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3 Tips to Improve Your Dink Practice

When I ask a student what area of their game they practice the most, I am often told dinking. And in fact, players that spend nearly all their time playing will usually warm up by dinking for 5-10 minutes before they play. However, is this practice actually helping you?

Don’t Just Dink

The biggest challenge I see with players who practice dinking is knowing what they are trying to accomplish in the first place. You don’t want to go out and dink, just to dink. You won’t get any better, and in fact, will simply be ingraining your current (perhaps faulty) technique. You need to have specific goals and targets. How hard is too hard? How high is too high? Are you aiming for a target or just trying to get it over?

So today, let me offer you three tips which will make your precious dink practice time more effective.

Dink Practice Tip #1: Plan & Purpose

I know I have suggested this many times before but is critical that you practice with a purpose. Rather than just mindlessly dinking back and forth, give yourself some targets. Try to identify when you are dinking offensively rather than defensively. Are you watching the ball? Are you relaxed, or are you holding your breath as the rally continues? Set a goal for each time you practice. Perhaps this week you want to just focus on staying relaxed and breathing. Next week, you might focus on extending and pushing from your shoulder. As you master this motion, see how long you can keep the ball on your paddle face. Focus on carrying the ball over the net.

None of these need to be big changes. In fact, as you improve you will find that the changes become smaller and smaller. You will need to really focus as you practice dinking to correctly identify when you are doing it right.

Dink Practice Tip #2: Focus on Your Lower Body

Most people think that dinking effectively is all about the correct arm movement….but in fact, everything starts with your lower body. Often we overdo everything…swinging our bodies and moving our feet far too much. When you practice dinking you want your feet to be quiet.

We have talked before about the difficulty with shuffling too much. I want you to listen carefully. If you are sliding your feet, you are NOT picking up your feet and shifting your weight. Even on a small dink, you want your weight under you and moving into the ball.

Think of your dink practice like an egg toss match. Shuffling or jumping about would obviously cause the egg to break. Just as you would absorb the egg with your hands if someone tossed it to you, you need your body to absorb the pickleball and then lift it over the net.

Dink Practice Tip #3: Move the Ball

Perhaps the biggest mistake I see players make when they practice dinking is continually hitting the ball back to the same spot. You want your practice partner to move because the more they move the greater likelihood they won’t be in an offensive position. So move them from side to side. Move them forward and back.

During another dink practice session focus on creating dinks with different paces. Can you slow the ball down? If so, what did you do to make this happen? Challenge yourself to change the speed of your dinks. Again, you will find that this is more easily accomplished if you focus on your body…not just your arm.

It’s important to figure out what you want for your game…what areas do you want to improve. Confidence comes from knowledge on the court…and having confidence will always improve the way we play.

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