How to Teach Pickleball to Beginners: Start Small

I enjoy bringing friends out to try pickleball for the first time. But I usually don’t start by explaining pickleball rules for beginners and putting them on a court, jumping straight into a game.

Because for someone holding a paddle for the first time, watching the ball, moving their feet, and remembering when they can hit and where to stand are already overwhelming. Additionally, scoring rules and serving orders can easily drive them crazy. Afterall, for pickleball addicts like me, my ultimate goal is to make more people fall in love with this sport, not persuade them to give up.

So I’d like to start small and let them get a feel for the ball first.

My usual pickleball teaching order is:

• Start by bouncing the ball on the paddle. Just get used to how contact feels. They get a lot of touches in a short amount of time, which I find helpful as a starting point.

• Then hit against a wall, letting the ball bounce before hitting it back. Start tracking the ball, moving into position, and making contact.

• Once that feels more comfortable, try wall volleys. Add a little difficulty to something they’ve already started getting the hang of.

  
  

Next, we move to the kitchen line and dink back and forth, then work on serving. The first hour is mostly these activities, getting comfortable with the ball, the paddle, and coordinating their movements.

Once they start to get used to the movements, I introduce the basic rules for pickleball that they need to start playing rallies.

But I intend to leave scoring out for a while. We only play and get a feel about how a rally begins, continues, and ends. Once that rhythm feels more familiar, I finally proceed to scoring.

This is how I’d like to learn new things with less pressure. Getting the hang of something small, then adding a little more once at a time. Having that early sense of “okay, I can do this” motivates me and many others to keep learning. If a beginner struggles with too many things at once, he/she tends to lose interest rapidly and disappears on the court.

I really enjoy introducing friends to different games. Sharing doubles my happiness.

What’s the very first thing you will do to have a pickleball beginner to try?