If memory serves, it was a show about some guy who was trained in Asia, who could hide in shadows and track down bad guys. He used hypnotism to cloud men's minds.
Anyway, this is really an article about tennis. One big complaint I have about learning tennis is the lack of immediate feedback. I can't see how I hit right away. I have a camcorder to record my shots, but there's a delay as I rewind and watch it again.
I usually hit against a wall when I practice. My ideal setup would be a large (very large) television screen that sits about 10 feet above the ground, protected with some plexiglass like they have in racquetball courts. There would be a camera pointed at me, and so as I swing, I can watch myself as it happens. Another variation would be hitting against a mirror with a plexiglass protection. The problem with a mirror is that I would be rather far away so I'd find it hard to see details, but since I know what I'm looking for, it would be good enough.
Yesterday or so, I wanted to add one thing to my forehand that I've not been paying attention to lately. My non-dominant hand. Bad tennis players, which is nearly everyone you see playing (well, at least half), primarily use their dominant hand/arm to hit the ball. For a right hander, it is their right hand/arm. For now, let's assume I'm talking about righties.
If you watch a bad player, you generally see several problems with their game. First, they use their arm too much, and don't rotate their torso. One way to see this easily is to pay attention to their shoulders. The less it moves when hitting, the worse a player they are. I have this problem, so I end up using more arm than I should.
Second, they don't use any spin or if they do, it's underspin on both forehands and backhands. It's especially considered a weakness on the forehand to hit only slice forehands, although some crafty guys hit it to good effect.
Third, they have little follow-through. The follow-through is the part of the tennis stroke after the ball is hit. If you ever watch football, you'll see someone trying to tackle (knock down) the quarterback. Many times, the quarterback takes one or two steps and the defensive guy runs right past him. Why? Because that guy is so intent on running so fast and hard so he can really hit the quarterback hard. Pain is a part of football, and defensive guys are taught to inflict pain. The defensive guy can't stop himself because he has so much momentum built up.
Same thing with the follow through. When you are hitting the follow through, your arm should literally wrap around your waist or neck. That's how fast your swing should be. It's not intuitive because most players don't think about hitting the shot that hard that it would require the arm to be wrapped around themselves. But it's needed to provide pace.
The fourth mistake, and this is usually the one you see the most often, is failure to use the left hand. All pros and good players use their left hand. It's used to assist taking back the racquet, to help rotate the shoulders properly. The problem? It's really hard to use the left hand on the forehand.
Watch former number 1, Roger Federer's left hand. It's in front of his body. Typically players will do this, and then as they rotate their bodies, their left arm will pull into their body, as if they were doing a bicep curl with their left arm (but more lazy). The only major player to not do this is John McEnroe who had to have the laziest looking strokes ever. He just leaves his left arm hanging down and never does anything with it on his forehand. Otherwise, unless the player is rushed, they use their left hand to set up both their forehand, and if they hit a one-handed backhand or a slice.
The left hand is used primarily to get the racquet back quickly, but also as a way to change grips although most pros can change grips by simply flipping their racquet. This is why you see players with the nervous habit of spinning their racquets with one hand. They've learned to spin it and "catch" it with the right grip.
I've always found it difficult to use my left hand on my forehand. First, you end up moving your left hand about parallel to the baseline, basically pointing to the left, much like the picture with Federer above. This is, plainly put, awkward. Then, as the ball comes close, you are supposed to point to the ball with your left hand.
At this point, you are rotating your body very fast to the left, and like a figure skater spinning, you pull your left arm close to the body, typically left hand near your left nipple (there, I said it!) while the right arm and body twists fully around.
It's a complex motion, more complex than the backhand. You can see why so few recreational players learn to use their left hand.
However, even if you can't do all those things with your left hand, there is one thing most players can manage to do.
As you lift your racquet, you can hold it with the left hand as Federer does in the picture above. This makes it easier to control the racquet as you take it back.
I decided to add that part to my game today, after watching a Federer slow motion video. Here's such a video:
In particular, pay attention to his left hand. He keeps it on his racquet a long time before letting it go. He uses it to rotate the racquet and help rotate his shoulders (really, he rotates his shoulders to his right, which causes the arm and racquet to rotate right too).
Finally, due to watching some videos, I noticed I would take my racquet back so it pointed to the back fence. To be honest, this is not a real problem. So many players do this, including world number 3, Novak Djokovic, that I shouldn't worry if I do it.
But I don't want to do it!
I mean, Federer doesn't do it, so I'm trying not to do it. It's this d**n muscle memory. I have no problem shadow stroking the shot I want to hit (shadow stroking is when you swing without hitting a ball). But when it comes time to hit the ball, the muscles react a certain way, and voila, I find myself taking the racquet back a la Djokovic.
That's when I discovered something.
Oh yes.
Today was partly cloudy, but at an opportune moment, the sun peeked its head out. This cast a shadow of me on the court. I could then see myself hit by watching the shadow on the ground. I do this from time to time. Since I can't easily see myself hit the stroke (it goes too fast, the angle is not right to see it), seeing the shadow is a decent substitute.
What I realized was I need to swing forward as the racquet barely drops. I tend to drop the racquet a bit, and it goes behind me. By abbreviating the stroke, and moving the racquet forward as it drops, I find I can hit harder, and closer to the way I want to hit. Not perfect, but at least in the right vicinity.
That was good, because the last 2-3 weeks, I had lost some of the power I had hitting the ball. Much of this loss of power came from trying to fix the way I was setting up on my takeback. I had been trying to hit it like Roger Federer (again). But I recently found a video of Scot, Andy Murray. I used to want to hit the way he hits although at the time, I had no idea Murray hit like this. It was pure happenstance that I was looking at his video recently, mostly due to his recent success.
While watching this video, pay attention to the racquet face. As he takes it back, you can see it point to you. If Murray were holding a large hand mirror with the racquet face being the mirror, you could see your face nearly the whole time. Many players, including Federer, end up pointing the racquet face down when the racquet goes back as far as it will go. Murray doesn't do that, and it keeps his racquet motion simple on setup.
At first, I was planning to emulate more of Federer, because I felt Federer deliberately gets his racquet face down, before lifting it up, but that was more quirky to hit than I expected. So although I do that even when I don't intend to, I just think I'm hitting like Murray does, and it simplifies how I think of my forehand.
The other thing I started to do, to gain back power was to rotate my body. Basically, to get power in a tennis stroke, you think of yourself like a baseball player. A baseball player does a great deal of body rotation to generate power. Indeed, they user their whole body, legs, body rotation, etc. It's not simply swinging the bat with the arms. This allows a baseball player to generate a lot of power.
Similarly, you can think of golfers. Golfers also learn to rotate their entire torso. They turn their body away, then rotate into the shot. This is what you want to do in tennis too. Let the torso initiate the body rotation. Without this torso rotation (also called the core), it's hard to get power. Finally, you have to be pretty loose.
One part of my forehand that's turned out reasonably well is the follow through. I used to follow through in front of my body. When I learned to hit a windshield wiper motion, I'd think of it like a windshield wiper, that is occuring on the plane of the windshield.
However, the windshield wiper really requires rotating the arm so the elbow sticks out more, and you finish the wiper to the left of your body, not in front of you. I had been working on the follow through a great deal, and while I did that, I completely forgot about the technique on the setup of my forehand. If I were to break up the forehand, I'd say it's the takeback (the part of the strokes from seeing the ball, to getting the racquet back roughly pointing to the fence), then the swing forward, then the follow-through. The swing forward is the swing from the furthest back point up to hitting the ball. The follow through is the swing after hitting the ball.
There are several things I want to work on. First, I want to use my left hand more in setup. I have an idea how to do this, watching Federer. Second, I want to get the Andy Murray motion down a bit smoother. Third, I need to keep reminding myself to accelerate the racquet forward sooner than I expect, and not to take back the racquet as far back as I think I should. Basically, as the racquet begins to drop, I need to start accelerating forward. Ironically, all that abbreviated motion seems to create more power than my longer strokes.
The other thing I need to do is hit that same stroke much slower. I find the exercise of hitting hard, then slowing it down helps me to smooth out the stroke. If I just power the shot, I get too tense and too tired as a result.
Indeed, I've noticed, as a result of my physical therapy, that I clench my shoulder too much when I swing. I'll need to consciously remind myself to relax that shoulder. One thing good about physical therapy is that it's made me more body aware. I wish I knew about this earlier and that it didn't take an injury to make me learn about my body from a tennis point of view. I've been told I'm too tensed up when I play, but without enough body awareness, I didn't know how to relax properly. I'm still not there yet, but at least I'm more in tune with my body tensing up.
All in all, given that I thought my stroke was completely awful this morning, I ended up the day feeling a lot better about the motion. Now it's a matter of repetition and making sure I don't fall into bad habits.
That's mostly what writing this blog entry is about.
Here's a summary:
- Don't take the racquet back as far as you think
- Use the left hand to set up the racquet on takeback
- Think of a windshield wiper motion in the takeback to emulate a Murray setup. Try to maintain the correct grip.
- As the racquet drops down, begin to accelerate forward.
- Rotate the body quickly as the racquet drops. This initiates the forehand.
- End up with the elbow in front and the racquet off to the side and behind
- Pull the left arm as you rotate
- Don't tense the right shoulder on racquet acceleration in the swing forward stage.
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