Looking back over some of my previous posts, I see a large number of them talk about the importance of practice. But it's not always possible to find people who are available or want to take the time to practice when they could be having fun.

If you're serious about your game and progressing to the next level, you need to practice your skills. You know it's true. 

So I started to include a post that would talk about practicing against a wall—something I found was very helpful, and the wall was always willing to be my partner. I went onto the internet, searching for a suitable graphic to lead this post, and instead found a fantastic video that said and showed everything I wanted to say even better than I could. 

So now for your viewing pleasure, here's Chris Wolfe with "Pickleball Wall Drills - How to Play By Yourself." 

Getting to the next level, whether 3.0, 3.5, or higher, isn't easy. The answer is practice, of course, but just getting out to the court every day isn't enough. You must practice with a goal in mind, and you must know HOW to practice to achieve that goal. One "simple" way to get better is to concentrate on the skills that are missing from the level above your current level (based on these criteria as noted by the USAPA). ​
Let's say You haven't been playing pickleball that long and you want to get to be a 4.5 player. What do you need to do? What are the major differences between 3.0 and 4.5?
The table below (info from the USAPA website) lists these definitions:

I highlighted two items in the table that popped out at me: CONSISTENCY and STRATEGY. Other elements are important, of course, but by the time a player has achieved 3.0-level skills, he or she knows how to do a lot of things—just not how to do them well, or consistently. What that player doesn't really know yet is the strategy that goes along with what is known: when to hit a dink instead of a drive, when to break out of dinking, and so on. That's the strategy bit, and learning is not all—it's also being able to know how to do it automatically and not have to think about it.

If you've read my posts before, you know I stress PRACTICE, and not just aimless hitting back and forth over the net. It's important to have a goal—one that's reachable and measured. Like consistently hitting that forehand that sometimes goes out of bounds or into the net.

Get a friend to work with you (or better yet, take classes) and make sure 1) you're doing the stroke correctly before you continue to learn it wrong; 2) concentrate your focus not on everything about that shot but rather small parts of it: hitting it at about the same height and to roughly the same spot on the court.

Once you have mastered that, move the shot to other areas. When that's easy, work on your backhand and do the same thing. All of this takes time, but if you do this practice consistently (couldn't resist putting that in), your game will improve.

Take things slowly and methodically, knowing it took a while to get from novice to 3.0. With patience and some help from your friends, you'll get there.

Most of you who consistently try to get better at pickleball can probably remember a day (hopefully many) when you had an "AHA!" moment—when something clicked, made sense, or felt right for the first time. Armed with this new insight or technique, your game improved. You knew you finally had it—you'd figured it out. Then, when you’re weren't looking, that new technique or knowledge disappeared or devolved into an old pattern.

When you first "get it," you feel excited about the new technique. Perhaps you found out what you've been doing wrong with your backhand, or someone pointed out that you need to wait longer before hitting the ball. You managed to keep these things in mind for a while, but soon you were back to your old ways.

Sometimes, we really do turn over a new leaf and it grows into a tree (poor metaphor, but hey). More often we return to old patterns without ever meaning to. So when they do stick, and what makes the difference?

The Missing Element

We don’t have a hope of keeping a new technique unless we use it in regular practice. The old conditioning of your muscles and your mind is too strong for your mindful desire to change to be enough. You must condition that new technique until your muscles and mind don't remember the old way.

You Need to Practice

Just a short amount of mindful practice of your new technique every day is enough to get a foothold and start to dissolve the reflexive nature of the old behavior. It isn't a good idea to focus on more than one thing at a time. Give your mind and body a chance to engrain the new pattern before working on something else.

It might be as easy as taking five minutes out of your morning couples game to have your partner reinforce the new pattern, either by hitting balls to you or watching to make sure you're returning them correctly. No doubt your friends could use practice, too, so you'll all benefit.

Doing even a little bit of the new technique routinely starts to break down the automatic nature of doing the old one. The new way happens without thinking about it more often. Gradually, the new way becomes natural.

The "AHA!" moment is only the first step on the road to improving your game. You really change when this new way of playing feels natural, and for that to happen, you need to practice.

Most pickleball players are impatient when it comes to results. But like most sports worth playing, pickleball takes practice and patience to learn to play well.

Patience and forgiveness are often synonymous. Whether you're practicing or competing, you'll have good and bad days. No one's perfect, not even the pros. We all have moments where we don't make our usual shots. 
 
When that happens, our "fight or flight" instinct kicks in. We get angry with ourselves and fight to recapture our strokes. Sometimes, we give up hope. Referred to as "tanking," this is the flight response. We want to flee the discomfort of losing and give up trying to win. 
 
True competitors have a particular kind of patience that is born from forgiveness. When we forgive ourselves for being less than perfect, a relaxation sets in. We become more patient and have a greater likelihood of resurrecting our game. When things go horribly wrong, forgive yourself as soon as possible.