Tuesday, July 11, 2017 (Court Day #43)
Today, we had a our make-up class from Jerry Louis. I arrived at Derby Park promptly at 8:30 a.m. to find John P., Eric, Dave A. and Jerry all warming up with dinking.
John P., instructor Jerry Louis, Eric, and Dave Allenbaugh (left to right)
We practiced deep serves, then deep serves with deep returns, then deep serves with deep returns followed by approaching the net wisely and the use of the 3rd shot drop.
Jerry then moved into a dinking drill. Since we weren’t allowed to do any drives, it was an exercise in focus and patience. (Yes, I did hit it into the net a few times!)
Next we did stacking. This was covered in the last class that I went to, so it wasn’t new, but I have to admit, it’s surprisingly easy to get messed up! John and I were partnered as a team with him on the left and me on the right. As it was, we managed to serve to the same side twice. What was comical was that Eric and Dave were lined up with the wrong person receiving but that was moot since once I served from the wrong position, the point was over.
Oh, one great moment. Eric was lined up to return in his right service court opposite my serving position serving right to left. Dave was stacking and was lined up outside the court at the net with his feet almost touching the sideline. Jerry stopped them and started explaining why Dave didn’t want to be there. I knew why since he’d explained it last time. The problem is sometimes the returner has to run up and hit a short serve at that corner and his partner would be in the way (where Dave was standing). Without being prompted, to illustrate the point, I dropped my serve precisely in the corner between where Jerry was explaining and Dave was standing—about 10″ in diagonally from the corner. Jerry chuckled, “That was PERFECT! That’s exactly why. Of course, that is a LOW PERCENTAGE SERVE…” I got the message. Yes, it’s a high risk serve. But it sure felt good! Ha ha ha!
We wrapped up the session at 10:45 a.m. and helped Jerry take his net and ball buckets to his car. Being that it was still pretty early, us four pupils opted to head to the new courts at Brommer to play some real games.
First Visit to Brommer
Boy. The Brommer courts are nice! It would be easy to get spoiled with those courts! There are four permanent courts as you walk in and four additional pickleball courts that are striped but would require portable nets since they share space with a permanent tennis court.
I followed Eric from Derby to Brommer and Dave arrived a few minutes later just after 11 a.m. Just as we were getting worried that John P. might have gone to Willowbrook or somewhere, he arrived in his white minivan.
We rotated players, so we were all partnered with each other at some stage during the session. There were cool breezes, which felt great in the warm sun, but wreaked havoc on lobs and arcing serves or returns.
We finished our last game at 12:45 p.m. I said my goodbyes, hopped in the car and got almost 10 minutes away before I realized I’d left my camera hooked to the fence. *grumble* It was still there when I got back to the park. There were a couple of fellas shooting hoops with a basketball on the courts. (It’s a very multipurpose facility!)
I’ll try to get some video posted.
I have to say, third shot drops are very, very effective when done correctly. I recall one in particular that I hit toward John. I noticed quite clearly that as the ball dropped over, he rotated his paddle from “drive it back” position to “dink it up and back over” position. I’m making progress on using those. I still need to use them more and get better at executing them, but progress! Am I taking my game to the next level? John did offer a compliment out of the blue, “Andrew, you’ve come a long way.”
I’m conducting an interview tomorrow morning at work, so no pickleball for me then. And Thursday night is busy. Maybe Friday morning—it’ll be my birthday after all!
Number of days on a court: 43
Number of total hours: 123.5
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