Video of me hitting, can you help me?

[joah310]

this is me hitting with my dad, along with some terrible volleys that I definitely have to work on.

Me hitting a few practice serves. Honestly I think most of these were out.
All constructive criticism welcome. I want to develop my game, and I am hoping that sharing these videos, (with more to come) and you guys critiquing my techniques could really help me out. Thanks!

 

[LeeD]

Pretty good....
You need a stable base,instead of hopping with your feet going helter skelter. Widen your hitting stance.
Both of you are not trying; but we should leave Dad out. Do not DO as he does, but he does know a bit about tennis. Think of him as an invalid who knows, but can't DO.
You need a target on every ball, instead of reacting to his shot and just hitting.
When Dad hits crosscut, YOU reply cc.
Do not just hit the ball up the middle to dear Dad. You don't need to hit the sideline, just aim 6' from the sideline.
When he hits up the middle, you hit up the middle.
And don't just hit....you need to control your depth, aiming well inside his baseline, but deeper than his service line.
You have the skills...you need disipline.

 

[Dragy]

@joah310 hey mate, agree that your swings look proper and technical. Nice basis! You need to get more court time to groove in your footwork, preparation and clean hitting - many misses came simply from imbalance or mishitting. Focus on early preparation - you are late, particularly on your BH. Get your racquet fully back by bounce - this is my advice! Now you only start your prep at that instance:

You usually have open stringbed on BHs, but that may be partially result of being late. If you get better timing and spacing, you'll feel comfortable lifting the ball with your strings with vertical/slightly closed RF.

On side note, how old is your stringjob?

 

[Abel]

As Lee said, you need a stable base - especially on your backhand. Try no to come up on your toes but rather plant your front foot down prior to contact. Try to make sure you have a consistent point of contact on both sides and stay down when hitting. Your fundamentals are good but you need a better hitting partner (no offense to your dad). And as dragy said you need to work on your footwork in order to get into position.
Hope this helps.

 

[Dragy]

On your serve, your footwork is very unconventional. I'd advocate for simplifying it, keeping front foot in place and settling with back foot either making classic platform action, or touching the ground before final upward push, as in typical pinpoint...
The main issue (associated or not with your footwork) is hitting on the way down. Best servers hit on the way up.
One extra thought is you open your torso towards the target fully. How it looks with spin serves?
Elbow too high on trophy...

Otherwise looks like good, athletic fluid motion. Nice pop. One at 0:27 is 100% in and FAST.

PS have you been playing VB?

 

[joah310]

@joah310 hey mate, agree that your swings look proper and technical. Nice basis! You need to get more court time to groove in your footwork, preparation and clean hitting - many misses came simply from imbalance or mishitting. Focus on early preparation - you are late, particularly on your BH. Get your racquet fully back by bounce - this is my advice! Now you only start your prep at that instance:

You usually have open stringbed on BHs, but that may be partially result of being late. If you get better timing and spacing, you'll feel comfortable lifting the ball with your strings with vertical/slightly closed RF.

On side note, how old is your stringjob?

String job is about 3 weeks old, but I've only used it like 5 times since I strung it. This was mainly my backup racket because my ezone popped it's string. I'll try to work on a more closed fave on my backhand along with earlier prep

 

[joah310]

On your serve, your footwork is very unconventional. I'd advocate for simplifying it, keeping front foot in place and settling with back foot either making classic platform action, or touching the ground before final upward push, as in typical pinpoint...
The main issue (associated or not with your footwork) is hitting on the way down. Best servers hit on the way up.
On extra thought is you open your torso towards the target fully. How it looks with spin serves?
Elbow too high on trophy...

Otherwise looks like good, athletic fluid motion. Nice pop. One at 0:27 is 100% in and FAST.

PS have you been playing VB?

Is vb volleyball? If so no

 

[joah310]

Pretty good....
You need a stable base,instead of hopping with your feet going helter skelter. Widen your hitting stance.
Both of you are not trying; but we should leave Dad out. Do not DO as he does, but he does know a bit about tennis. Think of him as an invalid who knows, but can't DO.
You need a target on every ball, instead of reacting to his shot and just hitting.
When Dad hits crosscut, YOU reply cc.
Do not just hit the ball up the middle to dear Dad. You don't need to hit the sideline, just aim 6' from the sideline.
When he hits up the middle, you hit up the middle.
And don't just hit....you need to control your depth, aiming well inside his baseline, but deeper than his service line.
You have the skills...you need disipline.

Ok so solid base and taking lead on where to hit the ball. Did I understand that correctly?

 

[Dragy]

String job is about 3 weeks old, but I've only used it like 5 times since I strung it. This was mainly my backup racket because my ezone popped it's string. I'll try to work on a more closed fave on my backhand along with earlier prep

Well, just looked like balls flied a bit on FHs which looked good, with good shape, and seemingly enough RHS to bring balls down... Maybe try to aim lower over the net for basic drive? It really looks like it should work.

Is vb volleyball? If so no

Jumping serve made me wonder

 

[joah310]

As Lee said, you need a stable base - especially on your backhand. Try no to come up on your toes but rather plant your front foot down prior to contact. Try to make sure you have a consistent point of contact on both sides and stay down when hitting. Your fundamentals are good but you need a better hitting partner (no offense to your dad). And as dragy said you need to work on your footwork in order to get into position.
Hope this helps.

The thing is I keep losing to him. He's also worn out from a set we played before this. I'll take note though. I'll have to find some hitting buddies!

 

[Injured Again]

Agree with many in that you need more discipline and intent when hitting. Try on every shot to get ready early and with good footwork. On your forehand, you often had spacing issues caused by slow footwork, and then you swung harder than you needed to. On the backhand, as others have said, try not to get up on your toes.

On your serve, try to stay down and move into the motion in one piece. You get things moving too early with your weight transfer and body, and that dissipates that power source before you swing at the ball.

 

[joah310]

Well, just looked like balls flied a bit on FHs which looked good, with good shape, and seemingly enough RHS to bring balls down... Maybe try to aim lower over the net for basic drive? It really looks like it should work.

Jumping serve made me wonder

My dad taught me how to serve mostly. Though what you see is a mix of that and my alterations. My dad can hit a pretty fast serve.

 

[joah310]

Agree with many in that you need more discipline and intent when hitting. Try on every shot to get ready early and with good footwork. On your forehand, you often had spacing issues caused by slow footwork, and then you swung harder than you needed to. On the backhand, as others have said, try not to get up on your toes.

On your serve, try to stay down and move into the motion in one piece. You get things moving too early with your weight transfer and body, and that dissipates that power source before you swing at the ball.

Regarding the serve, can you help me understand what staying down is?

 

[joah310]

Also I tend to shank my forehand a lot would that be a product of me swinging too hard?

 

[Blitzball]

Tennis coach here. I have 3 tips for you. There is more to work on than this, but these are starting points. You have a nice foundation.
1. On your backhand, take a strong lateral step with the front foot. Good strokes start from the ground up. This will help you turn back more too. Just make sure you're not making contact after turning but as you turn.
2. On your volleys you should simplify things. First, remember to have short arms. Avoid having a straight arm. Next, clean contact. Then build from there.
3. Loosen up when you serve. If you miss while you're loose, it's simply because you're not used to it. It doesn't mean it's wrong.

And a reminder: stay on your toes. Split step when you have time. Good luck.

 

[Injured Again]

Regarding the serve, can you help me understand what staying down is?

What I see in your serve motion is that your body weight is in a state of continuous motion forward into the court, rather than settled and balanced in your stance until you make the motion to go up to the contact point. To see what I mean, take a look at this serve:

He's hitting a second serve, looks like a kicker, but the same principle applies.

If you take a look at your serving video, from the time you toss the ball until you start to swing, your body weight moves forward. The big effect this has is to alter the position of your hitting shoulder. It moves considerably from where it is at your "trophy" position to where it is when you initiate your upward swing. That dissipates energy that could go into swinging the racquet faster. It also makes it harder to accurately repeat the motion.

It's a basically good motion but one that I think can fairly easily become better by keeping your balance more centered until you make one explosive moment upwards. By doing that, some other aspects of your swing will change so I always feel it's better to work on one thing before working on another.

 

[joah310]

What I see in your serve motion is that your body weight is in a state of continuous motion forward into the court, rather than settled and balanced in your stance until you make the motion to go up to the contact point. To see what I mean, take a look at this serve:

He's hitting a second serve, looks like a kicker, but the same principle applies.

If you take a look at your serving video, from the time you toss the ball until you start to swing, your body weight moves forward. The big effect this has is to alter the position of your hitting shoulder. It moves considerably from where it is at your "trophy" position to where it is when you initiate your upward swing. That dissipates energy that could go into swinging the racquet faster. It also makes it harder to accurately repeat the motion.

It's a basically good motion but one that I think can fairly easily become better by keeping your balance more centered until you make one explosive moment upwards. By doing that, some other aspects of your swing will change so I always feel it's better to work on one thing before working on another.

thanks for the clarification, ill be sure to work on this

 

[BallChaser]

You got many great advice (early prep, elbow too high at trophy, etc.). If I add one, watch pro’s warm-up serve and copy. They are mostly focusing on good relaxed contact, not power. Make sure to have your chin up and keep it that way until follow through. This practice increases your serve consistency.

 

[joah310]

weather was good, so I was able to hit a set with my dad, I tried working on staying down on my serve, but I don't think it went that well. Ill try to work on these more, and Ill hopefully take some more videos. The feed back was very helpful, and I hope you can critique me a lot more, because everything was so helpful, though I still need to work on it a lot more. Overall though thank you!

 

[TennisDawg]

weather was good, so I was able to hit a set with my dad, I tried working on staying down on my serve, but I don't think it went that well. Ill try to work on these more, and Ill hopefully take some more videos. The feed back was very helpful, and I hope you can critique me a lot more, because everything was so helpful, though I still need to work on it a lot more. Overall though thank you!

Your serving arm during the take back looks like it’s too far to the right. This could be because there’s almost no upper body coil. You look like an athlete so I think you have potential to be a very good player. Make it your goal to beat pops! Ha

 

[Injured Again]

If you're trying to learn or correct some technique, almost the worst way you can go about it is to play a set. You need to **practice** and **drill**.

When you just practice, you will hit two to four times as many shots in the same amount of time. You'll do it free of any score pressure, allowing you to work on the changes necessary to implement some better technique. If you cooperatively hit, you'll be in generally better position to make the shots, which should allow you to more easily self-diagnose any deviations from what you're trying to do. You'll learn more quickly how to incorporate any new technique into live stroke and hitting patterns, which will allow you to more quickly transition those to actual game play.

 

[Dragy]

weather was good, so I was able to hit a set with my dad, I tried working on staying down on my serve, but I don't think it went that well. Ill try to work on these more, and Ill hopefully take some more videos. The feed back was very helpful, and I hope you can critique me a lot more, because everything was so helpful, though I still need to work on it a lot more. Overall though thank you!

Some of the serves’ rhythm looked clearly better, some were still jump-then-hit. Embrace proper ones further!
I didn’t watch long into video, on my phone it’s not comfortable to skip dead time. But seems like you’ve got FH under control