the other day I was doing some filming with Taylor to get footage for these teaching videos I needed some footage on blocking and resets we started to film and Taylor was initially struggling a bit so it ended up being a lesson and I thought it would be cool to share this with you to show you what we worked on Taylor was stoked because in just 30 minutes he had some real breakthrough moments that he himself said totally changed the way he now thinks about resetting going forward and that it's actually a lot easier than he
thought if he just keeps a few key things in mind and works on them until they're locked in as habits and are automatic by the end of the session he was telling me to hit anywhere as hard as I want I did that and he was getting most of them back so what did we change that took him from dumping his resets into the net or popping them up to dropping them in perfectly like clockwork with calm and ease we'll unpack all of that in today's video I'm Nicole Havlicek this is primetime pickleball we've helped
thousands of players play better pickleball and we can help you play your best game too so please subscribe to this channel it'll help you get notified of new videos as they come out and it really helps with the YouTube algorithm to get this information out more broadly to more people we appreciate it alright let's dive into today's topic so the first thing I want to point out because I have a feeling it's going to come up in the comments if I don't address it is that you'll notice that Taylor places his non-dominant hand like this
on the face of the paddle when he's in the ready position for his reset shot it's unorthodox and I don't love that position with the non-dominant hand I'll explain why at the end of the video for those that are curious to know but that said there are some other much more important things that will make a much bigger impact that we need to address in the near term before we get to this so let that be a lesson within the lesson you don't address everything all at once we have bigger fish to fry so to
speak on how he is handling the reset shot so we're going to tackle the big things first and foremost and leave the little things for another time so one of the more critical issues that I noticed right away is that he was chopping down on his resets and as a result dumping more of them into the net this type of technique could make more sense if you're hitting a more traditional driving volley but it really doesn't help for the reset shot and here's why when your paddle starts well above where you're ultimately going to end
up contacting the ball for your reset and you have to get down under the ball first before you can then send the paddle forward and slightly upward you'll end up instinctively taking the shortest distance to the ball which is this way more or less straight to it but then you risk still being in motion too much downward when the paddle should already be moving pretty cleanly forward and up to meet the ball at that time since we do want to send that ball in a soft arcing trajectory and Landing it in or near the non-volley
Zone because you're going this way and then are trying to make a sharp adjustment that way you create so much opportunity to miss time it with too much downward pressure on the ball when you didn't make this turn early enough this is one major factor of what will cause the ball to not clear the net so you'll want to start with your paddle more down but there's more to the story as to why and we'll get into that now to demonstrate this next Point Taylor and I did a little experimenting on a different day to
get a good angle of where the ball is crossing his body to see what lands in versus What lands out and though I'm targeting different heights and depths I'm using roughly the same speed and no topspin or under spin or really as little spin as I can put on it I'm intentionally mixing in shots that will land in and others that will land out you should also do this with a partner at different distances in the court to help train yourself so you can have a better sense of what's Landing in and what's Landing out
so that you can learn to leave balls that are going out as we can see when you're this far back in the court a ball that is hit hard and coming at this height is going out so why would you want to have your paddle up here when the ball is realistically never going to be coming there you wouldn't want to if your desire is to best set yourself up for that shot so check in with yourself to see if that's something you're doing and correct it it's really easy to slip into letting that paddlehead
drift up too high when we're not aware enough of what trajectories the ball can take and still land in it's easy because it's just a little bit more comfortable to hold it up here than down there but you really want to get it more down realistically the shots you're going to be dealing with in this type of situation when you're defending from back in the court here are coming at a height that ranges somewhere in here so get your paddlehead down into that range before the ball is struck that will solve The Chopping problem and
more you're so short on time to deal with the attack once it's struck so it's in your best interest to get more prep work done before the shot is struck rather than after so there's two things you need to do to get that paddle set lower before they strike number one is to drop your arms lower and number two is to get your knees bent and your butt down now when you're doing that be sure you squat down with a wider base in your legs wider than your shoulder width it will make you more stable
and also ready to move if you need to now you're much more prepared to deal with that reset shot off of an attack I want to be sure to emphasize that in addition to getting your arms down like this you also want to be sure to drop that paddlehead because if you have your paddlehead above your hands like this then it still could create a chopping problem even if you do get your arms down so you want to be sure to have that paddle head dropped more down as well in addition to the arms when
the paddle heads down in this position you just then turn the paddle face open and present it to the ball and push forward and slightly up with your main hinge being the shoulder that's it there's really not a whole lot to this shot as far as the complexity of the motion goes so drop your butt drop your arms and drop your paddlehead when you're in the ready position for a reset shot from deeper in the transition zone everything will just be so much simpler because you're cutting out a lot of steps that you don't have
time for after they've struck their attack that's how you invite more efficiency and therefore more peace and calm into your shot even when under attack so let's put those three key things on our checklist of the things to do when Reese setting and drill them so much that they become automatic once Taylor was aware of these and understood how they should feel on some medium pace feeds we soon picked up the pace as his timing got better we logged in some reps at high speeds and soon things just started clicking and just 30 minutes after
we started he was floating beautiful resets into the non-volley Zone off of feeds that I was striking very hard to simulate a big powerful attack his job is to now go and drill the heck out of it so it's locked in and so he doesn't drift back into bad habits so knowing how to fix it is just step one but locking it in with reps so you don't even know how to do it badly anymore that's step two you can't skimp on step two because that's really where the magic happens so please don't forget that
if you're enjoying this video please go ahead and hit that like button and subscribe to this Channel and also hit that notification Bell icon so you can be notified anytime we release a new video after observing many pro matches I've noticed that they tend to hold their paddle relative to their body from about here to here now of course there are outliers as there always are but I find this range to generally hold true keep in mind that the feeds I was hitting were all flat if attacks have topspin on them then they could cross
your body higher and still land in so all of this as most things depend and it's always a mix of Art and Science but in general I'd say if you struggle with resets get that paddlehead lower than you think you need to out of the gate and I'd expect that has a really good chance of making things easier for you towards the success of your reset shots in our session Taylor did a good job of getting that paddlehead more down than it was and that helped him a lot we then came back another day to
work on getting it down even lower out of the gate and that seemed to help more now keep in mind that when you're more forward in the court and blocking and resetting from close to the non-volley zone online that paddlehead can come up a bit when you're in your ready position for the attack because the angles for their shot trajectory are now different if you're right up at the non-volley zone line or close to it there's now more Court behind you for the ball to land and a shot that's targeted higher on your body could
still land in especially if there's heavy topspin on it as is happening more and more now and when you're closer it's harder for them to get access down at your feet because the net is now more in the way for them so the more likely range for the shot is now higher Therefore your paddle can be higher to accommodate for that so the height of your paddle ready position can and should change depending on where you are in the court because the range of targets and trajectories they have access to as it relates to your
body is different closer versus deeper the moral of the story here is that you want to get your paddlehead preset as close to contact as you you reasonably can and this will help you to minimize your movement and make you a better resetter you have a pretty good idea of the height of the contact because a you know they're probably coming with a hard shot B you know where you are in the court and C you therefore know what their target range is likely to be so using this information to your advantage should really help
your defensive resetting let me repeat that key phrase once more get your paddlehead preset to as close as you reasonably can to your expected contact point which you can know given the information you have about the shot that's coming you have a lot more information than you may realize use it to your advantage the more you limit how much movement you have to do once the ball is hit by your opponent the better when you eliminate movements you have less to do so you feel and you are faster and all of a sudden a fastball
doesn't seem as fast as it once did this is how you invite peace and calm into your defending abilities and separate yourself more and more from panic and flailing when that attack is oncoming be lightning fast yet with the minimum of motion needed so it all comes down to getting preset and from there it's about timing and quick precise movements to the ball ready your body and your paddle appropriately read the ball react extremely fast put the pedal right where it needs to be with just enough grip pressure and push on it just enough all
with the most minimal movement possible it's easy to say but it's pretty hard to do because everything is happening at maximum speed all around you which is why you need to train the heck out of it the reason great Defenders make resetting and blocking back into the kitchen looks so easy is because they move the least amount possible and put their paddle right where it needs to go no more no no less on practically every shot their timing is exceptional and it takes a lot of training to dial that in just right these changes we
made with Taylor are some of the exact same changes you may need to make if you're struggling with resets and I know this because when I walk around and observe play these are the things I'm seeing that need changing when you're under attack time is your enemy you have very little time to handle that shot well so these small changes add up to huge differences in the success of your reset execution now before we sign off and wrap up today's video I did say I would address the positioning of Taylor's offhand after we addressed the
big critical pieces so for all you die hard technicians like myself out there I'll get into that now so we didn't cover it because he was already doing it and therefore it didn't need to be part of the lesson but Taylor is in a continental grip for this shot as he should be and as you should be because you're not going to have time for a grip change and this script is the most versatile group to be in because you can most easily hit a forehand and a backhand out of this grip the offhand is
usually used for two reasons when it's on the paddle number one as part of a two-handed backhand and number two as part of assisting in a grip change for the other hand like this so it's kind of useless at this position here it's not helping you with either of those two things it's more helpful to you down on the grip to possibly assist on a two-handed backhand reset which can be helpful for stability and I would recommend experimenting with a two-handed reset block to see how that goes for you it's happening more and more in
the game because it just makes sense from a stability standpoint or and I know I said that probably there's no grip change needed at this time but what if they happen to flub the attack or it's just not as big of an attack as you expected and it opens the door for you to counter attack and you find that you have time to change your grip it could and does happen things don't always work out as hoped or expected so you could use it at that time to shift into an Eastern forehand grip which is
this and then rip a forehand drive or something like that I just think there's a better case to be made for it being down on the grip where it could have some usefulness rather than up here where in my view it doesn't have any so there you have it as far as what to do with the offhand in this shot thanks so much to Taylor for his help with this video and also for just being so fun to work with because he's open to anything and everything and he absolutely loves to learn and try new
things I really appreciate it and it's just a blast and thanks to you for tuning in today I hope you got a lot out of it and we'll see you in the next video as helpful as we think the tips we're sharing in today's video are there's more to achieving success on the doubles Court want a complete A to Z step-by-step blueprint for playing winning doubles pickleball check out our dominating double system today go to doublesystem.com to learn all about it if you enjoyed this video please like comment and share for more Pro Player pickleball
tips techniques strategies and more on how to take your game to the next level please visit primetimepickleball.com you'll find a clickable direct link in the video description below thanks for watching we'll see you in the next one and until then Happy pickling much of this footage was captured at the Oakland Hills tennis club in Oakland California a big thank you to them for the use of their amazing facility
