Professional Instructors Added to Learn Page

The Learn page has been updated with a section for Professional Instruction.

We have highlighted one of the highest recommended instructors in the area, Billy McKinney, as well as the team of instructors at Pickleball Charlotte. Check out the Professional Instruction for more details.

Billy McKinney

Clinics, Lessons, Group Training, and Youth Clinics

 

Newsletter - August 21, 2023

Hey Pickleballers,

Take Care of Yourselves

First thing for this newsletter is a PSA: Take Care of Yourselves!

I heard a couple people got injured recently while playing pickleball at the YMCA. There have also been at least 4 pro pickleball players who've had significant injuries in the past month.

Be careful out there because, as the saying goes, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Please watch this video from PimeTime Pickleball to learn 3 key things you can do to drastically minimize injuries and live a long and happy pickleball life.

Recent Blog Posts

Check out the News & Events section of the CatawbaPickleball.club website for these recent posts:

• 3-Minute Warmup Basics
• How to Warm Up and Upgrade Your Strength and Conditioning
• How to Immediately Improve at Pickleball with this Powerful Mindset
• Better Way to Get to the Kitchen

Pro Pickleball Action

Watching pro pickleball is very entertaining and a great way to learn the game. There are so many different styles of play and dynamic personalities, like Tyson McGuffin who was dubbed Most Electrifying Man in Sports by Barstool Sports. The individual disciplines also have different things to offer, like raw athleticism in singles and very fast-passed games in Women's doubles.

More and more events are getting televised on CBS Sports, ESPN, and Amazon Prime Video, but my favorite way to watch is on YouTube. The PPA YouTube channel live streams almost all of the games on the "Championship" (primary) court and "Grandstand" (secondary) court so you can watch games in progress and jump back to previous games. They also put out individual matches as separate videos to watch at your leisure starting a day or two after the event.

> Pro Tip: Use the fast-forward feature of YouTube to quickly get through commercials/timeouts. This feature allows you to go forward 15 seconds by double-tapping the right side of the video. You can also change that setting to go forward 5 or 10 seconds per double-click.

Take Care,

Mike Drum

Better Way to Get to the Kitchen

I Get To The Kitchen Line Way Better Now!! And you can too!

Check out the Pickleball Journey's video to learn how.

Click to watch The Pickleball Journey's video

How to Immediately Improve at Pickleball with this Powerful Mindset

Elevate your pickleball game by shifting your mindset to boost your game! In today's vlog, discover a mindset that will help you improve in pickleball faster and outplaying your opponents on the court. 

Watch That Pickleball Guy's video

How to Warm Up + Upgrade Your Strength and Agility

Below are a list of drills to:

• Get your body warmed up and ready to play
• Improve your agility, strength, and conditioning
• Improve your mobility and flexibility

Why should you warm up your body before playing?

Check out the YouTube videos from the Pickleball Doctor in each section hear from a person with a doctorate from Duke University in Physical Therapy. 

First, Some Important Notes

* Always consult your doctor before starting a new exercise routine, especially if it is a big change from your normal routine.

* Start slow! Being healthy is a marathon, not a sprint!

* Take your time to learn and get comfortable with the movements, build good habits, and slowly increase the intensity.

Warmup Drills

Warmup drills from the Pickleball Doctor

• Jog down and back 2 court widths, 3x

• Jog down forward and backpedal back, 2x

• Hamstring butt kicks, 1x down and back

• High knees, 1x down and back

• Side step shuffle, 2x down and back

• Grapevine shuffle, 2x down and back

• Slow long side steps (monster walks), 1x down and back

• Heel walking to toe walking (walking on just heel, and just toes/ball of foot), 1x down and back

• Hamstring forward kicks, 1x down and back

• Knee pull to dancer pose (pull foot behind you), 1x down and back

• High knee leap/skip

• Lunge with trunk rotations, 1x

• Jog down and back, 2x

• Double leg jump with squat landing, 1x down and jog back

• 1/3 speed change run - slow-fast-slow, 1x down and back

• 1/3 speed change run - fast-slow-fast, 1x down and back

• Forward arm circles - small to big to small

• Backward arm circles - small to big to small

• Wrist rolls - both ways (elbows at sides)

• Wrist rolls - hands clasped - both ways 

• Prayer extensions

• YTWs

• Burpees, 2 sets of 10

Agility Drills

Agility drills from the Pickleball Doctor

Level 1 drills

• Side to side jumps, 2x15

• Single leg hops, 10-15 on each leg

• Easy H (forward and back along center line, side to side in kitchen and base line), 3-5x

Level 2 drills

• “The icky” (step both feet to one side, then both to other side), 2x to fatigue

• Side to side hops (coming to balance), 2x to fatigue

• Forward and backward hops, 2x to fatigue

• Run in place (quick, small steps, on balls of feet), 2x to fatigue 

• Side to side shuffle, 2x to fatigue

• Dynamic squat to jump, 2x to fatigue 

• Dynamic squat to 90° jump, 2x to fatigue

• Dynamic squat to lunge, 2x to fatigue

• T-drill (up center line, left and right on kitchen line, then back on center line), 2x to fatigue

• Single-leg burpee, 2x to fatigue, each side

Strength and Conditioning Drills

Strength and conditioning drills from the Pickleball Doctor 

• Leg clam shell, 3x 20 - each side 

• Bridge to one leg, 3x 15 - both sides 

• Forearm plank, 5x to fatigue

• Spider plank, 3x to fatigue

• Plank push-up, 3x to fatigue

• Side-lying triceps, 3x to fatigue - each side

• Side plank, 5x to fatigue - each side

• Eagle plank, 3x to fatigue - each side

• Bird dog, 3x 15 - each side 

• Single-leg deadlift, 3x to fatigue - each leg

• Slow squat, 3x 15

• Monster walks (resistance bands around ankles), 3x to fatigue

• Shoulder arm-down rotation out (resistance band), 3x to fatigue

• Shoulder arm-out rotate back (band), 3x to fatigue

• Arm horizontal abduction (band), 3x to fatigue 

• Wall circle climbs (band), 3x to fatigue

• Single leg burpee, 3x to fatigue - each leg

Mobility and Flexibility

Check out this Pickleball Doctor video drills to increase mobility and flexibility. 

Round-Robin Tournaments

Round-robin tournaments are a fun way to get tournament experience and useful to understand how you stack up to other players and what you can improve on next. Read below to find out how these events work for the Catawba Pickleball Club.

What to Expect

• You will play 7 or more games over 2 hours, following a game schedule. An example can be found below.
• In each game, you will partner with a different person. This format is called a "mixed round-robin".
• Plan to arrive 20 minutes early so you can get settled, hydrated, and otherwise ready go so we can begin on time.

Before the day of the event

• Create a DUPR account, if you don't already have one, at https://mydupr.com/login. Games results will be logged to DUPR and you will get a rating based on wins, losses, and points scored. 
• [Optional] Create an account in Court Reserve for Pickleball Charlotte, if you do not have one. This is not required, as you can manually sign in when you arrive.

Day of the Event

• Plan to arrive at Pickleball Charlotte - Ballantyne 20 minutes before the start time, e.g. 5:10 PM for a 5:30 start time, so there is time to get settled, hydrated, warmed up, etc.
• Check in at the front desk. The staff will help if you haven't done it before.
• The fee is $10/person, which goes to court rental fees. Cash, Venmo (@Mike-Drum-80), and PayPall (@madrum80) are all good options.

Rules and Game Play

• Games will be played to 11 points, win by 1 (first team to 11 wins).
• A player from each team is responsible for recording the scores after each game. Points-scored is a factor in your DUPR rating, so accuracy matters.
• Each person will partner with a different player over 7+ games.
• All line calls will be made by the team on the side of the potential "out" call.
• Please use the hand signal for "out" (point up with index finger) as it is difficult to hear verbal out calls.
• If there is any doubt a ball is "out", it should be considered "in" and everyone should continue playing until a clear "out" call is made.
• The "out" call must be made promptly after landing out of bounds (i.e. within a second or so).
• If the ball is hit after landing out of bounds, the ball should still be called "out", but be sure to call it promptly.
• Any ball that contacts a player's body before landing out of bounds will result in that player's team losing the rally (i.e. no catching or stopping balls that will go out of bounds).
• Kitchen (non-volley zone) faults are easy to miss, so call these as best you can.
• Each team gets a one-minute timeout per game. There are no planned breaks between games, so take a timeout if needed.

Sample Game Schedules

8-Player Schedule on Two Courts

9-Player Schedule on Two Courts

4-Player Schedule on One Court

5-Player Schedule on One Court

3-Minute Warm Up Basics

Take a few minutes to warm up every time you play Pickleball

Why?

• Every day and every game is different, but you will be most successful by hitting each shot a handful of times before you play.
• This is exactly what the Pros do before every match.
• A warm up is not a drilling session, just a quick run through to get you calibrated for the session.
• Warming up your body is also important to prevent injury, but we do not cover that here.

Get Set

• Two players stand across the net from each other, on the left or right side of the court.
• These two players use one ball to warm up.
• It is MUCH SLOWER for all 4 players to warm up using one ball, so use two balls to keep is short and sweet.
• Two other players will warm up next to you, using another ball.

Get Warm

1. Kitchen Line (~60 sec)
• Start with very easy dinks for about 5 shots each.
• Dink to forehand and backhand.
• Mix in speed-ups as well, for shots that bounce high or balls you can take out of the air. 
• Always expect a speed up, so have your mind and paddle ready.
• Reset speedups so they bounce in kitchen, or attack back.
  
2. Transition zone (~90 sec)
   
• One player (A) stays at kitchen line and returns the ball out of the air, or off a bounce, back to their warm up partner. 
• The other player (B) starts at the kitchen line and hits a dink or reset volley, with goal of getting the ball to bounce in the kitchen. 
• After each shot, player B takes a step back and either hits a drop shot, reset volley, or a drive (hard shot).
• Player A should always be ready for the drive and focus on not popping it up for player B to hit hard out of the air.
• When Player B is back at the baseline, they hit a few drop shots and drives before working their way back to the kitchen, step by step, working on drop shots, reset volleys, and drives, over about 45 sec.
• Player A and B switch roles and repeat the process.
  
3. Baseline (~30 sec)
• Coordinate with other players warming up so everyone is behind the baseline.
• Hit a few serves from the right side. 
• Hit a few serves from the left side.
  

Get Playing

Round-Robin Events Aug. 10 and Aug. 15

We have 2 round-robin tournaments scheduled for August 10th and 15th at Pickleball Charlotte - Ballantyne. As of this post, we have 9 folks confirmed for each event.

Let me know if you are interested in being a reserve for these events or want to hear about future events by emailing CatawbaPickleball@gmail.com or filling out the Signup form on CatawbaPickleball.club/Connect.

Thanks,
Mike Drum

Pickleball Ratings with DUPR™️

Why care about a DUPR rating?

If you are interested in an objective assessment of your Pickleball skill level, DUPR is for you.

This rating tells you where you are compared to other players and can help identify what areas you need to improve on to get better and beat higher level players. It will also help identify tournaments and groups where you can have the most competitive games by playing with other players around your skill level.

If you play Pickleball purely for the fun of it, DUPR isn’t required, but it can help find the most competitive and fun games for you.

What is DUPR?

DUPR is the most accurate rating system in pickleball.

Your DUPR rating is a number between 2.00 and 8.00 that is generated by the DUPR algorithm using your game results, i.e.

• Points won
• Win/Loss
• Type of game (self-posted rec play, league/club play, sanctioned tournament)

Other factors include your teammates and opponents’ ratings and their recent games and opponents.

*See the graphic below for a visual explanation.

How do I get a DUPR rating?

Your games must be posted to DUPR to get a rating. Your rating will update as more games are posted.

Games can be posted to DUPR in 3 ways:

1. Individually
• One of the players in a game will post the game to DUPR, specifying the players and scores.
• Each player must approve the games to make them official and used for your rating.
2. League/Club Games
• Any game played a tournament we hold or even rec play games can be posted through the “Catawba Pickleball Club” setup in DUPR.
• The club director will post the games to DUPR.
• Tournament results will be used to post games.
• Rec play game results can be emailed to CatawbaPickleball@gmail.com and will be posted to DUPR.
• Players do not need to approve each game.
• Your rating is affected more by league/club games than individually posted games.
3. Sanctioned tournament
• The tournament staff will post the games to DUPR.
• Players do not approve games.
• Your rating is affected more by sanctioned tournaments than options 1 and 2.

How do I get a rating without DUPR?

You can do a self-assessment using the USAPA skill rating definitions. You can also get a certified pickleball instructor to give you a rating. An instructor would use the same USAPA skill rating definitions, but they are more objective than most folks are about their own skill level.

F.A.Q.

• Does “DUPR” stand for something?
• “DUPR” is an acronym for “Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating”
• Does my DUPR rating equate to ratings given by a certified instructor based on proficiency of individual skills (or self-assessment)?
• The numbers will likely be close but the skill-based rating is subjective and may be based on only a few minutes of actual observation. It should be considered more of a “in the ballpark” assessment and be used to identify the skills you need to work on to beat better players.
• The DUPR rating is objective and unbiased. If you beat higher ranked players, your rating goes up. If you lose to lower ranked players, your rating goes down. If you want to improve your rating, it is up to you to find ways to win.
• The individual skills do not play a direct role in your DUPR rating. Instead, the balance of your strengths and weaknesses against your opponents’ leads to a win or loss, e.g. Player A’s ability to aim at Player B’s weak backhand should result in a win for Player A, regardless of Player B’s strengths.
• Should I use my DUPR rating when entering tournaments?
• Yes.
• DUPR is the most accurate rating because it’s based on your actual game play and is updated regularly by posting games.
• Does everyone need a DUPR account to get a rating and have a game posted?
• Yes.
• I can post games for people who have not created a DUPR account yet, but players will need to complete their account setup before the game can be official.
• Create your account at https://mydupr.com. It does not take long and only requires your email address and setting a password.
• Is there a visual explanation of how DUPR works?
• Yes. See graphic below.