The last few weeks I’ve passed on playing on Wednesdays. The timing was wrong and I knew I needed to drill and focus on specific shots, not chase down lobs or try to figure out how not to be isolated. But today I went and it was a lot of fun. I used my V2 Icon and I’m getting pretty used to it. I imagine it’s still going to take a little bit of time to feel completely comfortable with it because it does feel a little bit heavier. As of right now, I’m liking the just a tad longer handle.
I had a pretty good day. I was on with my shots and I was very relaxed. I didn’t have a care in the world and I think it made playing a lot easier and fun.
We had a pretty good rotation and a solid 8 playing. There’s a lefty in the group and he’s very long. I always like getting to play against him because I don’t see a lot of strong lefties. Every shot he takes is a surprise to me. Because he’s so long it’s really tough to get it past him.
I remember when I first played one of the ladies there. I was so scared of her. She’s tennis and she’s fairly tall. She just could drill those shots and I never seemed to know where she was going to hit the ball. I eventually got used to her hits but now she’s added a couple extra elements to her game. She was knocking down some pretty impressive drop shots today and still has her angle and power shots as well.
People were asking me about the combine and I feel like I spent a good amount of time trying to explain how everything went. I think because of Major League Pickleball (MLP) and the “minor” league teams they added, and because this is a new league, people are easily confused about what this new league means. They don’t realize it’s 50+, it’s not minor league, it’s not associated with MLP at all, there’s no dreambreakers and there are 6 events. I had no idea I would need to be well versed in the league dynamics and because I never played tennis, I don’t think I realized this is set up to be more like a tennis scenario than pickleball. Or is it? I really don’t know. But I’m flattered that people are curious and interested and seem to be happy for me.
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I worked with the ladies drill group and we actually had 2 gentlemen in it so that we could have 8 people to drill. In Columbus it seems like spring break is basically the entire month of March because people have missed regularly scheduled play for several weeks now. Fortunately we had a couple of pickleball dudes join us and they were a nice compliment. It seemed like they were really wanting to practice their shots and were compatible with everyone.
My primary focus with the group is typically drops and dinking and that’s what we did tonight.
Drops with targets, cross court drops, baseline drops, transition drops, we tried to hit them all. We did the same with dinks – straight on and cross court – then we did the dinking game where they have to protect their little zone.
One of the guys is a really good dinker and he was moving his partner around, opening up the zone, and then hitting it in there. It was good for the ladies to see. The target is the zone and you get more points if you hit in the zone but he was showing them that the zone is open and easier to hit if you move people around.
At the end we played a bunch of games, net zero, the third shot drop game and then an actual game. We switched up the teams a good amount and for kind of preparing on the fly, it was a pretty good package for the evening.
I like when we do games at the end because I can see when they are doing the stuff we just practiced. Even if they don’t know they’re doing the stuff we just practiced, it’s really nice to see.
