There are a few things in pickleball that
have caused more controversy than the new provisional dropped serve.
Now you should use it.
When should you use it?
And what are some of the best techniques for making it effective?
Stay tuned.
Everybody, it's C.J. Johnson, welcome to Better Pickleball, where we're focused on
helping players over 50 lives, their best lives on and off the pickleball court.
Last week, Tony Roy and I did a webinar
for a VP pick of our membership talking all about the serve,
what you need to do to make it consistent, how to overcome the yips and of course,
the drop serve today in this video, we're going to be covering the drop served.
Now you're going to want to make sure to
stay around till the end, where we're going to share a special link to a video
that we've done for our VEI Pickleball members.
So you can see exactly what you need to do to make the drop serve a great serve.
All right.
You ready to go?
A drop sort of, you know, I'm all about the drops of C.J..
OK. All right, well, I'm going to start the
job search because I got to tell you, I'm not sure either.
It's not like I've been involved in pickleball forever.
But I can certainly say
this has been one of the more
controversial things that I've seen come up in that point in time.
And if you do have questions about the
drops of rules, make sure that you check out our YouTube channels.
We did a in fact, we did it for V.I. Pickleball members.
We had Don Stanley, our favorite rules
afficionado, was on talking about this before a month before I came.
Well, we did this webinar before Christmas.
He called us up and said, it's going live. Let's talk about it.
So we did.
But so in any event, it's controversial, right?
Yeah, we know it.
So a couple of things.
Let's talk about what the the the purpose
was and really how this survey came to be before we get into the ifs and the whens
of the drops or so for those of you who don't know.
So Steve Paronto, who a pickleball hall of
Famer and like you said, he's been texting with Tony recently.
He's a pickleball hall of Famer.
He has been campaigning for this for a long time now.
The reason why is because of
he fancied simplified the serve rules. Right.
Right now, we have three different set of rules that cover a legal serve.
We certainly know those sort of rules are controversial.
Right, Tony? And I get asked about that all the time.
Right. What do you do when somebody, you know,
has a little legal serve and they're denying it?
So we know that they're pretty controversial.
So Steve's idea was by using this drop
serve, all that had to happen was it visibly dropped the ball.
Then the other three rules that were currently under are out the window.
OK, now.
He also said he's been using this for a long time and that he saw no significant
advantage to this serve, really just more of a simplification of the rules.
So that's how it came to be.
And according to what Don Stanley told us,
he told us that, hey, we decided we'd give it a try.
This is provisional for a year, right?
This is not like set in stone.
So it is provisional for a year based on what happens.
So, Tony, have you got some video for us or what?
What have you got for us?
I do in a minute.
But before we get into that, you know, I just I think one of the great concerns out
there, T.J., about the drop sort of is that it's going to change the game.
Right.
People think that it's going to basically revolutionize the game.
And from for me, from where I send my jury is still out on that.
Right.
I'll give you, like you mentioned, that Steve was texting me.
And it was interesting.
He was talking about the World Pickleball championships are going on right now.
And they played the pro men played singles today.
Right.
So these are 20 something year old, mostly 30 some, but playing singles.
Right.
And he said that he did not see the drops are being utilized offensively.
And if you're going to use it offensively, if there's one place to use
the sort of offensively, it's definitely in singles conversation for another day,
the difference between a single serve and a double serve.
But it's definitely more aggressive in singles and doubles.
And so that gave me some hope that that maybe it won't change the game.
My view of the sort of was that I'm OK
with Steve's idea about getting away from the rule, arguments
about, you know, did you hit it above your waist, whatever.
I actually liked it because I thought it
was going to be helpful to beginner players
to kind of take away some of the
difficulty of you never played a racquets for before and you don't have the timing
of dropping the ball and hitting it that it would help those players.
So the jury's still out for me. I'm going to say this.
My, my I will probably make a decision
after the February PDPA here in Tampa where the pros are going to play.
That gives them a whole month to really get into it.
So I think that's going to be the thing.
And I didn't you have I think you had a conversation with with Tyson Magoffin.
Did he talk about it at the summit you were on, right?
We did, yeah.
Some of that Daddy and I had and
we asked Tyson, as many of you may know,
Tyson had has one of the best serves in pickleball.
I mean, it's it's a fantastic serve.
He has one of the best serves.
And I asked him right out, are you going to be using the drop serve?
And in fact, this was just a couple of
days after the rule was was already in play.
And his answer was, no, not at this point
in time, that he didn't necessarily rule it out for the future.
But he said, right now I have an effective serve for my game.
And that's kind of what we're telling you, right?
We're telling you.
And no one is get a consistent serve first.
If you already have an effective serve,
then maybe and we'll talk about that in just a minute.
But if the best players in the world right now aren't going to use it,
well, we got to pick and choose when we should put this into our games, because,
frankly, we're not pickleball for professionals.
We're we're spending the time out on the
courts that Tyson McGuffin is or anybody else.
So if you've got limited time to be out on
the courts, we kind of feel that your if you've got a consistent serve, your time
is probably better spent working on different skills.
So zamili in skill, CJ, that we can work
on before we get into that, adding that unless unless you need it.
If you need it. Fantastic.
So C.J., I got a little bit of video here. You're ready for it.
I am ready for some video.
Please, let's turn it on.
So what we're going to do now is we're going to show you all basically
we've told the idea when to use the drop surface, particularly if you if you need
it to to help your game because your serve is an issue.
But here we're going to show you give you a couple of tips on the specific on the
draw serve and on improving the drop serve.
Thought that was playing out. Here you go.
So the drop serve at the end of the day, right.
Is basically just a groundstrokes, right?
It's just a ground stroke.
All you're doing is hitting the ball off
of balance, just like you would on a return reserve serve.
So there's there's some people think that,
like, it might be better to toss it up higher.
Right, because or not toss it. I'm sorry.
Drop it from high.
So it should be high drop, but high drop from up there.
Right. But basically
the problem with the high drop is it's going to be too close to my body.
So we recommend if you're going to use the
drop, the drops, are that you that you drop it from on the right there, the forty
five degree angle, that 45 degree angle is going to provide the optimal drop.
So you see how it drops in front of my
foot, allowing me to basically rotate into it and hit it.
The high tauzer on the high drop, it's too
close to my my body and ends up jamming me.
So the ball's too close and you're going
to see as I swing, it's going to be similar to.
What we talked about for the YIPES, I have to bend in my elbow there on the left
in order to get on, get to hit that ball, and whereas on the right I can extend my
arm, which is what I want to do to be able to hit the serve here.
We're going to see the far torso.
This to be the other side, which would be too far from my body now.
So now the ball's going to be a little bit
too far away and then I have to reach reach away as I hit it.
And that's not going to be optimal.
So at the end of the day, the best one is
going to be on the right there, which is a forty five degree angle on the drop.
So that's the optimal toss.
We show it to you there.
You can move it a little bit left or right, but basically it's about forty five
degrees is going to be the best spot from which to drop it.
And then ball should balance in front of
you, allowing you to execute a nice stroke out in front with your arm extended.
Now there is a variation to this, which is
if you need a little more depth on your serve.
Right. So there's your regular speed.
Right.
So if you need a little more depth on your serve it back it up.
So if you need a little more depth on your serve.
Right, basically what you're going to do is you're going to drop the ball out.
So I showed you the far reaching out drop as opposed to the forty five degree drop.
If you want to get more depth on your
serve, you can step forward into your serve while you execute it.
So here you're going to see that I'm going to drop it out in front.
That allows me to then take a step back there before I hit it.
That allows me to hit a deeper serve.
And now I'm going to show it to you from the end so you can get a sense of it.
Actually, I think the survey is out, but it shows you how deep you can hit it.
Right on the other side.
I step and hit and you can see how deep that serve is, right.
That serves about three inches out, but it shows you how deep you can get it.
So the drops are the most important thing about the drop surface right now.
Anyway, I know some of you are adopting it and using it offensively.
They've been working for you. Knock yourself out.
That's awesome. Do it.
But otherwise, right.
If there's other parts of your game, you
can work on returning to serve third child, things like that.
Work on those things, bring the drop.
So bring your game right now only if you need it.
Drop from a forty five degree.
If you're not really sure where to do it, drop from a forty five degree.
And if you need a little more depth drop from basically straight out in front
position, allowing you to step in and hit that ball deeper.
Awesome. I know we've got a couple of questions
coming on the drop survey so you can put those in the Q&A and when we get to the
end of this, we will get your questions answered.
You know, just a couple of thoughts.
Again, if you have some questions on the
Rules of the job survey, it's really pretty simple.
It has to be the drop has to be visible to your opponents.
And then after that, the other three serving rules are no longer in effect.
You still have to be behind the line. That still has to.
And inside the sideline, that still is exactly the same.
But those other three rules are no longer in effect.
So, in essence, it really does simplify it.
But, you know, I kind of go back to what let's see what happens.
And if you need it, use it.
And if you're using it effectively. Great.
More power to my suggestion to you is, if you already have that deep, consistent
serve and it's back in the box, we both think that you could probably win
more rallies by focusing on other areas of your game.
That's what we would say to that one.
So what we'd love to know, we'd love to know.
Do you plan to primarily use the dropsondes?
Let's say it's a good question, good question.
I have another question I want to ask, T.J., so let me know when I can.
Oh, gosh, she's always throwing me curveballs.
I want to see if everybody likes this
because I thought it was good and you weren't crazy about it.
So I'm going to I want to pull. I want to.
Poller or attendee's.
OK, so here's here's here's what you got to do.
So you're going to adopt the drop serve.
That's fine, right?
So you get on on the court and you kind of go
and then you go.
There's a new survey in town.
You like that or not, is that good? Not good.
I think it's kind of funny. I think I think it works.
There's a new suburban town. Get it now.
Larry.