Struggling to find a drilling partner? Can’t find time to practice? When you do, are you unsure what you should be doing? I think it is important to learn to practice as you play.
practice as you play
Let me be clear. I am not against drilling. Just as a pianist will practice scales, you should practice specific shots to improve your technique. When you do this, mindfulness and focus are everything. When dinking, for example, you might focus solely on your forearm extending your paddle toward your target. But again, a strict focus on a specific skill or movement is critical. As I have written before, knowing how long you are able to practice mindfully is important.
You must have a clear purpose, and remain present in that purpose as you practice. Otherwise, you are training yourself to not focus on the pickleball court.
play a few bars
Consider for a moment the pianist above. Perhaps he is preparing to play a concert. After practicing his scales, he moves onto perfecting a piece of music. Most will work to perfect a few bars before moving on to the full piece. This analogy applies to your pickleball practice as well. By using what I call gameplay you can work on a specific strategy or skill (a few bars) effectively. For example, for many players, we know their backhand is the weaker shot. So we create a game around hitting to their backhand.
Let’s take another example. Perhaps you have assessed your weaknesses and determined you really need to focus on your third shot drop. While many players will stand in one spot hitting one third shot drop after another…we know this does not simulate a true game situation:
- The player feeding the ball is often consciously trying to feed to the same spot;
- The player hitting the third shot typically does not move forward toward the non-volley zone line;
- They are seldom “punished” for having hit the ball too high and as such fail to learn how to respond; etc.
Mini-games: practice as you play
Instead, I would recommend you construct a mini-game. One such game I call “push back”. Two players on one side of the net stand
at the NVZ line. On the other side, one person is at the net and the other at the baseline as if receiving a serve. The net team “serves” to the player at the baseline. Her goal is to transition to the NVZ line with her partner by hitting drop shots. The point is played out until there is a fault. At the end of each point, points are awarded as follows:
- One point to the “winning” team;
- One point to the receiving team if they are both at the NVZ line when the point ended;
- An additional point to the receiving team if both are at the NVZ line and they have been able to push an opponent off the line.
Play out four points, and then rotate players.
Putting the Pieces together
You can utilize a variety of different mini-games to work on specific areas of your game. Near the end of a drill session, we might play skinny singles because it most closely mirrors an actual game situation. I would caution you, however, to adhere to the rules of the skinny singles. I often see players starting off as skinny singles and quickly turn into full-court singles. A game of skinny singles helps you work on court position, covering your own ball and directionality. It also helps you learn to recognize an “out ball” and what balls are your partners’.
Your pickleball concert
So next time you practice, think about every aspect of the training required to improve your game. Begin by assessing your skills and working to improve on your weaknesses. When drilling a specific shot, limit your practice to the time you can focus on a very specific skill. Quickly move onto gameplay or mini-games that will enable you to practice as you play.
