10 Drills in 90 Minutes then Play! (For Skill Ratings 2.5 to 5.0)

PLEASE READ BEFORE SIGNING UP!
Unlike other PB events, these have no players waiting on the sidelines, so please be kind to the waitlisted and take yourself off of both going and waitlist lists as soon as you know you can t attend.

These are NOT lessons! These are practice sessions for advanced 5.0 down to a level of at least advanced beginner with good physical stamina. Beginner lessons found elsewhere. No instructor at these. These are designed to run themselves. All that’s needed is for an attendee to keep drills as close to on schedule as possible and call out when to move on to the next drill in the routine. On the webpage linked below are detailed descriptions of each drill and links to videos of top instructors teaching technique and how to perform each drill or a similar drill. For widescreen viewing of videos, copy and paste link into your preferred browser.
https://cueandme.com/pickleballdrills/

Try to arrive on time and remain for at least the 90-minute routine. Pair up with someone at a similar level. Balls not provided. To cut down on ball retrieval time, best to have extra balls and pockets to hold them. After drills, at least 1 court stays open for 30 minutes for those who wish to spend more time on drills. Because of limited courts available, drills will be done on half-court with two pairs of partners sharing one court. Rotating partners after each set is encouraged but not enforced.

Set 1
1)Cross-Court Dinking (10 min)
Partners dink diagonally for 5 min on full-court followed by 5 min diagonally in the other direction. Sharing court with another pair, one pair starts on even side of court, other pair on odd side, then switch.

2)Figure-8 Dinking (10 min)
Partners face each other on half-court. Player A always dinks directly across net. Player B always dinks diagonally across net. Switch roles after 5 min.

Rest (4 min)
On Court for Set 2 (1 min)

Set 2
3)Drop Shots (15 min)
Partners start at kitchen lines. ‘A’ practices drop shots into ‘B’s kitchen taking one step backward per shot until reaching baseline, then one step forward per shot until reaching kitchen again. ‘B’ aims to place shots 3-5 ft. in front of Player ‘A’s feet after each step. Switch roles when drop player returns to kitchen. Option: For last 5 min, player at kitchen can attack any drop shot hit too far or bouncing too high, forcing drop player to reset hard incoming balls.

4)Lob and Retrieve (5 min)
‘A’ dinks, ‘B’ dinks, ‘A’ dinks, ‘B’ lobs over head of ‘A’, ‘A’ TURNS(!) and runs to retrieve lob by hitting drop shot over net into ‘B’s kitchen. Alternate.

Rest (4 min)
On Court for Set 3 (1 min)

Set 3
5)Volley Rally (5 min)
Partners at kitchen lines. Volley back and forth, starting at slow speed and speeding up to as fast as possible while still maintaining the rally.

6)Dink, Attack, Reset (5 min)
Partners dink back and forth on alert for an attackable ball. When either player sees one high enough, that player hits a speed-up attack. The receiving player has two choices: dodge the ball if it appears it will go out, or neutralize its pace with a resetting block to softly drop it back over the net to continue the dinking.

7)Drives and Deep Volleys (10 min)
‘A’ is near baseline, ‘B’ is at kitchen line. ‘A’ hits forehand and backhand drives. ‘B’ returns drives with volleys hit as hard and deep as possible. Switch roles about every minute.

8)Forward Advancing Point (5 min)
‘B’ at kitchen line feeds ball to ‘A’ at baseline. ‘A’ tries to advance to kitchen line with drops and/or drives. ‘B’ tries to keep ‘A’ back. Play out point. Switch roles after each point as long as at least 3 shots were hit by advancing player.

Rest (4 min)
On Court for Set 4 (1 min)

Set 4
9)Serves/Returns (5 min)
‘A’ hits 4 serves, ‘B’ hits 3 returns then catches 4th serve to switch roles. Alternate.

10)Overheads (5 min)
‘B’ feeds lobs to ‘A’ who hits 4 overhead smashes. Alternate.

PLAY!