Pickleball Basics

[Music][Music]hii'm lisa palsic and this is michaelmagnini we're coming to you frompickleball zone in bend oregonand the oregon pickleball academy we'reteaching professionals hereand we regularly teach an introductionto pickleball class howeverwe know that with the current pandemicgoing on we're doing some onlinelearningfor lots of things so the deschutescounty public libraryasked us to film an online intro topickleball classfor you so michael and i are going totake you throughour intro to pickleball session as wenormally would when we teach it everyweek here at the zoneso first few things we're going to talkabout is equipment for pickleballonce you're ready to get out and startplaying you're going to use obviously apickleball paddle they come in all sortsof shapes and sizesand when you get ready to play and youcome on into pickleball zone we've gotdemos that you can try out so that youcan find the paddle that is right foryouokay so when you go out to playpickleball it's important that youchoose the right equipment sothere are different styles ofpickleballs based off of the type ofcourt surface that you're playing onif you're playing on a hard courtsurface which is just like a tenniscourt surfaceyou're going to use a ball called anoutdoor ballwhy they call it an outdoor ball isbecause if you see thesize of the holes in these three pickleballs you'll notice that they're alittle bit smaller than the ball thatmichael's holdingthe reason for the smaller holes is thatwhen you play outdoors you want to cutdown on the wind resistance on the ballthis particular ball we refer to as anindoor ball however that can be slightlymisleadingthis type of ball with the large holesin it is only meant to be used if you'replaying ona wood surface or more of amulti-surfacemore like a plastic gym style floor soif you're playing on that plastic stylefloor or a wood flooryou're going to use this ball that hasthe larger holes because it is going tobounce up a little bit higher and bebetter for that particular playingsurfacethe other thing that we mention at thestart of every classis equipment we talk about the types ofpedals that you can play withhowever we also talk about theimportance of wearinga court shoe a court shoe is a shoe thatis going to work on the type of surfacethat we're playing onit's a tennis shoe or a pickleball shoeit's basically the same thingwith a nice hard rubber sole on thebottom that will not allow your foot torollwhen you're moving from side to sideit's not ideal to wear a running shoeor any other soft soled shoe as thecourt surface is like sandpaper and yourfoot can stickand you can end up hurting yourself sowe always like to mentionwearing court shoes when you playpickleball okay so a few importantthings about ready positionhow to hold the paddle and grip pressurescale for pickleballnumber one when we're in our readyposition the most important thing tokeep in mindis that you always want this top tip ofyour paddle pointing in anupward direction that means that i'mstarting out on offenseand in a neutral position that way i'mreally quick to get to any shot that ineed tojust like this now the grip pressurescale in pickleballis a scale that goes from one to ten onebeing a very soft grip where i wouldalmost loosen my fingers and let go ofthe paddlea 10 being such a tight grip that icould probablynot squeeze any tighter when to usewhat number on that grip scale anythingsoftyou're going to keep that grip about afive or less for any of your dink shotsyour drop shots or any of your blocksthat you're trying to dropsoft for anything that you're trying tohit that ball hardyou're gonna squeeze six to a ten onthat grip pressure scalehelping to give you a little extra poweron those shotsthat you're trying to win the point withthe basic way to holda pickleball paddle has two variationsnumber onewe're going to hold this paddle as if weare giving ita handshake the v of our hand right hereis going to be lined up right in linewith the edge of our paddlenow the second variation to this grip iscalled av-grip in pickleball what that means isi'm simply going to take my pointerfingerand i'm going to put it up on the backof the paddle making a vbetween my fingers still holding in thatsamehandshake position both grips have theirpositives so pick the one that feelsright to youokay so now michael and i are going totake you through the basic rules ofpickleballnow keep in mind that the rules inpickleball were made for one of tworeasonsone if something is simply too easy towin a pointthey made a rule that would make it alittle bit harder so that the pointscould last a little bit longeror if one team has an unfair advantageover theother team they've made a rule that willhelp to takea little bit of that advantage away fromthat teamso now we're going to take you througheach of those rules and show them to youas wellso the first one that we're going totalk about isabout this area right here we aspickleball players refer to this areaas the kitchen however that is itsnicknamewhat this area is really called if youwere to look it up in the rulebook istheno volley zone now what is a volley inpickleballanything that we've hit out of the airsowith this rule you can never beat insidethe kitchenand hit a ball out of the air because itwould simply be tooeasy for you to win the point michaelcan you demonstrate thatso if we were allowed to stand in thekitchen and hit that ball out of the airit would simply be too easyso anytime you are hitting a ball out ofthe airyou must remain behind the no volleyzone lineor as we call it the kitchen line somichael will now demonstratehitting a volley and staying behindthe linehe maintains his balance so that he doesnot fall in the kitchenbecause the other part to our kitchenrule is if michael strikes the ball outof the airand his momentum based off of that shotbrings him into the kitchen theyconsider that the same thingas being in the kitchen and hitting itout of the air so we're going todemonstrate what not to dookay so just a reminder anytime you wantto hit a ball out of the air inpickleballit's okay as long as you remain outsidethe kitchen lineand you regain your balance right afterthat shotokay now we're going to talk about whenit's okay to go into the kitchenanytime your opponent has hit a ball toyou thatis a ball that's going to bounce in thekitchenit's totally okay to go in the kitchenand play that ballmichael and i will demonstrate thatright nowso as you can see as we were playingthat pointwe were able to step in the kitchenbecause every one of the balls that wehitwe allowed to bounce before we hit thatballnow keep in mind the kitchen itself isnot illegalso if someone hits you a ball that'sgoing to landa little bit shorter in the kitchen youcan stepinto the kitchen ahead of time before itbouncesjust make sure it does bounce before youhit it i'll demonstrate that nowokay so just as a reminder anytime youwant to hit a ball out of the airyou can do so but you must remain behindthe kitchen line anytime you'd like togo in the kitchen to hit a ballit's okay but that ball must bouncebefore you hit itand if you do hit a ball out of the airnot step in the kitchen as afollow-throughyou must hit that shot and regain yourbalancebefore you're able to step in thatkitchen for that next bouncing ballokay i'm going to demonstrate a groundstroke style serve for you todaywhy we refer to it as a ground strokestyle serve is because it resemblesour return of servenow i'm going to start so that my feetare in a diagonal positionas if i had already taken a step towardsthat balla way that i can check my feet and makesure that they're properin this serve is by simply taking mypaddleputting it down with my feet and makingit point to my targetif it's pointing directly at my target iknow that my feet are lined upproperly now i want to make sure withinthe serving rulesthat my ball is always below my waist orbelow my belly button when i startand that my paddle tip is startingbeneath the balli'm gonna have a nice tight grip withthis one i'm gonna hang onto this ballpull the paddle back simply let go as mypaddle is coming forwardand finish by following throughokay now michael will demonstrate foryou a front of the body style serveall right this serve is called thestraight ahead front of body type ofserve now the way it works isyou will stand and point your toes atyour target which is the middle of thatleft rectangle on the side that side ofthe courtand you will look at your target whichis the middlethen put the ball below your waistslightly in front of youand then watch the ball in the paddlearc the paddle backswing from the ball and fall throughokay feed straight at your targetlook at the target ball and paddle belowyour waistswing back strike the ball and followthroughokay so one more rule that applies forthe serving teamis called the two bounce rule what thetwo bounce ruleis is that when i serve the ballto the other side that's consideredbounce number onethe person returning serve on the otherside must let the ball bounce beforethey hit itthen when they return the ball to ourside of the courtwe have to let the return of servebounce bounce number twobefore we are able to hit it so at thevery start of the gameif our team is serving we are both goingto be startingfrom behind this baseline because afterwe servewe're going to stay in our readyposition back here waiting for thereturn of serve to come overand bounce before we strike that nextballand remember what we talked about withthe rules if something is really easyespecially when it's for the servingteam they've taken that shot away fromusso there is no serving running inand volleying in pickleball it wouldsimply be too easy to win the pointif you were allowed to do that okaynow it's time to talk about scorekeepingwhen you're saying the scoreout loud you're going to say threenumbersyou're going to say your score firstyour opponent score nextand then you're going to say whichnumber server are you are you the firstperson to serve this termor are you the second person to servethis turnso before i serve each ball it's myresponsibility to call out the scoreif i am on the right side of the courtwhen the side out has happenedand my team is now ready to servewhoever is standingon the right side of the court willbecome the first serverfor this term zero zerooneokay now if we winthat initial point we are going toswitch and i get to serve againnow i'm going to call the score 1 zeroone because i remain the first server ofthis pointone zero onenow if we lose this point michael and iare going to stayjust as we are in this position andmichael is going to be the next serveri'm done serving because we did not winthe pointso now michael is going to call thescorenow that lisa has finished her serve itis my turn to serveand i would call the score out as onezeroand i'm the second server on the team[Music]just to recap when you say the scoreyou're going to say three numbersyour score your opponent's score andwhat number server you areare you the first person to serve theturn or are you the second person toserve the turnand remember that number doesn't staywith you throughout the entire gameit's based off of who is standing on theright side of the courtwhen the side out comes back to you forservingokay so we've already talked about scorekeeping but now we're going to addresswhat happens at the very start of thegameso if michael and i are the team that'sgoing to be the firstteam to serve we're at a bit of anadvantageover our opponents so when we call thescoreinstead of referring to myself as thefirst serveri'm going to refer to myself as thesecond serverthe reason for that is because we're atan advantagethat we get to score points before theother teamthey're going to take away one of ourservers just for this very first turnso just remember at the very start ofthe game when you are inthis position and you call the scoreyou're going to sayzero zero two you're referring toyourself as the second serverbecause as soon as you are done servingit's a side out going to your opponentszero zero two[Music][Music]thanks for watching the introduction topickleball class with michael and i heretodaywe'd love to have you come on out andsee us here at pickleball zonewe offer all sorts of private lessonsclinicscamps and so much more come on out andsee us[Music]you