One handed backhand thread. Put up or shut up. Let's see video of people's 1hb

[FrisbeeFool]

In the past month their have been many threads about how to hit a "modern" one-handed backhand. Most of them have horrible game wrecking advice like: attack the ball with your elbow, rotate into your contact point, roll your wrist for maximum supination. etc.

Advice of this kind is horrible, will wreck people's games, and is being given by people who cannot hit one-handed backhands. Those of us who actually have tennis experience know this.

Sound one-handed backhands are built on advice like: Prepare early, turn sideways, get your front shoulder under your chin, get under the ball, Reach out towards your target and hit through the ball, stay sideways at contact. Keep your arm relaxed, long follow-through ever time, stay with the shot, take the ball early, make contact out in front, etc. etc.

So It's time to put up or shut up. All of us who are posting advice, let's all go out and video our backhands, and post the videos. Then let's see who actually knows how to hit a backhand.

I will post a video of my backhand. It's cold here, but I should be able to get outside in the next week and videotape some groundies. I just got a digital camera, and plan to videotape my shots on Wednesday, and have the video posted by sometime Thursday.

For the first couple days of the thread we can speculate who can actually hit a one-handed backhand, and make predictions about the results. Hopefully in the next few days the videos will come rolling in.

It's time for people to put up or shut up!

[FrisbeeFool]

My predictions:
I know I have a sound one-handed backhand. I'm guessing Cheetah has a good one. I think BoramiNYC has a good one.

I'll be interested to see the submissions from all the magic of modern tennis, we've reinvented the wheel with our internet message board pablum, we understand the modern game better than Fed or Djokovic, the fundamentals no longer matter, we've invented a whole new paradigm crowd.

[boramiNYC]

looking forward to see some nice 1hbh strokes. weather permitting I'll see what can be done. meanwhile, I agree there have been some 1hbh discussions recently that raised my eyebrows. no worries tho. learning and improving can take a wild journey of perception and we all get there in our own ways. what's important is that any kinds of discussion of 1hbh is happening at all. and folks trying out for the first time and stuff.

[onehandbh]

I do not claim to have a great one hand BH, but here is
recent clip: (racquet in video is a Jack Kramer
Prostaff wood racquet strung with full poly)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GVpJT8s0BQ

[The Meat]

Originally Posted by onehandbh

I do no claim to have a great one hand BH, but here is
recent clip: (racquet in video is a Jack Kramer
Prostaff wood racquet strung with full poly)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8GVpJT8s0BQ

Okay I have seen this happen a few times this week with other posters. If you are going to post a link for the video make sure to remove the (m.) from the front portion of your link if you are posting on your mobile device.

Here's the real link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GVpJT8s0BQ

[Greg G]

Can I join? My backhand has always been the dependable wing, even if I neglect it and give most of my attention to the forehand...

Topspin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muDwXnd1Akw

Slice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptgtd6G_A-Y

[The Bawss]

Originally Posted by Greg G

Can I join? My backhand has always been the dependable wing, even if I neglect it and give most of my attention to the forehand...

Topspin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muDwXnd1Akw

Slice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptgtd6G_A-Y

No offence but being able to hit easy sitters which are being fed to you just behind the service box isn't any kind of measure of one's backhand. Despite this, you hit a whole bunch long.

[Greg G]

(facepalm) Sigh. I thought we were talking form here. Let me dig some match video up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRoyfX5XgzQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySvw0VR4Ii8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzTAgCvnMbI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIOUU2J953Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkL2ZvWNffY

Hope the footage meets your standards. Now in the spirit of the thread title...I showed you mine, show us yours

[onehandbh]

Originally Posted by The Meat

Okay I have seen this happen a few times this week with other posters. If you are going to post a link for the video make sure to remove the (m.) from the front portion of your link if you are posting on your mobile device.

Here's the real link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GVpJT8s0BQ

Thanks. Apparently, posting from mobile phones causes this.

[always_crosscourt]

Originally Posted by FrisbeeFool

My predictions:
I know I have a sound one-handed backhand. I'm guessing Cheetah has a good one. I think BoramiNYC has a good one.

I'll be interested to see the submissions from all the magic of modern tennis, we've reinvented the wheel with our internet message board pablum, we understand the modern game better than Fed or Djokovic, the fundamentals no longer matter, we've invented a whole new paradigm crowd.

He may have a good one. That doesn't mean he can describe how to hit a good one. On the internet at least.

He says that you should start rotating your torso... then... - wait for it - start to slow down the rotation of your torso all within the two seconds (if that) between realizing you're going to hit a backhand and actually contacting the ball. If that's not over-complication I have no idea what over-complication is.

I would say, that if you make good preparation and make sure the bottom part of your swing is very low (the 1hbh gives you access to good spin - take advantage) - everything else will follow.

[luvforty]

Originally Posted by FrisbeeFool

Sound one-handed backhands are built on advice like: Prepare early, turn sideways, get your front shoulder under your chin, get under the ball, Reach out towards your target and hit through the ball, stay sideways at contact. Keep your arm relaxed, long follow-through ever time, stay with the shot, take the ball early, make contact out in front, etc. etc.

my hitting partner - used to hit the 1hbh with the conventional wisdom above... he had an aha moment after I told him to upper cut/ side cut the ball..

conventional wisdom don't always work... some may do more harm than good.. e.g. 'reach out towards target'.... that has arm/body separation written all over it.

[johndagolfer]

http://youtu.be/RFv8MYUnMJY

I think i have done pretty well considering I learned and played with a two-handed backhand for over 10 years. I took a 13ish year break and figured I needed a change. I have been hitting this backhand for roughly 1.75 years

[Pickle9]

this thread is going to be the goat

[Greg G]

Originally Posted by always_crosscourt

He may have a good one. That doesn't mean he can describe how to hit a good one. On the internet at least.

He says that you should start rotating your torso... then... - wait for it - start to slow down the rotation of your torso all within the two seconds (if that) between realizing you're going to hit a backhand and actually contacting the ball. If that's not over-complication I have no idea what over-complication is.
.

Sounds like he is describing the kinetic chain, and yes that is how I hit mine, although my focus is on slowing the hip rotation, which releases the energy into the torso, and the subsequent slowdown transfers it to the arm/racquet. If there is no slowdown, I would imagine the contact being late and with less power/control, probably spawning some corrective measures from the arm/wrist to get the racquet face aligned or add more power.

[luvforty]

hence the idea of attacking the ball with the elbow... the energy has to transfer to the elbow, so the rotation will slow down..

but you don't try to transfer the energy to the racket head (even thought that makes sense), so as to avoid arming the ball with insufficient coil.

[always_crosscourt]

Originally Posted by Greg G

Sounds like he is describing the kinetic chain, and yes that is how I hit mine, although my focus is on slowing the hip rotation, which releases the energy into the torso, and the subsequent slowdown transfers it to the arm/racquet. If there is no slowdown, I would imagine the contact being late and with less power/control, probably spawning some corrective measures from the arm/wrist to get the racquet face aligned or add more power.

It doesn't make sense.

How can you focus on slowing anything down when swinging into a shot. If you try to slow anything down when swinging forward, the shot will not be explosive and it'll be tentative instead.

I've noticed that my non-hitting arm does indeed fling back when I hit my 1hbh now. Whether or not it flings backwards to slow down my torso rotation as contact with the ball is being made, thus transferring energy from the torso to the racket arm - I have no idea.

All I know is that as my racket head speed developed, the non-hitting arm started flinging back naturally.

My backhand has fvcked up for a long time when our group coach told me to focus on flinging the non-hitting arm hand backwards. I imagine it would be even more fvcked up if he had told me to focus on slowing down the rotation of my torso before contact is made.

I eventually ignored that, and focused on preparation and the actual forward swing instead - the essentials. That is all you need to think about. As I have discovered, the arm flinging back and the torso rotation will all come as you develop the essentials, and it will only mess you up if you think about them instead of the essentials of the stroke.

[luvforty]

the type of teaching that focus on what a specific body part need to do, can really fvck up a stroke.....

you need to leverage something that our body already know how to do, like drawing a sword or throwing frisbee.... unfortunately, drawing a sword is a terrible one... and throwing a frisbee.... imo can mess up what the hand should do...

hence the 'attacking with elbow'.... now.. this attack may not look like when you elbow attack in martial arts, but i believe it is a good cue to have a good coil, and unwind the hitting unit into the ball.

[psv255]

Here's a before&after, followed by more "after."

Before: No lessons, no advice, just hitting with other people and against the wall.
After: This is after watching xstf's series on the backhand and random tidbits from TW. Tips that helped most were "shoulder under chin", buttcap to ball, and the timing of weight transfer from back to front foot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJkaC4MvXgk

[NLBwell]

Originally Posted by luvforty

my hitting partner - used to hit the 1hbh with the conventional wisdom above... he had an aha moment after I told him to upper cut/ side cut the ball..

conventional wisdom don't always work... some may do more harm than good.. e.g. 'reach out towards target'.... that has arm/body separation written all over it.

Not sure what you are getting at. Seems like the ball would go way over the side fence everytime. As long as it worked for your hitting partner it was good advice, though.

[boramiNYC]

Originally Posted by luvforty

the type of teaching that focus on what a specific body part need to do, can really fvck up a stroke.....

you need to leverage something that our body already know how to do, like drawing a sword or throwing frisbee.... unfortunately, drawing a sword is a terrible one... and throwing a frisbee.... imo can mess up what the hand should do...

hence the 'attacking with elbow'.... now.. this attack may not look like when you elbow attack in martial arts, but i believe it is a good cue to have a good coil, and unwind the hitting unit into the ball.

unless one does everything right from the get go we all go through periods of focusing on specific body parts. trick is learning how to make the correction subconscious and move on. it's a whole another skill on its own.

you might be at a stage where focusing on elbow helps you, which is fine. I did at some point as well.

of course frisbee or any other analogy are horribly inadequate but as an approximation of the swingpath I think it's an improvement over drawing a sword which reminds of low arm position in the beginning of the forward swing.