Transcription
If you're struggling with the mental side of pickleball and you're looking to improve, this is the video that you've been looking for. My name is Tanner. I have a 5.5 duper rating. This past year, I moved from my home in New Jersey down to Florida to give pickleball full-time a shot. I finally have my mental side at ease, and I'm no longer going into matches extremely nervous where I'm playing like an entirely different player.
I'm going to share with you what I've done so you can take it and use it to improve your game and become a better player. It's mainly understanding a few key concepts that we're going to cover and realizing that pickleball is not a game of highlights. It's a game of errors. Whoever makes more errors is going to lose. It's not like basketball where you want to take a million three-point shots and win that way. It's a matter of consistency.
The first concept is this: it's when you're all at the kitchen line dinking, and after three, four, five dinks, there's a little switch in your brain saying after you hit them, you have to speed it up or the world's going to end, and then it leads you to making a stupid decision. When you watch Ben Johns play, whether it's his first dink or 50th dink in that dink rally, he has the same composure on his body. It doesn't matter if it's early or late in the point. For players like myself and you, after a couple of dinks, you lose your patience and you try to force create an opportunity that's not there. While after every single dink, Ben hits, he's completely calm, only waiting for the opportunity. He's not looking to create it.
My advice to you to gain complete control over your brain and its conscious thoughts is: next time you're in a match, every single time that you hit a dink, whether it's the first one, the 20th one, or the 50th one, I want you to tell yourself that it's the first one. Have the same composure and confidence as it's your first dink. That concept alone took my game way to the next level. It let this rest. I have the skills.
The second concept is actually a quote. Like I said earlier, I've moved down to Florida to do this full-time. I've drilled, I've played for the past eight months, a minimum of three hours a day. And that quote is: "Miles to be good, inches to be great." I've done the miles training. I've put the work in. I know that in my brain. However, whenever I get out to the match, I seem to choke, and it looks like I've never played before. Now, before tournaments or before a big match, I tell myself that quote, but more importantly, I believe that quote in my mental. I know I've trained harder than my opponents. I just have to show it now, and that lets me play so confidently.
The third concept is self-sabotage. Whenever I was playing opponents that I thought were better than me, I wouldn't even play my game. I would make foolish decisions. I wouldn't play the game that I practiced, but most importantly, I would bail out my opponents. I would do that by hitting their out balls that I normally would never hit, and my shot selection would be like no other, almost giving them the ball on a silver platter because I lacked confidence and thought that I didn't deserve to be there, pretty much just handing them the game.
That led me to the phrase: "Don't bail them out. Make them hit just one more ball." Instead of me trying to hit my dinks super aggressively, trying to create a highlight, I take a ton of pace off. I simply put it over and allow them to make the decision to force the issue or to give it back to me. That same concept is applied on my third shot drops. Instead of me trying to hit a perfect, aggressive third shot drop, now I take some off. I make sure I make the shot and I make them play one more ball. It's rewarded me with so many free points because my opponents have that itch in their brain to be the highlight. I'm calmed, and I understand the role.
That's the mental side and how it's helped me be a calmer player. Now, I want to go into some actual strategies if you're in a match or a tournament that will help you gain confidence so you can play more freely. Start off the match driving your third shots instead of dropping them. If you're nervous, it's very hard to accurately hit a third shot drop. You're probably going to miss a lot of them into the bottom of the net. But if you have the mindset of, "I'm going to drive this first ball," it's going to give you confidence. When you do drive it, make sure you're only driving it at 70% power, making sure that you're making the opponent play a ball. It will lead you to an easier fifth shot drop, or if they're nervous or tight, they may volley it into the net. This will help you get your confidence up so for the points to come, you'll already have made shots that's under your belt. You'll feel more confident dropping.
The second strategy advice is: if you're all at the net dinking and you're worried that you're going to pop one up or miss one into the net, I want you to aim all of your dinks right to the middle of the court. Pretend there's a hole, a hoop, right in the middle of the kitchen, and I want you to put every dink there. The net is lower there, it's closer to you, and you're not directly going at an opponent, so you're not crossing the path of anybody's paddle. You're simply putting the ball in play. It's unattackable, and it's giving you confidence hitting dinks until you eventually feel ready to start moving the ball out wide.
If you think my tips have helped boost your confidence for actual match play, make sure to subscribe to my channel and send this video to a friend. I'm trying to make it on the tour, so the more my social media grows, the more likely brands will be to want to work with me.