Tuesday, June 20, 2017 (Court Day #36)

Today was the first day of Jerry Louis’ pickleball class offered through the City of Santa Cruz. Class began at 8:30 a.m. In spite of me trying to be early, I got there about 2 minutes late. My classmates (Derby regulars) were there doing dinking warmups. There were 8 of us: John P., Eric, his friend Ted, Me, Maree, Cathy, Kim and a woman I probably have met but don’t really know. It was evenly split between men and women.

I guess I’ll share now what Eric very thoughtfully emailed me one week ago the evening after the first class:

Hi Andrew, 

I can’t remember when you get back in town, but happy to catch you up on what we did – mostly drills on the points below – preferably on the court.
 
Serves
– we drilled for high and deep serves, but suggestion is to have a few options – Jerry has 12.
– also practiced our pre-serve “routine” – in addition to whatever you want to do in the LONG 10 seconds you are allowed after the score is called, Jerry suggests deciding where you are going to serve and which style. Look at the spot, then do whatever else you do to prep, then keep your eye ON THE BALL as you hit it, not on the target. I resisted this idea, but eventually came to appreciate that it can work. 
 
Return of serve
– High and deep so that you can be at the NVL with your partner BEFORE the ball bounces (or at least before whomever you returned it to has a chance to hit it) That way you are at the line ready for whatever comes your way (except for Ted’s lob).
 
Third Shot Drop
lots of opportunities to try to get better at this. Super important, not much to say. Do it, do it right.
 
Dinking
lots of emphasis on moving AS A PAIR. Don’t get lazy. Dinkers are looking for holes that get created as you move opponents around and then exploit them. I’ll show you what this should look like – lots of footwork.
 
That’s pretty much it. We had drills that took us through these shots, then managed to squeeze in about half a “regular” game while Jerry watched and pointed out errors.
 
LOTS of little pointers along the way but hard to capture these here’s a cryptic list
• Jerry often runs up to take a short ball on with a stiff angled paddle just after it hits the ground – his running legs to all the work. Arms are static.
• Don’t run around a ball to return a serve with your forehand – PARTICULARLY if your teammate is to your left since you will be out of position AND blocking your teammate from helping.
• When dinking, don’t hit to the same spot more than twice in a row, mix it up.
 
e

 

Self-Evaluation

Back on Sunday, June 4, Jerry handed us a folder. In the folder were a number of articles to read as well as a photocopied form Skill Assessment for 3.5 Players (I some sleuthing using Google and found the original PDF online.) It was interesting. Each question is answered on a scale of 0 (crappy) to 3 (solid). I found some questions hard to answer, such as “Uses a forehand and backhand lob when appropriate”—I think so, but sometimes they are just poorly executed and get slammed back. I tried to be honest on the form and ended up with a mix of 2s (need work) and 3s with a couple of 1s. (My third shot drops are not consistent enough at this point, for instance.) Anyway, I handed the form to Jerry when I arrived and he provided another handout to read.

Warmups

Jerry talked about warming up and that tournament will only give you 2-5 minutes. We did some dinking and some diagonal serves to our own partners, asking the other team if we could switch so we could serve to the other service court. He mentioned not showing anything fancy and giving anything away in warmups.

Heading for a Fall

During a break, John and I played a few points of a singles game just to mess around. The problem is, I don’t have much of a “medium intensity” gear. John sent a shot off to the left and I went after it—hard. But I couldn’t quite get to it and lost my balance at the effort. Instinctively, I turned the fall into a roll. My cap and sunglasses (on my cap at the time) were strewn about. No blood, but I have a sore 2″-long light scrape on my forearm, and a sore left palm. I was back on my feet immediately and assured my classmates that I was fine.

Drills

Jerry had us doing a variety of different drills. Some of the best ones—eye opening—was the drill of serving into the last 4 feet of the court and returning into the last 4 feet of the court. I was quite surprised how many of my serves that I thought were landing deep were, in fact, falling short! Good to know!

I have to admit, I do have a really good cross-court backhand dink. Jerry even stopped to tell Ted during a dinking drill game, “You probably want to dink to his forehand, he [Andrew] is pushing you out of position.” A positive reinforcement!

Wake Up Call

I thought Eric and I were doing pretty well today . . . beating John and Ted fairly easily . . . until we played Kim and Cathy to 5 and got our butts kicked 5-1. (Or maybe my butt kicked; Eric said, “Boy, they sure were picking on YOU!”)

Lunch

Eric, Ted and I headed to the standard Mexican restaurant after class. Ted ordered a burger. Eric and I went for more traditional fare. I mentioned an upcoming tournament to Eric, the Golden State Games held up in the Bay Area in mid-August. Eric didn’t bite. He has more sense than I do. I later emailed John about it to see if he was interested in joining me in trying out 3.0, but he was reserved: “My first tournament experience told me that I should be much better before I play my second tournament. Also note that it’s pretty hot in Concord in August.” Yeah. After the game with Kim, I’ll probably need more than two months to make a more respectable showing at a tournament.

Number of days on a court: 36
Number of total hours: 103.5