Pickleball
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Dink, Don’t Think! A Pickleball Journey Into Presence, Flow, and Pure Play
It is just you. You and your partner. You and the ball. You and your paddle. On the court. Setting yourself in ready position to receive the first serve. You are standing back, positioned about a foot behind the baseline.
“Zero, zero, two,” declares the server on the other side of the court.
The windup, and a poink, contact with the ball is made. You watch, it is a deep serve. Wait for it. The ball is flying toward you, some few feet above and arcing over the net. Wait for it, really wait, and breathe. You plan your shot from your forehand. Return deep, down the middle. That means it will be one of the other team’s backhands. Plan in place.
The next returned ball bounces in front of you—this yellow spinning orb. You notice the holes in the ball, which seem to slow down as you are intently focused and in tune with its every move. With the ball locked into your vision, time seems to slow a bit as you wait for it to come to you, and watch, keenly observing the very moment the ball makes contact with your paddle. You. The ball. The paddle. Connection, how it looks and how it feels.
You return the serve, a solid hit from the paddle’s sweet spot. You feel it, this satisfying sensation, knowing this shot will be “in” and deep, as you planned. After your return, you run to line up with your partner, who is already waiting at the kitchen line.
Strategic Court Positioning and Team Play
Watchful and aware of the ball’s position at the other side of the court. You and your partner now have most of the court covered by forming “the wall” at the kitchen line, a defensive blockade. Positioning yourself in alignment with the ball and aware of your partner’s position, you act as a team, ready to move together in tandem, as you position your defense.
Eyes on the ball, you watch, wait, while in ready position.
Arms up and in front, paddle tilted to about 11 o’clock, protective and ready for what comes, with the patience of a … determined pickleball player! Follow the path of the ball. You and your partner are prepared to receive the next shot.
Your return of serve hit deep to keep the serving team back, lands at the far end of the court, right at the other team’s baseline.
Thwak. Third shot is hit by the serving team, and it is a drop shot, nicely placed into the non-volley zone. Play continues.
Dinking, Pressure, and the Winning Point
There are so many possibilities from here …. author’s choice! It could be that third shot, because the return was so deep, was attempted with a hit, yet without enough power to clear the net, a point avoided, and onto server number two. But let’s instead continue in the other vein, a third-shot drop by the serving team.
The deep ball was hit back, a drop shot, arcing over the net with some height, just enough to find its place to bounce into the kitchen. You are ready and have your eye on the ball, moving just slightly to the right to receive this soft nonattackable shot. You dink it back, across from you but slightly to the right side of the player standing at your opposite, who is a lefty and who would thus need to dink a backhand back. This player dinks, hitting a soft non-attackable shot back to your forehand.
You move in line with the ball; it is in front of you. You gently dink, this time a cross-court dink, angled and over the net to your left, to the player on the opposite side of your partner. Back and forth for a few rounds, cross-court dinking, gently, keeping the ball low. Patience, with eyes on the ball, and breathing. You will dink all day if you must.
And then it occurs: your next dink is at an angle that is a stretch for the other player across from your partner. Instead of hitting it softly across to your partner, the ball is popped up. Your partner is ready, all in. The ball is hit above the net, just above your partner, at about shoulder height. Reaching for it, lining up and ready. SLAM. The ball sails back down the center of the court, at feet level, bounces, and sails past, between the players on the other side of the court, a winner.
Mindfulness Through Pickleball
Switching sides for the next serve, your team takes the serve. Taking a breath, noticing the court and everyone in position. You and your partner at the baseline. You, on the right side of the court, with ball in hand, announce “Zero – Zero – One”. May the games begin.
This sense of presence is one of the true joys I find when playing pickleball. If I have felt stress over work or worry, I know that when I come to play, I have an open invitation to let go of all thoughts and JUST BE present with play, me, the ball, having to stay ready for in pickleball, one does not know what comes next and must remain present, now and now and now.
Being present. Life is not your life; it is the moments that make up your life.
The past and future cannot be experienced, other than in our thoughts. And those are made up each time we think of it. It is in the NOW that we exist. Pickleball invites the NOW.
How and when have you felt a sense of being truly present? Open your heart to those moments, whether it be a time on the court or right NOW.
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