Hey Friend!

I ran two Women’s Intensives this weekend, and my friend Jane (check her out @obsessed.with.pickleball on IG), a 4.5 player, was there all day shooting film for me.

In the middle of the morning of the 3.0-3.5 clinic, she turned to me and said, “You’re teaching fundamentals, but this is all stuff you say to me too.”

She was right.

In the intensive, we worked on drive/drop combos to get to the kitchen, deeper serves and returns, and holding the line on aggressive dinks instead of always backing off and giving up real estate.

Every one of those is a 3.0 skill.

Every one of those is also a 4.5 skill.

I could teach that exact same clinic to a group of 4.5s and it would still be useful.

That’s the thing about fundamentals: you don’t graduate from them.

And here’s where I think players get tripped up: knowing something isn’t the same as owning it.

You can understand a concept perfectly well and still not be able to execute it under pressure, on demand, over and over again.

That’s integration.

It’s not about collecting more information. You don’t need to learn the shovel drop, the ATP or the Erne before your fundamentals are “done.”

The harder work is being able to produce the deep return. Hold your line on the dink. Execute the drive-and-drop combo. Make the right decision quickly enough that it doesn’t even feel like a decision anymore.

That’s the stuff that actually wins and helps you level up.

So wherever you are right now, the work you’re doing on the basics isn’t a placeholder for “real” strategy.

It IS the strategy.

New YouTube Video is Up!

I got back into private lesson content this week with a session on the topspin forehand roll volley - one of the harder shots to really own at an intermediate. level (and an important one), and one I don’t see broken down well very often.

It’s live on YouTube now:

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Also...I want to film with YOU.

If there’s a specific shot or pattern that feels like a hole in your game - something you’d genuinely want to fix, not just something to “work on someday” - I’m looking for a few students to film private lessons with for the channel (at Cali Smash in El Segundo on weekdays typically).

Reply to this email and tell me what it is. If it’s a good fit, I’ll follow up with details.

See you on the court,

Coach Jess

RESOURCES: ​
​Get 10% off CRBN gear with code: COACH JESS at www.crbnpickleball.com​
Pu​sh Dink Cheat Sheet Push Dink Cheat Sheet.pdf​
Split Step Cheat Sheet ​​Split Step Cheat Sheet.pdf​