Let's talk about Feckin' and Beckin' ...

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Drills. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Is that what you want to talk about today? [00:00:04] Speaker A: I think so, yeah. We recently have been doing drills, and it's been going really well. I've been getting some cool feedback, too, which I think is one of the reasons that it makes sense to talk about it now. Yeah, I think drills. [00:00:19] Speaker B: Okay, let's talk about drills. [00:00:21] Speaker A: I'm ahead of the game. I'm ahead of the game. All right, well, here's the thing. We have a lot of players in our area. [00:00:35] Speaker B: We do. [00:00:36] Speaker A: And I get asked often about, you know, how can I get better? Or, you know, I need to play with better players to get better. And I think there's this mentality that gets you better. And I do believe that playing with better players will help you get better, but I believe that the gap between where you are today and where you want to be is radically extended if you only have that as your approach to getting better. [00:01:03] Speaker B: Completely. [00:01:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Otherwise, you wouldn't have sporting teams who have whole strategies on how to improve. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Can you imagine if the NFL, the Indianapolis Colts, said, we just need to play better teams more often? You're doing that every Sunday. Apparently. [00:01:22] Speaker B: If every team said that, there would be no ESPN. [00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah. There would be no Monday morning drills or Tuesday morning drills. All these professionals drill like crazy. So if you really want to get better, you know, model yourself after somebody who's doing it better than you are. Of course, we say at my company all the time, if you want to get in the classroom, find somebody who's already doing it better, and get next to them and see what they're doing. Well, the best of the best drill. [00:01:48] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Right. So, we've started drilling here this summer outside. I don't think we did it indoors. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Maybe informally this time. You have kind of a regular group and regular set time. Mm hmm. [00:02:05] Speaker A: That's the other thing. So, I mean, I'm sure people listening to the podcast are gonna be like, well, I'm not invited to the drills. And I get that I have limited amount of time to manage my life, my work, my family, and my pickleball career. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Hobby. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Hobby, lifestyle. [00:02:21] Speaker B: Addiction. [00:02:23] Speaker A: No, we don't want addiction. Yeah, that's a whole other episode, the pickle vention. As my buddy Craig Schwartz said, we should do an episode on the pickle vention. [00:02:32] Speaker B: I have it written down. That's a good idea. [00:02:35] Speaker A: So I just can't invite everybody. And here's the other thing, and I do feel bad saying this, but I also believe it's the right thing to say and do. You can't have everybody drilling every time, or it's mass chaos and you get people who don't want to be there because they're too high of a level or don't want to be there because they're too level level. So I literally have people say, I don't want to be there because I feel like I bring everyone down. And I have people say to me, I don't want to be there because I need to drill a higher level to get better. And I think both of those things are honest and true, and I want to honor both of those things. So I have a Monday, Wednesday, Friday group that drills and then Tuesdays. So far, just starting last week, I'm doing community in motion sponsored, oh, good drilling sessions. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:03:19] Speaker A: So the next one is literally Tuesday morning. Well, gosh, they'll listen to this in a couple weeks, but probably keep a look on, you know, Madison County Pickleball association group on Facebook. Keep a look on pickle brawlers. Keep a look on BCC Pickleball. I tend to post in at least two or three of those spots on Facebook right when and where we're doing drills. So given that this is June 16, it's Father's Day, we're pre recording because I'm leaving town. [00:03:45] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:03:46] Speaker A: But I am doing a drilling session on the 18th, Tuesday morning for anyone that wants to come. That's 07:00 a.m. at Shadyside. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I do 06:30 a.m. and I have, like, 32 people that I text. [00:04:02] Speaker B: Wow. [00:04:02] Speaker A: I have two groups on, you know, two chat groups. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:07] Speaker A: Because apparently Apple has some kind of limitation. If it's. If it's 20, when you get to 20 people on a chat group, a text group, you can't go any higher. If any of them are Android or if any of them are not iPhone, if they're all iPhone, you can go up to 32. [00:04:22] Speaker B: So I I love how you, like, slide in some technical it stuff here and there or language fun facts into our pickleball podcast. [00:04:34] Speaker A: You know what we should talk about? Feckin and beckon, which are two of my favorite words in all of telecom. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Oh, dear. [00:04:39] Speaker A: This might be where we lose all of our listeners. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:04:43] Speaker A: But back to what I was saying. If they're all iPhone users, though, you can go up to 32. [00:04:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:04:49] Speaker A: So basically, with managing two groups of people, which is a freaking heck ton already, I'm at 52 people. I could be up to 52 people. I'm not. I'm at thirties. In the thirties. [00:04:57] Speaker B: And you're just doing this out of the good for far. [00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And so it's crazy. I asked him, you know, a few weeks back, hey, can we go to an app for this? Like, can I do a team reach or a pickle play my favorite album. [00:05:06] Speaker B: Or a band or. [00:05:07] Speaker A: I don't even know what group me. Yeah, that's it. [00:05:10] Speaker B: It's a. [00:05:10] Speaker A: It's a group me. Yeah, those kind of things. They were all like, no, we prefer text, because we see the notifications right away. We're all engaged in text, you know, throughout the week. [00:05:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:18] Speaker A: Throughout the day. And so for us to go to an app is a little extra work. [00:05:21] Speaker B: And I was like, I understand that, too. [00:05:23] Speaker A: I was kind of fine. I love you all. Yes. [00:05:28] Speaker B: If we're. If someone's listening to this who is not in our community, so you would advise them to kind of work with some people that they enjoy playing with that want to get better as well. And if you are drilling together and keep your group manageable, then it'll help bring everybody's game up. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is what I really want to say. Drilling is a commitment. [00:05:52] Speaker B: It is. [00:05:52] Speaker A: It's a commitment to yourself to get better at a sport you want to get better at. For me, it's at a sport that I love and want to play the rest of my life. But for you, anyone, it could be a sport that you want to get better at. We're talking pickleball. That's our podcast. So let's start with the individual level. You can drill on your own. No one else needs to be around. So if you really want to get better at pickleball, don't tell me you don't have an opportunity. You do. Here's a couple drills you can do as an individual. Actually, sky, you have one you like to do. Every. People are gonna be like, oh, duh. Can do this. I've done this. But let's go through that list anyway. What's your favorite? [00:06:28] Speaker B: And you can find, like, devices on social media to purchase, but. [00:06:33] Speaker A: Or just watch a YouTube video. [00:06:34] Speaker B: Just watch a YouTube video. Exactly. So I. You know, if we're playing a game and there's an odd number of us, I go find a wall and. And I figure out about the height of where the net, top of the net is, and I just sit there and I practice. I stand close to the wall, and I just practice keeping the ball bouncing from me to the wall and try not to hit the ground, because where I need to improve on is that quick game where they're hitting at me. At chest level. And so it helps me. I try with my forehand and my backhand, and I kind of flip back and forth so that I can improve my hand coordination. You know, watching the ball hit the paddle, all kinds of things. And I just do that by myself. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Yeah, easy one. And anyone can do it just about anywhere. If you have a wall and a ball and a paddle, you're good to go. The other one that I really like, and it's so simple because you can do it sitting on the couch. So Paul McKinney did this when he had his. Was it his ankle, maybe? I think it was his ankle that got hurt. It's been a few years. Like four years at this point. He was out of pickleball for, like, six months. He had a pretty big surgery, and I think it was his ankle. And he literally just sat at home, like on the couch or on a chair, whatever, with his paddle in his hand, and he would just pop the ball up. Pop, pop. So you can think of it as if your palm is facing up. Think of that as a paddle. And then he would flip it over and do it with the back side of it up. Then he would go alternate front, back, front and back. He got really good at it. To where? And I recommend this. He had to paddle sideways, which means he was hitting it on the thin edge of the paddle. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And I don't know how many you can do in a row, but I think he can do, like, a hundred in a row. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Wow. [00:08:16] Speaker A: Crazy. [00:08:17] Speaker B: That's good control. [00:08:18] Speaker A: When I learned that from Paul, I was like. Because he came back and he just had amazing eye hand coordination. He was good anyway. Really good. But just as I hand correction, you could tell I'd really improved. And he'll do it all the time now. He'll go out to serve. No, pop it, pop it, pop it. Then he'll go on the side a few times, and then. Okay, so I was like, I need to do that. And it really changes your game. It's amazing for Ian, coordination. Like you said earlier, it's amazing for watching, really watching the ball. You want to watch the ball to your paddle. Imagine watching the ball to the edge of your paddle. [00:08:44] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:08:44] Speaker A: You're really focused, right? [00:08:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Otherwise you're going to miss it. It's very easy to miss that ball because you only have a little bit of space to work with and you're chasing the ball. [00:08:52] Speaker B: Did he train his dog to fetch all the pickleballs? [00:08:55] Speaker A: I don't know. I hope Cheryl didn't have to chase too many of them, but, yeah, he obviously got good at that. And that's something that any individual can do. I mean, other than driving folks. You can probably do it just by any time you want during the day, you know? [00:09:08] Speaker B: Yes. [00:09:09] Speaker A: All right, so that's two drills you can do on your own. Here's another drill you can do on your own. I love the serving game. I love to change my serves up. I like to go for things on serves. I like to practice my serves. A lot of people that know me know that Saturday morning says the morning I practice serves. So I will take out 100 balls with me by myself. 06:00 a.m. before anyone comes at 06:30 a.m. and I'll hit 100, 200, 300 serves during that time. [00:09:35] Speaker B: Wow. I did not know that. [00:09:36] Speaker A: I do. Yeah. And so I will practice my slice serve. I'll practice my. My top, top spin, you know, deep, what we kind of call it kick serve. It's not really a kick serve, but it kind of feels a little bit like a kick serve. It's a tennis term. For those of you that don't know. I will practice my aim and work on hitting, like, that short outside corner, like, right by the kitchen on the outside edge of the service area. I'll work on heading down the middle of the line in the center of the court, and I'll hit hundreds of serves. And I've hit thousands and thousands and thousands of. I didn't need people to text me or ask me to come, you know, if I could be part of their group or, you know, I. You can do that on your own, you guess. You need to get some balls. It sucks doing it with three balls. Listen, I used to do it with three balls. I would go to Cynthia and Park. I'd get there at 530 or six in the morning when the sun was just. Just enough, you know, under the horizon that you could at least see. And I would take three balls with me, and I would serve, and I would serve, and I would serve until people came to play. Then I was like, I should probably have more balls now. [00:10:35] Speaker B: You have a tote full. [00:10:37] Speaker A: Almost 200 of them now. [00:10:38] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:10:39] Speaker A: But, you know, I only use them for that for the most part, so they last a heck of a lot longer than playing with a ball. Right? All right, so those are some individual drills you can do. Here's another couple you can do. If you go ahead and get a bunch of balls, then what I do is I place cones on the other side of the court, and I practice my dinking. I'll just toss the ball up, let it bounce, and I'll dink it at a cone. Simple things, right? And there's plenty of other drills you can do by yourself. Those are just some good ones. Here's one more drill you can do by yourself that I really like. Get, like, two tripods and run a string across them a foot higher than the net, right across the top of the net. And then practice hitting it between the net and that string. [00:11:23] Speaker B: Okay. [00:11:23] Speaker A: So you keep the balls low so they don't bounce as high on the other side of the court. Just think through the net. Ding, through the net, ding, through the net, ding, through the net. [00:11:32] Speaker B: Wow. I did not know you did all these. [00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, babe, you don't get to be my level without practicing a lot. [00:11:42] Speaker B: Well, it's nice to know everyone that's. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Listening is like, we know what your level is. [00:11:48] Speaker B: No, but it helps me to understand how you progress so fast. Yeah, because we started at the same time, and you just took off. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Candidly, I have to offset the negatives in my game. I am just too slow. I gotta lose weight. I gotta get into better shape. I mean, losing weight's not the statistic that my friend Caesar wants to hear me say. Cause it's not a good measure of health. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:11] Speaker A: But I need to be in better physical condition, in better health. If I am, I'll get to more balls. So, because I know I can't get to more balls, I've got to hit better shots. That makes my opponent not be able to give me back a tough shot I can't get to. [00:12:26] Speaker B: I follow you. [00:12:26] Speaker A: So that's one of the reasons I've had to drill a lot. But I want to get better, and so that's how I get better. [00:12:30] Speaker B: You are scrappy and wicked fast. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I am scrappy. I'm wicked fast at the time. With your hate slow running, weighted slow. [00:12:42] Speaker B: So, let's say you have a partner. [00:12:43] Speaker A: And you're the best scenario ever. I think two people is the best scenario for drilling. All right. It's how Ben and Colin, John's drill. It's how JW and Dylan how they drill. So I love 711 as an example. So if you haven't played 711, it's when you. Once you get to two people, you can kind of have games. Like, games if someone could actually win. When you're by yourself serving and you hit the other cone, congratulations, you won't. But when you have two people, you can really create a game out of it. Jessica and I play a lot of 711, so 711 works like this. It's very simple. And if you haven't seen the latest UTR sports commercial that I'm in. [00:13:21] Speaker B: You're on a commercial? [00:13:22] Speaker A: I'm in a couple. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Congratulations. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Where we talk about 711. Here's how it works. Somebody stands at the kitchen line and they are essentially hitting what we would call the second shot. It's as if the person behind the baseline had served and they're hitting the second shot back. Forget all the bouncing crap. They just need to stand the kitchen light. So they're, they're kind of feeding the ball back, but the person back on the baseline treats it as if this is their third shot. Are they going to drive? Are they going to drop? Okay, so the kitchen person feeds it. The person back there is now hitting the quote unquote third shot. At this point in time, you're just in a rally on a skinny side of the court. That's it. Whoever wins that rally gets a point. Well, the [email protected] obviously has an advantage at the start of the game because they're going to serve every ball and the person at the baseline is going to play every rally at the baseline and work. Try to work their way up. Well, it's called 711 because the [email protected] having such an advantage has to score eleven points to win. But the person backed by the baseline only has to score seven points to win. [00:14:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:14:23] Speaker A: And we find out it comes out pretty even at seven and eleven. [00:14:26] Speaker B: That's cool. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So that game is called I've learned. [00:14:31] Speaker B: I couldn't picture it, but I have done that. [00:14:32] Speaker A: Yes. You have done that in drills before. Yeah. Correct. Okay. Um, so still with two people, tons of other drills you can do. One of my favorites is definitely the dinking drill. So you dink straight and you just dink and you just dink and you just dink and you literally only dink straight, mind you, until somebody misses a dink. I remember the first time we did this drill. It was James and Robin and me, and I cannot remember the fourth person, but we. We weren't dinkers. We were bangers. Like, we didn't know any different. Uh, but we knew dinking was a part of the game. We wanted to get better at it, but we'd never drilled it. No one. No one talked to us about drilling. And I can't remember why, but I just said, hey, do you guys want to drill? Or maybe even James or Robin said, you guys want to drill? And we said, yeah, let's just drill some dinking. We went out for like an hour or two and we just dinked the next day. We were like, whoa, we know how to dink good. We didn't yesterday, we do today. You can really feel it. [00:15:25] Speaker B: Isn't that amazing? [00:15:27] Speaker A: Actually, it's pretty cool. Diagonally, when we dink, we have a rule. Well, really, we have the rule always in these drills. And that rule is atps are always allowed, even if they're not hit back into the same space you're supposed to hit it to. Okay, so if I'm diagonally dinking with you and you're way over on that side of the court. I'm way over on this side of the court. But you hit one that bounces so far past the post that I can ATP it. Even though I wouldn't be hitting it diagonally back to you. I'm allowed to ATP it. [00:15:53] Speaker B: So that you can practice those as well. [00:15:55] Speaker A: No, so that you don't hit a bad shot. That I can ATP. Oh, so it's really both. But the truth of the matter is you're punishing the person that made a bad shot. [00:16:05] Speaker B: Sorry to laugh. That's funny. [00:16:07] Speaker A: You'll get better. You learn better that way. [00:16:09] Speaker B: True. [00:16:09] Speaker A: That's the main reason. But yes, also allows me to practice on ATP, which we all love to hit. They're fun. We don't allow our knees in some of our drills. Remember the earning? We talked about that in a previous episode. Right? So we don't allow earnings. Um, so with two people, that's another drill that we do. Now, one thing that we will do also with two people is we will play singles, but we will play many not skinny, but mini singles. And just to make sure that everyone understands the difference, I think we maybe have talked about this before, but skinny singles is usually played straight right on this side of the court, then on that side of the court, then this other court. Many singles, like, actually people do you know that people create skinny courts? There's now skinny courts. I have seen that they're only 10ft wide straight and that's it. And it's a skinny court, which makes. [00:16:53] Speaker B: It easier for parking. Driveway kind of things. [00:16:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for parking. For parking, yeah, it makes it much easier for parking. A lot more room. [00:17:01] Speaker B: I meant their driveways. [00:17:02] Speaker A: In Vegas, they had a tournament last year with skinny pickleball and it was on those straight courts. Mini or miniature pickleball is played on a full court, but you only use half of the court at any point in time. And the way you determine which part of the court you're using is based on your score, not the server score, your score. So if I'm playing with you and it's zero to zero, I have zero. So I'm on the right side of my court, you have zero. So you're on the right side of your court, which means we're currently playing diagonally. But if I score and I get one, I slide over to my left side. But you still have zero. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Right. [00:17:37] Speaker A: So you stay on your side, and now we play straight. [00:17:39] Speaker B: I've played this with you and messes. [00:17:41] Speaker A: With your brain, and most of our drilling is intentionally mental. It's on purpose. A lot of the people that drill with me don't like what I make them do. For a while, I was making them do what I would call have a handicap. I can't remember the term I actually used, but I call it having a handicap. So maybe the handicap is put your paddle down, play with a different brand. [00:18:04] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Maybe the handicap is we're gonna play with a soft marshmallowy ball today, or, you know, a ball that you can't see very well. Like, people go, I can't see those yellow Duras very well. Great. Congratulations. You now give me insight into what our next mental drill is going to be. A lot of the drills are mental, and they need to be mental because this game is mental. It really is. [00:18:25] Speaker B: It is. [00:18:25] Speaker A: That's like the number one thing, and that's how most sports are, the mental game. The mindset component is just hypercritical. [00:18:31] Speaker B: Get out of your own way. [00:18:33] Speaker A: Couldn't agree more. Other things that we do to drill, so I'll go back to me and Jessica, because we drill so much, I should use proper grammar. I'll go back to Jessica and I. She loves to drill, resetting from the middle of sort of the back service area. So she'll stand, you know, eight or 9ft in from the baseline, but seven or 8ft back from the kitchen line right there in the middle ish, and I will hit him at her feet, and then she's got to get him back over. And the other thing that she likes, and this is my favorite drill with her, is she likes to stand the net and practice her blocks on drives. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Yep. [00:19:08] Speaker A: So I just take 100 balls and I hit them out as hard as I can, and I freaking love it. [00:19:13] Speaker B: That would be a huge jazz reliever for the server. [00:19:16] Speaker A: It's wonderful. And she's like, I'm glad you like this drill because I like it because she loves to block and she gets really mad at me because I'll get good shots in honor or she'll pop it up. But she also makes a lot of great blocks, and she's getting much better at that because we drill it. But I'm like, oh, yeah, if you want me just to rip a bunch of balls at you like, that sounds like a dream come true for me. I don't care who you are. I would like to hit it at you. As we discussed. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Yes. Previously. All right, so that's a good set of drills for two people. [00:19:42] Speaker B: Good. [00:19:42] Speaker A: And you've done some of those. [00:19:43] Speaker B: Yeah, on my birthday. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Oh, that's correct. Because you came out with the big. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Most of these that you are describing, we have done. [00:19:49] Speaker A: That's right. On my birthday, we played dingles. [00:19:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:53] Speaker A: And that is the first four person game that I want to talk about. And then I'm going to go to a cool new one that we invented. I think we invented it. I've never seen anyone else do it called diagonal doubles. But let's go to Dingles first. [00:20:03] Speaker B: Okay. [00:20:04] Speaker A: Dingles is sort of like pickleball. Fun game, funny name. In dingles, you have four people on the court, two on each side. You're by your kitchen, and you are basically just practicing a dinking game. Let's say you're straight across from me and Jessica is on my left. She's my partner. And your right partner is Josh. [00:20:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Jessica, straight across from Josh. Just want to kind of build a picture real quick. [00:20:28] Speaker B: Yep. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Maybe we start with what we call straight. So now that means you and I are straight across from each other. So we're dinking a ball. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:35] Speaker A: They're also dinking a ball at the same time. Yeah, because it's dingles, meaning double dinking game. So now as we're dinking, one of these two groups of dinkers is going to screw up. Now, Jessica's my partner. It feels like maybe you and I are partners because we're dinking with each other. But no, Jessica's my partner. Josh is your partner. So I screw up. I hit the ball in the net. We yell dingles. [00:20:54] Speaker B: Yep. [00:20:55] Speaker A: And the way it's commonly played is the moment that dingles is yelled, the whole court's available to be attacked, not just the kitchen area. What we have found is there's balls on the court. Like, there's a ball on the court. That could be a tripping hazard. Also, based on just the dinking patterns, people are not in their normal positions. It could be that you and Josh are both really wide because the angle that Jess and I just both chose to dink to you. But it wasn't planned. That's not a strategy. And so it's not fair if all of a sudden we get to just whack a ball down the middle because you're out of position. You weren't out of position as of, like. As a mistake on your part. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:30] Speaker A: So what we've done is we've incorporated a three hit rule. So when we yell dingles and that first miss is made, there's three more dinks that have to be made before we can open up the whole entire court. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Right. [00:21:41] Speaker A: So on the fourth hit, if you will, the court's available. So we'll yell, one, two, three. Now, on those three hits, you can dink to anybody. You don't have to stay with the partner you've been dinking with or your. [00:21:54] Speaker B: Opponent that you're with. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Well, you're the. Yeah, you're not my teammate, but you're the person I've been dinking with. Yeah. My opponent. Um, so I can dink to you or Josh. And Jess can dink to you or Josh vice versa. [00:22:04] Speaker B: I noticed they would switch to the other person. [00:22:08] Speaker A: Correct. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Because you're catching them off guard sometimes. [00:22:12] Speaker A: Correct. And here's the biggest mental part of the game. Everyone wants to hit that fourth shot for a winner. [00:22:18] Speaker B: They do. [00:22:19] Speaker A: But why would you. Oh, you should keep dinking until you have the right shot to take. [00:22:26] Speaker B: Okay. [00:22:27] Speaker A: But everyone goes. [00:22:28] Speaker B: The whole court's a big one, two, three. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But that's not how it works. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You should have told me that before. [00:22:37] Speaker A: I. It's much more fun to watch people figure it out on their own. [00:22:40] Speaker B: Well, obviously I didn't from playing dingles one time. [00:22:44] Speaker A: Now you know. [00:22:45] Speaker B: I know now. [00:22:46] Speaker A: Now you know the secret. [00:22:48] Speaker B: True. [00:22:48] Speaker A: All right, so that's dingles. [00:22:50] Speaker B: Let's. Let's recap that really fast. Four people, two on each side. Everybody's at the kitchen line on their side. Your partner is on the same side as you, but everybody starts by dinking to the person in front of them. Across the net or diagonally. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Sky or diagonally after every set of points. If I find that you and I are both holding balls and we're straight across from each other, I'm going to say diagonal. We can't hit to each other now, but I can hit diagonally to him and you can hit diagonally to her. [00:23:20] Speaker B: So one of you one of the fours calling out, you know, straight or diagonal. Or diagonal. [00:23:24] Speaker A: Yep. [00:23:24] Speaker B: So the first set of people that misses a ball, they're going to yell dingles. And so who. And then everybody has to be ready to hit a one, two, three dinks. And it could be to the same opponent. It could be to the diagonal opponent. But the first, as soon as that third dink is made, then the whole courts available. But you're saying. [00:23:54] Speaker A: You should hit it. [00:23:55] Speaker B: You can. Yeah, but be patient for a good shot and then you can win. So it really is fine. I enjoyed it very much. And as a new person playing it, it did mess with my brain a little bit, but. And I would have jumped the gun and try to hit a winning shot on that fourth hit. Common, but. Yeah, no, that was really fun. [00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah, very common. So the other thing is that both balls are with a point, right. So if I screw up the first one and I hit it in the net, you guys now have a point we won't talk about until after this rally is over. And then when the rally ends, I will usually say, unless it was me, I'll be like, who messed up the first one? Like, okay, that was your point. So now it's one to one or two to zero, or whatever the case may be. [00:24:35] Speaker B: All right, how many points do you go? Just eleven again. [00:24:38] Speaker A: No, because there's two points, we go to 21 or 25. [00:24:41] Speaker B: Okay. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Now, actually, sometimes 15. Depends on how many people I have there. But sure, the next drill is also a dinking drill. And it's the same game, except it's almost the same game, except we only use one ball and we treat it like a regular game that's already [email protected]. so we quote unquote serve at zero, zero, two. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:04] Speaker A: And then we literally switch sides when we score and we don't switch if we don't score and we get two serves per team. And like that whole, we literally just keep regular scoring. But we treat it as if we started as if we've already worked our way to the net and we've used. [00:25:16] Speaker B: This when we've taught kids. [00:25:17] Speaker A: Totally. It's a very easy way for kids to learn the game because they get a good feeling for the touch of the ball. [00:25:23] Speaker B: Exactly. Because they all want to hit. [00:25:24] Speaker A: We're going to do a whole episode on how we teach people how to play the game. [00:25:27] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So in that game, it's simple. You drop the ball and you dink it over to diagonally because you have to serve diagonally and pickleball we follow all the rules of pickleball except for starting at the kitchen line. [00:25:36] Speaker B: And everything's in the kitchen. [00:25:38] Speaker A: And the next shot comes back over. It can go to anyone. And we dink all shots in kitchen. Now, I want to make sure I'm clear here. There's going to be some rule followers that listen to this and go, well, that shot wasn't in the kitchen. Not all dinks should be in the kitchen. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Right. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Some dinks should be pushing them back or I think Zane calls them aggressive dinks. Right. Get aggressive. And if. If a dinks within six inches or a foot and. But if it's a good dink, if it bounces, we're gonna keep playing. We're not gonna call it out. We will call it out if it's outside of the sidelines, but we will not call it out if it's near the kitchen line. [00:26:15] Speaker B: Is it. Is there a place that's too far? [00:26:16] Speaker A: Yeah, if it goes past my feet in the air, I'll call it out. [00:26:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:26:20] Speaker A: But if I've come back off the kitchen line a foot because of the last shot, and they hit it a foot by the kitchen line. But that's at my feet. That's a good dink. [00:26:28] Speaker B: Makes sense. [00:26:29] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, next game, and this will be the last one I think we talk about on this episode. And it's become my new favorite drill. It's called diagonal doubles. Did you do this one with this? I don't know, and I don't. I'm not picking on you when I say this. It's difficult. [00:26:49] Speaker B: Well, I probably was mentally spent by the time I was done drilling with uses. That was the first time I've ever done that. [00:26:55] Speaker A: It's difficult. So hang with me, folks. I'm going to get you through this one. It's a pretty cool drill. It's, like, skinny. I'm sorry. It's like miniature or mini singles that we just talked about earlier where our team serves from the side based on our score. So if we start the game at zero, it's zero to zero. We serve from the right, but now we're playing doubles, but it's still the skinny version of the mini version. We're only playing diagonally. That's it. So that means both of us are covering the right side of the court. [00:27:23] Speaker B: We did do this. [00:27:24] Speaker A: Okay, good. And both of you are covering the right side of the court. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:27] Speaker A: It's tough. [00:27:28] Speaker B: And Josh was just outside the side of the line because he's so tall that he wanted to make sure. That I got the first hit. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:38] Speaker B: And then he jumped. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah. On the inside of the court, not the outside. Yeah. Here's how it works. So we serve zero, zero. We actually do this one we have found. But the best way to do this drill is with MLP style scoring. So real fast on that. We played at 25. Every rally is worth a point. Even the serve, we don't. I know MLP's changed that, but even the serve, we don't care who serves. Um, on the very last point, if you get the. If you win, the. If you're, if you're ahead 24 22, but they're serving, you still win if you get that rally. Okay. MLP style means I'm always the right side player and you're always the left side player. If that's where we choose to start at the beginning of the game, here's what's going to happen. At zero, zero. I'm the right side player. So I'm going to serve diagonally to them, to their right side player, and at that point they're going to return it back diagonally onto our side of the court. It's most likely that I will take the shot back because what we found is whoever the server is ends up hitting most of the shots back because of the angles, I can feel they're in a better position, of course, but that middle person's got to cover that back part of the court where the t is from the service line. That's a very important corner to cover, whereas the right side player or the service player has to cover the outside corner of the kitchen. So you kind of have this. The courts have almost looked at diagonally now, like, even your rectangle is diagonal for an area you got to protect. So here's what it does. It forces really great dinks. I mean, excuse me. It forces really great drops because it's very hard to drive when two people are blocking the net in only half the area. [00:29:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:21] Speaker A: And so it forces an incredible drop. Riley Harden is very good at this game. I love having him on the right. I'm a great left side dropper to the backhand side. I'm not even remotely good from the right side. He is incredible from the right side. So when he and I partner up, I know, like, you've got to be on the right, rather, I've got to be on the left. Okay. If we scored against you guys, we're now ahead 10. There's no second number or third number, right? Because there's only, this is rally scoring, right? MLP style, so. But if we score, we go to the left, but it's diagonal double, so you now have to go to your left also. But I don't serve. Riley serves. He's our odd side server. Or, I'm sorry, whoever my partner is would serve. So, if I served to begin with and you, and let's say Jessica was my partner again, Jessica would not be serving, and she would end up hitting most of the shots back, not because we want her to or because we have designed it that way. It just actually works out that way. I'm still covering, but I'm covering that center line and that back tee. She's covering all this court off to the side, all the way to the front corner of the kitchen. That's diagonal doubles. If you beat us on that rally, the ball comes over to you. Now you're one, because you just earned that point on that rally. So it was zero. Zero. When I served, we got it 10 and Jessica served. You got it one. One when you serve, which means you're serving from the left side. [00:30:48] Speaker B: We probably need to make a video of this one. [00:30:50] Speaker A: Oh, totally. We need to get the drone out and shoot this one. [00:30:52] Speaker B: That would be a good idea. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's a sweet drill. I mean, it's a sweet drill, and most of our people really like playing this, and we play it most days that we drill. [00:31:00] Speaker B: I do remember playing. Yeah, it was the last one we did, and I was. As for my first day drilling with you guys, not only are you more advanced players than me, I hadn't done most of those drills. And so I was not just physically tired, but my brain was a little mushy after that. [00:31:18] Speaker A: After the first game, what we do to rotate is we switch with somebody who's diagonal from us. Oh, so if Josh was diagonal from me, we're both the zeros. Then he and I would switch sides. So he would come over and join Jess, I would come over and join you, and then you and I would switch sides so that all four players end up on the other side of the court that they were on before. So now they're practicing from the other side. So we would do two games of diagonal doubles, and everyone gets to be on the right, and everyone gets to be on the left, and we get to switch partners. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Makes sense. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty cool drill. So drilling. There's a ton more drilling that can be done. Just to summarize on a couple of things really quick that you can do. You could get a machine. You could have a friend hit balls at you. I highly recommend 100 balls in a row, whatever you're doing. So if you want to practice drops, practice 100 drops. And we have a drop drill that we do, and we have other dinking drills that we do, and I'm not going to get into all those today. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Make sure you warm up first. [00:32:13] Speaker A: That's well said, mother sky. [00:32:17] Speaker B: Sorry. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Well said. [00:32:19] Speaker B: Gonna always throw that. You need to stretch before and after. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Yes, well, that's what happens with all your certifications, you know. [00:32:24] Speaker B: Yep. [00:32:25] Speaker A: You know better than I do is. [00:32:27] Speaker B: A movement a hundred times. Um, you can pull something, so make sure you're warm. [00:32:33] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, after I hit a hundred balls at Jessica, I'm usually pretty much like, okay, I could take a break for a second here. [00:32:40] Speaker B: Okay, well, now you're just showing off. [00:32:42] Speaker A: No, I'm just saying my arms, like. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:32:45] Speaker A: No, I'm not showing off. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Or Popeye arms. [00:32:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, um, yeah, tons of drills out there, and there's some really great drilling videos. And you know what? We should make some drilling videos. Honestly, we should. That's a really good idea. We'll try and do that with some of our community in motion events, and we'll capture some of the stuff that we teach and look for those. This podcast is in many ways sponsored by community in motion because we love what we're doing with them, and we want to get more and more and more of Madison County's community in motion. [00:33:13] Speaker B: And we want to be able to make pickleball accessible for everyone. [00:33:16] Speaker A: We do today's podcast, sponsored by the Pod pod podcast studio over at Energy Impact center. That's my new radio voice for my ad. [00:33:26] Speaker B: I like it. [00:33:27] Speaker A: And by my own company, disruptify, of course. We're the sweet Lobs team. I'm Kevin Hough, here with the sweet love skyhuff. [00:33:35] Speaker B: Thank you for listening. Please, like, share and subscribe. You can find us on whatever platform you normally listen your podcast to. [00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Smash the button. I'm gonna send us out with a longer outro. I'm ahead. [00:34:04] Speaker B: Now that I'm ahead, now I'm ahead of the game.