No stroke says modern pickleball more emphatically than the two-handed backhand.
The two-handed backhand does everything but roll off the tongue. It’s that pickleball vernacular appropriated from tennis and then too casually overcorrected. “Twoey” doesn’t do the stroke justice. “Double Hammer” doesn’t begin to explain the versatility. “Los Dos” evokes the rhythm. But in the end, Les Deux captures the style of it. The presence.
Watch someone learn to conjure a shadow puppet. Two hands stacked in front of a lamp, fingers adjusting a millimetre at a time, the shape on the wall transforming from mitten to rabbit to — suddenly — wolf.
Nobody conjures a wolf on the first try.
You want to hit it like a baseball the first time. Or like you did in tennis. You practice it dutifully with your non-dominant hand. Figuring out where the elbows go and how to stack your hands and move your hips and legs as one thing — it’s the most awkward thing you’ve ever done. Until you come to understand the final part: trust.
You trust the stroke.
From that moment on, it becomes a wolf.
Les Deux is the badge for that moment it snaps.
Given by a coach or partner — or that player on the other side who first sees its teeth.
Two hands, one shadow. Introducing Les Deux, the merit badge for the two-handed backhand. AKA twoey, double hammer, los dos.
The water bottle of a highly decorated Jamborian. Every one of those was given by someone else.
Share your wickedest expression of Les Deux. We’ll bring your badge to the next Jamboree.