Drills for keeping head still and eye on the ball

N

NLBwell

Legend
Since my worst problem is keeping my head still during the stroke (brought on by popping my head up to look at the students while feeding drill classes up to 3000 times a day), I've tried many ways of forcing myself to keep my head still. One of the best is this double-hit drill. [I made it up myself, but I assume others have done it in the past - though I've never seen it elsewhere.] You must keep the head still after you initially hit it in order to get the second hit on the ball.
Using Jimmy Connors wood racket for additional difficulty and to know when I am even a tiny bit off-center.
The really difficult part is to initially hit on the forehand and have the second hit on the backhand (and vice versa). Excellent drill for forcing you to really control the ball with touch and direction and overcome the tendency to move the head too quickly to look on the other side of the body.
Warm-up, some double hits, - skip from 2:10 to 5:35 (the wind does get better a bit after that) - some volleys, and some attempts at doing it the hard way. Oh, and trying to squarely hit the ball with a vertical swing at the very end.
 
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N

NLBwell

Legend
Fintft said:
Hi,

Not sure if I get your drill, but my benchmark is to make sure that I don't see the ball if it hits the net (you are supposed to "hear" it).
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Well, obviously you can't snap your head up and look away if you are going to hit the ball a second time. It enforces looking at the ball long after you initially struck it. Drilling in muscle memory of keeping the head still. Telling myself to keep the head down until a certain point can't undo the muscle memory of 750 to 1000 balls an hour for 3 to 4 hours in a day when I was teaching.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Just to be clear... it is NOT ideal to keep your eye on the ball all the time. More than 99% of the time, we are able to actually see the ball all the way into the strings when we are rallying. Close inspection of Roger Federer in slow-mo HD video reveal that his fixes his gaze on his expected contact point (CP) shortly before the ball gets there. So obviously, he's no longer watching the ball as it gets very close to his CP.

He continues to keep his head still, eyes on the CP during impact and for some time afterward. He's not following the ball coming off the strings. So again, he does not have his eyes on the ball (often until it is crossing the net or is close to the net).

More about keeping the head still in my next post. Coming soon.
 
N

NLBwell

Legend
SystemicAnomaly said:
Just to be clear... it is NOT ideal to keep your eye on the ball all the time. More than 99% of the time, we are able to actually see the ball all the way into the strings when we are rallying. Close inspection of Roger Federer in slow-mo HD video reveal that his fixes his gaze on his expected contact point (CP) shortly before the ball gets there. So obviously, he's no longer watching the ball as it gets very close to his CP.

He continues to keep his head still, eyes on the CP during impact and for some time afterward. He's not following the ball coming off the strings. So again, he does not have his eyes on the ball (often until it is crossing the net or is close to the net).

More about keeping the head still in my next post. Coming soon.
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Agree. This drill enforces keeping your head/eyes on the contact point long after you first hit the ball.
Anxiously awaiting your next post.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
When I was teaching a lot of hours every week, I did find it a challenge to keep my head still during the contact phase when playing. I also found myself gravitating towards a continental grip without realizing it -- since conti or semi-conti is conducive to feeding students.

I worked quite a bit on reinforcing the habit to keep the head still. It was something that I had to keep on top of. Often, I'd be okay playing for 2 sets. But often, toward the end of the second set or the beginning of the third set, I would find myself mishitting more balls. And then I'd realize that I was looking up prematurely when hitting.

I like the idea of your double-hit routine. I've done this drill quite a few times myself -- but not specifically for the purpose of keeping the head from moving. But I can see this drill having some benefit toward this end. I've mentioned another drill recently that has worked very well for me and for my students.

For this drill, you want to stand about 6 to 9 meters (20 to 30 ft) from the back fence. Drive a Fh or Bh into the back fence. Fix your gaze on your CP (or slightly forward oo your CP). Do not lift your head to follow the ball until you hear it hit the fence. If you see the ball hitting the fence, then you are moving your head and looking up too early.

The same still can be done against a wall. But avoid the temptation to sustain a rally against the wall when you first start this drill. Just go for a 1-hit rally for a while (for a few dozen balls or more).

When practicing g'strokes or informally rallying against other players, make sure that you are still keeping the head still. It can't take some while before it becomes a habit that won't fail you in competition.

I mentioned fixing the gaze slightly forward of the CP -- rather than directly at the expected CP. Roger's gaze technique had him fixated on the CP. However, this takes a bit more head movement to get into position prior to contact. Andre Agassi employee gaze strategy that is easier to implement for most players. He would stop tracking the ball and fix his gaze a little bit forward of his expected CP. Perhaps a half meter or so. AA for this gaze location. However, like RF, he would keep his head still before and after contact.
 
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N

NLBwell

Legend
SystemicAnomaly said:
When I was teaching a lot of hours every week, I did find it a challenge to keep my head still during the contact phase when playing. I also found myself gravitating towards a continental grip without realizing it -- since conti or semi-conti is conducive to feeding students.

I worked quite a bit on reinforcing the habit to keep the head still. It was something that I had to keep on top of. Often, I'd be okay playing for 2 sets. But often, toward the end of the second set or the beginning of the third set, I would find myself mishitting more balls. And then I'd realize that I was looking up prematurely when hitting.

I like the idea of your double-hit routine. I've done this drill quite a few times myself -- but not specifically for the purpose of keeping the head from moving. But I can see this drill having some benefit toward this end. I've mentioned another drill recently that has worked very well for me and for my students.

For this drill, you want to stand about 6 to 10 meters (20 to 30+ ft) from the back fence. Drive a Fh or Bh into the back fence. Fix your gaze on your CP (or slightly forward oo your CP). Do not lift your head to follow the ball until you hear it hit the fence. If you see the ball hitting the fence, then you are moving your head and looking up too early.

The same still can be done against a wall. But avoid the temptation to sustain a rally against the wall when you first start this drill. Just go for a 1-hit rally for a while (for a few dozen balls or more).

When practicing g'strokes or informally rallying against other players, make sure that you are still keeping the head still. It can't take some while before it becomes a habit that won't fail you in competition.

I mentioned fixing the gaze slightly forward of the CP -- rather than directly at the expected CP. Roger's gaze technique had him fixated on the CP. However, this takes a bit more head movement to get into position prior to contact. Andre Agassi employee gaze strategy that is easier to implement for most players. He would stop tracking the ball and fix his gaze a little bit forward of his expected CP. Perhaps a half meter or so. AA for this gaze location. However, like RF, he would keep his head still before and after contact.
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I've done the fence drill many times for many hours. It's one of the drills I've done to try to fix the problem.
Where the head-moving affects me most in in doubles where I am looking up to see the opponents. I can play well in the first set, but by late in the second set or in the third set, it can get so bad that I mishit and make an error on every ball other than my serve. It's frustrating when I realize that I haven't returned a single serve in my last four return games (especially in mixed). In fact, the slower the ball coming to me, the more the time to move my head and the more likely there will be a mishit - especially if I played against a hard-hitter the day before.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
NLBwell said:
I've done the fence drill many times for many hours. It's one of the drills I've done to try to fix the problem.
Where the head-moving affects me most in in doubles where I am looking up to see the opponents. I can play well in the first set, but by late in the second set or in the third set, it can get so bad that I mishit and make an error on every ball other than my serve. It's frustrating when I realize that I haven't returned a single serve in my last four return games (especially in mixed). In fact, the slower the ball coming to me, the more the time to move my head and the more likely there will be a mishit - especially if I played against a hard-hitter the day before.
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Learned to trust my peripheral vision. Performed numerous drills to develop my peripheral. With drill, software programs and other training, also learned to suppress the urge to sneak a peek every time I detected peripheral movement.

Peripheral vision excells at detecting peripheral movement. It can also determine if moving objects are light or dark. OTOH it is lousy at picking up color and other detail. But, if your opponents are moving during your forward swing, it's not really all that important that you see if their shoes are tied. Or if what color those shoes might be. Your peripheral vision should be able to detect the direction your opponents might be moving. Trust that.

In the late 80s, I was "seeing" a behavioral optometrist who specialize in vision training for sports (also for work & academic pursuits). This SVT developed / trained various visual skills, including peripheral vision.

Some video games are quite good at developing peripheral vision skills. Since I worked for Atari back in the day, I was playing a lot of video games from the mid 70s thru much of the 90s.

In the late 90s, I came across some specialty software, ThinkFast, that employed elementary cognitive tasks to develop cognitive, visual and some auditory skills. Simple and complex (choice) reaction time, subliminal awareness, peripheral awareness, distraction suppression, short term memory, etc. Sadly, this software doesn't run on any OS later than Win 98.

And one volleyball class I had 25+ years ago, we played a distraction drill game. We were expected to execute controlled passes while one or two other players attempted to distract us. Can do something like this with tennis as well. Try playing an incoming tennis ball while someone else throws balls or other objects at you in an effort to hit or distract you.

You can also devise some on-court drills where you are performing reaction time skills using your peripheral vision. One possibility is to have a player standing about 2-4 meters (~10 ft or more) in front of you. Their arms outstretched with a ball in each hand. They can drop either ball. You will focus directly on your drill partner while detecting which ball is being dropped with your peripheral vision. If you are close, you should try to catch the dropped ball before it hits the ground. If further away, catch the ball before it bounces a second time. More info on peripheral vision and other visual skills:
www.optometrists.org

Vision for Tennis

Tennis players need speed, endurance, flexibility, and agility to be successful in the game. Did you know that tennis players also need excellent visual skills?
www.optometrists.org www.optometrists.org
www.tennis-university.com

INSIDE TU #30 – PERIPHERES SEHEN | TENNIS-UNIVERSITY

www.tennis-university.com www.tennis-university.com
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
personally i look for the "yellow streak" at contact... if i don't see the streak likely i picked my head up too soon to see where it was going.
at least one book i read talks about mapping the angle of the streak to the quality of the hit (eg. how deep and direction it went).
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
@NLBwell @travlerajm
nyta2 said:
personally i look for the "yellow streak" at contact... if i don't see the streak likely i picked my head up too soon to see where it was going.
at least one book i read talks about mapping the angle of the streak to the quality of the hit (eg. how deep and direction it went).
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Ah, the "yellow streak". Not thought of it for quite a while. Cuz of a seriously bad hip joint (avascular necrosis), I have not been able to play or a rally much in the past few years.

What book was it that talks about the streak? Have you seen any other sources that refer to this "yellow streak"? Ok boys and girls, are you ready for an in-depth discussion of the yellow streak?

It sounds like the book you referred to assumes that the yellow streak is our perception (eyes & brain) of the outgoing ball. However, to my thinking, what we are seeing is primarily the incoming ball. Or, exclusively, the incoming ball. But we could possibly be seeing an overlap of the incoming and outgoing ball. Our persistence of vision is something on the order of 30 ms. Considering the ball is on the stringbed for 5 ms, I'm thinking that the whole blur event could easily be less than 30 ms. Even if it is not, we might still very well be witnessing an overlap.

In most cases, the outgoing ball is moving much quicker than the incoming ball. Cuz of air drag, the ball loses quite a bit of speed as it travels thru the air. And it loses quite a bit of speed at the bounce. One study shows that a 120 mph serve reaches the opposite baseline at about 54 mph (a bit less than half its original speed). @JohnYandell might know something about this ball speed study.

When the ball is not very close to us, we can easily track the ball with our smooth pursuit tracking system. But, when the ball is very close to us, it travels across our field of vision too quickly for the smooth pursuit system to keep up. The ball effectively becomes "invisible" for a while. When the motion of an object exceeds our smooth pursuit, we can often pick up bits of additional visual information using saccadic tracking. We may often see more of the object using a jump-ahead saccade. Often just a momentary glimpse. The yellow streak might be one of these jump-ahead saccades.

I've never seen the yellow streak (a yellow smear) right at the contact point. It seems to be slightly forward of it.

Question. Do you also see the blur of the racket during the contact phase? Stayed tuned. I'll have a bit more to say about the yellow blur in my next post. Soon.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
@nyta2
On most incoming balls, I believe that I can usually (smooth pursuit) track it until it is within a meter or so of me. At this point it becomes "invisible" for a while. But I will often detect the yellow blur (yellow streak) close to the contact point. After I've hit the ball, I can see a solid ball again when it is about 4-9 meters away from me (shortly before it crosses the net).

This is because the outgoing ball is moving away from me much quicker than the incoming ball was coming toward me. It is because of this speed difference, that I believe that the yellow streak is primarily the incoming ball.

Try this for an experiment. (I'll have to try it again myself tonight). With a self-feed, drop-hit a ball. Do you detect a yellow streak? I do not recall ever seeing it in this situation. No outgoing streak?

This is similar to what happens on the serve. I can clearly see the ball toss prior to contact. But I never actually see the ball on the strings. I don't recall seeing a yellow streak in this situation either. What I see is: the ball is there, and then, the ball is gone. No yellow blur that I recall. I don't see the ball again until it is some distance away -- approaching the net.

If I get a chance, I'll try these 2 situations again tonight. Will attempt to see if I can detect the yellow blur in these cases.
 
Curious

Curious

G.O.A.T.
@SystemicAnomaly
Not sure about seeing the contact but I feel like it’s possible to see the ball and the racket head together in the same visual field? What do you think and is that good enough?
I certainly can do that on the serve ie while watching the tossed ball in the air if I keep looking at it carefully I also see the racket head or a blur of it for a split second and then both disappear suddenly.
 
Fintft

Fintft

G.O.A.T.
NLBwell said:
Telling myself to keep the head down until a certain point can't undo the muscle memory of 750 to 1000 balls an hour for 3 to 4 hours in a day when I was teaching.
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Also probably b/c coaches want to see what their students are doing.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Curious said:
@SystemicAnomaly
Not sure about seeing the contact but I feel like it’s possible to see the ball and the racket head together in the same visual field? What do you think and is that good enough?
I certainly can do that on the serve ie while watching the tossed ball in the air if I keep looking at it carefully I also see the racket head or a blur of it for a split second and then both disappear suddenly.
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Don't believe it is possible to see the actual contact for most balls (unless it is moving unusually slow). The yellow blur we're talking about is actually somewhat forward of the CP.

Shortly before the incoming ball becomes "invisible", your eyes can still be fixed on it (if you are still tracking it). Even when your gaze is fixed on the ball or on your expected CP, you can still pick up the motion of forward swing of your racket (unless you have tunnel vision). As you continue the forward swing, the racket becomes more of a blur -- but your peripheral vision is can still "see" it's motion.

So yes, there are periods when you can see the ball and the racket (or the blur of the racket). Seeing the racket motion may or may not help. Perhaps on a subconscious level, your brain is using the racket motion to help keep your swingpath true. Pure speculation here tho'.

What might be even more important than seeing your racket (motion), is proprioception and your sense of touch. We use proprioception to tell us where our limbs are located in space. Without it, catching a ball or even the act of walking would be very difficult.

Our sense of touch, specifically the hand(s) holding the racket, can also be very important. Note that our touch reaction time, like our auditory RT, is much quicker than our visual RT -- because the visual takes more processing time than touch or hearing.

If my grip is relaxed for much/most of the forward swing, I have a very good sense of the weight of the racket head. If I can feel that weight, I have a very good sense of the racket head's location. I also have a very good sense of the racket face orientation.

A relaxed grip seems to be enhancing my sense of touch as well as my proprioception. If I grip too tightly, or squeeze too soon, I lose the sense of exactly where my racket head is located wrt my hand/body. I may also lose some of the sense of its orientation. Instead, what I feel is a lot of tension (greater muscle contraction) in the fingers and the forearm. This distracts or prevents me from feeling the weight of the racket head and it's location.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
@Fintft
nyta2 said:
every coach i talk to says coaching is terrible for their game.
lazy footwork, eyes on student (vs. contact), shifting closer to conti grip (ie. to keep ball flatter/more precise for student), etc...
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@NLBwell seems to be well aware of this phenomenon. If one does a lot of teaching, you often need to fight to counteract these tendencies. I found that I needed to constantly practice keeping my head still and "eyes quiet". Not looking up early (when I wasn't teaching).

I did some of my ball feeding to students hitting the ball out of the air (no bounce) as most instructors do. However, unlike many coaches, I did quite a lot of my ball feeding with a bounce. It was my philosophy that feeding in this manner gave the students more of a rhythm of my feed. They had a better sense of exactly when I was going to start my forward swing to feed the ball. I think it made it a bit easier for them to figure out the timing of their split steps as well.

Feeding off the bounce like this, I found it easier to use an Eastern grip for hitting balls flat or with underspin rather then having to resort to a grip that was closer to continental. I could easily transition to hitting feeds with topspin as well -- using either an Eastern or a SW grip.
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
J011yroger said:
********.

Errrr. B.S. for short.

J
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Not my experience. A lot of coaches, including myself, gravitated towards a continental grip -- sometimes without realizing it. Looking up early, or not looking at the CP at all, when feeding students was also something that affected my game. This also appears to be the case for the OP and for @nyta2.

But I did not find that teaching had any detrimental effects on my footwork.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
SystemicAnomaly said:
Not my experience. A lot of coaches, including myself, gravitated towards a continental grip -- sometimes without realizing it. Looking up early, or not looking at the CP at all, when feeding students was also something that affected my game.

But I did not find that teaching had any detrimental effects on my footwork.
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How many hours per week did you spend playing and training seriously while teaching?

J
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
J011yroger said:
********.

Errrr. B.S. for short.

J
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hehe, really? how do you watch them?
if you're hitting with high level folks, and it's just about hitting, i can see that not being a detriment...
but for intermediates i'm working with, i'm constantly peeking over to see if they are doing what i'm asking them to do (ie. when rallying).
if i'm racquet feeding, i'm definitely not watching the contact... kinda just blindly feeding (ie. not watching the contact)
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
nyta2 said:
hehe, really? how do you watch them?
if you're hitting with high level folks, and it's just about hitting, i can see that not being a detriment...
but for intermediates i'm working with, i'm constantly peeking over to see if they are doing what i'm asking them to do (ie. when rallying).
if i'm racquet feeding, i'm definitely not watching the contact... kinda just blindly feeding (ie. not watching the contact)
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Follow the ball.

I watch what my opponent is doing in matches, why wouldn't I be able to watch a 4.0 when the ball is going half as fast?

J
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
J011yroger said:
How many hours per week did you spend playing and training seriously while teaching?

J
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Before I had started teaching a lot of hours, I had more than 2 decades of playing under my belt. I had already well established muscle memory for my grips, strokes, gaze strategies, etc.

Over the decades, I consciously modified my strokes as racket and string technology changed and the predominant styles used by the pros changed. However, when I started teaching 20+ hours a week, some subconscious, unintended changes crept into my game. I was still playing a fair amount but not really training for competition very much at that point.
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
J011yroger said:
And your playing was worse than if you just played 10h/week and didn't teach?

J
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it wasn't worse, but i did find i had to be conscious about making sure i went back to fundamentals: split, eyes on contact, stay down, full follow through, etc...
when hitting with intermediates, i was intentionally hitting short/lower/slower, so the ball would go into their strike zone (since my normal shot is typically high and heavy spin - terrible for intermediates/beginners)... so that was another calibration i had to remind myself of when playing for myself.
and sometimes if i just taught for 3-4h, when it got time to hitting for myself, was already tired mentally and physically, so the practice wasn't as sharp.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
SystemicAnomaly said:
Before I had started teaching a lot of hours, I had more than 2 decades of playing under my belt. I had already well established muscle memory for my grips, strokes, gaze strategies, etc.

Over the decades, I consciously modified my strokes as racket and string technology changed and the predominant styles used by the pros changed. However, when I started teaching 20+ hours a week, some subconscious, unintended changes crept into my game. I was still playing a fair amount but not really training for competition very much at that point.
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So if I played competitively for 20 years, and then decided I was going to stop training for competition and practice bowling 20+ hours per week but still play a fair amount, it would be kind of silly to say bowling ruined my tennis.

Not playing tennis ruined your tennis.

J
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
nyta2 said:
it wasn't worse, but i did find i had to be conscious about making sure i went back to fundamentals: split, eyes on contact, stay down, full follow through, etc...
when hitting with intermediates, i was intentionally hitting short/lower/slower, so the ball would go into their strike zone (since my normal shot is typically high and heavy spin - terrible for intermediates/beginners)... so that was another calibration i had to remind myself of when playing for myself.
and sometimes if i just taught for 3-4h, when it got time to hitting for myself, was already tired mentally and physically, so the practice wasn't as sharp.
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Why don't you split step when hitting in lessons?

Hit your normal shots, just slower.

If you can't hit a forehand slower on a flatter trajectory and land it where you want without drastically altering your stroke, that means there is a problem with your forehand. Learn how to hit the ball however you want and you will be better at playing.

J
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
J011yroger said:
So if I played competitively for 20 years, and then decided I was going to stop training for competition and practice bowling 20+ hours per week but still play a fair amount, it would be kind of silly to say bowling ruined my tennis.

Not playing tennis ruined your tennis.

J
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switching to bowling, or some other sport, is different... movements/context not that same.
a similar thing happened to me when training different styles of martial arts. eg. the footwork (hands also) patterns between/among styles are different but sufficiently similar that i sometimes got confused when i started blending them.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
nyta2 said:
anywho, if you think coaching dind't/doesn't have a negative impact on your game, you're the first i've talked to about it that says it didn't.
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I think it's an excuse used by people who were never good in the first place, or were good and stopped trying to be good.

Half of them are lying to you, the other half are lying to themselves.

"I played for Duke and I was really good but now I only play twice a week so I got worse." Is a perfectly logical thing to say.

"I played for Duke and I was really good but now I am a pro and teaching ruins your game." Is B.S.

J
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
J011yroger said:
Why don't you split step when hitting in lessons?

Hit your normal shots, just slower.

If you can't hit a forehand slower on a flatter trajectory and land it where you want without drastically altering your stroke, that means there is a problem with your forehand. Learn how to hit the ball however you want and you will be better at playing.

J
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sometimes i don't split, because i'm focused on what they are doing around contact...
anywho, i guess we'll just have to disagree on this topics... definitely feels like it has a negative impact to me, however subtle.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
nyta2 said:
switching to bowling, or some other sport, is different... movements/context not that same.
a similar thing happened to me when training different styles of martial arts. eg. the footwork (hands also) patterns between/among styles are different but sufficiently similar that i sometimes got confused when i started blending them.
Click to expand...

If guy 1 practiced tennis for himself 10 hours a week and played video games 10 hours a week, and guy 2 practiced tennis 10 hours a week and taught tennis 10 hours a week who would be the better tennis player after a year?

J
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
J011yroger said:
I think it's an excuse used by people who were never good in the first place, or were good and stopped trying to be good.

Half of them are lying to you, the other half are lying to themselves.

"I played for Duke and I was really good but now I only play twice a week so I got worse." Is a perfectly logical thing to say.

"I played for Duke and I was really good but now I am a pro and teaching ruins your game." Is B.S.

J
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perhaps i was never good. but still feels there is an impact as i ramped up teaching.
fair to say that some folks got worse just because they stopped playing... indirectly because they were teaching too much (like me probably too tired to actually train for myself properly after a long day of feeding).
i'm not saying it causes major issues,... but little things, like not always keeping the eyes on contact...
 
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
J011yroger said:
So if I played competitively for 20 years, and then decided I was going to stop training for competition and practice bowling 20+ hours per week but still play a fair amount, it would be kind of silly to say bowling ruined my tennis.

Not playing tennis ruined your tennis.

J
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You didn't really read what I wrote did you? Did not say that teaching ruined my game. Not playing competitively didn't really ruin it either. (Chronic injuries, however, were detrimental to my game).

Training & playing competitive badminton for much of the 1980s did have a detrimental effect on my ground strokes but not on the rest of my tennis game.

Teaching definitely resulted in some unintended changes to my game but I never made the statement that it ruined my game.
 
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J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
nyta2 said:
sometimes i don't split, because i'm focused on what they are doing around contact...
anywho, i guess we'll just have to disagree on this topics... definitely feels like it has a negative impact to me, however subtle.
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Try it for a week. Force yourself to split every time your lesson hits the ball, see if it has a negative effect on your observation.

I'll tell you a secret, your students learn more from watching you than listening to you so if you split on every ball they will too.

J
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
J011yroger said:
Try it for a week. Force yourself to split every time your lesson hits the ball, see if it has a negative effect on your observation.

I'll tell you a secret, your students learn more from watching you than listening to you so if you split on every ball they will too.

J
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fair enough.
though if they are properly watching the contact, through contact, like i always nag them to, they should never see me split...
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
SystemicAnomaly said:
You didn't really read what I wrote did you? Did not say that teaching ruined my game. Not playing competitively didn't really ruin it either. (Chronic injuries, however, was detrimental to my game).

However, training & playing competitive badminton for much of the 1980s, had a detrimental effect on my groundstrokes but not on the rest of my tennis game.

Teaching definitely resulted in some unintended changes to my game but I never made the statement that it ruined my game.
Click to expand...

Sorry if my message was confusing. I didn't intend to direct it at you.

It was a general statement towards people who say teaching ruined their game.

J
 
N

nyta2

Hall of Fame
J011yroger said:
Sorry if my message was confusing. I didn't intend to direct it at you.

It was a general statement towards people who say teaching ruined their game.

J
Click to expand...
rereading this... "ruin" is probably too strong a word... "less sharp" is probably more appropriate. i'm not saying they went from 5.5 to 3.5...
 
N

NLBwell

Legend
J011yroger said:
If guy 1 practiced tennis for himself 10 hours a week and played video games 10 hours a week, and guy 2 practiced tennis 10 hours a week and taught tennis 10 hours a week who would be the better tennis player after a year?

J
Click to expand...
In my case, I would have been far better if I played video games 10 hours a week.

I would grab the ball out of the basket, flip it up in the air, SNAP my chest and head around to face the students, watch what they were doing (viewing the 2 or 3 students crossing the baseline hitting forehands or backhands at the same time), and then hit the ball when it was two feet away from my ear along the side of my head and completely out of my vision. As I said, 750 to 1000 balls in an hour 3 to 4 hours a day, maybe 3 days a week. After 9000 or more balls a week for several years, even you would start to develop habits. I've laid off of tennis completely for years at a time because of injuries and I could always get my game back in a few months. This habit however, completely destroyed my game and I have not been able to get it back.
Private lessons or rallying with students was not the cause of the problem.

I remember one of the other pros saying to me when I was rallying with him (or at least attempting to) on a day when my head movement was really bad that every shot I hit was a no-look trick shot because my head was facing the opposite side fence at impact on every shot I hit (i.e. facing fence on backhand side when hitting forehands). He couldn't understand how it was even possible to do that and still hit the ball - but I'd done it so much that I could accomplish it as a matter of course.

After years of work trying hours and hours of everything I could think of - even literally tying my head down to my chest to keep it from lifting, I got my forehand in somewhat working order. It's not nearly as much of a problem with a slice backhand because the motion is downward, so I generally used that in play.

When I first started re-doing my topspin backhand (which in the old days was a major weapon), I would often end my stroke looking over the back fence - so 270 degree rotation and face pointing straight up in the air. Sometimes, I would end up like a left-footed punter with left leg in the air to keep me from falling down, or sometimes actually falling down. It is a very violent snap of the head - I've actually pretty badly pulled my neck muscles before. The thing is that I still could hit the ball in the strings and hit in the direction I wanted, but I had no idea if the ball would go over the back fence or bounce in front of the net. It really was an accident if the ball went into the court.

I finally decided the only way to fix it would be to have as many correct reps as incorrect ones, so that's all I've been doing with my tennis for the last few months - drop feeds and wall, working on keeping my head still on my backhand. I didn't realize how many pieces of the chain of the stroke have to be put back together to fix a basic habit like that as well as habits I developed because of injuries, but I've been knocking them off one by one.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
NLBwell said:
In my case, I would have been far better if I played video games 10 hours a week.

I would grab the ball out of the basket, flip it up in the air, SNAP my chest and head around to face the students, watch what they were doing (viewing the 2 or 3 students crossing the baseline hitting forehands or backhands at the same time), and then hit the ball when it was two feet away from my ear along the side of my head and completely out of my vision. As I said, 750 to 1000 balls in an hour 3 to 4 hours a day, maybe 3 days a week. After 9000 or more balls a week for several years, even you would start to develop habits. I've laid off of tennis completely for years at a time because of injuries and I could always get my game back in a few months. This habit however, completely destroyed my game and I have not been able to get it back.
Private lessons or rallying with students was not the cause of the problem.

I remember one of the other pros saying to me when I was rallying with him (or at least attempting to) on a day when my head movement was really bad that every shot I hit was a no-look trick shot because my head was facing the opposite side fence at impact on every shot I hit (i.e. facing fence on backhand side when hitting forehands). He couldn't understand how it was even possible to do that and still hit the ball - but I'd done it so much that I could accomplish it as a matter of course.

After years of work trying hours and hours of everything I could think of - even literally tying my head down to my chest to keep it from lifting, I got my forehand in somewhat working order. It's not nearly as much of a problem with a slice backhand because the motion is downward, so I generally used that in play.

When I first started re-doing my topspin backhand (which in the old days was a major weapon), I would often end my stroke looking over the back fence - so 270 degree rotation and face pointing straight up in the air. Sometimes, I would end up like a left-footed punter with left leg in the air to keep me from falling down, or sometimes actually falling down. It is a very violent snap of the head - I've actually pretty badly pulled my neck muscles before. The thing is that I still could hit the ball in the strings and hit in the direction I wanted, but I had no idea if the ball would go over the back fence or bounce in front of the net. It really was an accident if the ball went into the court.

I finally decided the only way to fix it would be to have as many correct reps as incorrect ones, so that's all I've been doing with my tennis for the last few months - drop feeds and wall, working on keeping my head still on my backhand. I didn't realize how many pieces of the chain of the stroke have to be put back together to fix a basic habit like that as well as habits I developed because of injuries, but I've been knocking them off one by one.
Click to expand...

I have to pay attention to where I look while feeding.

J
 
Curious

Curious

G.O.A.T.
SystemicAnomaly said:
If my grip is relaxed for much/most of the forward swing, I have a very good sense of the weight of the racket head. If I can feel that weight, I have a very good sense of the racket head's location. I also have a very good sense of the racket face orientation.

A relaxed grip seems to be enhancing my sense of touch as well as my proprioception. If I grip too tightly, or squeeze too soon, I lose the sense of exactly where my racket head is located wrt my hand/body. I may also lose some of the sense of its orientation. Instead, what I feel is a lot of tension (greater muscle contraction) in the fingers and the forearm. This distracts or prevents me from feeling the weight of the racket head and it's location.
Click to expand...
Really makes sense but so difficult to achieve in the heat of the moment.
 
D

dominikk1985

Legend
It can also help to work on neck mobility.

Actually the head is not still during the stroke but it has to actively turn because the shoulders turn as you swing and if you keep the head still it will turn with the shoulders.

Thus to keep the head still during a FH when the shoulders turn left the head actively turns to the right.

The head must be independent from the shoulder turn so it might help to train neck mobility and also neck muscle strength so the head can sufficiently counter turn to offset the shoulder turn and stay still in space.

Thus a player who can't keep his head Still might have physical incababilites in the neck.

Obviously this is not always the case and some people, especially kids just need to focus on not turning the head with the shoulders but especially with older players it also could be a physical issue.

So maybe as a drill do your take back and then turn the head twice to your right and then you slowly swing and at the same time actively turn head to the right so it stays constant.

If you notice there is a block maybe it could make sense to go to a physical therapist.
 
Last edited:
SystemicAnomaly

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
dominikk1985 said:
It can also help to work on neck mobility.

Actually the head is not still during the stroke but it has to actively turn because the shoulders turn as you swing and if you keep the head still it will turn with the shoulders.

Thus to keep the head still during a FH when the shoulders turn left the head actively turns to the right.

The head must be independent from the shoulder turn so it might help to train neck mobility and also neck muscle strength so the head can sufficiently counter turn to offset the shoulder turn and stay still in space.

Thus a player who can't keep his head Still might have physical incababilites in the neck.

Obviously this is not always the case and some people, especially kids just need to focus on not turning the head with the shoulders but especially with older players it also could be a physical issue.

So maybe as a drill do your take back and then turn the head twice to your right and then you slowly swing and at the same time actively turn head to the right so it stays constant.

If you notice there is a block maybe it coils make sense to go to a physical therapist.
Click to expand...
I often suggest that players adopt a gaze technique similar to Andre Agassi rather than adopting the more challenging Federer technique. RF turns his head quite a lot to fix his gaze on his CP prior to contacting the ball.

But AA fixes his gaze somewhat forward of his expected CP. Perhaps a couple of feet in front of his CP. This requires him to turn his head & stress his neck quite a bit less than RF. Should be easier to keep the head still before & after contact.

I've seen quite a few serve images of Sampras, Federer, Murray and others who have their eyes fixed on the CP at the time of impact. However some players say they find this difficult to do cuz it stresses their neck too much.
 
J011yroger

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
Ok, so I paid attention to how I feed and hit with students.

I move my head very little, looking at contact and then looking with my eyes at the student then slightly moving my head.

I think this is what I do when I play too.

J
 
Fintft

Fintft

G.O.A.T.
J011yroger said:
Ok, so I paid attention to how I feed and hit with students.

I move my head very little, looking at contact and then looking with my eyes at the student then slightly moving my head.

I think this is what I do when I play too.

J
Click to expand...

Best of both worlds?
 
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