{"id":1143,"date":"2026-10-21T01:16:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T01:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2026-10-21T01:16:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T01:16:41","slug":"ready-position-belly-button-height-beats-high-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1143","title":{"rendered":"Ready Position: Belly-Button Height Beats High Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"Why Pros keep a low ready position! #pickleball #pickleballtips\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SgNcKRf7_jE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p>Tanner\u2019s cue: amateurs hold the paddle high and react to everything \u2014 including balls sailing over the fence. Pros keep it around belly-button height.<\/p>\n<p>Only speed-ups near that height are going in, so covering less vertical space makes your hands feel faster. Let the high ones go.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Ready paddle ~belly-button height, not chest\/face<\/li>\n<li>High hold makes you chase outs<\/li>\n<li>Less space to cover \u2192 faster effective hands<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>One kitchen game: if your paddle rises above the sternum in ready, restart the point<\/li>\n<li>Partner lobs outs \u2014 practice not flinching upward<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"tdd-newsletter\">\n<p><strong>Get the 5 best pickleball tips every week<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/subscribe-forms.beehiiv.com\/v3\/loader.js\" data-beehiiv-form=\"0e5f3fe0-e4d3-4036-8d7f-c33b311980b2\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thedropdrive.beehiiv.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe free<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tanner\u2019s cue: amateurs hold the paddle high and react to everything \u2014 including balls sailing over the fence. Pros keep it around belly-button height.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[391,21,3,381],"tags":[1197,504,47,126],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defense","category-hands","category-kitchen","category-technique","tag-belly-button","tag-hands","tag-ready-position","tag-tanner-pickleball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}