Coach Athena | Improve Your Pickleball Dinks

hey guys welcome back as you can see I have not changed my outfit so therefore we are into our third video and I'm so excited again what a beautiful day a little bit of windy but hey we are near the beach so that's it is what it is I have here with me Athena trio and Athena played at Michigan State as well recruited her out of Miami and now she's backing Naples only an hour and a half two hours away from home so exciting to have them here near me actually they live across the street for me how cool is that but anyways what are we gonna be working on today Athena thank you sir mone for having me on the YouTube channel so today we're gonna be working on Dinks I think Dinks is a really important part of the game probably 70 80 percent of the game is Dinks especially at our level you'll see nonstop dinking so today that's what we're going to be talking about so take us through so what makes a good deem what's a good thing to you so a good thing is a couple different steps so number one you always want to make sure that you're making contact in front of you you'll see a lot of people they'll start thinking and all of the things they're making contact here a little bit close to the body and so what happens when you're making close contact to your body you use the wrist and then the risk goes up paddle goes up so ball goes up right so you want to make sure that you're making contact in front so how is it that you make contact in front you don't want to be standing straight up when you're dinking that's gonna cause you to make contact close to your body so you want to be in an athletic stance about shoulder width with the feet leaning forward not too much with the back but bending the knees making sure you're bending the knees and you have your paddle out here this will increase your chances naturally of making contact always out in front with the Dinks also you want to make sure you keep your wrists from right so if you're making contact in front but still thinking with the wrist balls gonna pop up so you want to make sure to keep that ball low that the ball is is coming from the shoulders so you're using your shoulder kind of like a pendulum all from the shoulder keeping that ball low and you want to make sure you keep your body leveled that's very important because if you're using your shoulder you're in an athletic stance you're leaning forward but all of a sudden as you're hitting your dink your body's popping up where's the ball gonna go same thing up so you want to make sure as soon as you start your swing on that dink you stay at the same level that you started your swing at that's gonna allow the ball to stay low and I have a couple questions so I know a lot of people gonna ask so what's the grip that you're using what kind of grip is it continental semi-western in eastern grip so you always want to use a continental grip on the dink so that's your prep some people might have a little bit more Easter some people have semi-western what what are the advantages of having a continental grip for you so for me especially at the kitchen when I'm thinking all of a sudden I cannot expect it and the ball comes quick and I don't have time to change my grip so this continental grip allows me to do the dink but if somebody pops it up quick to me and I need to hit a volley all of a sudden I don't need to change my grip all I need to do is my paddles in front and I'm ready here to block the volley with the same grip so that's why my preference is continental because then I'm ready for any shot at the kitchen line okay good and what about the grip pressure when you're dinking so on a scale from one to ten if zero is really loose you can barely hold the paddle and ten is you're squeezing to the point where you might get a cramp in your arm you want to be probably at around the three or four out of ten so you want to have a loose grip that way you're not stiff as you're dinking kind of like a statue right you want to be relaxed and you want to be able to have that loose grip in order to really be able to keep control and have those soft links that stay low above the net so as you can see here we're both leaning forward right we're not gonna be hitting these Dinks straight up here like this cuz all of a sudden the errors are gonna start coming right so we're both leaning forward bending the knees here always making contact in front and notice how I'm moving my feet so a lot of people get intimidated by the kitchen right they want to make sure they're not stepping in the kitchen no matter what so of a sudden the feet feel like they're in concrete and they're not moving the feet right but you want to remember you can move your feet if the ball bounces you can go ahead and go get that ball move the feet kind of like you pivot like a basketball player you can leave one leg you go this way go get the ball and then notice sometimes I'm kind of like swaying right if Simoni hits the ball slightly to my right I can kind of sway here instead of just reaching kind of like that right so you can kind of sway so you're you know you're staying loose with the legs everything here on the Dinks I'm leaning forward I'm making contact in front everything is from my shoulder no wrist no elbow and notice how we're hitting these Dinks kind of deep right so if I'm hitting things that are kind of short here sumo knees gonna feel really comfortable right I'm not really gonna cause an error but all of a sudden if I'm hitting these Dinks a little bit deeper right at Simonis feet maybe I can cause an error at that point right because then she's gonna make contact close to the body use the wrist and then I'm gonna get that high papa ball that I was looking for right so you really want to make sure you hit these Dinks a little bit deep towards the feet keeping them low and then that way you'll cause the a palpable okay so we're gonna get Phil and Catherine here let's do it all right so what we're doing here is one of my favorite drills called a figure eight so Simona and I are going everything cross-court and Phil and Catherine are going everything down the line so the reason this drill is important is because you're forced to go in a particular spot with your dink this helps you with control and being able to place the ball where you're aiming it so then the question might come how do I aim my dink in a particular spot so you want to make sure that you're pointing your paddle face towards your target and follow-through towards the target as well if you see here on my thing I'm following through towards Phil in order to get the ball there right and then you can switch of course and do it the other way so Simoni and I can go down the line and Phil and Catherine will go cross-court notice also how all four of us are kind of moving tracking the ball right every time Phil hits the ball I'm a little closer to the middle Simo knees covering the line so this is a great drill in order to work on control being able to aim your Dinks in the right spot and hit the targets that you want all right so the next drill we're gonna do is a dinking game so the rules of this game the ball must land in the kitchen or on the kitchen line and it must be a dink no fast shots are allowed oh there goes here okay come on so again this is working on control being able to focus on the Dinks I know it's tempting to try to hit everything hard oh I missed that one a little bit deep but really trying to focus on the Dinks keeping them low being able to hit your target every time all right so now we're gonna transition to a little bit of a point play drill so now it's gonna be mandatory for Dinks that must land in the kitchen are on the kitchen line and from there the point is open anywhere on the court right anywhere on the court anything goes after the four Dinks so I'm gonna be counting these out loud ready one two three four all right point is open go away what it reset by Phil so you'll see a lot of that drill after the for the fist shot was not automatically a hard shot right I'll do a lot of drill with a lot of clients and all of a sudden as soon as it's a fish shot they've been waiting than that though and then all of a sudden doesn't matter what kind of bond is boom it comes and it's a hard ball really make sure you never seen that happen really make sure that you'll be patient right really wait for the right ball set up the point and wait for the right one to speed it up what you'd say is the right ball to speed it up so if I have a ball that I'm making contact below the net down here that's probably not the right shot to try to pull the trigger right maybe I'm gonna miss it in the net or I'm gonna miss it long because I have to hit it too hard right so if I have a ball up here that Katherine hits a thing that's a little bit higher then maybe that's the one to be aggressive I want to make sure I keep that ball low to Katherine's feet cuz if I go straight to her she might hit me on that next moment she might all right one more last one oh yeah no I want you to get 4.0 180 i 182 hit you with this one come on eighty you got her oh it's waiting on that one my turn on the love don't miss it that was tight all that dawn call it makes a call with she you should touch the kitchen or not you make the call yeah thank you so much for watching uh again Thank You Katherine Phil and Athena for being here today and always Eddie and again don't forget to subscribe the button share direction it is and we'll see you next time life is plastic oh wait the fasting you can brush my hair then take me anywhere you're gonna edit that part out yes no way [Music]

Channel: Simone Jardim Pickleball

Views: 50,962

Rating: 4.9192348 out of 5

Keywords: Pickleball, Pickleball Pros, Simone Jardim, Simone, Pickleball Training, Simone Pickleball, Peak Performance Pickleball Academy, Peak Performance, Peak Performance Academy, Paddletek, Prince Pickleball, Chad Edwards, Pickleball Drills, Pickleball Volleys, Pickleball Block Volleys, Pickleball Soft Hands, Quick Hands, Fast Hands, Fast Hands PIckleball, Phil Metz, Pickleball Dinking, Pickleball Dinks, Dinking Drills, Improve Your Dinks, Athena Trouillot Pickleball

Id: tBTXiPcxFEY

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019