Pirkei Pickleball Where the Wisdom of our Ancestors Meets Today's Fastest Growing Sport

A Combination of Tennis, Table Tennis, and Badminton

...such notions are very strange to us who live in the post-Darwinian age - Gunther Plaut on Lev 19:19

Pickleball was born in 1965. After playing golf during the summer, Joel Pritchard, a congressman from Washington, and Bill Bell, a successful businessman, returned to Pritchard’s home on Bainbridge Island, not far from Seattle, Washington. With bored children at home, they sought to play badminton on an old badminton court but couldn’t find the proper equipment. They improvised and played with table tennis paddles and a perforated plastic ball. They began with the net at a badminton net height (60 inches high) and volleyed the ball back and forth over the net. Eventually as play progressed during the weekend, they found the ball bounced well on the asphalt surface and they would eventually lower the net to 36 inches high. The following weekend, Barney McCallum joined and began playing and the three men created the rules for pickleball.

Bringing Generations Together

Pickleball was born as a cross-generational game in 1965 when three dads in Washington State invented it to entertain their kids.... Strategy and finesse are more important than driving the ball hard. Much of the game is played in quick-paced rallies up at the net, where an artfully dropped "dink shot" can win the point. That's why the sport lends itself well to intergenerational recreational play; older players can hold their own against young ones.

The fastest-growing demographic of pickleball players are those under the age of 24, according to USA Pickleball. "At Life Time, we're seeing a stunning growth of pickleball across generations, from kids to grandparents. Everyone is finding joy in the game," said Ajay Pant, Life Time's Vice President of Racquet Sports.

Strategy - slow and steady

In pickleball, dinking is an art of the soft game. It's an exercise in finesse, control, and patience. And that's usually where new players get tripped up. Every dink looks like an opportunity to take the rally to them.

But they aren't necessarily about trying to make an offensive shot or aggressive dinks. Truly, the goal of dinking is trying to force your opponent to make a mistake. A winning dink puts your opponent under uncomfortable pressure.

A poach in pickleball is where a player crosses over the centerline of the court to hit a pickleball on his or her partner’s side of the court. Poaching typically results in a speed up or put away shot, as a poach is an aggressive move that can really put pressure on your opponents, if executed properly.