{"id":1182,"date":"2026-10-24T03:20:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T03:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2026-10-24T03:20:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T03:20:33","slug":"5-years-of-coaching-grip-drill-volume-thirds-dink-locations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1182","title":{"rendered":"5 Years of Coaching: Grip, Drill Volume, Thirds &#038; Dink Locations"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"The BEST Pickleball Tips I\u2019ve Learned From 5 Years of Coaching\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aoAVYfoNLZE?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><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p>Pickleball Playbook packs lessons from five years of coaching. Standouts: at the kitchen, pure continental fights topspin \u2014 use a half-bevel between continental and eastern so you can brush over FH and BH; invert the BH wrist (cock the FH slightly) and keep swings concise in front of you.<\/p>\n<p>Drilling beats rec volume (hundreds of drops vs a handful per game). Own the third shot and midcourt reset so you can take the net. Mentally it\u2019s ~80\/20 \u2014 prepare so you don\u2019t fear the big points. Dinks: default crosscourt for margin (lower net \/ more distance); go line to bail out or take time away.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Kitchen grip: half-bevel between continental and eastern for topspin<\/li>\n<li>BH volleys: invert wrist; keep compact, out-front swings<\/li>\n<li>Drill for reps + pressure \u2014 rec games under-train drops\/resets<\/li>\n<li>Dinks: crosscourt default; line to bail or steal time<\/li>\n<li>Mental prep + midcourt reset = you actually arrive at the kitchen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Switch to the half-bevel kitchen grip for one full session of hands battles<\/li>\n<li>Replace one rec game this week with a 30-minute drop + reset drilling block<\/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>Pickleball Playbook packs lessons from five years of coaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730,"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,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[600,562,3,201,200],"tags":[1242,730,457,93,120],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drills","category-fundamentals","category-kitchen","category-mental","category-strategy","tag-coaching-tips","tag-dinks","tag-drilling","tag-grip","tag-pickleball-playbook"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/03-low-dink-at-the-net-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182","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=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}