How To Increase Your Dink Control & Consistency | Figure 8 Pickleball Dinking Drill

In today’s video we’re going to show you a great drill that works on the dink control and consistency called Figure 8 Dinks. So in this drill, one of us will be dinking down the line and then one of us will be dinking cross-court the entire time.I’m going to start here on the even side of the court and he will start on his even side. I’m going to feed the ball to Caden and he’s going to dink down the line and I’m going to come across here to the odd side where he just dinked and my job is to go cross-court. So I’m going to dink it cross-court. So Caden, so step over there. OK? So once I dink it cross-court, he’s going to be down the line. OK. I’m going to come over here and then I’m going to drink cross court again. So as you can see this pattern, we’re going to be moving back and forth and then Caden will always be dinking down the line and I will always be dinking cross-court. So this is just a cooperative drill. We’re going to try to see how many we can get and all balls, try to make them land in the kitchen. OK? So that’s the whole drill of getting your touch and feel while moving. OK? So here we go. All right. So Cayden, you’re down the line. OK? Here we go. Good. All right. So right after you hit, you will want to make sure you leave right away because you know where the ball is going to go. So you could take it out of the air or let it bounce. So it really gets the blood moving and it gets your feet moving. So now we’re going to do the opposite. I have to catch my breath. Whoo! All right. So now Caden is going to go cross-court. And I will be going down the line the entire drill. I’m going to be going down the line. So he’s going to feed it right here and I’m going to go directly down the line as he moves over. Then Caden will hit it right here cross-court because he will be cross-court and I will hit it down the line. So I will be going down the line for the entire drill. Here we go. Good. So trying to keep it in the kitchen as much as we can. Jordan and Caden are demonstrating this drill in it’s most challenging and advanced version. You can control the drill difficulty and adjust as desired by narrowing the range at which you and your partner are hitting. You can start by rallying in a more narrow range so that you are hitting it right into your partners sweet spot and they are doing the same for you. Neither partner should have to move too far to get the ball. You should hit it practically right to them and only slightly to one side or the other This low intensity version still requires a great amount of touch, control and consistency. Your movement will mostly be a simple pivot towards the ball and require no more than a half step or a small step to get to the ball. You may be surprised by how hard it can be to hit perfectly controlled dinks right into your partners sweet spot over and over again. Once you’ve mastered this version, you can then progress to a more challenging version that requires you to take one or two steps to one side, recover with one or two steps and then move one or two steps to the opposing side and your partner will do the same. This starts to add the element of being able to control your dinks while on the move. You must be quick but don’t rush. Slow down as you approach the ball, hit it calmly and controlled and then take off to the other side. This version starts to add a conditioning element to it. You will find that your fitness improves along with your ability to rally longer and longer. Once you can do long rallies in the more challenging version, you’ll then move on to the most challenging version that requires that you hustle practically from sideline to sideline as you maintain control of your dink while also hitting it to the furthest corners of the kitchen. This drill is very challenging from both a skill and fitness perspective. As you saw, even Jordan who is very fast and pretty fit was breathing heavy as the rally lengthened. Get our free 3rd shot course here! –> 3rd Shot Drop Course