our volley technique is a ready position, or how we wait for the ball. So I want you to look at these two ready positions and tell me which one you think is better. If you said option B, you are correct. There's a few rules to a good ready position. Rule number one is that you want to have a wider base with slightly bent knees. So you don't want to be standing straight up like she was in option A. Rule number two is that you generally want to have your paddle a little bit higher, and sometimes you even want to lean it slightly to the left, which makes it easier to react for a backhand. What you don't want to do with your hands is have them dangling downward, 'cause when you're like this, every time that you hit a volley, you're going to have to bring it up, which is just an inefficient motion. So with this position, you put yourself in the best possible spot to react to any type of volley. So regardless of whether I'm going to the sides, going low, high, this is my base because this puts me in the closest position to every type of volley. And bonus tip: an important thing to remember is that on your volleys, when you're covering your body, you want to use your backhand, which is one of the main reasons why we generally lean a little bit over with our ready position because a lot of the time we're guarding our body with our backhand like this. You don't want to try to guard your body with your forehand because if you have the Continental grip, you're going to get jammed, and it's not going to be very easy to do that. So guard your body with your backhand.
And the last part of our technique that we need to be worried about in every volley is our movement and positioning. So like I said, you want to have that wide base so that you can explode in either direction to cover the court. But another thing that's really important to consider is your recovery. So when I go out to hit a volley, I want to make sure that I get back to this position as quickly as I can. So you could think of where I'm standing right now as your home base for when you're at the kitchen in general. So I never want to hit a volley over here and then leave that whole part of the court open, right? I always want to get back as fast as I can, generally right to the middle of my side of the court. The best spot to be is just behind the kitchen line right here. So you never want to be too far back. I know it can be scary sometimes, but the closer that you are to the kitchen on your volleys, the better angle you have. So you want to get very comfortable standing right where I am right now. So I got my Continental grip, and notice how every single time that I hit the ball, I always go back to that good ready position that puts me in the best spot to react to any volley. And if she starts moving me around, got that wide base, and I always recover back so that I'm square to the court. You don't want to be stuck in these positions, right? So I always recover back and get into that optimal position so I'm ready for whatever ball she throws at me. All this footwork and positioning stuff we just went through applies to dinking too. So it's just the rules of your footwork when you're at the kitchen. So we transition to volleys, it makes things seamless, and she's always ready for whatever ball I throw at her. But depending on what type of volley I'm hitting, certain things are going to change. Notably, our spin will change, how tight we're holding the paddle will change, and how big of a backswing we're taking will change. Now I'm going to go through all the different types of volleys and show you how to adjust each of those things depending on which one you're using. Before I get into that, though, guys, make sure to subscribe to our channel so you see all our new videos. If you want to improve fast, you have to study the game, and we post videos every week that are designed to get you better.
So the first kind of volley that we're going to go over are our aggressive roll volleys and our putaway volleys. So these are the type of volleys that we use on slower balls where we're trying to be aggressive and finish off the point. I think a lot of people think that having good volleys means that you have super fast reflexes and you can get crazy shots back. But in reality, a lot of having good volleys is being able to finish off the point when you get an easy shot. We're going to get into the fast reflex volleys later, but first, let's cover these. So these types of volleys look like this. See, when I get these mid-height volleys, it's better to use the aggressive roll because I don't have as good of an angle to go as hard. Once that volley height starts to get above my shoulder, that's when I start to lose that roll technique and hit my volleys more like a smash, like that. Looking at a roll technique, though, if our opponent goes for a slower ball and we end up hitting it at mid-height, so a lot of the time you're hitting the shot when your opponent hits a drop, it's smart to try to use the roll. 'Cause with that topspin, I can curve the ball over the net, and with the topspin, when the ball bounces, it jets off a little bit more and makes it harder for our opponents to be accurate on that next shot. So let's do a few more rolls, show you that technique. So all I'm doing on the technique for my roll, whether it's a forehand or backhand, is I'm using my wrist to brush up the ball. Okay? So I have a relatively loose grip here, and I'm not taking a very big backswing. I'm leaning over the kitchen, and almost all of my power is coming from that wrist flick. So regardless of whether it's my forehand or backhand, I'm using that wrist flick, getting that topspin on the ball. And you're generally going to be trying to aim for your opponent's feet as they're coming in. So let me show you how that looks. So you see, she was trying to come in there. I took my roll right at her left wing, the depth of her feet, which makes it challenging for her to hit a reset and continue moving forward.
So Kennedy, at what height do you think you should transition from using the topspin roll volley to the putaway volley? I think a good indicator is when the ball is above your shoulders here, because you can really draw a line down to your target there. When the ball's a little bit lower than your shoulder, that's a good time to use that topspin roll shot. So if you're making contact with the ball below your shoulder, it's generally better to use that roll volley so you can bend the ball over the net because I'm going to have to put a little bit of arc on my shot, and topspin makes the ball drop quicker so I can hit it harder. When I'm getting the ball up here, though, I can draw a line directly to my target. So I don't necessarily need to worry about topspin. I can focus more on power and where I'm aiming the ball. And another thing to consider on those high volleys, you have a little bit more time, so you can take more of a backswing. With the roll volley, a lot of the time we're leaning over really deep into the kitchen, so usually you actually don't use a backswing. So our roll volleys are going to look something like this. And our higher volleys, we're going to start to take more of a backswing and use that to get more power.
Now, guys, we're going to go over how to volley against hard shots, and there's a few different ways that we're going to do that. The first is how to volley against your opponent when they're hitting drives at you from the baseline. So if you're playing bangers, this type of volley is critical. So when you're playing someone that's hitting super hard from the back like this, what you don't want to do is pop the ball up so they can close in and kill you, like what just happened to me. So on my opponent's backhand, using those types of drives, my goal is to keep them back. And the way that I do that is with hard, low, penetrating volleys that I aim right at their feet, which makes it a lot more challenging for them to move forward. Technically, on these volleys, when it's coming hard, you don't want to take a big backswing, and you want to use a firm wrist so you can use their power against them. Show how that looks. So you see, on a hard volley, I can actually get a lot of power just from the speed of the ball by keeping my wrist firm. The firm wrist also makes it a lot less likely that you'll mishit the ball. I'm sure you've been playing before where you're playing against a banger, and it feels like you're mishitting a lot of your volleys. It's probably because you're holding your wrist too loose.
The next type of volley we're going to go over, though, is the counterattack, which looks like this. You see, I went for a speed-up there, and Kennedy's best option was to attack off of my attack. A lot of the time, the shot's too hard to try to get it into the kitchen, so your best bet is to go for an attack off of an attack. Technically, on our counterattacks, we don't have much time, so our strokes are super simple. Pretty much, we want a medium backswing. We want to take our paddle straight back. Depending on where they hit the ball to us, our tension on the grip should be medium, so not too loose, not too tight. So good counterattacks look like this. The second Kennedy sees where my speed-up is going, she gets her paddle back as quickly as she can, and she tries to take the ball to one of my weak points. So let's see how that looks again. There, went to Kennedy's backhand. An important thing to know, a lot of pro players use a two-handed backhand when they counterattack, but that's more of a preference thing. I think most recreational players prefer to counterattack with a one-hander, that's why I prefer to do it. The key, though, like I said, is that you aim for your opponent's weak points. What you don't want to do is try to win by going through your opponent. If they have fast hands, it's going to be really tricky. So the top spot is definitely at your opponent's feet. If you have a higher ball to counterattack on, you can go for the feet. If it's not as high, though, what you can do is you can go for the middle of the court or down the line if there's an open gap, and maybe even at your opponent's right shoulder to where you can get them jammed, like this. A cool game to work on the shot is when you're dinking, and either player can speed up whenever they want. So there, Kennedy sped up on me, went right at that right shoulder, which made it tricky, but I was able to get my counterattack with the backhand, little chicken wing technique, but made it work. I was able to win the point. See another one. So that was not a good shot for me to speed up on. Kennedy took advantage of that by counterattacking with a high forehand right at my feet. Not really much I could do there. There, she went right at my right shoulder again, but I was able to get out of the way just enough to use a forehand volley, which I took right at her feet. And a lot of the time, when you're in a position where your opponent's attacking you, you don't actually have a good opportunity to counterattack. So your best bet there is to actually drop the ball in the kitchen. This shot is called the reset. The main time we use the reset is usually from the transition zone when we're moving forward, dropping the ball into the kitchen, but you actually can do it a lot with your volleys too. A lot of people call this the block, so it's the block or the reset, same thing. To hit a good reset volley, you want to have a really loose wrist. So you're going to take very little swing, and you're going to use your loose wrist to dampen the pace of the ball, slow it down, and drop it into the kitchen. So it's definitely more of an advanced volley. Once you get the hang of it, it's a super effective way to neutralize rallies. So going back to that speed-up game where we're both thinking, now we're going to go for our resets. So Kennedy did a great job there of slowing the ball down into the kitchen. She did it again there. There, I went for one off my backhand, and like I said, you got to have those soft hands. A lot of the time, your paddle actually gives a little bit so that you can drop it into the kitchen. If you can make this shot consistently, bangers are going to have a really hard time beating you because when they're going hard, they're expecting that ball to get popped up so they can kill it. But when you put it into the kitchen, you force them back into a neutral situation, and they're going to get impatient.
To be able to master all the types of volleys we just went over, though, you have to practice. And one of my favorite ways to do that is the drill we're about to go through. All we're going to do, I'm going to start up, Kennedy's going to start back, and we're going to play points against each other, half court. Kennedy's goal is to try to move forward so that she can win the points from the kitchen. So there, Kennedy went for a hard drive, and I used that first firm wrist volley to go right at her feet, which made it tough for her to move in. There, when Kennedy was trying to come in, I was using my aggressive rolls right at her feet, but she used a good reset and was able to make her way to the kitchen. When she got in, I went for a speed-up, and she used her counterattack volley to win the point. There, Kennedy went for a drive to start, which I used my firm wrist volley on. Then she went for a drop, which I used my aggressive roll on, which I got at her feet, and she wasn't able to use a reset, she missed it in the net. There, Kennedy did a great job using her resets, and she actually made her way to the kitchen, where she did that last reset volley. Really challenging shot, but Kennedy has good feel, so she was able to use that reset volley to get the ball in the kitchen. I was a little lazy on the last shot, and I missed. Oh, there I was using my aggressive rolls, but Kennedy was still able to make it in. And when she made it in, I accidentally popped up my dink, and she used the aggressive roll to finish off the point. So as you can see, that was an awesome drill to work on every single type of volley that we went over. If you have a good partner to do this with, make sure to send this video to them. And if you guys like Kennedy in the video, make sure to let us know in the comments. She's my sister, so can use her, you know, she's around. And guys, we made an awesome video about how to beat bangers a few weeks ago, so if you struggle with that, make sure to check it out. [Music]