Over the last couple of weeks, I've been focusing on the non-volley zone. W
hen I was editing one of those videos, I happened to notice a technique mistake
happening fairly consistently in my backhand dink.
In fact, it plagues a lot of people's
backhand dink's so I thought I'd shoot a video to help us all.
Stay tuned.
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A few weeks ago, Jeanie and I were taping
the dump dink video and I was doing it on the backhand side.
While we were shooting it I was struggling a bit.
In fact, Jeannie said to me, you're not lifting the ball.
I knew exactly what she was telling me.
I was hitting at the ball instead of lifting with my body.
What happens to me and I think what happens to a lot of people on the backhand
side is we're a little bit weaker back there.
We have this tendency to take a slightly
longer stroke and use a little bit more wrist.
The issue with that is that can cause a lot of misses either into the net
or it's such a long stroke, it adds speed to the pickleball.
And now we have a pop up that gets smashed back at us.
Later, when I was editing that video, I saw the mistake that I was making.
Good dink technique has a couple of things.
First of all, you generally have the paddle out in front of you.
It's a short swing and we're going to use the body to lift the ball up and over,
which means the wrist is relatively stable in the basic dink.
When I looked at that video, I saw a lot of that extra wrist motion.
So today we're back out on the courts.
We're going to shoot another video where I'm going to give you a couple of tips to
help you to stabilize the backhand dink on that side.
We're also going to take a quick look at footwork. Cause footwork, and I don't care
if you at the non-volley zone or you're back in the court, footwork is essential.
And another thing I noticed in that video is a problem that I know I have in
footwork has crept back into my game and yeah, let's get it fixed.
So there's a couple of things that you can
do to stabilize the paddle on the backhand side.
What I like to do is you can either put two hands on the paddle and do a two
handed dink or you can use your non dominant hand and you can place it there
so it keeps the paddle from going back further.
What I like to think of is when I'm
standing at the non-volley zone line, I like to think that I'm in the center of a
circle and that the non-volley zone line cuts that circle in half.
When I bring my paddle back, I don't want
to bring my paddle behind the non-volley zone line. It
doesn't matter if it's the backhand or the forehand same thing applies.
The further back I get the paddle, the longer the shot, the longer the swing,
the more speed I can add to the shot and the greater the risk of pop ups.
So I want to keep this out in front of me.
What we're going to do for this drills is
I've got Jeanie standing directly across from me.
She's going to feed straight on dink's to my backhand side.
I'm going to use that hand on the paddle.
I'm really going to think of the
low to high motion and a very stable wrist throughout the motion.
So go ahead, Jeanie. Let's go to that side.
So I'm here and I'm up, and right now I just want to get the feeling of using the
low to high motion, use my upper body and stabilize my wrist.
I don't care about the trajectory, just this second.
I just want to get this feeling of using my body
to lift versus flicking at it.
So when I was flicking, I was
doing a little bit of this.
Jeanie hit a couple a little deep to me and I'm going to show that flick.
I was here with a very short follow through
using a little bit of flick.
So let's go ahead again.
Jeannie, hit those keeping those hand on
the paddle or just not allowing it to go back by touching my non dominant hand.
Now, OK, hold up one second.
So one other thing for me, one of the reasons that I do that
is my tendency
and I know this I was a golf professional for years and years and years.
So when I stood as a golf professional, I was right handed golfer.
I stood what was what we call an open stance.
Which meant my left foot was not parallel to my target line.
It was slightly drawn back and turned out just a little bit.
Well, guess what?
I bring that same movement pattern because I've done it for so long to pickleball
that I find myself when I'm playing pickleball.
And it's not just at the non-volley zone.
It can be in the transition zone as well.
When I do my split stance,
my natural stance is to have that left foot slightly behind me.
Now, I know that probably doesn't sound like a lot, but here's what it does.
By having that left foot behind me, it takes my hips and it moves them from a
parallel position to the net to a non parallel position.
What that does is that allows me to bring that paddle a little further back.
Right.
So I get into the position I don't want to be in.
I get a longer swing just by virtue of my footwork.
So as we doing this drill, one of the things that I'm thinking about is, well,
is I'm thinking about keeping my hips parallel to the net as I move.
If I have to step back to take a dink, that's fine.
But when I bring myself back up, I want to
make sure that my feet are parallel to that line.
So let's go ahead Jeanie and have a few more to my backhand.
So if I have to step up,
I want to get this foot back into place.
So I'm using my body
to dink.
You'll notice I'm on the balls of my feet.
I'm using my body, I'm bending from my
legs, I'm using my legs and my arm to push the ball up and over.
I'm not using my wrist.
My wrist is stable throughout the shot.
OK, now we're going to take this
and we're going to do this on the crosscourt side because that's where
there is a greater tendency, at least for me and I think for most people
to flick a little bit to use that wrist to get the ball back over.
So again, as I move and as I step, I'm
focused on keeping that paddle in front for me.
That also means when I come back to my ready position that my feet are parallel
to the net so that I'm keeping my shoulders parallel to the net as well.
Let's go ahead, Jeanne.
How did I do? We'll, check the side camera
to see if when I came back, I stayed parallel to the net.
But essentially, if you really think about
using that hand, first of all, to stabilize, you can do
either two-hand hand dink's off that backhand side
or just put the hand out there so the paddle doesn't come back as far.
And then you think about good footwork, right?
That's the other thing that I see
happening so often at the non-volley zone is poor footwork.
If you need more help with your dink
fundamentals, click on this playlist over here.
Otherwise, I will see you back here next week.
And we're going to go to work on footwork.
I'm going to share some of my favorite
footwork drills with you to help you get around the court better because together
we can train smart, live bold and age well.