Health, Fitness, News & Fun for Picklers of All Ages

What's Cooking in the Kitchen This Week:

• Shot Selection Mistakes Smart Players Still Make

• Why Your Hips Feel Tight After Pickleball

• DRILL OF THE WEEK: The Dink Patience Drill

• Fitness Expert Glenn Dawson: Fix Collapsing Ankles and Flat Feet with Towel Scrunches

• What Are the Pickleball Yips and How Do You Beat Them?

• GEAR REVIEW: Friday Aura Pro Pickleball Paddle

• The Best PPA Players One Medal Club

• 88-Year-Old Westborough Pickleball Coach Is Trailblazer For Women's Sports

• HUMOR: When My Life Is In Shambles But I’m Playing Pickleball

• The 13-Year-Old Girl Traversing the Globe For a Pickleball Paycheck

• Coach Mary: “Tall Person Syndrome”: Bad Habits Killing Your Game

🥷SKILLS

Fix Your Footwork,
Improve Your Whole Game

Better pickleball players usually know which shots are available to them. They can drop, drive, reset, dink, roll, speed up, lob, and counter. Having all those options is an advantage, but it can also create a different problem: choosing the right shot at the wrong time.

Shot selection mistakes become less obvious as players improve. The problem is rarely attempting a shot they cannot hit. More often, it is choosing a perfectly reasonable shot that does not fit the ball, the court position, or what is happening in the rally.

That distinction matters. Improving shot selection is not about becoming more conservative. It is about recognizing which option gives you the best chance to improve your position or create a better next ball.

Attacking a Ball Because You Can

As players develop better hands and more confidence, they discover they can attack balls they once would have dinked. That does not mean all of those balls should be attacked.

A ball slightly below net height may still be rollable. A dink sitting a little farther from the body may still be reachable for a speedup. The question is not whether the shot can be executed. The better question is what is likely to happen afterward.

💪 Health & Fitness Section

Why Your Hips Feel
Tight After Pickleball

Your hips may feel fine through two hours of pickleball, then tighten up on the drive home or when you stand later that evening. The reason may have less to do with flexibility than with what your hips were doing on court, and what happens to them once play stops. Pasted text

See what can cause that post-pickleball tightness and what may help your hips feel better afterward.

🥷 Drill of the Week:

The Dink Patience Drill

The Dink Patience Drill puts one frustrating habit under pressure: speeding up a ball simply because you’re tired of dinking. Players have to stay in the rally long enough for impatience to kick in, then decide whether the next ball actually deserves an attack. Pasted text

Try the drill to learn how to wait for better attack opportunities instead of forcing one just to end the dink rally.

 🏋️ STAYING FIT with
GLENN & BRIANNA

Fix Collapsing Ankles &
Flat Feet With Towel Scrunches

♟️ STRATEGY

What Are The ‘Yips” &
How Do You Beat Them

A serve you’ve hit thousands of times can suddenly feel completely foreign. The pickleball yips can turn an automatic stroke into one you’re consciously trying to control, and the harder you work at fixing it, the more stubborn it can become.

See what causes the yips and the counterintuitive ways players can work their way out of them.

⚙️ GEAR REVIEWS
Friday Aura Pro Paddle Review

NEW FROM PICKLER JUNCTION: The Pickler Junction Team’s reviews go above and beyond a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. They pull together independent testing, verified buyer feedback, community opinions, and objective performance data to show where the Friday Aura Pro Paddle shines, and where it may not be the right fit, depending on how you play. Note: Review will list MSRP, link will show sale price if available.

Shopping for new pickleball gear? Reply here and we’ll tell The PJ Team what to review next!

🏓 PRO NEWS

The Best PPA Players
In the One Medal Club

More than 1,100 gold medals have been awarded across the PPA’s domestic history, yet only 63 players have ever won one. Dig a little deeper into the medal tracker and some surprisingly accomplished pros turn up with just a single gold, or none at all.

See which familiar names make the PPA’s one-gold club and which longtime contenders are still chasing their first.

👏 COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

88-Year-Old Westborough
Pickleball Coach Is a Trailblazer
For Women’s Sports

At 88, Carol Bishop is still organizing pickleball games three mornings a week in Westborough. It’s the latest chapter in an athletic life that began when girls had few opportunities to compete, and Bishop refused to accept that as the answer.

See how Bishop spent decades breaking barriers in sports before becoming the driving force behind a thriving pickleball community.

👏 COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

The 13-Year-Old Girl Traversing
The World For A Pickleball Paycheck

At 13, Elsie Hendershot is juggling middle school with a professional pickleball career that has her traveling around the world. One trip alone sent her from Utah to Vietnam, back to Japan over a visa problem, then right back to Hanoi with barely enough time to sleep before competing. Pasted text

See what life is really like for one of pro pickleball’s youngest rising talents, and what her family is sacrificing to make it work.

🤣 HUMOR

RALLY RUNDOWN:
LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS

PACIFIC PALISADES, CA: Palisades Recreation Center Groundbreaking Marks New Phase In Wildfire Recovery
NEWNAN, GA: Heritage Students Turn Pickleball Tournament Into Service Project
ENOLA, PA: Local Pickleball Club Sets New Record For Longest Match In Support Of Veterans Nonprofit
ANCHORAGE, AK: How Pickleball Helped Anchorage's Tagiilima Unga Find Love And Reach The World Stage
CHANTILLY, VA: Northern Virginia Teens Turn Pickleball Into A Force For Good
LAVALLETTE, NJ: Lavallette Pickleball Fight: Fake Tickets, Locked Courts And A Mooning
KOHLER, WI: New Kohler Facility Brings Indoor Pickleball And An Olympian
CHANNAHON, IL: Silver Cross Nurse Helps Save Friend's Life On Pickleball Court


DO YOU HAVE LOCAL NEWS TO SHARE? REACH OUT TO US AT
[email protected] and send us a link to your story!

  💪 “Tall Person Syndrome”:
Bad Habits Killing Your Game

“Tall Person Syndrome”:  Bad Habits Killing Your Game

Jill Braverman brings us some specific skills that tall players need to improve in their games.  Check out this great video.

Jill talks about players who are above 5”8” for women, and over 6” for men.  This is about 15 percent of players.

I have quite a few tall students who are not very mobile, and this article is for you!

Jill and tall partner Michael cover the following bad habits of tall players:

1.    Lunging

2.   Lack of footwork

3.   Jumping for Overheads

4.   Breaking Your Posture

Note:  Jill’s videos are quite funny and entertaining but also spot on with how to improve.

Lunging and Lack of Footwork: 

·     Jill stresses that when a tall person can take one step, they should take two smaller steps.  Also, they need to get low as they contact the ball, but then they can rest, stand up, and get ready again.  Michael says that he feels quicker with the small steps.

·     Do not just track the ball with your paddle!  Track with your feet, knees and head.  If your head is lower, you create more speed up opportunities.

·     So, quicker faster steps, rather than one long lunge.  When Michael contacted the ball outside of his knee, rather than in front of him, he knew he was lunging.

Jumping for Overheads:

·     The key word here is to Shuffle.  Turn sideways when you see the lob go up!  Moving backwards and jumping is not effective, and it is also dangerous.  Do not stay square to the net.

·     Use your shuffle footwork, and let the ball come to you, rather than reaching.  Quicker first reaction step.

·     Good drill:  Trophy Drill!  Check out the video.  Point the off arm up high, and paddle is “scratching your back.”

·     Good hint:  Do not let overheads bounce if you can help it.  Take it out of the air!

Hitting Out Balls:

·     When you stand up tall on your back foot, you will hit every ball.  If you get low, when your opponent contacts the ball, you will be ready, and you will let out balls go.  Moving up and down is critical for tall players, giving your legs time to rest in between.

·     Keep your paddle out in front and take advantage of your reach!

Breaking Your Posture:

·     Stability is King.  Paddle in front.  

·     Hips and butt are back.

·     Chin is out in front.

·     Do not let the ball come into your body.

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