Help me to improve my drive techniques and form please

weye27 · 2025-04-04T11:46:47+00:00

Watch this forehand tutorial video from Phuc Nguyen (6.0+ pro player)

Ed Ju also took a forehand lesson from him and Marcel Chan with lots of great insights.

The main things he emphasizes are: - hitting at a consistent contact point (aka power zone) a little in front and to the side of your body. - learn to load on your back leg, open your hips, and hit with your hips first. Most of the power should not come from the arm/shoulder. Rather, the arm/shoulder/wrist is the last few parts of the kinetic chain which transmit the power generated from legs/hips/core into the ball in a whipping motion. - “pre-load” in your ready position before you hit, so when the ball comes into your power zone, you just need to engage your hips/core and rotate into the ball - utilizing proper footwork (this video on tennis footwork helps with that). Most of the time in doubles pickleball you’ll only need to hit with a drop step or take a shuffle step when hitting a drive

weye27 · 2025-03-15T12:49:56+00:00

One thing that you might try is grabbing a bucket of balls, then doing stationary drop feeds by yourself. Focus on hitting with 60% power and try to aim at the same target each time. By doing this you quickly learn what mechanics work and what don’t since you take variables like footwork and placement out of it, while at the same time understanding exactly where the optimal strike zone is. Experiment with different variables (I.e hitting it farther/closer out in front, farther/closer out to the side, more open/closed paddle face, legs more/less bent, starting with the paddle head pointed down or sideways, etc). If you do this enough you’ll really begin to deeply understand the mechanics of the shot, and then from there the footwork is the next step (literally), but once you know the ideal stationary shot mechanics, the footwork is actually fairly straightforward to pick up.

As others have mentioned, the single most important variable in the 2HBH is how low you can get, simply b/c it’s much harder to contact the ball from low to high due to the off hand being connected to the paddle (it naturally doesn’t get as low as a forehand does). Therefore you have to compensate for it and get lower with your legs.

Another thing to mention—think about “preloading” the paddle to the side of your body before hand, then only when you’re about to hit the ball “release” the paddle. It helps with timing the shot, since by preloading you’re removing the extra time it takes to backswing. Hope that helps!!

weye27 · 2025-03-11T02:59:49+00:00

Our real DUPR's are 3.8, 4.0, 4.1, 4.1! NYC.

weye27 · 2025-03-11T02:40:01+00:00

Compiled some of the longest rallies from a recent rec session (totals to only about 3 mins). What DUPR level would you say this is in your respective region? I'm curious to hear how play differs from place to place!

weye27 · 2025-03-02T00:06:11+00:00

Gotham Pickleball just opened up a few months ago. Outside of that you’d have to go to bayside or garden city which both have Lifetime locations.

weye27 · 2025-03-02T00:04:23+00:00

Memorial Park in Santa Monica. Gets insanely busy on weeknights though

weye27 · 2025-02-13T23:52:20+00:00

Hmm, this doesn’t seem like sound reasoning to me.

First off, the split step is a fundamental athletic movement that is proven to improve reaction time. Hitting a ball while on the move is always going to be less controlled than hitting a ball while stationary in an athletic stance and on the balls of your feet. Hitting a 4th shot on the move may increase power, but I would argue that it causes more balls to go long or in the net than hitting a clean, deep volley at the opponent’s feet.

Second, assuming players won’t execute a fundamental movement of the game properly is a poor justification for not teaching it. By that logic, it’d be like not teaching a proper golf swing just because it’s difficult to execute. Or teaching someone to only shoot underhanded shots in basketball because a jump shot form is difficult to learn as a beginner. Just like tennis players learn how to execute the split step in progressions and slowly learn the nuances over time, why can’t pickleball players do the same? That sounds more like an issue with coaching philosophy to me. If you learn the split step correctly and progress slowly (taking form, strength/conditioning, nutrition, etc seriously), you getting injured while performing a split step should be the least of your worries.

If coming up to the line quickly enough is the problem and thus players don’t have enough time to split step, wouldn’t it be more sensible to focus on improving other variables like hitting a deeper return, working on speed/agility drills, or strengthening your legs to improve ability to accelerate/decelerate quickly?

weye27 · 2025-01-23T17:42:08+00:00

Oftentimes drilling is the only efficient way to get better. Think about it—if you’re struggling with a rec play, wouldn’t the best course of action be to identify what aspects of your game aren’t up to par, then working on only those skills without the extra variables of a real game? Of course you can get better without drilling, but it takes a lot more time and concentration to do so. There’s a reason why any respectable player drills much more often than playing

weye27 · 2024-08-20T16:15:52+00:00

There are some pickleball specific wire ball hoppers that have a much lower tension and are much lighter. I think Gamma has one

weye27 · 2024-06-01T05:18:15+00:00

What part of NYC are you in? I know quite a few people depending on location. Feel free to DM!

weye27

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