This episode of Inside Pickleball has lots packed into it. Here's what you'll find this week....
Black Friday Specials are Here
🦊 A Picture is Worth 250 Words PICKLED was Ridiculous -- and That's Ok!
🏝 Join Mark in Turks and Caicos
Great Pickleball Videos
During our recent trip to the USA Pickleball Nationals, we spent a tonne of time shooting video (it's kind of our thing). But we also spent a fair bit of time shooting some still photography too. While we're still learning about lighting and shutter speed, we did find that these still pics gave us a nice chance to point out some interesting elements of technique (and even tactics). Let's look at a few examples.
1 - Start Smart. By standing quite far to the left-hand side of the service court, the player is creating an excellent chance to serve wide and move his opponent off the court (and expose the backhand assuming he's playing against a righty). It's not just about where the ball lands, it's about where it rebounds. Learn more about this here with a baby Mark Renneson.
2 - Forward Impact. Making contact between your body and the net is almost always a good idea; it creates a strong hitting position and makes it more likely you can do what you want with the ball. Learn more about this here (and see an actual baby!).
3 - Laid Back Wrist. Notice that the player creates an angle between his paddle/wrist and forearm. This puts him in a great position to accelerate forward and to great more speed with the paddle. More here.
4 - Off-Side Rotation. It's tough to see but if you look closely you'll notice the player's left hand and arm starting to move backward. He's rotating through this shot (as opposed to just using his arm) and is initiating this movement with his non-hitting side. More here.
Last week my pickleball-heavy social media was inundated with ads and reminders for the upcoming show PICKLED. For those who might have missed it, PICKLED was “TV’s hottest pickleball tournament hosted by Stephen Colbert and features eight celebrity teams competing to benefit Comic Relief.” In the days leading up to the show, people were getting pretty amped up about pickleball being featured during prime time on a major television network. We posted a reminder about the show on our Facebook page and got WAY more shares than we typically do which showed us just how fired up about it people were.
The thing was, while some were really excited about PICKLED, others were pretty angry about it....
