5 basic tips for the complete pickleball beginner

hey guys Baird here welcome back to another video today I've picked out five basic foundational tips that I personally love and I teach all the time and today I'm going to show you these five tips I think they're really gonna help now keep in mind that yeah this video is is for beginners but you know what every now and then we can have a frustrating day of pickleball so if you're an experienced player every now and then you're gonna have to go back to these tips and sort of revisit them so these are just like basic real basic tips that will really really help you out in pickleball it'll reduce some of that frustration so let's start with the first one okay so the first thing that we're talking about today is pace pace is huge in pickleball when you really begin to understand pace and master this concept of pace you can take speed off the ball you can speed it up you can pretty much do whatever you want and it's going to seriously improve your game now a great way to do this is have someone hit really hard shots at you block those shots and hit them shorter than what they hit you okay so as an example if you have someone that's standing 20 yards away from you have them hit a hard shot at you and then only hit that shot you're returned ten yards okay that will teach you how to slow down the ball so I've got a little cone here anything works you can use like a t-shirt towel whatever just put something in the kitchen here like that it's okay if the cone isn't right up it really doesn't matter that's gonna be your target okay so when I'm blocking these shots that's what I want to aim for so if I have someone hits really hard shots at me I'm just gonna stand here or near the kitchen they're gonna hit hard shots and then my goal is just hit them block them into the kitchen like that notice how the distance of my shot was much less than their shot if you can do that then you're controlling the pace and the speed of the ball and therefore you're having the kind of finesse that you want okay so just keep doing this try to loosen up on that grip when you're doing this you really loosen up on that grip it'll allow just the paddle to block the shot and not your whole arm it feels so good when you're able to do this I love that that's how you control pace learn to hit your block shots shorter than the than what they're hitting you and practicing and drills and so on that will help you to control the pace of the ball and therefore control the point and then you're more likely to win the match all right the next day number two is to develop your swing now notice how I said your swing I can see here all day and tell you what to do but in the end it's your body it's your swing however I can show you some principles as an example one thing that can really help in a swing is to have a very defined backswing and a very defined follow-through this ensures that if you're doing something like a third shot Drive or even a nice return serve or anything like that they're going to have the kind of acceleration that you need coming through the ball it's really interesting whenever I'm doing lessons or something like that people have trouble with these kinds of shots often times what's happening is that they either have no backswing right so they kind of take it back to here and that's it or they have no follow-through and they kind of stub it right here try to have a little bit of both one way that can really help is if you have a fence right here when you're doing your backswing go back and actually hit that fence that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to actually take it back that far it's just going to get you used to taking you back further than what you're already doing and that's going to be an improvement okay so try to hit something behind you you can also use a net if you want to and then come through the ball and do a follow-through let me face you there here's what I do when I swing take it back when I come through I come all the way up back here I come from golf that is a very golf thing okay but tried to figure out what's the best for you when it comes to your swing another thing this is especially true if you're a complete beginner is to try to avoid flipping your wrist over okay you see how I'm turning my wrist over like this a lot of people will do this on a more sort of intermediate or advanced level and they're used to it and that's fine a lot of beginners this can really frustrate you instead of doing that don't twist your wrist leave it stationary as you're coming through and that'll help you to be much more accurate to reduce some of that frustration so trying to take a back swing trying to take a follow-through make things a little bit more fluid and in the end it's gonna help your drives it returns your third shot drops all that sort of stuff all right number three practice athleticism pickleball is so awesome it's so cool it reaches all different types of people it reaches people who've been playing sports forever but it also reaches people who haven't been playing sports at all that's really cool but it's still a sport and you still as a beginner have to practice that athleticism so there's a couple things I want to talk about here when it comes to athleticism basically don't make it look like you're waiting for the elevator okay so if I'm standing here thinking back and forth you know if I'm looking like this just waiting for the elevator right then you're not going to be ready for the ball you're not gonna be ready to do anything super crazy which often times is required in pickleball and in general trying to have a week off here people were probably gonna pick on you it's kind of sad but it's true okay so instead what we're gonna focus on is to have an athletic pose or having an athletic demeanor so instead of waiting for the elevator like this instead I'm gonna spread my feet out a little bit I'm gonna have a little bit of a bend okay not necessarily bending the knees but it's really just kind of a squat in the glutes and in the quads and I'm gonna have my paddle ready out in front of you this gives you that athletic aura it shows people that hey you're here to play and you're here to win it can make it really big different so again as I'm deacon here notice the difference between how I was with the elevator thing I am now it is such a big big difference notice also when I'm getting some of these bodies I'm really getting low really using those quads to get low like this some of the pros could get I mean notice the difference in my Kamil and my posture and the way I'm playing the game okay makes a really big difference in the end so try to practice some of that athleticism it doesn't mean that you have to be like super mean on the court or aggressive or whatever just means that you're here to play here to play the best you can okay number four making your way to the kitchen line the kitchen line is right yonder I hope I'm pointing at the right one that's the kitchen line that's where you want to be for the vast majority of the game the thing is is a lot of beginners understandably especially beginning tennis players tend to hang out at the baseline of the court there's many many problems with that that I really I can't go into in this video because it's kind of complicated however things start to open up and become easier the closer you get to the kitchen line now I know that's uncomfortable right it's like wait why would I do that when I'm right right there with my opponent but believe it or not the vast majority of points are won at the kitchen line so we have to train ourselves to not be afraid to get to the line let me show you a couple tips okay so instead of being defensive and instead of being kind of timid back at the baseline I'm gonna force myself to be so-called aggressive by moving my way up towards that let me show you kind of what it looks like okay so I'm basically doing the third shot drop I'm just a soft little shot that lands in the kitchen so the thing about it though is that when you hit the shot you want to make your way towards the kitchen line like what I'm doing right now it cuts off angles it allows you to volleyballs since they can go higher at this point in the court among many other things so force yourself to move forward whenever you make that shot go forward that's it if you can do that successfully in one or two shots you're in really really really good shape get it over then make your way to the kitchen line you can do that over and over and over again and it's going to get you used to breaking that habit you can even walk to the kitchen that's totally viable notice how I just walked to the kitchen I still got there you can run jog walk okay number five find your tribe pickleball is really social it's a very social sport and I talk to people quite often that are frustrated with pickleball they're frustrated with where they are and oftentimes the reason why they're so frustrated is because they've been playing with the same kind of people and they're not playing against people that are really challenging them okay so get to know people start networking hand out business cards start inviting people out for coffee get to know them pickleball is so social it's so cultural it's a huge huge huge part of the game but it's also really important just to try to connect with people in general it's gonna make you feel better it's gonna make you feel like you're a part of something that's greater than yourself and it's gonna make you a better player in the long run so guys thank you so much for joining me in this video I hope it was helpful head on over to pickleball kitchen com got a bunch of stuff on there articles podcasts the whole thing thank you so much for joining me I'll see you next time

Channel: Pickleball Kitchen

Views: 255,454

Rating: 4.8815331 out of 5

Keywords: pickleball, pickleball instruction, pickleball basics, pickleball beginner, pickleball barrett, barrett kincheloe, pickleball kitchen, pickleball kitchen videos, pickleball tips

Id: Yj_ZgJYqoJk

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 04 2019