{"id":1305,"date":"2026-11-06T11:42:28","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T11:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1305"},"modified":"2026-11-06T11:42:28","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T11:42:28","slug":"laser-pointer-ready-position-point-at-their-ball-shade-slightly-to-bh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/?p=1305","title":{"rendered":"Laser Pointer Ready Position: Point at Their Ball (Shade Slightly to BH)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"Laser Pointer Theory #pickleball\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Em5rTlPdCqs?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>Shea Underwood\u2019s laser-pointer theory: when the ball is on the opponent\u2019s side, point the paddle face at it so you\u2019re already tracking. A relaxed paddle at your hip forces a big late lift on high balls and causes pop-ups.<\/p>\n<p>Shea shades the laser slightly to the backhand side of the ball because the BH covers more body; the FH can still recover with one move. Don\u2019t swivel the laser once the ball is on your side.<\/p>\n<h2>Key takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Point the paddle at their ball while it\u2019s on their side<\/li>\n<li>Dead hip paddle = late lift and pop-ups<\/li>\n<li>Shade slightly to the backhand cover<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Action items<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Kitchen shadow: track a partner\u2019s hand with your paddle face for 2 minutes<\/li>\n<li>Play one game where any counter from a dead tip doesn\u2019t count<\/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>Shea Underwood\u2019s laser-pointer theory: when the ball is on the opponent\u2019s side, point the paddle face at it so you\u2019re already tracking. A relaxed paddle at your hip forces a big late lift on high balls and causes pop-ups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737,"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":[21,3,567],"tags":[61,1361,47,246],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hands","category-kitchen","category-ready-position","tag-kitchen","tag-laser-pointer","tag-ready-position","tag-shea-underwood"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/09-ready-position-closeup-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305","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=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedropdrive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}