I am attending the 2nd Folsom Pickleball Camp with Doug Koch the “Pickleball Pimp”. It’s 3 hours of extensive Pickleball drills every day from July 27th – 31th.
Day 1 Dinking & Volleying
We practice defensive dinks and offensive dinks both straight and cross-court. Afterward we had a mini cross-court dink contest. The basic volley drill to improve you reflex was just to keep the ball in the air with a partner. As a former tennis player this it what we alway did to warm-up while waiting for a court. Then Doug setup for court into 9 zone like Tac-Tac-Toe; we had to volley into each zone successfully before going to the next zone.
Day 2 Ground Strokes & Transition Shots
We practice ground stokes, both forehand and backhand, cross-court and down the line. It was very grueling, I stop playing tennis because hitting forehand which use to be my strongest shot is now my weakest shot due to tennis elbow.
The Transition Shot is the shot that allow the serving team to go to the net.
Day 3 Serves and Return
I was a bit late, but someone told me that I won today’s rafael, a FREE private lesson with Coach Doug. We practiced a variety of serves. High soft, high and deep and low and fast. We were going to have a radar gun contest, but due to equipment failure it had to be postponed.
Day 4 Lobs and Overhead
This is probably the most difficult shot in Tennis as well as Pickleball for most beginners. Since I’ve played Tennis for a number of years, I do not have too much trouble with the Overheads. I find the lob a lot harder because compared to Tennis the length of the court is shorter.
Day 5 Doubles Team Tactics
Moving Together, Calling Balls, Poaching Signals
We learned how to move laterally as a team up at the no volley line. The next was “Stacking” position for both serving and receiving team. Basically what Stacking does is to position youself where you are alway playing the same side. It might more advantageous to this if you partner with a lefty – so that you don’t position both left-hands in the middle of the court, therefore the lefty would alway play the Deuce (right) side. After the two drill on position, we had a mini tournament. The first was a dinking tournament and a regular doubles tournament. I played with Duane on the first and Andrea on the later. I think Andrea and I came in 2nd — we lost to the best team there, Michael and Ron.
More photos & video on my Google Photos page.
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