Kelly Andrews
I have been a teacher for much of my life. I started by teaching aerobics in the 80s in my high school PE class — music on a cassette tape, everyone doing the grapevine, Journey and Styx on repeat.
In my twenties I found Iyengar Yoga, and everything else changed through decades of intense study. I became a certified teacher and owned The Little Yoga Studio in the San Bernardino mountains for over a decade, while teaching down the hill at UC Riverside in the first UC-certified Teacher Training Program in the country. I studied with the Iyengars and the senior teachers who left an imprint on how I teach to this day in pickleball.
The body's intelligence — awakened in asana and pranayama — is the same intelligence that organizes balance, movement, and sound strategy on the court.
I teach pickleball from a modern perspective. Most standard certification was written from old-style play and hasn't been pressure-tested against what the sport has become — paddle technology, more athletic players, the steady upward shift in what's possible. What worked five years ago doesn't all land now.
Yes — you need to put the ball at specific places. At the feet of your opponent. Into the seams. That's how you keep yourself and your partner from being attacked. And yes, you have to learn how to hit soft. But not as subtraction — as shaping. Pace as a scalpel, not a hammer. Hammers are predictable. They can be solved.
When you can place a ball accurately and your opponent doesn't know which choice you'll make — because you actually have choices, in your footwork, your paddle prep, your court awareness — then how much power you use is just one metric. Not the metric.
For your first lesson, I'll evaluate your game and work on foundational skills. As those develop, strategy and pattern play enter the conversation — creating pressure through placement, spin, and pace. Reading and problem-solving your opponent.
What's truly great about this sport is that as you get better and rise in level, the sport becomes more mesmerizing, more addictive. It isn't just getting the ball over the net and in. It becomes a strategic battle of pressurizing your opponent until they give you what you want… a high ball.
Let's go!
I teach all levels in Citrus Heights, California.
Email: [email protected]
Tell me what you're working on, your level if you know it, and when you'd like to play.