Welcome to the Zone!

[austro]

Has anybody had any experience with this or know the people behind this program? Does it work or is all the scientific backup talk just gibberish? It sounds good but there are so many posers out there...

w w w.a r e t e-s p o r t s.com

Reports of any personal experience would be most welcome.
Thanks!

[Freedom]

This was in TENNIS magazine. Seems a little far-fetched.

[austro]

Yes, that's where I first saw it - hence the question. Anyone know about this?

[x Southpaw x]

it was in the tennis magazine? which one? tennis.com?

[austro]

No, in hard print. Anyway, just a little blurb.

Does anyone know about this or have any opinion? I believe very much in the visual and the visual management aspect of the game but am not sure if this works. As far as I have read about so far, they tell you not to focus on the ball but instead on a contact zone window in front of you (throughout the flight of the ball). So the ball will be out of focus for most of the time. They liken it to one standing behind a window and one shooting a snowball at it. Instead of following the flightpath of the snowball, they say to focus ones eyes one window. has anyone tried this?

[Tennismastery]

Has anybody had any experience with this or know the people behind this program? Does it work or is all the scientific backup talk just gibberish? It sounds good but there are so many posers out there...

w w w.a r e t e-s p o r t s.com

Reports of any personal experience would be most welcome.
Thanks!

This concept has been developed by Scott Ford in Colorado and is based on several scientific concepts. His "Parallel Mode Processing" deals with the fact that the eyes have difficulty tracking a ball in flight...the eye tracks a fast ball, loses it, gets ahead of it, tracks it again for a moment, loses it and gets ahead of it again...Thus, we sometimes lose the ball at or near contact. His concept is to focus on the 'where' of the ball instead of the 'what'...meaning, your focus is brought to contact instead of trying specifically to track the ball.

Try this: if someone throws a ball at you when you aren't looking or ready, you still find the ball with your hand in a protection mechinism...because your focus is not on the object when it was hit but only when you are aware of it at that moment. When players are playing very well, they are not conerned with much except the ball... we hear players say things like, "the ball seemed so big" or "I saw the ball so clearly"...

Scott has several articles on this at www.tennisone.com. I have seen it work both for me as well as my students. I have seen it have a very positive effect on 3.0 to 5.0 who train it.

Players looking for something that might help them focus better, not choke, develop better mental toughness, might study this concepts. It isn't a cure-all but my students have mentioned many times after training with the Parallel Mode Processing, they have gone out and played much cleaner and with less distractions.

It isn't a stroke technique...only a different way to focus the eyes and mind.

[austro]

I guess I just don't quite understand how you can focus on our contact when that itself is a variable. You gotta check on the ball at least at some point to figure out where the contact point is going to be, no?

They're saying not watching the ball eliminates one variable in the system. But that variable determines the other variable, the contact point. How can you focus on something that has yet to be determined?

Maybe it works; I just find it hard to envision.

[Freedom]

If someone wants to buy the DVD, please post your results. I'm more interested to learn if this is a scam more than what the science is behind it. :P

[Becker]

It's not so much getting into the mental zone.

It's just reinforcing the stroke. If I remember right, the guy says to create like a mental wall in front of you, and to try to protect it from the ball or something -that's hitting in front.

Keeping your eyes focused on the contact zone all the way in and through is the same. Moving your head moves your back and the rest of your body. If you allow the head to keep track of the ball at contact without moving it, you absorb information about the ball while simultaneously keeping balance. Moving the head away would cause your body and thus, the racquet to pull away, a common cause of beginners pulling up the ball too early and not hitting through.

It's just rephrasing what's already been taught.

[SystemicAnomaly]

I guess I just don't quite understand how you can focus on our contact when that itself is a variable. You gotta check on the ball at least at some point to figure out where the contact point is going to be, no?

They're saying not watching the ball eliminates one variable in the system. But that variable determines the other variable, the contact point. How can you focus on something that has yet to be determined?

Maybe it works; I just find it hard to envision.

Scott Ford's concept appears to me to have some merit. Apparently he's got numerous articles dating as far back as 2000 from what I've seen. I've only just stumbled upon his concept in the 10 days & have been attempting to incorporate it into my own playing (and into my teaching as well to a limited extent). I've not yet seen the DVD or downloaded any of his lessons, so I don't really know the details on how he presents it.

I don't completely agree that it is merely a "rephrase" of what's taught before. Scott's perspective & emphasis is a bit different from what is conventionally taught. In my own teaching, I've always emphasized that the head should remain still before and after ball contact and the eyes should focus primarily on the contact point/zone rather than the ball. I, like most coaches, also emphasize taking most balls in front of the body (forward of the "front" foot).

However, it appears that Scott has taken this a step or 2 further. He emphasizes setting up a hitting plane ("wall" or "window") and then having the hitter "pre-focus" at the expected contact zone. In trying to accomplish this, I find myself actually focusing less on the approaching ball than I had been previously. Instead, I shift my focus to the contact zone sooner and let the ball come into focus as it approaches.

Note that this is my own interpretation of Scott's concept based own my own experience and also based on what I've learned about the way that line judges are taught to watch the lines (more about that later).

I suspect that you would not be pre-focused on your own contact zone when your opponent is hitting the ball or when the ball is on his/her side of the net. If you are watching your opponent and the ball's spin & trajectory when the ball is on their side of the net, you should have a pretty good idea where the ball will bounce and where you need to be to contact the oncoming ball as it is crossing the net.

Asssuming, for now, that both you & your opponent are in your respective backcourts, you could conceivably stop watching the ball as it crosses the net. If you move toward the expected contact zone & then pre-focus on your expected contact point as the ball is crossing the net, you should still be able to see the movement of the ball even tho' the ball may not necessarily be in focus (until it gets closer to your pre-focus zone).

Once you've made contact, do not be tempted to move your head or shift your focus until you have almost completed your follow-thru. This will help you make a clean contact as well as aid you in keeping your balance & hitting thru the ball as Becker suggests. Don't try the follow the ball right off the strings of your racket... even on balls that you hit at a fairly slow speed, you'll never be able to see the ball come off the strings anyway... it's counterproductive to even try.

If you wait til your follow-thru is nearly complete to move your head/eyes to track the departing ball, you should still be able to see it cross the net and bounce (still assuming that you & your opponent are playing "back").

Line judges are instructed to focus on the outer edge of the line rather than watch the ball to make a line call. They may actually be watching the ball while it is in play. However, once they observe a ball trajectory that has the ball approaching "their" line, the stop watching the ball and pre-focus on the line in question. The ball should come into focus when it is in the vicinty of "their" line and they should be able to make an accurate call (theoretically). High-speed studies show that line judges who move their head (or track the ball with their eyes) as the ball is bouncing have a far greater tendency to make inaccurate calls.

Try making line calls as described above when someone else is hitting. If you are looking down the line in question and not moving your head or eyes, you will find that you can easily make a line call even tho' you are not watching the ball at all!

Now, as a hitter, you will be pre-focusing on an imaginary wall or contact zone rather than a solid line. But the concept is very similar.

I'm sure that Scott Ford explains all this in quite a different manner, but I believe that I've got the gist of it. Check out his numerous articles, blog and blog archives at his web site (as well as TennisOne.com (http://www.TennisOne.com)):

www.arete-sports.com/index.shtml (http://www.arete-sports.com/index.shtml)
www.arete-sports.com/articles.shtml (http://www.arete-sports.com/articles.shtml)
http://arete-sports.com/blog

Note sure that his DVD encompasses but you might try 1 or more of the online E-lessons instead:

www.arete-sports.com/onlinelessons.shtml (http://www.arete-sports.com/onlinelessons.shtml)

[goober]

Thx for the links and commentary SystemicAnomaly!

[austro]

Thanks Anomaly! There is actually a "manual" (35 page presentation) on the site. which is a free download and explains everything in detail and also provides drills. It is also full of jargon which was not necessary in my view. I fear that adjusting this way would be difficult and lead to a deterioration in one's game in the first place. But if it ultimately makes you play better, it might be worth it.

[SystemicAnomaly]

Thanks Anomaly! There is actually a "manual" (35 page presentation) on the site. which is a free download and explains everything in detail and also provides drills. It is also full of jargon which was not necessary in my view. I fear that adjusting this way would be difficult and lead to a deterioration in one's game in the first place. But if it ultimately makes you play better, it might be worth it.

I can see where the liberal use of jargon would get to a lot of ppl. I was able to get past it tho'. I would hope that Scott eases his students into the jargon/theory in his actual presentation of his concepts.

I really don't think that you would experience a deterioration for very long before you started to see some positive results. Initially, try it when you warm up or practice it in a cooperative, non-competitve situation for a while before attempting to incorporate it into your game.

[dizzychump]

I think there is something in this. I read about it last time it was mentioned here. The problem I have with it is that I find it almost impossible to maintain focus on the contact point, which until the ball arrives is just a space with nothing in it.

It is very difficult to control the focus of the eyes as you are fighting the instinct to focus on the first solid object in your vision.