Sunday, September 16, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Monday, August 13, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Roger Federer - Volleys
Look at how many times these guys make errors when practicing. Notice that they don't care about making mistakes, I don't hear them apologizing to each other for missing shots or mishits. All I see are the players being pretty loose. Check out his distance fro the baseline when he's in the back court. There will be a Federer practice video coming soon.
Roger Federer Volleys in Slow Motion
Here's Federer practicing some volleys. Look at the fluid motion, look at all of those "volleying rules" being broken.More to follow.
The Geometric Reality Of Tennis
The Geometric Reality Of Tennis | ||
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  Movement. The first step in establishing a strong foundation with the body is by facing the undeniable truth about this game. A tennis player faces an angle of possibilities, which means the ball angles, or moves, away from you either to your right or to your left (1A). The ball is not hit at you. (The court is drawn to scale.)The ball is angling away from you. While you can take different directions to intercept it, you want to hit the ball back with some power and not simply run over and touch it or just stop it. You've heard often enough that moving into the ball gives you power, that is getting your body's momentum behind the stroke and into the ball equals power. Why doesn't that happen often enough for you? Because if you either move parallel to the baseline, turn sideways, or pivot one foot to the side, you're moving away from the ball and not into it. It's simple geometry. REST OF THE ARTICLE |
Nothing Is New Under The Sun................
Some so-called "tennis pros" and organizations try to feed people some stuff about "new" tennis. Below is an article that debunks a lot of the junk that fed to people who want to learn tennis out there. This website is going to add some more features and will be updated very soon. Here's the article below:
JUST WHAT IS MODERN TENNIS? It's been said that modern tennis relates to hitting with topspin, hitting with an open stance, and wrapping the follow through around. But as the song goes, "everything old is new again."  From 1926 comes clear evidence that topspin, hitting from an open stance, and wrapping the follow through around the opposite shoulder were very much in the game at that time. One of author J. Parmly Paret's series of instructional books entitled Mechanics of The Game of Lawn Tennis shows that.  J. Parmly Paret analyzed the mechanics of the top pros of his day using high speed photos provided by the United States Lawn Tennis Association, which he includes in his book. Of the 9 forehand sequences, 5 roll the racket over, and 4 hit from an open stance. Paret is the first tennis biomechanist, and as his colleagues today, he eagerly declares that these photos reveal hidden truths and shatter myths. My favorite is his conclusion that pros take their eyes off the ball before it is hit since his photos show many pros do not have their eyes on the ball at contact.   Something considered "new" is loading the body weight on the outside foot and exploding into the shot. The three photos below show this "new" idea has been going on for over 100 years. On the left is Arthur Wentworth Gore in 1908, clearly loading on his outside leg and I would bet he's going to slap the living daylights out of the ball. Next we have Miss M. Coles, 1910, with again, an open stance and ready to "explode" into the ball, though we don't know the degree of explosion. She could have just as well hit the ball easily, but the structure is there. On the far right is modern player Manuel Santana, with 4 Slams under his belt, 2 French, 1961, 1964, 1 U.S., 1965, 1 Wimbledon, 1966. He is off the ground crunching the hell out of it. Looks like Federer.    [photos from TENNIS, A Pictorial History by Lance Tingay, pub. 1973; Wentworth by unknown; Coles by Radio Times Hilton Picture Library; Santana by Tennis de France.] So what's the skinny on this? Two things, the observers are slow to recognize, and the business of tennis always wants to sell you some new thing or another. Tennis has always been the same because the way we move and empower ourselves, the game's geometric reality of a ball angling away, and athleticism haven't changed. What has changed is the equipment, the training regimen for athletes, the choices in stroke selection, personal freedom and improvisation when playing, and the money involved. MORE IDEAS FROM 1926! EYES "The masters do not always keep their eyes on the ball while hitting it, but their methods cannot be safely copied until a considerable degree of skill has been secured." "common traits... third, there is ' the almost unanimous habit of taking the eyes off the ball before it is hit.... To omit any of these habits means to limit the skill of the expert to a marked degree." "But the expert ...learns to complete his stroke without watching the ball up the last few feet before it strikes the racket. He sees it until he feels sure he has a proper estimate of the flight and can center it on his racket, and then he looks up to get his bearing, and select his final direction." [And this is all because of the many photos of players with their eyes off the ball at contact.] BODY ROTATION "In each case (golf and tennis), there is a rotation of the body itself on its own base and the more this turn of the hips, trunk and shoulders can be added to the forward swing, the greater power will the stroke have." "In any case, a certain amount of rotation is necessary, and the more it is used the better. STRAIGHT ARM SWING "Nothing can cramp the tennis stroke so much as a bent elbow, and it is doubly important that in all ground-strokes, at least, its angle should be obtuse, never an acute angle, if indeed the arm cannot be straightened out entirely." "But if one must choose, it is better to keep farther away t han closer than he thinks safe, for it is easy to lean out to reach a ball but a deadly weakness to draw back from it." "Your whole body should be kept as far away from the ball as possible as the stroke is made, and when you lean out to reach it, that idle arm will help greatly in maintaining the balance." "Straighten out the playing arm too and reach far out, for the longer the lever used in making that whipping slash against the ball, the greater will be its driving power." WEIGHT TRANSFER "The weight must be traveling in the direction you want the ball to go when the stroke is made or power is lost. By leaning out to meet the ball [i.e., extending the arm] and swinging the weight forward [i.e., in the direction you want the ball to go] as the ball is hit you carry all the power of the body weight with the stroke." FOREHAND STROKE "Let us glance over the list for a moment: 1) A long back-swing; 2) increasing the speed of the racket in the forward swing; 3) meeting the ball with the racket traveling at its maximum velocity; 4) adding to the power by snapping the wrist just before contact is made; 5) turning the body around by rotation to increase the momentum of the racket; and 6) following through with a forward motion of the body to add its weight to the stroke..." STANCES "We find, however, two distinct groups among even the best players, those who set themselves in a fixed position [i.e., open stance] to make the stroke and those who "step into" the stroke or make it on the run." READY POSITION "Much wider latitude for quick action is offered by a diagonal stance, with the right foot somewhat farther from the net than the left. From this position a much quicker start can be made in some directions than from that with feet parallel to the net." What has really changed from 1926, besides the Ready Position? Body rotation and forward motion of the body to increase power is exactly the same as what the USPTA promotes as "modern tennis", as well as everyone else for that matter. "Load, explode, and land" is the term for this new stuff, which is exactly what points 5 and 6 in the Forehand Stroke lead to. Extending on strokes is still very popular, as is shifting your weight toward the other side of the net. And according to Vic Braden you shouldn't believe anyone who says they see the ball when hitting it. Of note, though, is the mention of snapping the wrist on the forehand stroke to add power to the hit. This is the only instance I have found where "snap" is used to describe the wrist motion. I would never use the word "snap" to characterize how the wrist is used on the forehand groundstroke,and I can't remember being told "snap" by any teacher, including Pancho Segura and Welby Van Horn. Of course I haven't seen all the old tennis books, but even the recent old ones by Gladys Heldman and Welby Van Horn I suspect never used the word "snap" to describe the wrist's role. When Vic Braden rails on about how wrong it is to "snap" your wrist on a forehand stroke because he says it does not flex at all I'd sure like to know not only who has used that word in the teaching community (has to be somebody well-known and influential, not some local guy) but in what teaching book it can be found that raises Vic's ire. Point is it's ancient history, shortly lived. Here's the ARTICLE IN IT'S ENTIRETY |
Andre Agassi - Harel Srugo
Here's Agassi, who is an aggressive baseliner and "puncher" who likes to take the ball on the rise. Check out his distance from the baseline when he's rallying.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Wimbledon 1960 Final Fraser vs Laver
We can learn a LOT about tennis by watching the old great players. It doesn't matter what level you are or what level you are trying to be, you can always learn from these guys.
Naomi's "Sick Kick"
This is a good technique for lefty servers. Right handed players can use the same concept on the "ad court".
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Tennis Lessons - Playing The Net Effectively | Tom Avery Tennis 239.592....
Good advice from Tom Avery.
USHA
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tennis Lesson Syllabus
FOUNDATION (Fitness, Stretching, and Footwork) (CLICK ON EACH CATEGORY TO WATCH VIDEOS ON INSTRUCTION) This is a re-posting from 12/11/2010.
Basic stretches
Footwork warm up
Tube exercise
Side to side movement,use racquet
Footwork, without using the elastic band.
FORM (Basic Grips, Strokes, and Progressions)
Basic grip explanation and it's application.
Basic forehand and progressions, in the beginning more time will be spent at the service lines, so more control and timing is developed, and the progressions will evolve like it did in the video.
Basic backhand and progressions, same as above.
Two handed backhand technique.
Forehand volley and it's function.
Backhand volley and it's function.
FUNCTION (Applying the basic footwork, grips, strokes, spins and strategy)
Topspin forehand technique
Topspin backhand two handed and one handed.
Slice backhand.
Serve technique, after progressions
Basic stretches
Footwork warm up
Tube exercise
Side to side movement,use racquet
Footwork, without using the elastic band.
FORM (Basic Grips, Strokes, and Progressions)
Basic grip explanation and it's application.
Basic forehand and progressions, in the beginning more time will be spent at the service lines, so more control and timing is developed, and the progressions will evolve like it did in the video.
Basic backhand and progressions, same as above.
Two handed backhand technique.
Forehand volley and it's function.
Backhand volley and it's function.
FUNCTION (Applying the basic footwork, grips, strokes, spins and strategy)
Topspin forehand technique
Topspin backhand two handed and one handed.
Slice backhand.
Serve technique, after progressions
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
MTM Tennis Tips-The 1HBH
I like a lot of Oscar's advice, I'm not sure about this tip. I will try it out tomorrow and report my results. It sounds somewhat counter-intuitive. I do think that he's trying to tell people to "lift" the ball instead of hitting through it, thus hitting with a lot of topspin.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
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