Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Newsletter!

Have you ever had a near-death experience? Today, we'll take a look at a person who was brought back to life on a pickleball court, discover a band who played pickleball with college students before their show, learn five ways to become a 5.0 player, and a whole lot more.

Let’s do this! 👇

It was a normal Wednesday in Baker City, Oregon, where roughly 20 people play pickleball on weekday mornings at a local church.

Then, one of the players, Bruce Robertson, suddenly collapsed after playing a match. Fellow players, some of whom had prior EMT experience, immediately came to his side.

Four players in particular worked to help Robertson, two of them taking turns performing CPR — the act of performing chest compressions at a rate of roughly 100 to 120 times a minute.

While CPR does keep the blood flowing, they all credited the AED (Automated External Defibrillator) with being the device that turned the tide in Robertson's favor.

The AED includes a pair of pads that are placed on the patient’s chest. Once they are put on, the AED determines the best plan for action, whether it be continuing CPR or pausing to administer an electric shock.

In this case, the machine determined that an electric shock was needed. Once it gave the shock, Robertson’s heart began to beat, and the device called for more chest compressions.

Soon afterwards, Robertson regained consciousness. Then the paramedics arrived, who took Robertson to Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Baker City. He was then flown to St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise, Idaho where he had successful heart bypass surgery.

The community plans to honor the four people who helped save Robertson's life in a future city council meeting. 👍

Pick a Target

Always pick a target for your shots rather than hitting the ball to random spots. This is much easier said than done, especially for beginners, but it will help you be more accurate with your spots. The ball will go wherever your paddle is facing, and the paddle is an extension of your hand. Therefore, the ball will go in whichever direction that you face your hand. Remembering this will help you hit with intention and pick a spot for every shot.

C’mon, this is too good of a first point! Whatever happened to starting off with a serve into the net? 😀

You’ve Got to Keep Up

The fact that pickleball continues to grow is good news for all of us. It means there will be more courts to play on and more people to play with. However, there is one challenge, which is that people are taking it more seriously and trying to get better. Ultimately that's a good thing, but it also means that you've got to keep on improving or you will get left behind.

Much of that improvement has to do with you — learning, practicing, and playing. But there's another key ingredient: your paddle. To execute all the shots you need in pickleball, you're going to need a paddle that can give you power on the hard shots like serves and drives, but also touch and control on soft shots like dinks and drops. Any old paddle will not do that. That's why you need Engage, one of the very best paddle brands in all of pickleball. Check out all of their incredible models today, and use code "clinic10" at checkout for 10% off.

Welcome back to Ask Jilly B, a monthly thought-stream from coach & top pro player, Jill Braverman.

How to Get Perfect Footwork Without the 10,000 Hours

Don’t have a tennis background? Don’t worry, if you can make your feet squeak right before impact on your third and fifth shots you too can have great footwork just like all those darn tennis players.

The biggest footwork mistake in pickleball is waiting too long to go to the ball. Don’t watch the ball. MOVE to the ball. When you see a short return of serve you want to:

1.) Move to the ball as quickly as possible. Don’t hang out watching it!

2.) Split step before contact. But really we should call it split SQUEAKS. This is where you need to hear your feet squeaking multiple times to slow you down.

Doing this gives you the stability, power and consistency you need to control your shots. So don’t watch pro pickleball when you can LISTEN to pro pickleball — make it squeak! And get ready to watch (and hear) all aspects of your game improve.

Be sure to follow Jill on Instagram and YouTube.

Can You Say “Giveaway”?

We’ve got a GIVEAWAY alert! 🚨 Ten winners, yup 10 of you, will be getting brand-new, top-tier Franklin paddles! Five of you will receive a C45 and five will receive an FS Tour. All you need to do is go to our Instagram post, where you need to like it, follow @thepickleballclinic and @franklinpickleball and tag 3 friends. Winners will be chosen on June 25th. Good luck!

Wait, How Many People Are Playing?!

Recent research conducted by UPA Asia and YouGov Singapore has revealed that pickleball may even be more popular in Asia than we had originally thought.

According to the research, about 1.9 billion people from 12 Asian territories have heard about pickleball, and roughly 812 million of those people have played pickleball at least once.

To take it a step further, of those 812 million people who have played at least once, 282 million of them play at least once a month. What?!

Just think about those numbers. America has 340 million people, so that's more than 80% of everyone who lives in America.

The findings came from an online survey of more than 14,000 respondents from countries including China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam.

If you look at the percentages, Vietnam led in terms of people who know of pickleball and who play it at 88% and 37% respectively. 

But when it comes to actual numbers, India is the leader with 178 million frequent players, followed by China at 60 million and Vietnam at over 16 million players. 

These numbers are absolutely staggering. However, the fact that Asia has a strong history of racket sports — including table tennis and badminton — may explain why pickleball has been able to catch on so quickly.

Long live pickleball! 💪

I was planning to come home, I really was. 🤣

The Key Ingredient

As we all know, pickleball is tons of fun! In addition to the social element, the game itself is very exciting. Rallies can go on for 10, 20 or even 30+ shots, requiring patience, precision and well-timed attacks and counterattacks. But in order for that to happen, you need a strong and reliable ball.

That’s where the Franklin X-40 comes in. Why? Because the Franklin X-40 pickleball is the gold standard for pickleballs at every level of the sport. It’s the most balanced, consistent, and durable ball out there, which is why it’s the Official Ball of The Pickleball Clinic, USA Pickleball and the APP Tour. Get some Franklin X-40s today and use code “clinic15” for 15% off.

There are many levels in pickleball, and you can have a lot of fun at each one. But there is one very prestigious number out there, and it’s “5.0.” It’s kind of like being a scratch golfer in the sense that very few people get there, but we can all strive for it. Well, we’ve got pro pickleball player James Ignatowich here to reveal 5 things you need to do to get to the 5.0 level. Check it out below. 👇

Key takeaways:

• When on defense in the transition zone, hit your drops over the middle part of the net because it’s lower there and you are giving your opponents less angles to work with.

• Speed up dead dinks hit to your forehand — on the flip side, make sure your volleys are hit down when someone speeds up at you.

• Hold your dink until the last second, meaning pause for a split second before you hit your dink so your opponent is unsure of whether you will be hitting a dink or a speed-up.

• Develop an aggressive two-hand backhand dink.

The Grammy Award-winning British folk and rock band Mumford & Sons performed this week in Indiana. OK, no crazy news there. But what is pretty cool is that the day beforehand, they had a special pre-show appearance where they took to the pickleball courts (Pickle on Penn in Carmel, Indiana) to play a match with the Indiana University pickleball team!

You know what they say, professional athletes want to be professional musicians and vice versa. Well, we're not sure how many people actually say that, but we've noticed it and so has MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson.

Hope you enjoyed the read. See you next week!

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic

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