Skyrocket Your Pickleball Game: 3 Essential Paths for Progression

Frank Hines

Team The Kitchen

Last Edited

Sep 06 2024

1) Focus on One Pickleball Skill at a Time.

Early on in my pickleball journey, I wanted everything to get better all at once. Dinking, drives, drops, serves; I wanted to go from a beginner to a 5.0 overnight.

That’s just not how it works.

After pounding my head against the wall for a 2 months and not really seeing any improvement, I stepped back and analyzed my game. What was something I could improve that would make me 1% better?

I started with ensuring 100% of my serves during every game for 2 weeks were in. That was it. Simple, achievable, and something that would guarantee I lost less points.

After those two weeks, I didn’t even think about my serve. It was going in. This allowed me to ramp it up and start hitting it with more pace and deeper into the court.

BOOOM! Now I’m no longer the guy who misses every other serve.

That was all it took. Small improvements over time. I looked up one day and found I was a totally different player.

I doubled down on this. I began hyper focusing on small improvements until I felt so confident with that part of my game it became second nature. This allowed me to be more effortless on the court and prioritize positioning and ball placement rather than mechanics.

Over time, I was able to enhance individual skill sets effortlessly.

The goal is not to fix everything in your game right this second. Find an area where you're struggling and force yourself to get better there before advancing.

2) Drill Consistently to Speed Up Your Pickleball Progression

Everyone loves to play pickleball, not everyone loves to drill. It’s a requirement if you want to get better. I was lucky enough to catch the bug so bad that all I wanted to do was improve.

My first few months playing, I drilled multiple times a week. We did everything from dinking to drops to hands battles to speed ups. We drilled, and we did it for hours.

Not everyone shares that same desire to improve so quickly and that's alright.

The truth is, you can get better at pickleball if you just play the game regularly. It will take longer and it’ll be a lot more frustrating, but it is possible.

The only way I’ve ever found to get better at something is to do it over and over and over again until you get it right.

That’s what drilling provides. It gives you a controlled environment where you can laser focus on specific areas of your game and get comfortable with it.

Drills also allow you to work through bad habits if done properly.

To add to the competitive nature of pickleball, we always kept score during drill sessions.

It helped us know when to move on to a new drill and add some bragging rights into the mix. If you’re anything like me, I love to win no matter what it is.

The short and sweet is, find any warm body and ask them to stand on the other side of the net and drill. There are thousands of videos on what drills to do for certain aspects of your game. Go watch one, and start practicing.

Need a drilling buddy? Those can be hard to come by, but the ERNE Pickleball Machine is more consistent than a person because it's always available to drill.

3) Force Yourself To Be Uncomfortable

This is a big one, and it’s not the easiest to do.

When you’re new, everything is uncomfortable. As you get better, the tendency is to do what’s working. Start doing what’s not.

For me, it was a two handed backhand. Two months ago, I couldn’t even think about that shot. So I forced myself to hit it again and again and again and again.

Why? Because it was the next evolution of my game. Now, I can rip one from anywhere with a good deal of confidence.

It didn’t happen overnight, and it took a long time for me to even know when was a good time to hit that specific shot. But in the beginning, it didn’t matter. I just wanted to practice the mechanics.

It might be setting up an ernie or a backhand cross-court drop. It could even be playing with people at a higher skill level. Whatever it is: never stay stagnant.

The second I began winning every game with the group I started playing with, I immediately found people better and started playing with them.

At first I lost, A LOT. As time went on, I improved, and was able to hang with most of them. Then, I started winning.

None of that happens if I’m complacent. Stay hungry and never settle for being comfortable.

Another drilling favorite of ours, the Dink Master Pro, is a reversible board featuring a hard side that mimics hard hands battles & a soft side that mimics the soft game.

Pickleball is pretty easy at the introductory level. It’s fun, lighthearted, and anyone can do it.

But to compete...That’s a different story.

To achieve real pickleball progression, focus on small, incremental improvements over time. Stay committed, drill regularly, and don't shy away from uncomfortable challenges.

It’ll be frustrating, you’ll lose a lot of games, and then one day everything just clicks, I promise.

Frank Hines loves the game of pickleball and sharing that passion with as many people as possible. He found the game over two years ago and hasn't let up since. Follow Frank on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.

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