Pro player Anna Bright details 5 keys to her success
Anna Bright is the No. 2 women’s player in all of pickleball — a ranking that took several years to achieve and certainly didn’t happen by accident.
In her newsletter this week, Bright detailed the steps she has taken over the past few years that have led to that success, and how amateur players can incorporate her training methods into their own games.
GET ANNA BRIGHT’S CURRENT PADDLE OF CHOICE
Step 1: Drill, drill, drill
“This one is obvious, so I figured I would get it out of the way first,” Bright said. “… If you want to get better and you’ve plateaued, you need to get out there and get dedicated touches. I love drilling and tend to prefer it to games. I wasn’t always like this, and in my first year of playing, I probably drilled less than 10 times. But eventually, it becomes necessary no matter how good you are. If you want to get better, I suggest you start falling in love with the process!”
Step 2: Clean up those loose errors
“One thing that has always characterized me as a tennis and pickleball player is a deep hatred for making loose errors and giving away free, unearned points to my opponent,” Bright said. “… I personally think there’s nothing more disgusting in pickleball than losing a game or MATCH on a missed return. You just can’t do it. Make people earn things.”
“Take note of your errors, especially when they are repeated, and really try to minimize them. Most of you can get SIGNIFICANTLY better by adding NOTHING to your game except a bit more consistency. You would be amazed.”
Step 3: Take your rec games seriously
“I’ve written before about how much Anna Leigh Waters and I are borderline psychotic in rec play, and I think this is one of the things that makes us great,” Bright said. “… Of course, practice is the time to work on things, so there is nuance, but I am pretty much always bringing a very high level of intensity to my rec play.”
“I’m not saying you can’t have fun with your friends, but don’t mess around too much whenever you’re on court. Every shot you hit has the potential to make you better, or make you worse. If you’re lazy, your footwork will get worse, you will build bad habits that may show up in crunch time, and you won’t be holding yourself to a standard you know you are capable of. Be the person that tries hard, always.”
Step 4: Record yourself playing, and watch the film
“This is a cornerstone of improvement and something I bet 99% of you who are wanting to improve are NOT doing enough of,” Bright said. “There is NO SHORTCUT around watching yourself play. If you want to improve quickly, you need to do it. Grab a tripod, set it up, and suffer through watching yourself back.”
“It might be ugly, you might be shocked at how slow you are, at your technique, at your error count, and it’ll definitely be tough to watch at first, but you have to do it if you want to get better. … Notice what you’re not good at, what works on you repeatedly, and what shots you are missing a lot, so you can work on them! A huge thing you should take note of is your footwork, I bet it can be a lot better!”
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Step 5: Study the players around you
“It’s important to not only learn from yourself, but to learn from those around you,” Bright said. “I am always copying what others do or if I see someone hit a stroke a certain way that I like. When I was just learning, I would watch a lot of Anna Leigh and Simone Jardim. I’d watch them hit a shot, go back 10 seconds and watch it again. I did this over and over and over on a bunch of different shots.”
“If you see someone do something you like that you can figure it out, study it, practice it, and eventually, implement it! This is the best way to add new shots to your game.”
Anna Bright’s weekly newsletter — Brighter Pickleball — covers pro tournaments, Bright’s take on relevant news and the occasional tip to help you up your game. Subscribe to the Brighter Pickleball newsletter here and find more Anna Bright content on her YouTube page.
