Drill Baby Drill!

It is widely recommended that the fastest way improve your pickleball skills is to drill.  Set some time aside with 3 friends to do some drills.  You'll take more shots than in a game and you'll train your brain to think about the shot you are trying to make. 

Local guru and expert instructor Drew recommends these drills, which can be more fun if you keep score:

Zig-Zag Drill (4 players).  Goal - controlled, focused dinking.  Four players are positioned at the kitchen (NVZ) line.  Two players on one side can only dink straight ahead and the two players on the other side can only dink diagonally.  Play for a few minutes then switch roles.  

The Bridge Game (4 players).  Goal - warm up prior to playing to practice serves, returns, 3rd shot drops and dink shots.  The game is played the same as a regular game, with the same scoring and goes to 7, win by 1.  Each play starts with a serve, return of serve and 3rd shot drop with the goal of doing each one correctly.  Next, the goal is to hit five consecutive dinks, which are counted out loud by the serving team. They don’t have to be perfect dinks, but no drives, or lobs.  Once five dinks are reached, the point is played out and any shot is OK.

Dingle (4 players).  Goal - develop better cross-court dinking.  Four players are positioned at the kitchen (NVZ) line.  Two balls are used simultaneously as players practice dinking diagonally.  Players should try and dink as long as possible. When one pair misses a shot, any player declares “Dingle” and all four players focus on playing out the point with the remaining ball.  Score keeping is optional.

Learn more advanced drills by attending an intermediate clinic, such as those at the State College YMCA.

For more advanced drills, see Collin Johns' Three Absolutely  Crucial Drills.