My new video!

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
Alright alright. Last time when I posted a video I was hitting like Coria. Pretty good, but not that great. This video is from today. I am hitting about as good as Roger now. Please witness!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx80CtrDPPc

Oh yea, please critique away. I been trying to work on my fh mechanics.

(please ignore comments in vid lol)
 
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You're definitely over-rotating on the forehand. A lot of excess movement that isn't bringing anything extra to the table.

Not bad though.
 

jkang909

Rookie
when hitting your forehand, your left hand flies around (kind of goes up above your head) ... it is not that steady or stable... it needs to flow and move with your right hand (windshield wiper analogy). if your left hand is smooth and relaxed, then youll have better balance and your contact with the ball with be better
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
when hitting your forehand, your left hand flies around (kind of goes up above your head) ... it is not that steady or stable... it needs to flow and move with your right hand (windshield wiper analogy). if your left hand is smooth and relaxed, then youll have better balance and your contact with the ball with be better

havent thought about this before. thanks for the suggestion
 

RoddickAce

Hall of Fame
If you do a small hop each time your opponent is about to hit a shot, you will have much more explosive footwork, allowing you to get to shots earlier.
 

johndagolfer

Professional
My take is that you're a lunger. You setup pretty, though I would work on your footwork a tad bit more. Then at the last moment just as the ball is about to get arrive you seem to tense up and just trying to unleash everything on the ball. I would work on setting your feet better so you don't have to jump, while still maintaining your power.
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
My take is that you're a lunger. You setup pretty, though I would work on your footwork a tad bit more. Then at the last moment just as the ball is about to get arrive you seem to tense up and just trying to unleash everything on the ball. I would work on setting your feet better so you don't have to jump, while still maintaining your power.

i agree. in the vid i was trying to crush the forehands. so i am jumping too quickly into the shot?
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
Forget the birds! I was scared!

But your non-hitting hand is all over the place most of the time. But when you're going for short balls it's where it's supposed to be lol

hahaha didnt mean to scare the TW peeps :p so where is my hand when I get a short ball? i am not sure where it should be lol
 

eidolonshinobi

Professional
hahaha didnt mean to scare the TW peeps :p so where is my hand when I get a short ball? i am not sure where it should be lol

lol sorry I typoed. I meant it's closer, to where it needs to be. Where your non hitting hand is right now on baseline rallies is above your head.

There's a lot of pro vids you can watch in slow mo. You'll learn a lot by emulating.
 

boojay

Hall of Fame
Lovin' the dragon punch your left arm does every once in a while, zap! You guys look like you're having a blast which is the most important thing of all.

Swyped from my iPhone killer/HTC Desire
 

tennismonkey

Semi-Pro
looks like you're wildly throwing yourself into each shot. hard to tell but i think your contact point for most of your shots is too close to your body so you look jammed.

i'd take shorter backswings and focus on smooth controlled swing slightly low to high. hit a couple hundred thousand. when you feel you have a consistent stroke -- THEN work on applying more spin and/or power.

build your foundation of jabs and low kicks before you go nuts with the shoryuken.

Ryu+Shoryuken+image.jpg
 

hollywood9826

Hall of Fame
The dragon punch is hilarious. Never noticed he did that before just now.

I think the weight of those 6x Basketball shorts makes you throw the dragon punch to counter balance.

Zap you do seem to have a bit more consistency than when I hit with you before though. You still look tense, like you are trying to hard or something.
 
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RoddickAce

Hall of Fame
In terms of your forehand, I noticed that your left arm is either hanging at your side or lifted above your head after your swing. In order to prevent the over-rotating, you may want to try and make sure that your left arm is consistently tucking in towards your chest as your swing.

Also, you may benefit by cross-stepping when moving back to hit a deep ball rather than side-stepping.
 
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ext2hander

Rookie
that's wild, way to much arm. strange windshield wiper action when applying forehand topspin -- more upward at initial. what about the non-hitting arm? seems to fly up all over the place above your head. Find a consistent hitting partner to groove you stroke, and not run around so much! relax!
 

SoBad

G.O.A.T.
Alright alright. Last time when I posted a video I was hitting like Coria. Pretty good, but not that great. This video is from today. I am hitting about as good as Roger now. Please witness!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx80CtrDPPc

Oh yea, please critique away. I been trying to work on my fh mechanics.

(please ignore comments in vid lol)

You look very sexy, if you wind up more on your forehand it will look like Soderling's.:lol:
 

Photoshop

Professional
Haha, which one of the MAC members is recording the vid? :D:D

Try not to jump when you hit your forehand. Stay grounded. A lot of people think they can hit harder when they jump into the shot, but that's not true... I mean, sure Monfils can hit harder when he jumps, but at our level it's better not to jump. For example I liked the forehand at 2:44 better than the other Air Jordan forehands in the beginning.

Cheers,
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
looks like you're wildly throwing yourself into each shot. hard to tell but i think your contact point for most of your shots is too close to your body so you look jammed.

i'd take shorter backswings and focus on smooth controlled swing slightly low to high. hit a couple hundred thousand. when you feel you have a consistent stroke -- THEN work on applying more spin and/or power.

build your foundation of jabs and low kicks before you go nuts with the shoryuken.

Ryu+Shoryuken+image.jpg

you are so right. i am getting too close. how do i fix that??? everyone tells me this but somehow i cant judge how far away i am from the ball when i set up. is there a drill or something?

yea in this vid i decided to go for the blasting fh....hah
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
The dragon punch is hilarious. Never noticed he did that before just now.

I think the weight of those 6x Basketball shorts makes you throw the dragon punch to counter balance.

Zap you do seem to have a bit more consistency than when I hit with you before though. You still look tense, like you are trying to hard or something.

i had no idea what my left arm was doing....this video definitely showed i did not improve as much as my mind thought
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
In terms of your forehand, I noticed that your left arm is either hanging at your side or lifted above your head after your swing. In order to prevent the over-rotating, you may want to try and make sure that your left arm is consistently tucking in towards your chest as your swing.

Also, you may benefit by cross-stepping when moving back to hit a deep ball rather than side-stepping.

that's wild, way to much arm. strange windshield wiper action when applying forehand topspin -- more upward at initial. what about the non-hitting arm? seems to fly up all over the place above your head. Find a consistent hitting partner to groove you stroke, and not run around so much! relax!

yea so my left arm is messing me up too. for now though i am realizing that my swing is really the big no no. my mechanics is too like loopy from low to high instead of back to front right?
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
Haha, which one of the MAC members is recording the vid? :D:D

Try not to jump when you hit your forehand. Stay grounded. A lot of people think they can hit harder when they jump into the shot, but that's not true... I mean, sure Monfils can hit harder when he jumps, but at our level it's better not to jump. For example I liked the forehand at 2:44 better than the other Air Jordan forehands in the beginning.

Cheers,
hey man! thanks for your input.
Yea I do jump too much. Man now that you put it as Air Jordan forehands I want to practice it some more lol
 

GuyClinch

Legend
Just a lay opinion of course - but I thought your backswing was a bit excessive and your WW looked a bit weird - kind of tacked on instead of flowing.

I saw your racquet peek out behind you a few times which is considered a mistake for a male player who should have the power without huge backswings.

That being said you aren't nearly as bad as those guys on Youtube claim you are..WTF..
 

Kunohara

Professional
Only thing I can say is you need to work on your footwork. Im not saying youre slow, im saying youre not efficient.

Keep in mind that its easier, and better, to move forward to hit a ball instead of backing up as ti surges at you and hitting off the backfoot.

You need to judge the trajectory of the shot better.

You can anticipate the kind of bounce you will get depending on the incomming spin.

It's better to take a few steps backwards before the ball bounces into your court and then move forward then to just stand there and hit above shoulder off the back foot.
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
you guys are absolutely right. my swing is so awful......my god. so i think the 2 main things i need to fix right now is first my swing mechanics, and 2 the judgement of the ball. because that's causing me to be too close and backing up instead of moving forward.
 

ext2hander

Rookie
Dude, you need a few private instructor, who can show you the essence of forehand and backhand. Like in skiing, no sense practicing the "snow-plow". 2.5-3.0, maybe.
 

boojay

Hall of Fame
Hey Zap, I'm not sure what style of game you'd like to play, but as many posters have mentioned, you're pretty wild on the court. I'm sure it works for you and even if you stick with it, you'll get better, but if you're seriously considering changing your game to improve by leaps and bounds, the first thing I'd recommend is to tone things down. It will feel awkward because it's not what you're used to doing, but it's the only thing I can think of for you to do that will make a drastic change to your current strokes. Right now you're playing points, which is great, but maybe come to an agreement with your partner to just simply rally and takes things very slowly, maybe even using a decompressed ball to really slow things down in order for you to be more relaxed and focus on the preparation of your shot, the shape of your swing, and the use of your legs and body. I won't go into the details simply because it will be too much to think about to start with, but that's my suggestion for now. Sometimes you have to break things down and start over in order to improve and of course, you have to take baby steps.
 

Sreeram

Professional
use the body to swing the arm around;
don't use the arm to swing the racket around - which is what you are doing right now.

It is the combination of both body and arm. It is not just Body and the arm being still. Adding the body is to get an additional force and stability into the shot.
 

zapvor

G.O.A.T.
Hey Zap, I'm not sure what style of game you'd like to play, but as many posters have mentioned, you're pretty wild on the court. I'm sure it works for you and even if you stick with it, you'll get better, but if you're seriously considering changing your game to improve by leaps and bounds, the first thing I'd recommend is to tone things down. It will feel awkward because it's not what you're used to doing, but it's the only thing I can think of for you to do that will make a drastic change to your current strokes. Right now you're playing points, which is great, but maybe come to an agreement with your partner to just simply rally and takes things very slowly, maybe even using a decompressed ball to really slow things down in order for you to be more relaxed and focus on the preparation of your shot, the shape of your swing, and the use of your legs and body. I won't go into the details simply because it will be too much to think about to start with, but that's my suggestion for now. Sometimes you have to break things down and start over in order to improve and of course, you have to take baby steps.
you are absolutely right. i have gotten to the point where i am consistent with my strokes, but the form is so bad that I am stuck at this plateau. looking at this video i am so bad that i am considering starting completely over by going lefty. probably easier than trying to fix what I am used to now:(
 
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