How to Play Better Defense in Pickleball

by the end of this video you're going to understand one of the most important defensive principles in pickleball Dave's over there getting the second camera ready but actually Danny you're up high put your your paddle up high if their paddle your opponent's paddle is up high on the other side of the net gets your paddle down low I'll show you exactly what I mean let's go so when I learned this it changed everything for me so Danny your paddle's up if I ever see my opponents paddle up meaning that it's up because I hit them some type of ball that's high I immediately should get into a paddle down scenario my friend Shannon would calls this a seesaw effect because just conversely if my paddle goes up then Danny would want to get his paddle down so why is this important well there's going to be a lot of times where you're on a pickleball court you're playing doubles and the ball gets popped up whether your partner pops it up or you pop it up and when that happens you want to be in a position you don't want to give up on the point because it's not over please do not give up on the point you want to be in a position with your paddle that you can recover the ball so let's talk about the first two technique pieces of this number one paddle down okay so here it is in the way I hold this on paddle down I like to hold two hands the first person I ever saw do this when I first started playing was Vivian David so what I'm doing right now I'm actually taking my my second hand and I'm actually gonna put it on there and I like to have one finger at the top okay so this is the way it looks so this is how my other side looks and then I go down and the trigger for this is anytime like I said the ball goes up I'm kind of sitting here and my paddle goes down I don't need to have my paddle up here especially when I'm in the mid Court area on defense because if because if my paddle's up here and they hit a ball up here I'm more likely to hit it so the farther I get back in this area I'm on the defensive I want my paddle down if the ball is going up because that's most likely where the ball is going if it goes up here let it go so number one is paddle down quick Interruption zoom in a little bit out yep I got a video series a new video series for you 18 Advanced tips to help you move up a level go to the description below click the link type in your email and start getting videos immediately one video a day for 18 days let's go now back to the video number two is I want to lift the ball up like a volleyball player who's digging a spike from the other team so we want to lift in order to have a higher trajectory which gives us a better chance to do what the third one is Miss High you hit the ball into the net points over can't win you miss high you give yourself another chance to play another point then the fourth one of this is after you've put your paddle down you've lifted the ball you've ensured you missed High when you hit a good one you want to move back to the kitchen so I'm going to back up here so all of a sudden say I was my partner said they hit a third shot drop I hit my ball I lift it up I have to hit another one because it wasn't perfect I have to hit another one because it wasn't perfect I hit another one and it's good enough meaning good enough is it's either gonna bounce and they're going to hit up or they're gonna hit up out of the air that's when I'm going to move forward word on balance and work to get back to the kitchen line so what are some of the scenarios that this might happen well so let's say I hit a third shot drop that Danny's going to hit down on the moment I see that my drop is a little bit high that the trajectory is still Rising as it crosses through the net I want to get my paddle down stop where I'm at get on balance and look to lift the ball back over the net so I'm going to hit my third shot drop and I hit it a little high well I don't love that yet now I love it and I'm going to move in and I'm going to play maybe your partner's the one that misses the third you got to stop where you're at and you've got to look to dig this like a volleyball player in order to work your way back up to the kitchen I love that course one other thing you'll notice is that when that ball goes up I'm not waiting to get my paddle down until Danny hits it the moment that the ball goes up I just go here because I want to eliminate the need and the time it takes to move my paddle here ball goes up I'm here so one other thing to consider is when I'm back farther at the Baseline I don't need to be standing up here with my paddle really high I actually might have the paddle a little bit lower for anticipating that my partner might miss or I might miss and I need to get down the closer I get up to the kitchen line though the more my paddle will rise up getting higher getting higher getting higher getting higher if my paddle's way up here I'm exaggerating a little bit and Danny hits a ball that's potentially going out I'm actually gonna still going to hit that ball and maybe I should have let it go right so I actually I prefer your preference how high you like to have it I like to have it about right in this area right here so if Danny does you know as I'm coming closer if Danny does hit an attacking ball right so I've I've kept my paddle low and he still tries to attack right I can counter that ball well I don't want to keep it low around this area because if Danny goes to attack then I have to bring it all the way up here which is more movement and when the game is when we're only 14 feet from each other the game's happening fast he speeds it up right I want to be able to counter that ball well here's the second scenario right you might be dinking before you are dinking right and let's say your partner ends up popping a ball up the moment I pop this ball up do not just stand here and take it okay that Ball's high if I stand here and take it even if I get my paddle down I might do something but don't don't stand or take it instead take a step off and get your paddle down remember as you step back into the court typically my paddle is going to start to lower because again we don't want it up here because the balls are flying out cool cool that was a perfect example I stepped back I popped it I popped it I popped it as I came back closer I got ready to counter and that's what you can do I hate when I watch players just give up on a point they'll be standing here their partner pops it up they just give up you don't have to give up you can defend and get these balls back paddle goes up paddle goes down are you listening so what does happen if the ball comes up to your waist and it's not going out occasionally I still will rise up with two hands but occasionally I'll just let go and I will hit more of a tennis volley when I'm doing this I'm not death gripping the paddle right I have loose hands I have a loose grip okay so Ball's here foreign and so the more you do this the more balls that you keep alive the more balls that you keep alive the more frustrated your opponents get and the more frustrated your opponents get oftentimes leads to them doing a little bit too much which would be them trying to put a ball away and they end up hitting it into the net so right I hit it here I dig a ball exactly they get frustrated there's a psychology to making one more ball this is the technique that gets to the psychology that affects your opponent someone Advanced hit but you can do this immediately in fact you should do it if Danny is about to hit the ball I need to be stopped I need to be on balance I need to be ready to defend right the mistake that I often see ball comes to me you miss a drop High you run through it okay and you end up popping it up and that would be a mistake that you see like on a third shot drop that goes high do not run through it when your opponent's about to make contact stop quick Interruption is tell you that this video is sponsored by Selkirk from the way they run their business to the quality of their paddles these are my favorite paddles to use if you want to get a sell Kirk a paddle go to selkirk.com or go to selkirklabs.com find the paddle you like and I got you use my code inserted in at checkout and you will get a digital gift card towards a future purchase back to the video now here's another mistake on the dink right if let's say your opponent pops a dink up or you get caught in the defensive and you're backing up okay do not keep running as you try to make contact with the ball okay so all of a sudden we get caught somehow ball gets popped I'm on the defensive I'm moving back okay it's gonna be really hard to control where your ball goes and to keep it down so they can't keep attacking now anytime your opponent's about to make contact with the ball stop where you're at get balanced get ready to battle here we go so I'm here oh foreign I'm going to give you two different drills and then a quick game inside of those drills and in fact I actually dating this too we do both of these things as we prepare for a match so we're at a tournament we have like a five ten minute warm-up right before the match we do a quick version of what I'm going to show you right here so the first one is I'm just sitting in the mid court and I'm just I'm Gonna Pop the ball up to Danny the feed is important right I want to give them a feed where he's hitting down on the ball if I give them just a feed like that then then I'm just I'm not really working on my hands I'm just hitting drops from the mid Court not wrong just not what I want to be working on Danny gets to work on the same time on his flicks loose grip good I might just set a timer and do it for 10 minutes it's one of my favorite drills here's a game you can play in fact Michael Lloyd our friend actually showed me this the other day I don't know where he got it from so if someone has Source Credit for this game I will put it in the description here's the game and remember this person over here who's your partner they are working on rolling the ball applying pressure all right which would happen on like a fourth shot in the game but that's for another video so continue to work on your roles here's the game it's first to 50. okay the feed is important so I have the ball here I'm gonna feed you not a lob okay because that's going to end the point immediately I'm not going to feed you a ball that's going to bounce okay I'm gonna feed you a ball that you can take out of the air like this okay boom and then we're live and it's gonna be first to get 50. now I'm gonna go as many in a row as I can until you've got me to miss then I'm gonna come up to the kitchen you're gonna move back and then you're going to feed to me and you're gonna try to go as many in a row as you can before you miss we keep track of our Score first one to 50. so here's what it looks like okay so it's zero zero one two three four six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve all right good so I had 12 in a row and now Danny's going he's gonna feed it to me [Applause] nice I missed so you keep going so say you're at six right it's twelve to six here we go feed oh [Applause] my God these guys good then he what are you at Danny what how many do you have oh you don't know you're back 15. you're right so remember if they have their paddle up you get your paddle down if you want to learn how to hit a third shot drop more effectively click this video right here you see it works

Channel: ThatPickleballGuy - Kyle Koszuta

Views: 59,672

Keywords: how to play pickleball, learn pickleball, improve your pickleball, pickleball tips, pickleball defense, pickleball strategy, pickleball lessons, pickleball training, how to improve your pickleball, how to defend in pickleball, defending the midcourt, pickleball help, defend attacks, defending mistakes, effective pickleball, how to play pickleball beginners

Id: 6Wh5UaUnoaQ

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023