foreign [Music] guys the common tendency we're going to be talking about today is not understanding how to hit the drive and then not understanding how to use the drive so uh different racket sport athletes obviously coming into the game uh there's a lot more offense from the Baseline coming into the game a lot more guys uh you know or doubles as well driving uh whether it's third balls fifth ball seven balls plain and simple there's something to be said uh with with understanding how to hit the drive and then and then understanding that you can
use it as a setup or or you can use it to almost like enhance your fifth shot so so keep in mind that when you drive you should be driving in the person who's not going to hurt you with their fourth ball volley uh for example you should be maybe driving to the attacker because usually the attacker doesn't like to be attacked usually the counter-attacker doesn't like to attack but he he or she uh as a counter-attacker loves pace so so think about driving to the person whether it's the attacker or maybe it's just just
anybody but drive to the person who's gonna um almost like enhance your fifth shot or or volley sure that now uh that now lets you walk up and then take an easier fifth shot drop halfway in versus having to take a third ball drop from from the Baseline so plain and simple you can use the drive to really like enhance your fifth shot and if you find yourself being very inconsistent on your third shot drop it would make sense to want to turn the knob a little bit and go um look to go away from
your drop and start driving a little bit and then it's funny how when you start driving a little bit if you get dialed in with your drive later on it can help you find your drop again yeah it's it's it's funny because I mean obviously we know that pickleball is all about patience and keeping your errors down we talk so much about not panicking and trusting the soft game so when we do find Opportunities to sprinkle in some offense or some aggression like with the drive we absolutely want to do that and understand how to
use that so I think uh the biggest thing is people either uh they trust or they buy into that patient soft game idea of pickleball and so they just never use the drive where they're kind of missing out on a little bit of variety or maybe they came from a certain racket sport where the drives a very natural weapon for them and they're using it incorrectly so we want you to use that have that shot in Your Arsenal but once you understand what your intent behind the drive is then it becomes a much uh better
play to be used consistently I think this is a tool and a great resource to have also if you don't have any sort of offense at the kitchen line if you're like a true counter-attacker and you hit a lot of liftings and you like to counter but you don't have much offense it would be nice to to sprinkle a drive in at the Baseline that way you can get free points take the monkey off your back plain and simple it's nice to have some weapons and as we get into higher level stuff it's very necessary
to have some weapons okay guys uh drill here is going to be uh coach Kyle is going to be acting as a student he's going to be feeding for himself I would say this for lower levels he's going to be feeding for himself he's going to be stationary I'd like the idea of him feeding in a uh in a very controlled setting why because he can work on his technique he can work on closing his stance plain and simple it's easier for him to hit a ball uh with me not feeding him and him being
in a very controlled setting he's driving um I'm going to be volleying I'm going to act like he's hitting a third ball I'm hitting a fourth ball volley he's going to be gaining real estate off of that and then hitting a fifth shot drop so so essentially he's doing a third shot drive into a fifth shot drop and he's hoping that my fourth ball volley is short so it enhances his fish shop okay go ahead nice beautiful okay back of the Baseline I'm gonna feed one to him he's gonna trap it yeah good beautiful okay
very good back of the Baseline he's gonna trap it uh look at his footwork look at his uh look how he slowly makes that progression he doesn't Rush he doesn't totally take off um he's looking to address and assess based on what I do with my fourth ready here beautiful good I like it back in the basement we'll get 10 of these and then we can change roles um also too he should be looking to place this drive in zone one in zone four he's gonna move that drive around a little bit okay okay so
now if he sees me float it let's go so same thing here so he's gonna drive I float it I would love to see him come in and and work on turning that fifth shot not into a draw but turn it into a closing volley okay you guys what I'm looking for is when Tyson says float it I see that come up off the paddle the decision that I'm making is do I feel like I can get in and close that distance and make contact with the ball net height or higher even if he floats
it up but I feel like if I run up there and I'm playing at my ankles I still may need to stay with the soft game but if I can take it out of the air net height or higher I have license to stay aggressive and keep the pressure on him okay here we go a couple more here foreign I feed to him so so my job as a as a teacher here I'm I'm basically just working on punching my volley down okay I'm working on uh maybe gauging out balls too right if he if
he swings and I recognize is maybe going out I can get a benefit I can work on my tracking ability um but I'm either working on letting balls go or I'm working on just punching and getting the ball down float it beautiful good good so uh if I if I float it he's still looking to come in Crash but his main focus is driving looking to address and assess see what's going on with the situation and then either drop if the ball is below his hips maybe it's in yellow or red or if it's up
in his green zone he's making the move being explosive with this first step getting uh getting in my vision and then closing on that on that volley and the key word here guys is assess right so after I hit it I'm coming to that split step and I'm making that decision about what my next shot is based on how good Tyson's volley is probably the number one thing I see with people who use their drive a lot but use it inappropriately is when they hit that drive they've got all their momentum carrying them forward and
they never control their momentum so they just charge blindly it works out great if their opponents float the volley because you can close that Gap very quickly but if Tyson executes a decent volley uh more linear at my feet and I I'm rushing forward you can imagine how difficult that is for me to be stopping and execute a good drop so we want to assess being in a stationary position and from there if we see that mistake we can close that Gap very quickly next drill here is going to be I'm now going to be
feeding he's going to be driving off of his Drive he's going to be closing same sources uh same sort of situation uh he's going to be looking to assess off of my fourth volley if I float it he's going to come in and crash if I get it down he's looking to drop okay ready here feeding a Cooperative return he's driving and dropping beautiful back at the Baseline same thing here feed he drives good yeah and I'm and I'm gonna make sure that my feeds maybe even like a little shorter the last thing I want
to do is is put Kyle in a position where he's having to hit a drive off his back foot as his weight's going back okay ready here short he drives Rob beautiful good good good again again he's still looking to crash if I pop it up nice good good pretty I like it very good uh if I know if I know that he's never gonna hurt me or that he's never going to swing in transition it doesn't do anything differently with my fourth and my sixth and my eighth meaning I I feel like I'm heading
to a gigantic football field but if he starts being aggressive in that transition zone starts making me second guess my fourth second guess my six all all of a sudden I'm I'm playing on half a football field and it's much more uh shrunken down plain and simple he can apply a lot of pressure just by uh being selective on if he should be offensive in that transition zone okay ready here beautiful good good good drive again again ready here drive oh sorry and with this play I would say that's the one that you give up
when people volley accidentally short sometimes you don't have the ability to get in there but in my experience if they're intentionally trying to drop it it's very difficult to be able to do that and execute that shot when there's that much Pace coming off the drive in here nice I like it one thing I think about as well guys is after I play that drive I've split stepped on that fifth where I'm playing the drop remember I need I have a lot of momentum naturally already coming forward so I really think about lifting having my
body weight go up on this shot the tendency is going to be to go out and what that's going to do is those are going to carry a little bit too far and won't be able to get down for you to all the way neutralize double drill here [Music] I'm sure coach Kyle's acting as a student I'm going to be feeding return he's going to be driving and then dropping on the next one we're going to keep this drill continuous after his drop he would then hustle his butt back to the Baseline Drive and then
drop again okay so Drive drop combo and we are keeping it going here we go good back to the Baseline back to the Baseline I'm gonna float one volley good I'm gonna float this one get it deep volley good so I would say that the one benefit on the teacher side in this drill is is that that punch volley off of the drive work on punching it and and trying to get some depth on it the the next ball is more so like a reset for the student to get back and give themselves time so
they can drive the next one okay ready here drive good drop back of the Baseline ready here drive drop good back of the Baseline Drive drop good back of the Baseline Drive sorry drop back at the Baseline good good I like it oh nice good drive up good nice foreign that that drill may get a little messy this person may not you know may not have time to reposition back in the Baseline the main focus is is that you are looking to drive using the correct technique giving yourself plenty of time having good organization with
your hands and your feet and then off of that you're just making the adjustment coming up hitting the drop um turning it down a little bit and then looking to reposition back in the Baseline and do that combo all over again one thing that I really love about this drill guys is it teaches you a very in my opinion underrated skill set which is varying speeds but I mean alternating drive and drop every time if you think about it if I can get really good at that I'm forcing my opponent who's at the kitchen line
to also vary speeds when I'm driving they're using my pace and punching it back but when I'm dropping they're having to create their own pace so if I can get really good at varying speeds and zigging in and out of hard shots and soft shots I'm actually forcing my opponent to be just as good at adjusting speeds as well okay guys uh game here is gonna be I'm feeding a return coach Kyle is back at the Baseline he is driving a third ball and then he can do whatever he wants on his fifth um the
little kicker here is that uh you can get two points in a point essentially if if he were to drive and drop and get up and establish he would get a point uh as we play the point out in that setting if he were to win the point he would get two could be he would get a point for getting up and getting established with the drive drop combo and then he would get a point for winning the point uh the the only other time where you can get a bonus off of the uh Drive
is when you drive and if I if this person floats one and you're able to come in and close on your fifth ball you would also get a bonus plain and simple you're getting a bonus by driving and closing or you're getting a bonus by driving and dropping and getting up and up and established okay rock and roll sorry it's a tongue twister here we go okay play it out point is live I take that out of the air okay score is one to zero sorry score is one to one I can't be taking that
away from him so Kyle there hit his drive hit his drop got up and established so he would get one so score is one to one game to seven game to seven rally scoring ah nice we are live oh yeah yeah pretty okay so he got two there he got two score would be one to three ready here as you've noticed if you have uh Kyle has not hit one backhand drive we are True Believers in trusting what you do well from back there if you like hitting your forehand or if you like hitting your
two-hander plain and simple find the side that uh helps you find your biggest source of offense whether that's running around your backhand and using the forehand or or maybe that's uh that you love your two-handed backhand and and you can get more Pace with your two-hander but find your best side back there pickleball court is not very big in doubles find your strength find your strength uh one three nice play it out points live yeah pretty pretty okay so Kyle got up and established the score is one to five he got a point for getting
established and a point for winning the point game to seven one five oh okay uh so he did not get up and establish and let's say that getting up and established means that you have to get up and at least hit one dink okay getting getting up and uh uh uh fighting fighting the battle from here is probably not gonna do it okay so get up get established uh score is uh two five five correct yep yep score two two five it's pretty oh yeah okay score is three to five last one here last one
here we go oh nice okay let's go let's go let's go one more I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna float it four to five four to five here we go drive float it beautiful good good good good good the the drive that's tough for me to handle is when maybe it's a little less paced but it gets down any any kind of and and I'm I'm finding myself looking at my opponent as as he's closing but it's that drive that just gets like below the net a little bit and it kind of gets my head
popping up I would say that's that's the ball that I have such a hard time with so guys um I get the question a lot with my students of when is the best time to drive or where should I be driving on the court so I've come up with what I call a little hierarchy of of uh priority of what I'm looking for as far as where to take that drive so I think a big thing is is most often we want to do this on the third shot because both of our opponents are not
up and established they have to hit the return somebody still has to get up and established first so uh first on the hierarchy if there's an obviously weaker player who does not handle Pace well I think regardless of where they're at on the court I'm going to keep using my drive uh over and over again until they prove to me that they can handle the pace and volley it back second would be a weaker side now this may not necessarily be the worst player of the weaker player but sometimes one of the players will have
a very weak forehand volley or a very weak backhand volley so if we see that they're taking a big cut or they just have a grip issue or there's not much strength there we want to pick on that weakness time and time again from there if we're envisioning that our opponents are all pretty solid kind of my hierarchy starts with drive to the person who just returned okay that's the probably the best uh thing to do time and time again because they're up uh not up and established they still have to split step they have
to control their body before they execute the volley it just makes it a little bit more challenging so start there from there the next best spot is to drive middle I call this the confusion ball if you envision the person at the net reaching towards middle it's very difficult for them to know if their partner just returned where they're at for this ball so I know if I'm in this situation a lot of times I'd end up taking the volley on the full stretch and stealing a ball from my partner because I don't know that
they're up yet so a great confusion ball driving middle and then lastly if I'm the player at the net and I'm poaching time and time again every now and then you do have to drive behind me to keep me honest but usually to the person returning sometimes middle and then sparingly to the person who's established only if they're being too aggressive thank you
