Exactly Nicole. Have clear goals for practice and games. Too many avoid their weaknesses and do not improve. Yet I hear all the time how do I get better? Send them this video from now on!!! 😊 Thanks

Absolutely! Knowing your game is good but being able to analysis your opponent’s game and impose your game plan is great. It’s a lot easier to help your opponent play poorly than it is to play great yourself. 🙌🔥

Many years ago, I spent two years working at the US Olympic Training Center. One of the things that impressed me the most was how relentless the top athletes were at addressing their weaknesses. They were also incredibly disciplined in their training. Some of them had some really nice necklaces that only get handed out every four years.

I wish more players would take notice and embrace this idea that Rec play at any level is an opportunity to improve as a pickleball player. It's helpful to have an overall plan, (strategy), specific shots or situations you want to use, (tactics), and measurable goals. For example, I may attempt to play a steady game where I don't commit any errors on the first three shots of a point. I often track unforced errors, but sometimes I'm working on protecting my partner or taking over a match and my tactics and goals will be different. As Nicole said, have a plan for all your play, share it with your partner and don't get too hung up on winning and losing.

💯 I often play with lower level players to practice shots I’m working on.

This is so important as players in your group get better or fall off, you can still play together, you just need to adapt and work on skills if you are better and the worse players will get lots of work and perhaps up their game as well, otherwise sadly you end up leaving friends behind as you skill up.

Wow! My wife has convinced me to start playing with our local group only to work on a couple skills at a time. Yes, they can’t beat us as a team so we separate and then we both pick 2 skills to work on win or lose. I have been helping others and actually having fun at the same time. It has improved our game and we all laugh at the poor choices we make; which are fewer and fewer. Thank again.

Nicely done. I like your teaching style. Subscribed.

LOVE this video! I’ve been doing something like this for a while but haven’t been very disciplined. I’ll make it a priority going forward now that I have a much clearer understanding of the strategy.

Great advice.

The great thing about “playing down” is also that you must play intentionally, not reactively. You can work on accuracy by trying to put it on your opponents forehand to prolong points, change the target when you play more competitively you can work on footwork, a new stroke, whatever you want more intentional reps with.. You get to practice at a slower pace and remove ego from the learning process which is where the magic happens.

Agree that playing at a lower level is a good opportunity to work on your weaker shots and skills but it seems that when I do play down I don't see the ball much the weaker player gets targeted because players are still competitive and want to win.

good advice thanks

I find there's a number of issues with "playing down." Inefficiency - If I'm the strongest player on the court, people don't hit the ball to me. After all, that's a winning strategy - exploit your opponents weaknesses. If I'm playing down, my partner is our weakness, and the opponents hit the vast majority of the shots to my partner so I really don't get to work on anything at all beyond the serve and return of serve. Wrong Shots from Opponents - Weaker opponents tend to the hit the ball less deep (or less well placed), less fast, less spin, and higher. I find that practicing against these weaker shots doesn't help much, if at all, in preparing for well hit balls that I see from stronger opponents. Wrong Feedback - If I hit one of my weaker shots against weaker opponents it's usually good enough such that they can't do much with it. The natural feedback is, "Oh, huh, I guess my shot was just fine," and instead of honing my skill it tends to make me sloppy such that when I play stronger players that shot hurts me even more. I realize that this is totally on me, but unfortunately that's my natural reaction that I can't seem to overcome. Bad Habits - Against weaker opponents I find myself "pulling punches," for example, purposely hitting balls that would've clearly gone out, hitting balls to the opponents, etc., basically anything in order to extend the length of the rallies which would otherwise be quite short. These are obviously terrible habits to get into. Unhappy Opponents - Weaker opponents often get quite frustrated with someone who generally hits the ball deep (or fairly well placed) with some combination of speed, spin and low. That's part of the reason they won't hit it to me but it can also lead to some bad feelings ("You hit it too hard!!"). I do realize that a lot of the issues above are just me, or people like me, and that others with different psychological makeups can overcome these problems, perhaps easily. I'm also at the stage where I don't have any shots that are weak inherently, rather my weaker shots are just not up to the task when playing against stronger players. Lastly, just due to the specific pickle ball friend set that I have and the venues I play at, I'm rarely the weakest player on the court (maybe 1 in 20 games) and not often weaker than my partner (maybe 1 in 4 games) so I'm usually playing against weaker players. I'm pretty sure that hasn't been helping my pickle ball skills. Note that I realize this is totally my fault since I have ample opportunity to play 4.0 open play and rotations, and I win a reasonable amount of the time when I do so, but I rarely do it because I'm intimidated. It's really embarrassing when I pop up a shot and my partner (or I) ends up eating it - I just want to go crawl in a hole and die when I do that. So for me it's drill, drill and drill some more. And then I may hire a pro and drill, drill and drill some more against the pro. And then maybe I'll feel comfortable playing at the 4.0 level.

What I do with a few people we’ll play a backhand dink game. Then sometimes I’ll play with lesser players and I’ll hide my forehand and force to hit backhand.

I haven't played yet or read the rules, but can players change hands with their paddle? Heck, I can't even recall whether that's legal in tennis. And can your non-paddle hand touch the paddle surface during play?

I totally agree with this approach, but this is a very risky endeavor simply because if you do this too much and focus on weaknesses, players will get discouraged. I believe working on weaknesses during actual games is critical but cannot be overdone. Psychology of sport will create a situation where you'll get discouraged and defeated. When implementing this strategy it is important to really balance playing your strengths and working on weaknesses at the same time to a degree that it doesn't feel like you can't win. That is the greatest detriment to new players is the tendency to get beat consistently because they are trying to work on too many skills that they don't possess and therefore lose and think they're not any good.

It's all about working to get better, love this. Check us out too!