If you’re trying to up your game and you want enthusiastic, friendly and mindful coaching, you’ve come to the right place!
My name is Joel Adams and I created Dink Dynasty. I have my DUPR Coach certification and I love to play, analyze, teach and just generally talk about pickleball!
I offer personal coaching as well as running clinics!
You can read about my pricing, services and my story below, or just go to the “Bookings” page if you’re ready to book some coaching or want to check out upcoming clinics.
Coaching
I offer personal coaching for those wanting to work on specific things.
Coaching Prices are as follows:
- 1 person – $40/hour
- 2 people – $30/hour each
- 3-4 people – $20/hour each
Prices do not include court booking fees. Client may book or I can book and add the cost to your session.
As a certified DUPR coach I can also provide provisional DUPR ratings to those who do not have one yet. This can be great to see where you stand and also to play in events that require a DUPR rating.
DUPR assessments can be done from a video, multiple videos, in person or as part of a coaching session (this assessment requires playing games, so minimum 3 people must be booked – I’d be the 4th).
The pricing is as follows:
- Video Assessment – $30 for first video plus $15 for each additional video
- In person Assessment – $40 each plus court fees, 1 hour session, minimum 3 people
All in person assessments will end with me giving you a range I think you will fall in, followed later by a specific rating. I will record all in person assessments so I can study them after and narrow the rating down.
All videos you send me or I take will also be analyzed by PB Vision AI system. This serves as a “second opinion” to my assessment and helps ensure I am giving accurate ratings to all of my clients.
Please bear in mind that the more gameplay I can see, the more accurate your rating will be. If you send me a single video where you played exceptionally well, your rating may be inflated and if you send one where you played exceptionally poorly, your rating may be lower than expected.
About Coach Joel
I’ve been playing pickleball for a long time and have always loved it. When my partner started playing not long ago, I found myself getting more competitive and wanting to improve.
Over the past few months, I’ve stepped up my game with drilling, reading books, listening to audio books, watching videos and, what all good coaches should do, getting coaching from other coaches!
If you asked people who know me what it’s like to play with me, I think they’d say that I am relentlessly positive. Not only do I never disparage my partner, I take it one step further and make a point to compliment the things they are doing great that game. I believe (well, actually, it’s scientifically proven) that positive reinforcement is key to playing our best. I’ve seen it happen too. Someone might be having a bad day and not have won a single game that day, and then they end up winning one: the one they played with me. While I’d like to think my skill plays a part in that, I cannot take every shot and I firmly believe I bring out the best in my partners.
This positivity is something I also try to apply to myself, and the more I learn about pickleball the more I learn that mindset is perhaps the most important and most overlooked skills in the game. As a coach, while I absolutely spend time on the technical skills of pickleball, I think that training the mind is the best thing you can do.
As far as my skill, I am one of those people (aren’t most?) that believes my DUPR rating does not reflect my actual skill.
Hear me out! I am not someone who disparages the DUPR rating system too much (that would be a little odd for a DUPR coach to do), but I will say this: if you make big leaps in your game, your DUPR can take a while to follow. If your game increases gradually, your DUPR will be accurate, but something as simple as learning how to add topspin to your drives can make your game jump dramatically (I know this one from experience) and DUPR is not designed to handle huge jumps.
I have also started utilizing PB Vision to use AI to assist analyzing not just my own game, but my opponents and my clients! Before you count it out, PB Vision is an official partner of DUPR and their ratings are based on DUPR criteria. They also have plans to integrate AI ratings into DUPR in the near future.
I’ve compared the AI rating of PB Vision to actual DUPR ratings of dozens of players and found that in most cases, it’s quite accurate – except in the cases like I mentioned above. If someone really commits to getting better, then their large leaps in progress will leave their DUPR lagging behind their actual skill.
I am proud to say I am one of those who has much higher AI DUPR rating than my actual DUPR. If you know me at all, you’ll know I always take, and advise others to take, everything with a grain of salt. I will not claim I am definitely what my AI rating says I am, but I always think more data is a good thing.
I’ve posted a screenshot of my PB Vision account below (accurate on the date I uploaded it). You can also click on it to see my full profile if you have a PB Vision account or want to sign up for one (free to sign up).
Side note: if you end getting the premium PB Vision service, use this link to sign up and get 4 hours extra processing time for free.
In addition to 1 on 1 coaching, I also regularly hold clinics, either coached by just myself or in tandem with one or more other coaches.
I’ve talked about myself too much, so now I want to hear your story! Message me on Facebook, Pickleheads send me an email or flag me down at the court (I’ll be the guy wearing a Dink Dynasty shirt) and say hello, ask questions or just tell me how much you love pickleball!
