What I Wish I'd Known Sooner About Improving in Pickleball

There's something I've had to figure out mostly by myself: consistency drilling. After hours spent balling on the court, I’ve realized there are three main types of drilling: drilling for shot development, scenario-based drills, and then drilling for shot consistency.

When you first start doing pickleball drills, you'll probably spend most of your time developing new shots. Imagine you just saw Ben Johns pull off his signature backhand roll and you think, “I need that shot in my bag!” So, you hit the court, trying out new grips, messing around with different contact points, and seeing what clicks. Trial and error is the name of the game here. Back in March, when I was up in Florida training with Johnny Shapiro, he taught me the two-handed backhand roll dink. I’d hit some balls, he'd tweak my form, give me pointers, and we'd repeat the process over and over. It was a great drill session, and i walked away from it with a new shot. That's how I've learned most of my shots: try, fail, adjust, repeat. It’s perfect for quickly expanding your skills, especially if you're a beginner or intermediate-level player.

Then there's scenario-based drilling. These drills mimic real game situations so you know what shot to hit in any game scenario. One I do a lot is the "working your way in from baseline" drill. It’s realistic because you start with some drops, move into resets, and eventually get into a dinking rally. Another personal favorite is the defense scramble drill, where two players stand at the kitchen line on one side, and two players are back at the baseline on the other side. The baseline team starts the drill with a low lob and then scrambles to defend against overhead smashes. Drills like these are fantastic because they put your newly learned shots right into game-like action.

But now, as I'm heading into the next stage of my pickleball journey, I’ve realized there's a type of drilling I've mostly ignored: consistency drills. I'd heard about these drills before and immediately thought they sounded painfully boring. You isolate one shot and hit it repeatedly, aiming for zero mistakes. For example, one drill involves hitting 100 forehand-to-forehand dinks with your partner without a single error. If you miss once, you start again from zero. Brutal. At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss these drills. But when you zoom out and see the bigger picture, the importance becomes pretty clear. Picture yourself in a tournament, having spent months practicing flashy shots, only to lose because you couldn't keep the ball in play consistently. All those shots become pointless if you're constantly making unforced errors. You'll be sitting in a timeout, down 2-7 in the third game, kicking yourself for not spending more time mastering the basics, like your 5th-shot reset.

That realization really clicked with me recently. So now my focus is clear: consistency, consistency, consistency.

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