Today’s Win

Today’s win is tomorrow’s loss. Let me explain: If you’re normal, when in typical pick-up games, you put a lot of effort into winning. You might even focus your shots on the weaker player, try all sorts of spins and angles to end rallies early. I’m proposing that you might try something different. Instead, you might concentrate your efforts on the better player. Not only that, but you might return many shots defensively. In other words, when it a kitchen rally, try dropping soft shots into the middle of the kitchen, and wait for the players on the other side to try something offensive.

Why would you do this? Because it is an excellent learning and practice opportunity. Wouldn’t it be great to see just what the better member of the opposing team can do? Wouldn’t it be a good strategy to practice dropping balls softly into the kitchen, and then learn to defend against what happens when you don’t get it right and the opponents try to return them offensively? If you do this, then when you get into a competition with advanced players, you’ll be an advanced player too, and you’ll win!

There’s another reason, too. When your local everyday players see you ‘toying’ with them in this way, they’ll be quite impressed, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll start playing the same way, and then everyone advances.