Transcription
Hi there, and welcome to my 10-day dinking mastery course, or challenge, or whatever you like to call it.
Now, why have I put this together? Well, because you and I both know on YouTube, we look at different YouTube videos. Even on my own channel, it gets really, really confusing if you look at a dinking video and then you'll see something else that I've done previously. But I wanted to give you something of a course where you can start at the basics, and then we'll have a logical progression as I build on day after day.
Now, the way I'm going to put this together is this. I'm going to teach you the techniques or the strategies. Then, I'm going to tell you the most common mistakes so you know what to look out for. I'm also going to give you a cue. So, we're going to talk about so you focus on just one thing. Because here's the thing. You go out and you go, "Oh, no. What is it? No back swing, loose grip." And you, when you come to a game, then you forget all that because you just go into fight-flight mode under pressure. So, by just having one cue, just one thing to think about, that's all we're going to do because that's going to make it easy for you to then think about on the court.
So, we're going to do that, and then I'm going to give you drills afterwards, a challenge for you to do at the end of this. So, we groove in, we get that working for you. So, then you can move on to the next day. The other thing I want you to know is I'm going to be doing this for drives, backhands, forehands, volleys, serves. So, I'm going to do these courses because to me, it's the, it just makes the most sense for you as a learning curve. So, make sure you subscribe and make sure you put on the notification so you get notifications and like this video. All right, let's do this.
[Music]
Dinking basics. Let's have a look. Let's very start. Now, some of you might already know this, but we'll just got to go through this 'cause I, some people don't know this at all. First thing, grip. Continental grip, which means the handshake grip. So, you have your paddle like this. You grab it like this, just like you with the hammer. That is your grip. It makes it easy for forehands and backhands. That's your grip. Pressure. Grip pressure is.
Now, we talk about three out of 10, out of 10 being the the tightest grip. Here's what I like. Just think about holding a bird. You don't want to crush the bird, nor do you want the bird to fly away. That's your pressure. So, think about that. Okay. I got a bird in my hand. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Oh, yeah. I got that. Bird doesn't fly away. Uh-huh. Yep. Got that. All right. Now, we got the grip. Now, we've got grip pressure. Right.
Techniques. What we want to always do is hit it out in front of us, the best, best case scenario, right? So, hitting it out in front, think of a V coming out like this. And in that V, that's the area that you're going to hit the ball. So, in this V. So, if I got a V like this, it's got to be so because you want to hit them out in front. We want to avoid hitting them behind because then you're going to be doing pop-ups. You're going to hit them into the net. You're going to be off balance. Sometimes it's unavoidable. We'll talk about footwork. We'll talk about these things. But for the moment, you're going to have this V, and you're going to be in that V hitting the ball. So, it's down here. It's in the V. All right? That's what I want you to focus on, hitting them out in front. It's going to make you way more consistent. Right? That's first and foremost.
The second thing, so we got a grip, we got a grip pressure. We're going to hit them out in front. And we're going to put all the movement is a hinge from the shoulder. There is no big back swing. This is a finesse shot. So, remember our cue. You're going to push, not hit. We hit a drive. Bang. We hit a drive. We are going to push this because we don't have far to go. Seven foot from this kitchen line to the net there. So, we're just going to push. So, just think, this is the thing I want you to think about when you go out to practice. Push or play. Push, not hit. Push, not hit.
So, no back swing. We're going to start it here. And what I want you to do as you do this, you're hinging from the shoulder. No movement at the elbow, no movement at the wrist. So you could think soft grip, firm wrist, no movement at the at the wrist or the elbow. It all comes from the shoulder from both sides. A paddle will be down. This is called a neutral dink. We'll talk about slices and topspin later on. That's for later, but this is day one. So you've got your grip, you got your grip pressure, you're going to hinge from the shoulder, and your follow-through should be facing the sky. So you're going to push it, and you'll face the sky. Okay?
As opposed to what? As opposed to one up here, and then the next one you hit, your follow-through finishes here. Why? Because we want consistency. We want to make this as consistent as possible and as reproducible as possible. That's why we don't add in things like uh wrist or our elbow these because then there's, there's a whole lot of complexities. We want it muscle memory. We want the body to go, "Okay, I know." Just like you don't have to think about driving a car or a stick shift. It's, it's all automatic. That's what we need to do for this. All automatic. So, as soon as you start doing one up there, or a follow-through here, or a little stab there, that's going to give you inconsistencies. So, as long as you're hitting it out in front, no back swing, and we're going to finish around about the same spot, which is normally the paddle facing the sky like that. So, if you think of that as a nice basic uh thing to remember, that'll serve you well.
Now, if you've ever played cornhole, same thing. By the way, just like that, right? Playing cornhole, you've already got the action there. Once you've got those, you've got to remember that. So, what we're going to do is get this muscle memory happening for you. And your challenge is this. With this day one, what I want you to do is do this until you can do 30 dinks in a row without going into the net, without going out on the other side of the kitchen. They must land into the kitchen. That is your challenge before you move on to day two. So remember, push, not hit. Push, not hit. Get 30 balls. Practice against a partner. Or again, if you want to do up against the wall, you can do that. All right.
As you go along, and you could also, if you wanted to, if you've got your line for your net against the wall, have another one, say a foot up, another marker, and you get it in between those two markers. Because otherwise, if you hit it too high, well, that would have been way out past the kitchen. All right, this is your challenge. 30 dinks into the kitchen before you move on to day two. And then we're going to build on this. But just remember, grip, bird in the hand, pressure. Hit it out in front. Follow-through up here. Hinge at the shoulder. Where you go?