{"id":1217,"date":"2026-10-29T06:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2026-10-29T06:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T06:37:06","slug":"faster-hands-close-ready-only-move-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1217","title":{"rendered":"Faster Hands: Close Ready, Only Move Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"\u26a1\ufe0fget FASTER hands on the pickleball court\u26a1\ufe0f Access Exclusive Courses and Personalized Pickleball\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0IabEI474P8?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>John Cincola\u2019s favorite fast-hands cue: on normal shots you can take a small backswing, but in a hands battle you\u2019re fighting time.<\/p>\n<p>Stay in a relaxed ready position a little closer to the body and make your only move forward \u2014 out to the ball, not back-then-forward. Eliminating the extra backswing is what buys the reaction window on counters.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Hands battles = no back-then-forward<\/li>\n<li>Closer, relaxed ready position<\/li>\n<li>Only movement: forward out to the ball<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Wall or partner volleys: whisper \u201cforward only\u201d for 60 seconds<\/li>\n<li>Film kitchen exchanges: pause any frame where the paddle goes back first<\/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>John Cincola\u2019s favorite fast-hands cue: on normal shots you can take a small backswing, but in a hands battle you\u2019re fighting time.<\/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,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[598,21,3,381],"tags":[614,504,169,47],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-counters","category-hands","category-kitchen","category-technique","tag-counters","tag-hands","tag-john-cincola","tag-ready-position"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/07-lunging-volley-dark-background-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","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=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/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=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}