Welcome back,

There are 68 days left until ThatPicklebalSchool launches on October 1st.

Today’s ThatPickleballSchool Newsletter 😀 

1. Mission Impossible: Turn Alex into a 4.0 🧨

2. How to train with purpose (and a full-time job) 🚂

3. Final Takeaways & a Pickleball Test 🧠

Also, if you want to be on the priority list for ThatPickleballSchool, click here and enter your email.

Now, let’s get into it. To start, I have a story to tell.

FROM A 3.1 TO A 4.0 IN 75 MINUTES

14 years ago, @alexbran714 and I played high school basketball together. And I always used to resent him because he could dunk a basketball in 10th grade, and I was just over there struggling to grab the net, HA!

Jk, but really :) 

Then, two weeks ago, he texted me saying he lived in Newport now. He came out to the APP Newport tournament and reconnected, picking up right where we left off so many years prior.

We hung out at the tournament, and I quickly realized he’d caught the pickleball bug about a month before. 

Then, Tyler and I talked to Alex and thought, “Hey, come out to Phoenix, and we’ll play some.”

As his trip got closer, Tyler and I brainstormed and wondered,

If we trained Alex, how good could he get in just one weekend with us?

Well, this past weekend was that weekend. On Saturday morning, we got up at 5:00 am for a cash game at the new Center Court Pickleball Club (sick venue, by the way).

Tyler and Alex played, but I just watched Alex the whole time and evaluated his game. I didn’t offer him any advice because I wanted to get enough reps seeing his game before we’d do a full training session later that evening.

Alex went 1-4 in the cash game in pool play and then won a few matches in the final round-robin. Those were his first DUPR Matches, so he now has a rating of 3.1.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM EVALUATING ALEX

Any time you evaluate someone in a skill, it’s easy to see the 152 things they’re doing wrong and have the urge to fix them all right away.

But if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of that flood of information, you know it doesn’t help as much as the person saying the words might think it does.

For the person receiving advice like that, it’s overwhelming. 

So, as I watched, I actually didn’t say a word to Alex; I just wrote notes on my phone for the training session later.

Side note: In ThatPickleballSchool, we’ve built out a set of 10 core principles that make good players great. And #1 is “Get Good at what happens most.”

So, as I watched Alex play, I kept thinking,

In these games, what’s happening the most? And where is Alex best and worst in these moments? 

And as many of you can guess, at a 3.5-4.0 cash game, there wasn’t a lot of dinking. But there were a LOT of errors happening in the first 5 shots.

So that’s where I kept my attention while evaluating how he could get better the fastest. 

MOVING ON

Then, on Saturday Night, we had a 3-hour time slot booked at the Picklemall indoor courts.

We broke the training down into two sessions:

• Phase 1 - Targeted drilling on the specific skills we believed he needed most right now

• Phase 2 - Rec play against two other guys at a 4.2 DUPR level 

And this is where Tyler and I were excited.

Could we help our super athletic friend, who barely knows how to play, go from a 3.1 DUPR to a 4.0 skill level in just one session?

Another reason we wanted to try is that Tyler and Alex have decided to play in the upcoming 4.0 Level PPA Salt Lake City tournament.

So, we have to get Alex ready!

TRAINING TIME

Cue the Rocky II music…

Tyler and I had a 75-minute window to help Alex target specific areas of the game and improve. So, we took a “games approach” to the entire session.

Alex is a lefty, so really, there's not much point in having him play on the left side. He’ll play on the right side his whole pickleball career (once he gets around players who understand stacking). So, the core drill we did with him was down-the-line skinny singles, full-out points.

So what did we work on? The first 5 shots. 

But we didn’t go serve, return, 3rd, 4th, and 5th in that order.

To keep it easy for Alex to really grasp how what he was doing would translate, we chunked shots.

This means we started with Alex serving the whole time and put our attention on the serve only first.

Then, the serve and the 3rd decision.

THEN, the serve, 3rd decision, and the 5th shot.

We wanted him to see how each shot connected to the other. 

In other words, it was a progression of the shots he would take during each rally.

After we did that for a while, we flipped it, and Alex became the returner.

We worked on returns.

Then, returns and 4ths.

When he struggled, we let him work through it.

If he struggled too much, we’d pause and isolate that skill with a small drill – each time, it was something made up on the spot, customized to precisely what he was trying to overcome.

Pause the Rocky music…

This is actually something you could do in your own drilling sessions.

Consider: “What’s the skill – or part of a skill – that I’m struggling at?”

Then, think: “How do I simulate that specific thing in a two-person drilling session?”

Then, rise up to the challenge.

Unpause music. Back to the story…

At the end of 75 minutes, Alex didn’t have very different strokes from when he started. As I said, he was already hitting the ball pretty well, and 75 minutes is not enough time to completely correct someone’s technique.

Instead, he learned to connect the dots and understand which shot to hit and why.

The relationship from one shot to another completely changed his mindset and helped him move from, (in his words), a place of, “I don’t know what I’m doing out there,” to a place of confidence.

It was awesome to see his improvement in such a short amount of time.

Just a few minutes later, I got to see it play out and translate into his rec play. And of course he still made a ton of errors, BUT…

…for the first time, he had a clearer understanding of what he should have done instead when he was making those errors. And that’s a really good first step.

That night at dinner, Alex said something that I think will resonate with a lot of you:

“I’m starting a new job on Monday, and I can probably only play 2-3 times a week. How do I improve when I don’t have that much time?”

THE LESSON FOR YOU

Look, I get it. Not everyone is in my position. Heck, it wasn’t that long ago that I also wasn’t in this position to practice daily.

So, believe me when I say I understand what Alex is saying and what many of you are going through with your pickleball game.

If you want to improve and you only have an hour here or there each week to do it, you must build a plan.

In fact, that’s step number one:

1. Have a plan - Write down what you’ll work on and how long you’ll work on it. Bonus points if you have a why attached to it.

2. Targeted drilling - Just because you drill doesn’t mean you can’t play rec games. Instead, spend 30-45 minutes before rec play and focus on something very specific that happens a lot in your games.

3. Journal after you play - When I journal, I try to keep it simple. I think about: Like, Learn, and Improve. Write down one thing you liked about the session. One thing you learned from the session. And one thing you’ll improve on during the next session.

This seems like a lot, but steps 1 & 3 take maybe 10-15 minutes total.

You could literally do them right before and right after your session, and you can record everything using the notes app on your phone.

Of course, the other answer is to find a resource like I’m building with ThatPickleballSchool, which will have more in-depth content about how to get better, even if life only allows you to play a few times a week.

Yes, that was a shameless plug - but it’s also VERY TRUE. I am investing every second of the day (outside of my training) to make this a resource built with YOU and YOUR situation in mind.

Which is why I know it’s going to be awesome for everyone who decides to join.

FINAL TAKEAWAYS & A QUIZ

I just realized that Eye of the Tiger has been running on repeat this entire time… Oh, well, we’re almost done!

Takeaway #1 - Habits take time

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, writes:

A habit is a behavior repeated enough times to become automatic. The process of habit formation begins with trial and error. Whenever you encounter a new situation in life, your brain has to make a decision.

How do I respond to this?

The first time you come across a problem you’re not sure how to solve it, you’re just trying to see what works.

Neurological activity in the brain is high during this period. You are carefully analyzing the situation and making conscious decisions about how to act. You’re taking in tons of new information and trying to make sense of it all.

The brain is busy learning the most effective course of action. As habits are created, the level of activity in the brain decreases.

You learn to lock in on the cues that predict success and tune out everything else.

When a similar situation arises in the future, you know exactly what to look for. There is no longer a need to analyze every angle of a situation. Your brain skips the process of trial and error and creates a mental rule.

If this, then that.

These cognitive scripts can be followed automatically whenever the situation is appropriate. 

And this, right here, is pickleball for all of us. 

We discover something new and try it, but we still mess up a lot because it’s not automatic. But then, we practice it, and it becomes automatic over time.

Then, we move on to the next skill and repeat forever.

That’s why pickleball is amazing! None of us have every skill on automatic, and we’re always learning something new.

Takeaway #2 - Decisions independent of outcomes 

We’ve all heard “process over outcomes.” And it’s true.

At the beginning of the training session we were working on serves. In one point, Alex hit an amazing serve and then an amazing 3rd shot.

Then, he missed the 5th shot drop and got really frustrated.

Yet, in his entire life, he’d never worked on a 5th shot drop before.

However, because he had just hit a really good serve and third, he felt like he should’ve hit a great fifth as well.

So, we reminded Alex to put attention to the one skill we were focusing on, not the outcome of a skill that came later in the rally. Later, he mentioned how much that helped.

We all make mistakes when playing pickleball.

Naturally, when you’re drilling or trying something new, you’ll make even more mistakes. That’s okay!

You must give yourself permission to fail. If you let anger or frustration overtake your mind and body, you’ll lose what you’re trying to learn, and it will take so much longer to improve whatever skill you’re working on.

So many players try something one or two times, miss it, and then just completely give up on it and never try it again.

This is the worst thing you can do. Fail ten times in a row. HECK, 100 times in a row. It doesn’t matter.

Because once you figure out how to do it successfully, your brain and body will remember that.

And that, my friends, is absolutely worth the effort.

Takeaway #3 - Play to your strengths

I asked Alex, “What do you think your strengths are right now?“

He said his 3rd shot drive.

Then, in a later conversation, Tyler asked him what he thought about his game.

His first response was, “I think I need to stop driving as much.”

In unison, Tyler and I both said “NO.”

Haha!

Because it’s true…Alex’s drive is 13.7x better than his drop. (yes, I did the math, and that number is accurate 😂).

So we told him to lean into his drive even more, but with a few adjustments.

He rips every drive as hard as humanly possible, so he misses about 40% of the balls into the net or out. So we encouraged him to dial it back and not act like Nadal at the French but rather focus on dipping the ball over the net at around 75% power.

He did this and immediately improved his drive’s consistency.

Next, we encouraged him to work on his fifth shot drop instead of focusing on his third shot drop.

Should he eventually develop a drop shot? Absolutely! But should he (and you) try to work on your drive, your drop, your 5th shot drop, your dinking, your backhand flick, and your Erne — all at once?

Say it with me… NO!

Our brains need order. And that order will help us improve. I like to think about the 80-20 rule a lot.

80 percent of the time, build up your strengths and get good at what happens most.

20 percent of the time, improve your weaknesses.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it’s a darn good place to start.

In closing, did Alex actually become a 4.0 at the end of the training session? Who knows for sure? But in my opinion, no. he became a 3.9999. Just kidding. 😂 

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. But the truth is, I genuinely believe he is! But if he’s not, he will be — very soon. 

Until next time,
Kyle

PS: I filmed this entire training session with Alex, and I’m working to edit it so that you and anyone who wants to watch it can learn everything I shared with Alex during the training session. 

oo shoot!! - I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT THE TEST!

In case you didn’t see Wednesday’s special email, I created a Pickleball IQ Test.

Over 2,000 people have taken it… and there haven’t been many perfect scores.

Can you get 10 out of 10 correct? Try here 👇

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