​Last week, I met with Jim Harris, president of the pickleball club in the active adult resort known as Trilogy at Vistancia. Located northwest of Phoenix, Arizona, it is a beautiful community that is still growing.

A few years ago, resident Mike Pagliarulo and a group of pickleball enthusiasts were playing on taped, temporary courts. After much work, they succeeded in convincing the community HOA and the builder, Shea Homes, to build four new pickleball courts which became a reality in December of 2013.

The adage, “if you build it, they will come,” is true in Vistancia. Suddenly the new courts were full of players, and the club continued to grow.   Read more at Pickleball Tips.

First, welcome to my new subscribers (and welcome back to those of you who've been here for a while). I wanted to alert those of you interested in pickleball to the tips I keep adding to another blog on this site, located beneath the "Pickleball" menu (called "Pickleball Tips" - who'd have guessed? :-)  )  

Today I added another post that is not so much a tip as a call for your thoughts about how topspin is generated when making a shot. I'd be curious to know what you think -- so please leave comments. 

You can also view other tips from previous weeks and months there. Hopefully you'll find something that helps your game.

Through an author friend of mine, I made the acquaintance of Mike Pagliarulo, who is a pickleball star. We haven't met in person, but we talked on the phone, and he was gracious enough to share the story with me. I think he's a star, not because he took the gold at a recent tournament (although he has tournament medals to his credit), but because he was the guiding light and driving force behind bringing pickleball to the Trilogy at Vistancia development in Peoria, AZ. 

When Mike moved to Arizona in 2008, he enjoyed playing tennis, but he was sidelined for many weeks with an Achilles tendon injury. After healing and later injuring his tendon again, a friend suggested he try pickleball when he was well. Mike was skeptical, but he agreed to try it. He visited his friend at Pebble Creek in Goodyear, AZ, and they headed to the courts. Like so many of us, Mike says, “As soon as I picked up the paddle, I was hooked.”

Mike began to plan a way to get pickleball at Vistancia. It began as most start-up pickleball endeavors do: he chalked lines on a basketball court that didn’t see much use, obtained a portable net through the USAPA’s Grant Program, and began recruiting players. Soon there were ten to sixteen regulars who played at least once a week.

Mike approached the HOA Board and asked for approval to paint semi-permanent lines on the basketball court. The HOA was receptive, and the pickleball players now had a place to play, as long as they shared it with the basketball players.

Earlier this year, my doctor advised me to try yoga to alleviate some joint aches and muscle pains. It wasn't the first time someone suggested it, and I'd even tried it a couple of times without success. But I decided to go to a local yoga class again and see how it went.

I learned that there are many types of yoga, and I'd probably tried to do things in the past that were too difficult or that weren't suited to my ability. This class was hard, but I could feel the benefit of the stretches and poses for the first time. I signed up for more.

I soon discovered that my body responded more favorably on the pickleball court, too. The changes were subtle but real: my "bad" knee didn't hurt as much anymore; my shoulder pain was gone. My breathing capacity increased, and I generally felt much healthier while I played. I think I was becoming faster, too, although I can't say that was the result of yoga, but perhaps. 

One of the most interesting things I discovered recently was when my partner and I were being beaten badly. I lost my focus and found myself concentrating on everything I was doing incorrectly. I sighed and, without thinking about it, started deep breathing, as if I were doing yoga, trying to relax. I made a good hit and we won a point. As I walked to the other side of the court to serve, I took another deep breath and let it out slowly, concentrating only on the breath and relaxation. We won another point. 

We came back in that game and won, and I'm convinced that breathing and relaxation made the difference. I do this routinely now, and my play seems better for it.

Breathing -- deep and regular breaths -- are a core part of yoga. Many types of breathing are done, but the Do Yoga With Me website shows a few you can try. I recommend the Upper Chest, Mid-Chest, and Abdominal breaths individually first, followed by combined breathing techniques. Of course, you can't do these on the court, but I never really knew what a deep breath was before learning to breathe this way, and I find it has made a difference in my stamina during a game. Perhaps it will for you, too.

When I decided to write this post, I did an internet search for "pickleball yoga." I found only one relevant entry: a blog post on Pickleball Central's site about yoga poses and their benefit for pickleball. I then searched for "yoga tennis" and discovered other posts listing the same poses and their benefits for tennis players. 

Here's what Pickleball Central has to say: "Pickleball may be relatively low impact, but as a sport with repetitive movements, it still puts strain on the body that can lead to injuries. Unlike a lot of sports, pickleball demands more from a player’s dominant side – their paddle hand side – resulting in repetitive misalignment that can put uneven wear and tear on that side of the body. Here are some pickleball specific yoga poses that can help strengthen arms, backs, and shoulders, even out hips, and lengthen both sides of the body evenly helping to avoid injury, recover from the strain of court time more quickly, and make your game more powerful."

Take a look at the poses on the Pickleball Central blog post and give them a try. As with all things, start out slowly and build up as your body can tolerate the positions more easily. 

Most points in pickleball are not won by hard hitting or making fancy shots. In fact, points are not won nearly as often as they are lost.

Think about it: how many times have you won a rally with a put-away shot or a great sideline drive? Now think about how many times you’ve lost points by putting the ball into the net or out of bounds or the times the ball got by you? We remember and love those glory shots, but they're few. Pickleball requires that one side miss a shot in order for the other side to score. To win points, you need to concentrate on not missing shots, not on making the great shot that will win the point. Keep the ball in play and you will win more often.

When I make winning shots, they're most often what I call “changeups.’ In baseball, a changeup pitch is usually slower than previous pitches and it throws the batter off the rhythm of a hit. Examples of changeups in pickleball are when you deliver a dink instead of returning a hard drive or when you break out of dinking with a hard, fast shot. Such shots break the rhythm of your opponent’s expectation and can catch them unprepared. It’s something to practice on the receiving end, too, because the more you can learn to deal with these changeups, the better your game will be.

The soft game can win many rallies. This is because many players don’t spend nearly as much time working on their soft game, so they’re less prepared to play it well, and their dinks end up in the net or fly too high. The soft game also gives you a break and lets you to catch your breath.

When you go out to play, don’t over-analyze your game but keep mental notes about what worked and what didn’t, and see if making changeups and perfecting your soft game can help you play better.