Greetings TW Members,
Several weeks ago I posted about a podcast that discussed what to look for in a tennis pro to stay away from: "bad tennis pros". Today my guest and myself discuss the counter point: Good Tennis Pros!
When you decide to invest the time and money into a professional tennis instructor you really want to make sure that you're getting great value. Unfortunately not all tennis pros are created equal, listen in on Podcast #82 to hear our thoughts on what you should be looking for.
http://www.essentialtennis.com/podcast/
Cheers
-Ian
This one's easy.
1. Teach biomechanical techniques that reflect and build correct muscle memory emulation of the pro's techniques. In other words, from stroke one, they should teach the double bend open stance forehand. This does not mean you forbid neutral of closed stance, just that open stance is the main driving shot today from the forehand side.
2. Make everything simple, no mention of angular versus linear momentum, all things that only serve to confuse and cause students' brains to glaze over. Nice easy fundamentals with easy visual images: something as simple as find the ball, feel it, and finish it. I teach tennis as "wax on, wax off." Works.
3. Be able to get instant results on court with a rally back and forth quickly enough in first hour to show that tennis is a simple game to play, just touch the ball and touch your shoulder, and the ball magically goes back and forth without any real complication
5. Teach tennis by feel, not by mechanics, on a learning gradient, a step by step progression that builds a pro like swing in efficiency of movement quickly
6. Not teach contradictory data. I saw a coach today teaching a 15 year old to bend his knees more and stay down low, and the kid looked as confused as he did ridiculous. Tennis is best played when players hit up on the ball and lift up into the air off the ground. Can't do that if thinking about bending your knees all the time.
7. Be able to teach topspin from stroke one. Topspin is the foundation of all good tennis players today, and teaches a player to hit with feel and control.
8. Never teaches a position or something he or she will have to undo. Don't teach a closed stance (neutral stance) where the players finished with their feet in the same starting position when all top players who approach a ball from a closed stance either lift out of it (Federer) or finish with an open stance after rotating their body across.
9. Teaches to hit up and across, never has to mention hitting through the target line or tell the student to get their weight forward on the front foot. Teaches natural instinctive movements, while guiding the student to try the correct biomechanical movements of the pros, in form and efficiency, though not yet at their speed
10. Makes it not only seem simple but makes it so fun the student realizes that taking lessons is worth every penny. Has a ton of students who will tell you they believe that their money is well spent.
Let's see. All the above applies to my way of teaching. It's called Modern Tennis Methodology or MTM. Laid out in a book by Oscar Wegner, Tennis in 2 Hours, in three versions. See
www.tennisteacher.com or
www.moderntenniscoaches.com to learn more about this proven, simple way to play like the pros. If you don't believe that many of the best coaches in the world agree that overemphasis of footwork and moving forward into the ball are harmful instructions, check these quotes out:
Overrated teaching methods by a famous tennis coach: (due to space limitations just listed a few)
RULE #2) MOVE FORWARD INTO EVERY SHOT AND DON’T MOVE BACK:
It is amazing to me that this teaching method is still being taught. I would not have made a dime playing professional tennis if I didn’t rid myself of this #1 overused teaching method. All of the great players continually move in all directions, forward, backward, sideways, etc. It is impossible and unnatural to go forward all of the time. Using foreword momentum as a rule will cause all kinds of problems with your swing. You cannot get away with playing all offense like you could years ago. Changing from defense to offense requires great flexibility and few limitations. This method is responsible for players at all levels never reaching their full potential.
RULE #3) GET THERE AND GET SET
This rule implies that you get to that perfect position as quickly as possible in order to set your feet and have your racquet prepared. The flaw with this thinking is that very rarely in tennis are the conditions perfect and allow us to be in the perfect position. It does not allow for flexibility and the ability to adjust to the wind or bad bounces or playing on the clay. Thus, it will be really hard to find any kind of rhythm with this thinking unless the conditions are always perfect . Movement and preparation needs to be more instinctive. Sometimes it will be fast and sometimes slow depending on the situation. Too much structure when it pertains to preparation takes away from instinctive decision-making. It is much better to react naturally instead of being consumed with how you are going to react.
RULE #6) STAY DOWN
It is commonly heard that you need to stay down though your shot. The fact is that sometimes you stay sown and sometimes you don’t. It is completely unnatural to stay down through impact most the time. If you stay down all the way through the shot you are not allowing the forces of rotation from a forehand or backhand to naturally take affect. It is not the staying down that keeps the ball in the court, but the rotation of the body. The rotation helps create the spin that is needed to keep the ball in the court. It is not that you don’t get down or load for your shots; it’s just that you don’t stay down through the entire shot. With the massive rotation of the body on your groundstrokes your body will have to come out of the down position.
RULE #8) TAKE SMALL STEPS
Good positioning is obviously an important piece of the game. By consciously focusing on taking small steps takes away from allowing your mind to think and decide what shot you are going play. Small unneeded steps can actually result in poor balance. I believe that good footwork needs to be efficient and according to the situation. Your footwork needs to be smooth and fluid and “happy feet” does not promote this. It is much more effective to quiet your feet and let them react more naturally. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when small adjustment steps are necessary but you are not being efficient if you take 10 little steps to a shot that need 2 regular balanced steps.
More comments from a famous tennis coach/player: A few of the myths in the game are always approach up the line, can’t spin the ball with an eastern grip, can’t hit the ball with a western grip, and there are several others.
But there’s no more damning myth than to tell somebody to move their feet more. This became clear to me at the US Open a few years ago. It was hot and Lleyton Hewit and Gustavo Kuerten came on the court to hit after us. Both of them are great players and were at this time. I was most amazed that they took no more than two movements for any ball after the split step, and I just couldn’t believe that. It called into question so many things I had learned. I grew up watching Jimmy Connors with happy feet, literally machine gun feet, and here I was watching two of the best players on the tour, doing one tenth the amount of work that Jimmy Connors did, and probably half the work that I tried to do for each ball, and they did so without ever losing balance, they were always well loaded for their shots, and they were never late, never late at all. What I’ve come to know is that all those steps that I took because I was so concerned about being in the right position took time away from me, there just wasn’t enough time for me to get into the right position because the ball was coming back and forth too quickly, and now efficiency of movement is much more important than the quickness of the movements.
This brings me to loading, which I would say is at least misinterpreted or misunderstood often. I can’t stand hearing the statement “hit off the front foot.”
I think the back foot lays the ground work for every groundstroke. If that back foot is not in position and not fully loaded, we are incapable of hitting quality consistent ground strokes. Indeed, sometimes we fire from out back foot to our front foot, and that’s understandable, but more times than not, at least at the professional level, the loading and the firing continues the player in another direction other than forward. Compare it to a shortstop. Derek Jeter has to go to his right to field a ground ball. The first thing he does, if it’s within range, he gets his right side loaded behind the ground ball, backhands the ball and fires from that right side towards first base. Imagine Jeter being taken further into the hole, and he doesn’t have time to plant and fire towards first base, what does he do? He jumps to create energy so he can throw the ball back in the direction that he is moving away from, not moving towards, and I think this is very similar to the way to especially hit a forehand, but a backhand as well. In tennis, as players, what we have to do as players is fight to get behind the ball and then fire, fire whatever direction we can, but fire. This loading is essential and for us, I think we’re just fortunate we have tennis rackets to do it with rather than throw from the shortstop hole. End of quote #2.
So make sure a coach doesn't teach things contrary to what the pros really do. Otherwise you have to unlearn all that muscle memory.
