There will be times on the pickleball court when you will find yourself in the precarious “transition zone” also often referred to as “no man’s land”.
Sometimes you will end up there because you weren’t quite able to make it all the way up to the net after a drop and other times you will get pushed off the NVZ line by strong offensive play from your opponents.
Being a strong defender is an important skill if you want to take your game to that next level.
The best players are able to turn things back around if they find themselves in a tough position during a point. In order to do that you need to have strong reset shot capabilities.
In today’s video we’re going to show you How To Improve Your Reset Shot Consistency.
Here’s Jordan to show/describe to us how it’s done…
Today we’re going to work on the transition zone defense.
Whether you’re making your way up from the baseline or pushed off the non-volley zone line you’ll find yourself in the transition area. Your end goal from here is to try to get up, or back up, to the non-volley zone.
This is a good drill that you can do to practice your defense in this transition zone.
I have my friend Danny with me to drill with.
We’re just going to use half of the court and I’m going to feed him a ball. He’s going to try to hit these feed balls at my feet and around my body while trying to win the point.
I’m going to try to soften up the ball and just try to hit it into his non-volley zone which would be a reset shot. In a real game situation this reset shot would allow me and my partner could capture the net again.
For the sake of the drill I’m going to stay in this transition zone and practice those shots.
In a real game situation, after hitting a shot in the transition zone I would try my best to advance the non-volley zone.
So we’re going to start the drill now and stay on one half of the court. Danny will hit to me anywhere in the transition zone.
I’m trying to hit the ball out in front of me and also trying not to let it get behind me. I want to take it out of the air if I can because if I let that ball bounce the spin on the ball when it bounces off the court is going to be a lot harder to handle.
I’m going to try to take these balls out of the air and then Danny could go ahead try to return them to me at my feet or body in the transition zone.
This a two-way drill.
As he’s practicing trying to win the point from the non-volley zone, I’m practicing trying to be consistent and make my balls un-attackable.
Remember to get low and try to catch the ball early and out in front.
Now what I’m going to do is I’m going to hit three shots from this transitional area and then I’m going to advance to the non-volley zone. This is just another variation of this drill.
Ideally, you’re not going to be in this situation in this transition zone area but this is a good place to practice your defense because there’s going to be times in a game where you will be here and you want to get out of it.
Get out there and go practice with a partner.
This will really improve your game in the long run.
