In an classic Star Trek episode named Obsession, Kirk sees a cloud monster that killed most of the crew that he was a part of when he was an ensign. When Ensign Garrovick, the son of Kirk's then-captain freezes and is unable to kill the cloud monster, Kirk blame Garrovick much as he blamed himself 11 years earlier.
Kirk is so determined to kill the monster that he is willing to let people who need critical medicine risk death, so he can chase the creature down. McCoy accuses Kirk of being obsessed with something that has haunted him since youth.
My current obsession is figuring out the Federer forehand. I could have picked any other forehand. Agassi has a nice forehand. So does Nadal. Although Federer is pretty amazing, you can't say his forehand is as dominant as say, Lendl's forehand during his prime, or Agassi at his prime (I'd put Becker's and Sampras's forehand up there too). Even so, people are so in love with Roger Federer and his apparently effortless mechanics, that they've taken a lot of pains to figure out what he does.
I have to admit that I'm in this camp too.
For weeks now, I've been looking at his forehand trying to figure out what he does. Occasionally, I'll get on court and feel I am doing the right thing, and occasionally, I feel I'm regressing back to my old ineffective style.
A while back, I noticed that Federer hits his forehand more in front of his body than most any player I know. Lately, though, I haven't given it much thought. I went back to the article by John Yandell in the latest Tennis magazine and saw that he made a point of how far in front of his body Federer hits the ball.
Then, I also recall something mentioned in a tennis lesson I had with a guy named Joel. Joel's a big fan of the idea that the racquet wants to move in a certain way, that there is a natural motion. Although this sounds like animism in the biggest way (i.e., even inanimate objects have a spirit), there is something to be said about this idea. He claims you should throw the racquet.
I've been thinking about this idea in relation to the Federer forehand. One thing you notice, if you stare at the slow motion video is that his hand accelerates a lot, once the racquet has reached the palm-down stage. How does he accelerate so fast?
I think one way to visualize this is to imagine holding a spear, and throwing it sidearm as hard as you can. This spearing is a kind of "throwing the racquet" idea. The only caveat is that you don't let go of the racquet. You hold the racquet as long as possible, and at the point where'd you have to release it, that's where you go into a windshield wiper movement, partly because your arm can't go any further out.
By thinking of it this way, you end up accelerating the racquet very quickly, and furthermore, you end up having the racquet far in front of the body. You want to time it so that you "spear" the ball when your arm is as far in front as you can reasonably manage.
I've yet to try this idea on court. I realize that this is also timed with body rotation, wrist laid back, and so forth, but I'm hoping this is the final piece of the puzzle.
In the end, I hope, much like Kirk, I can finally put this obsession to rest.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
It's Getting Drafty
It used to be no one much paid attention to the NFL Draft. Now, for fans of football, the draft is nearly as important as a real season game.
I didn't bother to watch the draft, because that level of commitment is far more than I care to expend. I'll watch the star players, thank you. Or maybe just keep track of the players from the home team.
The funny thing about drafts is that it is the ultimate in not being satisfied with what you have. Throughout a season, someone will point out a deficiency in a team. A weak offensive line, a poor run defense, that kind of thing. And time and again, NFL teams choose to draft more of the same.
That wide receiver that we drafted so highly last year? Not good enough. Let's draft another. Maybe two or three more.
Lest this complaint be lodged at the NFL, the NBA draft seems to follow the same trend. Almost everyone repeats the mantra "pick the best player available", as if there were some absolute in how to pick the best player available.
On the rare lottery that the Washington Wizards picked first, who did Michael Jordan pick? The trend was high school players, and Kwame Brown, with the physical stature of the prototypical NBA player, fit the bill. He even promised "If you draft me, I won't disappoint you", only to be partly true about this promise, as he disappointed not just the Wizards, but the Lakers too. Thinking he had picked a guy with the same intensity and focus as him, Jordan discovered that Brown didn't respond to the verbal lashings like he would have. He saw too much of himself in Brown, and when that, predictably, failed to materialize, it made him lash out even more.
You might wonder how well a team would do if they let the fans pick their players for them. At the very least, they might draft what they actually need, but then fans are notoriously underinformed, except for the very few whose opinions would be washed out by the masses.
Draft season is great for columnists who universally pan the picks the local team has made, except for maybe a top 5 pick.
If there's any lesson from the draft, it's that the people who select rarely pick on what is needed, but what is desired, and that no one knows how to pick the next superstar.
Despite that, the team cognoscenti are content to keep on trying to read tea leaves and find that special missing ingredient.
I didn't bother to watch the draft, because that level of commitment is far more than I care to expend. I'll watch the star players, thank you. Or maybe just keep track of the players from the home team.
The funny thing about drafts is that it is the ultimate in not being satisfied with what you have. Throughout a season, someone will point out a deficiency in a team. A weak offensive line, a poor run defense, that kind of thing. And time and again, NFL teams choose to draft more of the same.
That wide receiver that we drafted so highly last year? Not good enough. Let's draft another. Maybe two or three more.
Lest this complaint be lodged at the NFL, the NBA draft seems to follow the same trend. Almost everyone repeats the mantra "pick the best player available", as if there were some absolute in how to pick the best player available.
On the rare lottery that the Washington Wizards picked first, who did Michael Jordan pick? The trend was high school players, and Kwame Brown, with the physical stature of the prototypical NBA player, fit the bill. He even promised "If you draft me, I won't disappoint you", only to be partly true about this promise, as he disappointed not just the Wizards, but the Lakers too. Thinking he had picked a guy with the same intensity and focus as him, Jordan discovered that Brown didn't respond to the verbal lashings like he would have. He saw too much of himself in Brown, and when that, predictably, failed to materialize, it made him lash out even more.
You might wonder how well a team would do if they let the fans pick their players for them. At the very least, they might draft what they actually need, but then fans are notoriously underinformed, except for the very few whose opinions would be washed out by the masses.
Draft season is great for columnists who universally pan the picks the local team has made, except for maybe a top 5 pick.
If there's any lesson from the draft, it's that the people who select rarely pick on what is needed, but what is desired, and that no one knows how to pick the next superstar.
Despite that, the team cognoscenti are content to keep on trying to read tea leaves and find that special missing ingredient.
Seeing is Believing
I believe it was Aristotle who once proclaimed that heavier things fall faster than lighter objects. So sure was he of this idea that he didn't even bother to try it out. It made sense. Why bother? While surely someone else of less import must have noticed the fallacy of this claim, it was Galileo, who famously put this claim to rest.
Although this is nowhere near the import of a test of gravity, I find that I give advice in tennis without actually seeing people do it. The latest advice that I've given that's basically wrong is the the arms come up together. That's not entirely untrue, but it's not entirely true.
What most pros do is this: the left arm tosses, and the right arm comes up, and waits. While waiting, the server eventually bends his knee. It's only after the ball has reached its peak that the player begins to move the racquet down in the back-scratching position, and move up.
So while it isn't exactly, left arm goes up, then wait, then right arm goes up, nor is it both arms up simultaneously, it's more like like left arm and right arm go up, but right arm waits until toss is complete, before moving on.
Although this is nowhere near the import of a test of gravity, I find that I give advice in tennis without actually seeing people do it. The latest advice that I've given that's basically wrong is the the arms come up together. That's not entirely untrue, but it's not entirely true.
What most pros do is this: the left arm tosses, and the right arm comes up, and waits. While waiting, the server eventually bends his knee. It's only after the ball has reached its peak that the player begins to move the racquet down in the back-scratching position, and move up.
So while it isn't exactly, left arm goes up, then wait, then right arm goes up, nor is it both arms up simultaneously, it's more like like left arm and right arm go up, but right arm waits until toss is complete, before moving on.
Lessons in Tennis
After taking the time to relearn tennis, I've learned and possibly relearned a few things.
The first lesson I learned came from observing beginners. Most beginner tennis players assume that the racquet is an extension of the arm. For now, forget the racquet head. Imagine that you are holding a baseball bat. Now, hold you arm straight in front point forward so that your arm is shoulder height and parallel with your shoulder. It's as if you are telling someone "Go forward".
Now imagine you are holding a baseball bat, and the bat is also pointing forward, so that it doubles the length of your arm.
Most beginning players hit that way. The racquet is straight with the arm.
No good player does this. They hold the racquet at a 90 degree angle with their arm.
And this applies to nearly all strokes. Backhand, forehand, volley. In particular, I realized I wasn't hitting this way on my forehand, and I have to, lately, remind myself to hit with the 90 degree angle.
Related to this lesson is that flipping the wrist doesn't buy you power. Two-handed backhand players often flip their wrists to get more power. It seems to make logical sense, and yet, it doesn't happen. Instead, the torso plays a role when hitting a backhand, and you want to keep that that 90 degree angle.
Indeed, the angle is so important that Brad Gilbert, former player and coach to Andre Agassi, has been hawking a product that keeps this 90 degree angle.
Second lesson. It's not all arm.
Hitting often requires your legs, and your torso. Most people swing with the arms, never realizing the torso (i.e., your chest, your waist) can provide additional mass and stability to shots. For me, I don't turn my torso enough on my forehand. I end up thinking all arm, and not enough torso.
This lesson didn't dawn on me until I was watching a slow-mo video of Roger Federer for the umpteenth time, and I noticed where his shoulders were pointed when he hit the ball. Indeed, most pros have their upper bodies turned toward the net (and more), with their racquet still pointed at the fence, before the arm comes forward and hits the ball.
The torso leads the arm, and the arm waits a long time with the racquet pointed backward, until the ball is right up to the player with the torso parallel or past parallel before the racquet goes from the racquet pointed back (or the butt of the racquet facing the ball) to the racquet pointed parallel to the net.
Indeed, I think I've been having this issue with my forehand as well. In addition to forcing myself to think about the 90 degrees, I had been recently thinking of the idea of "dragging" my forehand. Some experts have said this is how you should visualize the forehand, so that the racquet only faces the ball at the last moment.
But I just realized by moving the torso, I don't have to do anything with my arm. It "drags" along for free from my torso alone. Now, that isn't entirely true. Just before impact, I need to move the wrist so that it begins to flip in a windshield wiper motion, which cause the racquet angle to increase to about 110 degrees at contact.
On the forehand, I'm also trying to force myself to get more sideways to the ball. I think, in the past, I'd basically face the net the whole time, and let my arm do all the work. The lastest thing I'm doing is to use my left hand and hold it on the throat to force myself to turn my shoulders around. I used to never do this, which meant my shoulders didn't turn as much as it should.
Lesson three. Let your arm relax.
I watched a YouTube segment on hitting the ball naturally. The idea was to hit the ball with 2 or 3 fingers, not using your other fingers. Because you don't have much support on the racquet, you have to swing in such a way that the racquet doesn't fight you, and this allows you to swing more freely. This applies to the serve as well. Most shots in tennis require a degree of relaxation.
This relaxation helped on my backhand where I would not be so relaxed, and ironically hit a weaker shot. Relaxation helps you hit a faster shot.
Lesson four. Follow-through matters. I was watching a beginner hit a ball, and they stopped hitting shortly after the ball was hit. This creates a racquet path that can vary quite a lot. A good follow through helps provide momentum through the entire process. I believe Vic Braden is wrong when he says follow-through isn't important, because it is.
Lesson five. Aim.
This is a lesson I don't think about much because I aim, but I see it's a huge problem for beginners. Most beginners are content hitting the ball hard, and have no particular place that they are aiming to hit. In particular, because I see some players who fall in love with hitting the ball as hard as possible, they hit the ball deep (meaning out) all the time.
There are several drills I'd work on. First, if every other shot is heading long, then aim for the service line. The service line is very shot, I admit, but if you hit it too long, you are in a good spot. Learn to hit the ball short, so you can control depth.
In addition, pay attention to the height of the ball. Ideally, aim about 3-4 feet above the net. If it's just skimming over the net, it's probably too close. Now, to hit 3-4 feet above the net and hit at the service line, you have to sacrifice some power, which means you hit more relaxed and slow down your shot.
I know. Players, especially male players, love power. They feel they aren't getting the most of their game if they don't hit hard. I'm not saying you should never hit hard, but you need to play more in control, before worrying about power. To play power properly, you should really learn topspin, and get more spin on the shot.
In a nutshell, hit shorter, hit higher, hit more relaxed, and stop hitting really hard, but still feel that you are making a full swing.
I'm watching a match between Nadal and Davydenko, and many of the shots land only halfway between the service line and the baseline. Keep your shots shorter. You'll find your game improving.
Lesson six. The serve is hard.
I'm working on my knee bend lately, and having that coiled up before starting the rest of the motion. While I do that, I'll be regressing backwards for a while, but thats OK.
So on my checklist of things to work on.
The first lesson I learned came from observing beginners. Most beginner tennis players assume that the racquet is an extension of the arm. For now, forget the racquet head. Imagine that you are holding a baseball bat. Now, hold you arm straight in front point forward so that your arm is shoulder height and parallel with your shoulder. It's as if you are telling someone "Go forward".
Now imagine you are holding a baseball bat, and the bat is also pointing forward, so that it doubles the length of your arm.
Most beginning players hit that way. The racquet is straight with the arm.
No good player does this. They hold the racquet at a 90 degree angle with their arm.
And this applies to nearly all strokes. Backhand, forehand, volley. In particular, I realized I wasn't hitting this way on my forehand, and I have to, lately, remind myself to hit with the 90 degree angle.
Related to this lesson is that flipping the wrist doesn't buy you power. Two-handed backhand players often flip their wrists to get more power. It seems to make logical sense, and yet, it doesn't happen. Instead, the torso plays a role when hitting a backhand, and you want to keep that that 90 degree angle.
Indeed, the angle is so important that Brad Gilbert, former player and coach to Andre Agassi, has been hawking a product that keeps this 90 degree angle.
Second lesson. It's not all arm.
Hitting often requires your legs, and your torso. Most people swing with the arms, never realizing the torso (i.e., your chest, your waist) can provide additional mass and stability to shots. For me, I don't turn my torso enough on my forehand. I end up thinking all arm, and not enough torso.
This lesson didn't dawn on me until I was watching a slow-mo video of Roger Federer for the umpteenth time, and I noticed where his shoulders were pointed when he hit the ball. Indeed, most pros have their upper bodies turned toward the net (and more), with their racquet still pointed at the fence, before the arm comes forward and hits the ball.
The torso leads the arm, and the arm waits a long time with the racquet pointed backward, until the ball is right up to the player with the torso parallel or past parallel before the racquet goes from the racquet pointed back (or the butt of the racquet facing the ball) to the racquet pointed parallel to the net.
Indeed, I think I've been having this issue with my forehand as well. In addition to forcing myself to think about the 90 degrees, I had been recently thinking of the idea of "dragging" my forehand. Some experts have said this is how you should visualize the forehand, so that the racquet only faces the ball at the last moment.
But I just realized by moving the torso, I don't have to do anything with my arm. It "drags" along for free from my torso alone. Now, that isn't entirely true. Just before impact, I need to move the wrist so that it begins to flip in a windshield wiper motion, which cause the racquet angle to increase to about 110 degrees at contact.
On the forehand, I'm also trying to force myself to get more sideways to the ball. I think, in the past, I'd basically face the net the whole time, and let my arm do all the work. The lastest thing I'm doing is to use my left hand and hold it on the throat to force myself to turn my shoulders around. I used to never do this, which meant my shoulders didn't turn as much as it should.
Lesson three. Let your arm relax.
I watched a YouTube segment on hitting the ball naturally. The idea was to hit the ball with 2 or 3 fingers, not using your other fingers. Because you don't have much support on the racquet, you have to swing in such a way that the racquet doesn't fight you, and this allows you to swing more freely. This applies to the serve as well. Most shots in tennis require a degree of relaxation.
This relaxation helped on my backhand where I would not be so relaxed, and ironically hit a weaker shot. Relaxation helps you hit a faster shot.
Lesson four. Follow-through matters. I was watching a beginner hit a ball, and they stopped hitting shortly after the ball was hit. This creates a racquet path that can vary quite a lot. A good follow through helps provide momentum through the entire process. I believe Vic Braden is wrong when he says follow-through isn't important, because it is.
Lesson five. Aim.
This is a lesson I don't think about much because I aim, but I see it's a huge problem for beginners. Most beginners are content hitting the ball hard, and have no particular place that they are aiming to hit. In particular, because I see some players who fall in love with hitting the ball as hard as possible, they hit the ball deep (meaning out) all the time.
There are several drills I'd work on. First, if every other shot is heading long, then aim for the service line. The service line is very shot, I admit, but if you hit it too long, you are in a good spot. Learn to hit the ball short, so you can control depth.
In addition, pay attention to the height of the ball. Ideally, aim about 3-4 feet above the net. If it's just skimming over the net, it's probably too close. Now, to hit 3-4 feet above the net and hit at the service line, you have to sacrifice some power, which means you hit more relaxed and slow down your shot.
I know. Players, especially male players, love power. They feel they aren't getting the most of their game if they don't hit hard. I'm not saying you should never hit hard, but you need to play more in control, before worrying about power. To play power properly, you should really learn topspin, and get more spin on the shot.
In a nutshell, hit shorter, hit higher, hit more relaxed, and stop hitting really hard, but still feel that you are making a full swing.
I'm watching a match between Nadal and Davydenko, and many of the shots land only halfway between the service line and the baseline. Keep your shots shorter. You'll find your game improving.
Lesson six. The serve is hard.
I'm working on my knee bend lately, and having that coiled up before starting the rest of the motion. While I do that, I'll be regressing backwards for a while, but thats OK.
So on my checklist of things to work on.
- Rotate more on the torso on my forehand so I use the torso to get my arm to drag, while keeping my angle at 90 degrees.
- When slicing a backhand, make sure the elbow is straight before impact.
- Bend my knees more while serving
- Learn the "C" movement on my two-handed backhand, and be relaxed until impact.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
How We Learn
I stole this title from a segment by one Tomaz Mencinger, and yes, it has to do with tennis, though this particular blog entry does not.
I used to teach programming. To be an adequate programmer, one that can write some program that does something, you need to think methodically. You need to be able to reason about how a program behaves, and be patient enough to figure out where your assumptions have gone wrong. Indeed, if programming teaches you anything, it teaches you that you makes lots of assumptions, many you don't realize.
Code is a harsh mistress. It does exactly what you tell it to, and nothing more. Any assumption you make, whether you realize it or not, is being expressed in code.
The kind of thinking you need to code is one that is logical, organized, and able to do things given the tools you have available to you. You might think of programming as eating with chopsticks. If your not Asian, then eating with chopsticks is awkward, and it takes a while to eat this way.
Even the comparatively simple eating with your hands is not so simple. Most cultures that eat with their hands have rules. In particular, they almost always eat with their right hand, because the left hand is unclean (basically used for hygiene given a lack of toilet paper). This creates interesting skills, including the ability to rip flatbread using one hand.
Once you can think in a certain way, then coding is second nature, and it's your patience and cleverness that matters. You work at something, and if that doesn't work, you try something else. You question your assumptions. Why does this fail? What am I doing that might cause this to fail?
There are people who can't seem to get their heads wrapped around this idea of organized, disciplined thinking, and can't get around being able to discover an aha moment, and being patient enough to try a bunch of things. Generally, they don't become good programmers.
Lately, I've been trying to teach some folks how to play tennis. And this has made me think about how tennis is taught. While I'm generally analytical by nature, I realized there's still a lot about tennis I don't know, even though I've played for 20 years (more).
Tennis requires physical coordination. Given that our bodies are creatures of habit, it can be very hard to train the body to do motions. I think it's analogous to learning math. You have to learn how to prove things, and you have to understand what makes a good proof, and what makes a bad proof, and that takes a while, because good and bad proofs look the same to beginners, and so beginners think people are just making stuff up when it comes to proofs.
It takes a while to get to this way of thinking, and many people never do.
Learning physical habits is, in my opinion, even harder.
I've been trying to tell Stan how to hold his racquet during a tennis serve. To be fair, a tennis serve is one of the hardest shot in tennis to master. It involves a lot of unnatural movements, and it takes a long time for the body to learn to coordinate what is a myriad of activities, from knee bends to wrist pronations.
I wanted Stan to learn to put the racquet behind the back as if it were a sword in a scabbard held on the back. Despite this, he would resort back to taking the racquet back the way he normally hits it.
I recall, once upon a time, when I was in college, and there was a dad, trying to teach his son how to play table tennis. He went over to his side, and had him shadow stroke the "correct" movement over and over. Once we went to his side of the table, and served the ball, the kid simply went back to the way he hit before, despite having been taught the "correct" way to hit a ball.
Body coordination is really hard. Your body has certain habits it gets into. To tell the body to do something else can be tough. This is that mental leap that, in my opinion, is similar to learning how to do math.
Except, with math, you can be completely rational, and force yourself to be organized about your thinking (I know that math also requires an aha moment, but being organized with the information also helps).
With physical mastery, you need to make the body repeat the action over and over and over again, until it becomes second nature, so you do it without thinking.
It's a lot like learning to drive. Initially, there are lots of rigid rules you follow, but eventually, you know what to skip and what to pay attention to.
Learning tennis, on the other hand, requires a huge number of skills, and it's easy to learn the "wrong" way to do things.
I'll give you an example. David has this smooth fluid motion for his serve, but the stroke isn't really "correct". Since the serve is so hard to teach, I want him to do something far simpler. Get the racquet behind the back, toss the ball up, and then hit it.
The problem? He's so used to his completely elaborate motion, that he can't force himself to do just part of it. The left and right arm are so used to doing certain things, that to break this normalcy creates a huge amount of awkwardness.
Stan has a differently problem. Where David can more or less raise his hands together, Stan tosses the ball with one hand, then strikes with the other hand. While some people have very high tosses (Ivan Lendl and Steffi Graf, to name two), this two part motion (toss, then hit) is not something most decent servers do.
I also tried to get him to hit an abbreviated serve. He too had big problems trying to hit that abbreviated serve, since he was used to hitting a full motion with his right arm.
Both people would be served (no pun intended) by having video taken of them. I think the would be surprised that they change their motion when hitting.
I find that fascinating. You tell a person to do X, but their inclination to do Y is so strong, that they do Y, but think they are doing X. A video would clear show them that they are doing Y.
Perhaps that's one reason I spend so much time learning tennis. We learn by imitation, but imitation is really hard. It requires very powerful observations, and it requires a kind of physical mimicry that most people lack. This means, much like learning how to program, it takes time to learn how to play a sport, especially one that requires as much coordination as tennis.
I used to teach programming. To be an adequate programmer, one that can write some program that does something, you need to think methodically. You need to be able to reason about how a program behaves, and be patient enough to figure out where your assumptions have gone wrong. Indeed, if programming teaches you anything, it teaches you that you makes lots of assumptions, many you don't realize.
Code is a harsh mistress. It does exactly what you tell it to, and nothing more. Any assumption you make, whether you realize it or not, is being expressed in code.
The kind of thinking you need to code is one that is logical, organized, and able to do things given the tools you have available to you. You might think of programming as eating with chopsticks. If your not Asian, then eating with chopsticks is awkward, and it takes a while to eat this way.
Even the comparatively simple eating with your hands is not so simple. Most cultures that eat with their hands have rules. In particular, they almost always eat with their right hand, because the left hand is unclean (basically used for hygiene given a lack of toilet paper). This creates interesting skills, including the ability to rip flatbread using one hand.
Once you can think in a certain way, then coding is second nature, and it's your patience and cleverness that matters. You work at something, and if that doesn't work, you try something else. You question your assumptions. Why does this fail? What am I doing that might cause this to fail?
There are people who can't seem to get their heads wrapped around this idea of organized, disciplined thinking, and can't get around being able to discover an aha moment, and being patient enough to try a bunch of things. Generally, they don't become good programmers.
Lately, I've been trying to teach some folks how to play tennis. And this has made me think about how tennis is taught. While I'm generally analytical by nature, I realized there's still a lot about tennis I don't know, even though I've played for 20 years (more).
Tennis requires physical coordination. Given that our bodies are creatures of habit, it can be very hard to train the body to do motions. I think it's analogous to learning math. You have to learn how to prove things, and you have to understand what makes a good proof, and what makes a bad proof, and that takes a while, because good and bad proofs look the same to beginners, and so beginners think people are just making stuff up when it comes to proofs.
It takes a while to get to this way of thinking, and many people never do.
Learning physical habits is, in my opinion, even harder.
I've been trying to tell Stan how to hold his racquet during a tennis serve. To be fair, a tennis serve is one of the hardest shot in tennis to master. It involves a lot of unnatural movements, and it takes a long time for the body to learn to coordinate what is a myriad of activities, from knee bends to wrist pronations.
I wanted Stan to learn to put the racquet behind the back as if it were a sword in a scabbard held on the back. Despite this, he would resort back to taking the racquet back the way he normally hits it.
I recall, once upon a time, when I was in college, and there was a dad, trying to teach his son how to play table tennis. He went over to his side, and had him shadow stroke the "correct" movement over and over. Once we went to his side of the table, and served the ball, the kid simply went back to the way he hit before, despite having been taught the "correct" way to hit a ball.
Body coordination is really hard. Your body has certain habits it gets into. To tell the body to do something else can be tough. This is that mental leap that, in my opinion, is similar to learning how to do math.
Except, with math, you can be completely rational, and force yourself to be organized about your thinking (I know that math also requires an aha moment, but being organized with the information also helps).
With physical mastery, you need to make the body repeat the action over and over and over again, until it becomes second nature, so you do it without thinking.
It's a lot like learning to drive. Initially, there are lots of rigid rules you follow, but eventually, you know what to skip and what to pay attention to.
Learning tennis, on the other hand, requires a huge number of skills, and it's easy to learn the "wrong" way to do things.
I'll give you an example. David has this smooth fluid motion for his serve, but the stroke isn't really "correct". Since the serve is so hard to teach, I want him to do something far simpler. Get the racquet behind the back, toss the ball up, and then hit it.
The problem? He's so used to his completely elaborate motion, that he can't force himself to do just part of it. The left and right arm are so used to doing certain things, that to break this normalcy creates a huge amount of awkwardness.
Stan has a differently problem. Where David can more or less raise his hands together, Stan tosses the ball with one hand, then strikes with the other hand. While some people have very high tosses (Ivan Lendl and Steffi Graf, to name two), this two part motion (toss, then hit) is not something most decent servers do.
I also tried to get him to hit an abbreviated serve. He too had big problems trying to hit that abbreviated serve, since he was used to hitting a full motion with his right arm.
Both people would be served (no pun intended) by having video taken of them. I think the would be surprised that they change their motion when hitting.
I find that fascinating. You tell a person to do X, but their inclination to do Y is so strong, that they do Y, but think they are doing X. A video would clear show them that they are doing Y.
Perhaps that's one reason I spend so much time learning tennis. We learn by imitation, but imitation is really hard. It requires very powerful observations, and it requires a kind of physical mimicry that most people lack. This means, much like learning how to program, it takes time to learn how to play a sport, especially one that requires as much coordination as tennis.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Evolution of a Game
OK, so this is yet another tennis blog.
I've been trying to adjust my game for the last few months. I've been working on imitating a Federer forehand. Since Federer has a one-handed backhand, and I don't (though I do slice the backhand), I don't imitate his backhand. Finally, I just try to hit a better serve.
Sometimes, you reach a kind of mini-epiphany when playing, a moment where all of a sudden, you figure out something.
That moment happened to me on Saturday while playing tennis on a warm afternoon. Just as I was wrapping up a session of tennis, I decided, just for the heck of it, to practice my serve.
Instead of hitting the same topspin serve I had been hitting, I decided to toss the ball low, and then really snap the wrist down. Teachers of tennis claim that the wrist doesn't snap, that it pronates. Pronation is a tough concept to explain, even if you've played a lot of tennis.
But the wrist snap visual is actually quite useful, because it makes you really accelerate the racquet right at the moment of contact. When I think I'm snapping down, I'm sure the racquet is mostly perpendicular to the plane of the court.
The second thing that helped my serve a bit, other than the mere act of practicing it, is not to get the racquet in the classic back-scratching position (something, by the way, that's really hard to teach), but instead to have the hitting face of the racquet point to my back, making wrist pronation even easier. This was a tip I picked up watching a Oscar Wegner video.
My two-handed backhand was improved mostly by following the advice given in Hi-tech tennis. In particular, it helped me point the racquet down on take back, but more importantly, to turn the arm and shoulder to the ball, while leaving the angle of the racquet more or less the same and then following through. Most people have a shaky two-handed backhand because the tip of the racquet moves a lot, and they swing too soon.
This website suggested being restrained up until the point of contact, and that relaxation seems to get a lot of pace, surprisingly enough.
My forehand has had the most issues. Imitating anyone's stroke is a lot of work. You are watching a snippet of video over and over, and trying to find how you can hit the stroke the same way, and that's tough, because so many factors go into it, from the plane of the racquet, to when to take the racquet back.
I've gotten to the point where I think I'm getting kinda close to what I want to hit. Part of it, surprisingly, is keeping the racquet face down pointed to the right fence, then kinda whipping my forehand forward.
I think, the next step for me, is to learn to "lift" the racquet and turn the torso at the same time. I'm still having an issue hitting with power and also hitting it crosscourt. Oddly enough, my chop forehand is doing reasonably well, and I end up resorting to it, when I return serve.
Still, I think I'm having to work on torso turning and doing the windshield movement correctly.
So, overall, my backhand seems much better, as does my serve. My slice backhand is starting to feel decent, though I still need some pace, and my forehand is improving, but still not where I want it.
I've been trying to adjust my game for the last few months. I've been working on imitating a Federer forehand. Since Federer has a one-handed backhand, and I don't (though I do slice the backhand), I don't imitate his backhand. Finally, I just try to hit a better serve.
Sometimes, you reach a kind of mini-epiphany when playing, a moment where all of a sudden, you figure out something.
That moment happened to me on Saturday while playing tennis on a warm afternoon. Just as I was wrapping up a session of tennis, I decided, just for the heck of it, to practice my serve.
Instead of hitting the same topspin serve I had been hitting, I decided to toss the ball low, and then really snap the wrist down. Teachers of tennis claim that the wrist doesn't snap, that it pronates. Pronation is a tough concept to explain, even if you've played a lot of tennis.
But the wrist snap visual is actually quite useful, because it makes you really accelerate the racquet right at the moment of contact. When I think I'm snapping down, I'm sure the racquet is mostly perpendicular to the plane of the court.
The second thing that helped my serve a bit, other than the mere act of practicing it, is not to get the racquet in the classic back-scratching position (something, by the way, that's really hard to teach), but instead to have the hitting face of the racquet point to my back, making wrist pronation even easier. This was a tip I picked up watching a Oscar Wegner video.
My two-handed backhand was improved mostly by following the advice given in Hi-tech tennis. In particular, it helped me point the racquet down on take back, but more importantly, to turn the arm and shoulder to the ball, while leaving the angle of the racquet more or less the same and then following through. Most people have a shaky two-handed backhand because the tip of the racquet moves a lot, and they swing too soon.
This website suggested being restrained up until the point of contact, and that relaxation seems to get a lot of pace, surprisingly enough.
My forehand has had the most issues. Imitating anyone's stroke is a lot of work. You are watching a snippet of video over and over, and trying to find how you can hit the stroke the same way, and that's tough, because so many factors go into it, from the plane of the racquet, to when to take the racquet back.
I've gotten to the point where I think I'm getting kinda close to what I want to hit. Part of it, surprisingly, is keeping the racquet face down pointed to the right fence, then kinda whipping my forehand forward.
I think, the next step for me, is to learn to "lift" the racquet and turn the torso at the same time. I'm still having an issue hitting with power and also hitting it crosscourt. Oddly enough, my chop forehand is doing reasonably well, and I end up resorting to it, when I return serve.
Still, I think I'm having to work on torso turning and doing the windshield movement correctly.
So, overall, my backhand seems much better, as does my serve. My slice backhand is starting to feel decent, though I still need some pace, and my forehand is improving, but still not where I want it.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Rhymes with Rich
OK, a non-tennis entry.
This year has been a historic campaign, at least, on the Democratic end. For the first time, there has been both a viable woman and African American running for the President. In fact, both are so viable, that this late into the campaign season, both are still hanging in for the long haul.
It's been said, with Obama's delegate lead, he should win the nomination. Nevertheless, Clinton fights on, partly, I assume, because of her gender. Men have traditionally believed women weren't capable of such lofty positions, especially the President of the US. Stereotypes of women are that they aren't strong or determined.
Now, I'm sure part of the fight is due to Hillary's personality. But partly, I assume, is because she wants to be tough for all women that follow her.
I wonder how much the bitch factor plays a role in her divisive personality. People who hate her, and these are in the Obama camp as well as Republicans, see her as a tough person who doesn't want to give up, even if there might be damage done in the general election, one way or the other.
No one has uttered the "b" word, though I recall Barbara Bush insinuating this about Geraldine Ferraro, then a vice-presidential candidate for Michael Dukakis.
At one point, people felt certain that whatever candidate the Democrats would put forth would certainly defeat whomever the Republicans came up with, especially since the candidates at the time, Giuliana, Romney, and even upstart Huckabee, just had too much baggage to wage a serious candidacy. But McCain is the one name that has been in politics for a long time. Indeed, that may work against him, we'll see.
But now, it's not so clear that this won't be a competitive general election.
Also, the more I see the Democratic primaries, I find the "winner take all" idea rather reprehensible, and not at all democratic. Votes are effectively not counted because the majority wins out. It has the virtue of smoothing out some errors, but given how close the 2000 election was (a few states decided within the margin of 1000 votes or so), these errors can also get magnified.
As politicians push the notion of democracy, it may be good to reflect on just how good a democracy we really have.
This year has been a historic campaign, at least, on the Democratic end. For the first time, there has been both a viable woman and African American running for the President. In fact, both are so viable, that this late into the campaign season, both are still hanging in for the long haul.
It's been said, with Obama's delegate lead, he should win the nomination. Nevertheless, Clinton fights on, partly, I assume, because of her gender. Men have traditionally believed women weren't capable of such lofty positions, especially the President of the US. Stereotypes of women are that they aren't strong or determined.
Now, I'm sure part of the fight is due to Hillary's personality. But partly, I assume, is because she wants to be tough for all women that follow her.
I wonder how much the bitch factor plays a role in her divisive personality. People who hate her, and these are in the Obama camp as well as Republicans, see her as a tough person who doesn't want to give up, even if there might be damage done in the general election, one way or the other.
No one has uttered the "b" word, though I recall Barbara Bush insinuating this about Geraldine Ferraro, then a vice-presidential candidate for Michael Dukakis.
At one point, people felt certain that whatever candidate the Democrats would put forth would certainly defeat whomever the Republicans came up with, especially since the candidates at the time, Giuliana, Romney, and even upstart Huckabee, just had too much baggage to wage a serious candidacy. But McCain is the one name that has been in politics for a long time. Indeed, that may work against him, we'll see.
But now, it's not so clear that this won't be a competitive general election.
Also, the more I see the Democratic primaries, I find the "winner take all" idea rather reprehensible, and not at all democratic. Votes are effectively not counted because the majority wins out. It has the virtue of smoothing out some errors, but given how close the 2000 election was (a few states decided within the margin of 1000 votes or so), these errors can also get magnified.
As politicians push the notion of democracy, it may be good to reflect on just how good a democracy we really have.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Fed Forehand
I've been watching the slow-mo videos of Roger Federer at Hi-Tech tennis. Pretty good stuff.
I was also watching Will's lessons on the forehand at Fuzzy Yellow Balls (FYB).
Here are a few observations I've made.
Once Roger starts to make his arm come forward, his arm is fairly straight, his wrist is bent back, and the racquet and arm makes roughly a 90 degree angle. If you draw a line through Fed's shoulders and to his arm, they almost form a straight line.
The key, I suspect, to Roger's (and many other pros) power is that they use their bodies in the shot. Thus, the entire torso spins and the arm comes along for the ride.
As Roger's shoulders becomes parallel with the baseline (he starts more than perpendicular, to the side), the 90 degree angle he had been maintaining up til then becomes relaxed. He starts to basically flip his hand forward so the 90 degrees becomes more like 110-120 degrees. He does this mere moments before impact, about 1-2 feet away.
It looks like he is starting to move his palm forward to add that little bit of wrist flick to the shot. However, rather than flip through the ball, Federer does the windshield wiper move and moves the arm in a forward-ish rainbow arc until the racquet ends up on his left side.
Note that I haven't even talked about Fed's legs. He's leaned down on his right leg and straightens up on impact. He bends down more than most players I've seen when making this shot.
I would say, in order to master the Fed forehand, you want to imitate his upper body first, than work on the lower body once the upper body motion is satisfactory.
It helps, if you get the chance, to practice in front of a mirror, so you can see what you are doing. Shadow stroke a bit, and you will see if you are doing the right thing.
To me, the keys to the Fed forehand are: making sure the arm and racquet are 90 degrees with the wrist laid back, making sure the shoulder and arm are moving together, as you move forward. Once your shoulders are parallel, begin to flip the wrist forward to impact, and begin the rainbow arc, until the forearm has flipped to the left side of your body.
Again, something I need to try out on the court.
I was also watching Will's lessons on the forehand at Fuzzy Yellow Balls (FYB).
Here are a few observations I've made.
Once Roger starts to make his arm come forward, his arm is fairly straight, his wrist is bent back, and the racquet and arm makes roughly a 90 degree angle. If you draw a line through Fed's shoulders and to his arm, they almost form a straight line.
The key, I suspect, to Roger's (and many other pros) power is that they use their bodies in the shot. Thus, the entire torso spins and the arm comes along for the ride.
As Roger's shoulders becomes parallel with the baseline (he starts more than perpendicular, to the side), the 90 degree angle he had been maintaining up til then becomes relaxed. He starts to basically flip his hand forward so the 90 degrees becomes more like 110-120 degrees. He does this mere moments before impact, about 1-2 feet away.
It looks like he is starting to move his palm forward to add that little bit of wrist flick to the shot. However, rather than flip through the ball, Federer does the windshield wiper move and moves the arm in a forward-ish rainbow arc until the racquet ends up on his left side.
Note that I haven't even talked about Fed's legs. He's leaned down on his right leg and straightens up on impact. He bends down more than most players I've seen when making this shot.
I would say, in order to master the Fed forehand, you want to imitate his upper body first, than work on the lower body once the upper body motion is satisfactory.
It helps, if you get the chance, to practice in front of a mirror, so you can see what you are doing. Shadow stroke a bit, and you will see if you are doing the right thing.
To me, the keys to the Fed forehand are: making sure the arm and racquet are 90 degrees with the wrist laid back, making sure the shoulder and arm are moving together, as you move forward. Once your shoulders are parallel, begin to flip the wrist forward to impact, and begin the rainbow arc, until the forearm has flipped to the left side of your body.
Again, something I need to try out on the court.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Picture Perfect
The latest trend in improving one's tennis strokes is recording yourself.
Camcorders have become really cheap these days. You can get a decent one for just over two hundred dollars. But the real question is what kind?
You have mini-DV's which are like videotapes, then mini-DVDs, DVDs, and hard-drive recorders. You have standard definition and high definition. It's really hard to pick.
Fortunately, I found a site that made a suggestion, which was to go with mini-DVs. The reason was two-fold. First, the cameras are cheap. Second, they produce good resolution video. The other formats apparently aren't ready for prime-time.
They even suggested getting one of the Canon ZR series which allows shutter control. So that's probably what I will do, and see how I fare.
Camcorders have become really cheap these days. You can get a decent one for just over two hundred dollars. But the real question is what kind?
You have mini-DV's which are like videotapes, then mini-DVDs, DVDs, and hard-drive recorders. You have standard definition and high definition. It's really hard to pick.
Fortunately, I found a site that made a suggestion, which was to go with mini-DVs. The reason was two-fold. First, the cameras are cheap. Second, they produce good resolution video. The other formats apparently aren't ready for prime-time.
They even suggested getting one of the Canon ZR series which allows shutter control. So that's probably what I will do, and see how I fare.
Learning Modern Tennis
I played Adam two weeks ago. I told him I was tinkering with how I hit my strokes. He replied that, at his age, and how often he plays, he's content with the way he hits his shots. There's no arguing, outside a big serve, his strokes are effective, and that this allows him to simply play. The nirvana of sports is to reach a point where you simply play. Your body already does what it should do.
Being vaguely dissatisfied with my tennis strokes, I find myself wanting to modify the way I hit.
It's interesting seeing how, what I read 20 years ago, has changed.
Here's a simple example. The two-handed backhand. Once a novelty, three players made the two-handed backhand fashionable: Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, and Chris Evert. Of course, there were others hitting with two hands, from Cliff Drysdale to Harold Solomon to Tracy Austin.
When I first learn to hit the two-handed backhand, I read something interesting. The experts said "you should hit a two-handed backhand like a one-handed backhand, with the top hand there for support". This thinking influenced me quite a bit. It has some advantages, especially if you have to let go of your left hand, and slice the shot. However, if you're able to flip the racquet some, you can adjust the grip, even at the last minute. You can even use your left hand to adjust it for a slice.
As I've mentioned before, there are a lot more resources on the web, and that has revolutionized how people can now learn tennis. This wouldn't be so intriguing if tennis wasn't so hard to begin with.
For example, the single hardest stroke to master in tennis has to be the serve, and yet it's the most important. The serve involves a toss, knee bend, body bend, wrist pronation. You literally have to practice this over and over and over again. But when you're by yourself, it's hard to see what you are doing wrong, and because of that, coaches make a pretty penny teaching tennis.
Yesterday while playing tennis, I decided on a whim to do something different. I tossed the ball lower, out in front, and then snapped the wrist. People tell you that this is the wrong motion, that it's not a wrist snap so much as a pronation, but there is still that aspect to it. That addition really put a lot more pace on my serve. The result was quite a bit flatter, to be fair. Indeed, even as I was snapping, I found I was still hitting my serve long, and so I really had to aim down.
Now, in reality, I'm not aiming down, but my mentality is that I hit up and think it's not up, and so when I hit "down", I'm not really doing that at all. My brain just thinks it's down based on years of tennis.
I find myself watching slow-motion of Roger Federer, and imitating that. Of course, you can only imitate so much. He has a lot more physical talent than I do, but beyond that, even as you watch in slow-motion, what do you pick up? You might be, say, staring at his feet, and how he lines it up, or how his arms are positioned, but be unable to tell how loose he's gripping the racquet, or just how fast he's hitting it.
I'd focus on Fed's arms, and realize his feet were doing interesting stuff. There's this constant back and forth. I'd see something, try it out on the court, then go back and see what Fed is doing, and realized I missed something.
One of the better sites for watching pros hit their shots is Hi-tech Tennis. They have a lot of videos, though the angle and quality isn't always that good (players get chopped out). But what is good is the ability to pause the video and single step forward and back to see what's going on.
Again, I should point out that it can be hard to see things. For example, how much does the pro cock his wrist? How much does the shoulder play a role? How much does the hip play a role? How close should the ball get before you swing? All of these are hard to tell when you watch video.
The next step, I believe, is to start recording my shots.
Being vaguely dissatisfied with my tennis strokes, I find myself wanting to modify the way I hit.
It's interesting seeing how, what I read 20 years ago, has changed.
Here's a simple example. The two-handed backhand. Once a novelty, three players made the two-handed backhand fashionable: Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, and Chris Evert. Of course, there were others hitting with two hands, from Cliff Drysdale to Harold Solomon to Tracy Austin.
When I first learn to hit the two-handed backhand, I read something interesting. The experts said "you should hit a two-handed backhand like a one-handed backhand, with the top hand there for support". This thinking influenced me quite a bit. It has some advantages, especially if you have to let go of your left hand, and slice the shot. However, if you're able to flip the racquet some, you can adjust the grip, even at the last minute. You can even use your left hand to adjust it for a slice.
As I've mentioned before, there are a lot more resources on the web, and that has revolutionized how people can now learn tennis. This wouldn't be so intriguing if tennis wasn't so hard to begin with.
For example, the single hardest stroke to master in tennis has to be the serve, and yet it's the most important. The serve involves a toss, knee bend, body bend, wrist pronation. You literally have to practice this over and over and over again. But when you're by yourself, it's hard to see what you are doing wrong, and because of that, coaches make a pretty penny teaching tennis.
Yesterday while playing tennis, I decided on a whim to do something different. I tossed the ball lower, out in front, and then snapped the wrist. People tell you that this is the wrong motion, that it's not a wrist snap so much as a pronation, but there is still that aspect to it. That addition really put a lot more pace on my serve. The result was quite a bit flatter, to be fair. Indeed, even as I was snapping, I found I was still hitting my serve long, and so I really had to aim down.
Now, in reality, I'm not aiming down, but my mentality is that I hit up and think it's not up, and so when I hit "down", I'm not really doing that at all. My brain just thinks it's down based on years of tennis.
I find myself watching slow-motion of Roger Federer, and imitating that. Of course, you can only imitate so much. He has a lot more physical talent than I do, but beyond that, even as you watch in slow-motion, what do you pick up? You might be, say, staring at his feet, and how he lines it up, or how his arms are positioned, but be unable to tell how loose he's gripping the racquet, or just how fast he's hitting it.
I'd focus on Fed's arms, and realize his feet were doing interesting stuff. There's this constant back and forth. I'd see something, try it out on the court, then go back and see what Fed is doing, and realized I missed something.
One of the better sites for watching pros hit their shots is Hi-tech Tennis. They have a lot of videos, though the angle and quality isn't always that good (players get chopped out). But what is good is the ability to pause the video and single step forward and back to see what's going on.
Again, I should point out that it can be hard to see things. For example, how much does the pro cock his wrist? How much does the shoulder play a role? How much does the hip play a role? How close should the ball get before you swing? All of these are hard to tell when you watch video.
The next step, I believe, is to start recording my shots.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Topspin Sports
I was recently checking out this tennis website called Topspin Sports.
It seems rather gaudy to me. Filled with ads, the pieces of advice offered are mostly in text. With something as visual as tennis, having pictures to illustrate the concepts is important, and yet, time and again, tennis books often resort to words to explain.
Video is particularly useful. I've found another side called "Hi Tech Tennis", and they have one rather unusual feature. They allow you to pause a video, and single step forward or backward. That is actually quite useful when you want to see what is going on. I'm thinking of subscribing to that site.
But Topspin Sports? Ack, that site needs a lot of work.
It seems rather gaudy to me. Filled with ads, the pieces of advice offered are mostly in text. With something as visual as tennis, having pictures to illustrate the concepts is important, and yet, time and again, tennis books often resort to words to explain.
Video is particularly useful. I've found another side called "Hi Tech Tennis", and they have one rather unusual feature. They allow you to pause a video, and single step forward or backward. That is actually quite useful when you want to see what is going on. I'm thinking of subscribing to that site.
But Topspin Sports? Ack, that site needs a lot of work.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
15 Minutes
I've been blogging a lot about tennis lately, I admit.
And I am planning to do more of it, even now.
But, wait.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to write about tennis for the masses, you needed some sort of credentials, you need an agent, and you needed someone that was willing to publish a book for you. Furthermore, you need professional help from taking photos, to editing your text.
This made it difficult for anyone to provide teaching material for tennis, or for that matter, anything else.
The bar was set pretty high to provide information to the masses. And let's not talk about getting a television program on tennis education.
These days, however, for the cost of a computer, a video camera, and editing equipment, anyone with suitable knowledge can now produce videos for mass consumption. A computer might cost anywhere from 500 dollars to 2000 dollars, the video camera anywhere from 300 dollars to something exorbitant.
Beyond the basic knowledge you are trying to convey, you need to learn how to shoot and edit video. Depending on how much special effects you need, there might be more work still.
Then, you need a website to host your content, and some knowledge of how to layout webpages.
As daunting as that sounds, a technically savvy person can do all of this reasonably cheaply, and put the stuff on the web.
Which leads me to my next point.
The best tennis instruction, short of personal instruction, is out on the web. It has many strengths not found in books. First, with video, you can see what's going on. Second, if the person has done their homework, they are going to provide you a lot of interesting information.
I've been flipping back and forth between watching Tomaz Mencinger's tennis videos, which are aimed at the complete beginner, and the somewhat more advanced videos by Fuzzy Yellow Balls hosted by Will Hamilton.
Tomaz and Will take two different approaches. Tomaz tries to simplify the process, by breaking down strokes into easier parts, and using visualization to help you figure out what's going on. He comes up with really clever ideas, such as the "checking your wrist watch" to teach wrist pronation.
Will, on the other hand, has analyzed pros, and looked for commonalities. Rather than simplify the motions, he goes through, in meticulous detail, how and when to do everything. To contrast, I bought a book called Go Tennis with an accompanying DVD. It is rather light (by comparison) on content. While the strokes look modern enough, there are lots and lots of missing details, both of which Tomaz and Will cover in their respective ways.
For example, Will talks about feet position, arm position, how the arm should look, how the shoulders should appear, how to raise the arms, what the arms should look like. Indeed, to explain the serve, Will must break down the serve to 12 steps, each video, about a minute long, and full of information. I'm trying to digest all of this and trying to think about how I can bring this with me to the court.
Five years ago, this information wasn't freely available, nor at the kind of quality that's available now.
Sadly, some teachers feel they have the secrets to tennis, and want to charge and arm and a leg for it, thus perpetuating the idea that tennis should be for the rich. I don't entirely begrudge the desire to sell information for money, but they shouldn't begrudge me for looking at low-cost alternatives.
My point, simply put, is that such resources were, in the past, really difficult to produce. It was out of the reach of so many people that those folks who have talent to explain tennis (or anything else for that matter) were often ignored because they could never have done this.
While the cost of producing these videos is not that cheap, it is cheap enough that all you require, beyond your experties, is a good video editor, and a good webpage designer, and a place to host it. It's true that few people have the domain knowledge to use those skills for anything useful, but those who do now have a reasonable outlet to convey information.
Right now, I'm loving both Tomaz's videos and Will's videos for many reasons. They are informative, in a way not seen before in books or on TV. They are cheap (Fuzzy Yellow Balls is free and TennisMindGame is under 40 dollars). Furthermore, both are apparently readily accessible. While neither are famous, this lack of fame works to the advantage of the lucky few who make an effort to talk to these folks.
As people produce such content, will we, as a society get smarter? I believe that this kind of instruction is the tip of the iceberg, and the web will have much more to offer, once clever people put their minds and their talents to work.
And I am planning to do more of it, even now.
But, wait.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to write about tennis for the masses, you needed some sort of credentials, you need an agent, and you needed someone that was willing to publish a book for you. Furthermore, you need professional help from taking photos, to editing your text.
This made it difficult for anyone to provide teaching material for tennis, or for that matter, anything else.
The bar was set pretty high to provide information to the masses. And let's not talk about getting a television program on tennis education.
These days, however, for the cost of a computer, a video camera, and editing equipment, anyone with suitable knowledge can now produce videos for mass consumption. A computer might cost anywhere from 500 dollars to 2000 dollars, the video camera anywhere from 300 dollars to something exorbitant.
Beyond the basic knowledge you are trying to convey, you need to learn how to shoot and edit video. Depending on how much special effects you need, there might be more work still.
Then, you need a website to host your content, and some knowledge of how to layout webpages.
As daunting as that sounds, a technically savvy person can do all of this reasonably cheaply, and put the stuff on the web.
Which leads me to my next point.
The best tennis instruction, short of personal instruction, is out on the web. It has many strengths not found in books. First, with video, you can see what's going on. Second, if the person has done their homework, they are going to provide you a lot of interesting information.
I've been flipping back and forth between watching Tomaz Mencinger's tennis videos, which are aimed at the complete beginner, and the somewhat more advanced videos by Fuzzy Yellow Balls hosted by Will Hamilton.
Tomaz and Will take two different approaches. Tomaz tries to simplify the process, by breaking down strokes into easier parts, and using visualization to help you figure out what's going on. He comes up with really clever ideas, such as the "checking your wrist watch" to teach wrist pronation.
Will, on the other hand, has analyzed pros, and looked for commonalities. Rather than simplify the motions, he goes through, in meticulous detail, how and when to do everything. To contrast, I bought a book called Go Tennis with an accompanying DVD. It is rather light (by comparison) on content. While the strokes look modern enough, there are lots and lots of missing details, both of which Tomaz and Will cover in their respective ways.
For example, Will talks about feet position, arm position, how the arm should look, how the shoulders should appear, how to raise the arms, what the arms should look like. Indeed, to explain the serve, Will must break down the serve to 12 steps, each video, about a minute long, and full of information. I'm trying to digest all of this and trying to think about how I can bring this with me to the court.
Five years ago, this information wasn't freely available, nor at the kind of quality that's available now.
Sadly, some teachers feel they have the secrets to tennis, and want to charge and arm and a leg for it, thus perpetuating the idea that tennis should be for the rich. I don't entirely begrudge the desire to sell information for money, but they shouldn't begrudge me for looking at low-cost alternatives.
My point, simply put, is that such resources were, in the past, really difficult to produce. It was out of the reach of so many people that those folks who have talent to explain tennis (or anything else for that matter) were often ignored because they could never have done this.
While the cost of producing these videos is not that cheap, it is cheap enough that all you require, beyond your experties, is a good video editor, and a good webpage designer, and a place to host it. It's true that few people have the domain knowledge to use those skills for anything useful, but those who do now have a reasonable outlet to convey information.
Right now, I'm loving both Tomaz's videos and Will's videos for many reasons. They are informative, in a way not seen before in books or on TV. They are cheap (Fuzzy Yellow Balls is free and TennisMindGame is under 40 dollars). Furthermore, both are apparently readily accessible. While neither are famous, this lack of fame works to the advantage of the lucky few who make an effort to talk to these folks.
As people produce such content, will we, as a society get smarter? I believe that this kind of instruction is the tip of the iceberg, and the web will have much more to offer, once clever people put their minds and their talents to work.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Fuzzy Yellow Balls
There are a lot of tennis instruction on the web these days. Many purport to tell you how to hit like the pros--but at a price. Depending on who provides the material, that price can be exorbitant, using a fee per month structure to access content.
However, there is a free site out there that has pretty solid content.
By the title of this blog entry, you might have guessed the website's name. Fuzzy Yellow Balls.
OK, so the name of the website is a double entre, suggesting both, real tennis balls, and something a bit more anatomic. The website is mostly hosted by a guy named Will Hamilton, and as luck would have it, he coaches right near this neck of the woods in College Park.
For a free website, the production values are amazing. It combines graphics, with Will standing in front of split screen, to overhead shots. In addition to the instruction available (did I mention that it's free?), his points are pretty insightful, meaning it's a step beyond the kinds of things you'd see at other websites.
Where, say, Tomaz Mencinger's site (TennisMindGame) is focused to beginners, and offering advice on how beginners can hit shots, Hamilton's site presents material at all levels, and points out all sorts of interesting things.
And he's a huge Transformers fan. Gotta tell Jeff about this guy.
However, there is a free site out there that has pretty solid content.
By the title of this blog entry, you might have guessed the website's name. Fuzzy Yellow Balls.
OK, so the name of the website is a double entre, suggesting both, real tennis balls, and something a bit more anatomic. The website is mostly hosted by a guy named Will Hamilton, and as luck would have it, he coaches right near this neck of the woods in College Park.
For a free website, the production values are amazing. It combines graphics, with Will standing in front of split screen, to overhead shots. In addition to the instruction available (did I mention that it's free?), his points are pretty insightful, meaning it's a step beyond the kinds of things you'd see at other websites.
Where, say, Tomaz Mencinger's site (TennisMindGame) is focused to beginners, and offering advice on how beginners can hit shots, Hamilton's site presents material at all levels, and points out all sorts of interesting things.
And he's a huge Transformers fan. Gotta tell Jeff about this guy.
Step Into The Backhand
I've been looking at some videos of players hitting two-handed backhands. One thing I've noticed is that there is a stepping motion. Typically, the player is on the back foot, and just a fraction before, they step to the front foot and swing. The hips then turn and the back foot is on its tip.
There are two videos with Agassi (at least). The one above is an unusual angle, which is why I picked it.
I gotta say, this YouTube thing is wonderful to find stuff just like this.
Thoughts on Tennis
My blog has lately become something of a tennis blog. I used to blog on movies and other random thoughts, and I'm sure, I'll eventually return to that. But for the past few months, I've become a bit obsessed with tennis.
First, I'll give credit to my mother for enrolling my brother and me into tennis. At the time, I remember being reluctant to want to learn. I'm sure she thought this was a good idea because other people we knew were also enrolling their kids for tennis.
I was 13 when I first learned to play, which, in the scheme of things, is a bit old. The lessons ran for two weeks, and the lesson lasted an hour. My brother and I took lessons for two, maybe three years. Usually, the lessons were sometime in the afternoon, in the peak of summer, so it was often really, really hot.
The first year I took lessons, the guy who taught the class (I think his name was Jay) learned how to teach tennis from Dennis Van der Meer (or more appropriately, a camp run by him). Van der Meer believed you could break down tennis into small chunks, and he felt he knew the right way to teach tennis.
We were taught "classic tennis". Classic tennis is a style that's probably been around since tennis became established, or basically since the 1930s. It continued to be taught through the 1970s, and even the 1980s. I had my lesson around 1982.
Classic tennis is basically eastern forehand grip, eastern backhand grip, step into the ball, hit with moderate to no spin. Racquet goes back to the fence, and so forth.
Although classic tennis is looked at with disdain and is no longer practiced by real pros, it was still effective in its day.
Modern tennis probably started in the 1960s with European clay court players, but really found its expression through Bjorn Borg and then Ivan Lendl, then pretty much every player since then.
Modern tennis basically stressed semi-Western or Western grips, heavy topspin, open stances, and huge follow-throughs. Acceleration is more rotational than linear.
Despite the name "modern tennis", it's been around nearly 30 years. People were talking about modern tennis when Wilander was rising to the top (1982).
Modern tennis has evolved some, as players like Federer (and really, most players today), have huge follow-throughs. The flat style of Connors and the unusual style of McEnroe have long gone, which isn't to say they weren't effective, but that they never got that popular.
I've been trying to hit in a modern style most of my tennis career, which isn't much of a career, to be fair.
I've been trying to work on two strokes for a long time. My serve and my forehand. My serve has gotten a lot more consistent, and I get better spin on it than I used to. I need a better slice serve and more work on my toss, but it's getting there. What I'm missing is pace, and I'm trying to work on that.
My forehand has good topspin, but I find I hit it too high and without enough pace. I've been trying to retool my forehand, trying to contact the ball further in front, and have a straighter arm so I don't use just my forearm to hit the ball.
Now, people tell you that the best way to learn something is to do it without thinking. I find that I end up thinking a lot, which is a mistake, but I'm so analytical, that I can't help it. This has lead me to watch all sorts of videos.
The latest ones that I've picked up are by this guy from Slovenia, who now coaches in Thailand, named Tomaz Mencinger. He's created a series of videos that he distributes through the Internet. Because of this, he has some of the least expensive instruction you can get. Given that there are plenty of teachers that want to make tons of money teaching tennis (some that ask you to spend 75 dollars a month to access their content), Mencinger has to be commended for not doing this.
Mencinger has a knack for coming up with ideas to simplify the teaching of tennis, mostly by breaking down the stroke so that it isn't so complex, and building it up from there. As he encounters problems, he finds drills to compensate for the problem.
A few other coaches do this too. I've been checking out Oscar Wegner, and folks that follow his method. One guy, who goes by "topspin tennis" has many such drills to help students overcome problems with learning to hit the ball (I forgot to try his "paint the wall" topspin drill today--oh well).
I don't know many other racquet sports that gets as much analysis and techniques for beginners as tennis, nor do I know any other sport where the vast majority of pros hit in a style that goes against the most traditional way the sport has been taught.
I love reading or seeing these new ideas, because they give me ideas to try out, as well as ideas to pass on to other people. I find, for example, that when I'm stuck, I end up giving advice from when I learned to play tennis, more than 20 years ago. I give old advice because I don't know how to teach someone modern tennis, even as I've tried to learn it myself.
But, with videos like Mencinger, I know how to give basic advice to someone to teach them how to play, and furthermore, it helps me as well.
I haven't fully picked up everything I need to know, but it's good to know there are resources out there.
What I really need is a video camera to record how I play so I can figure out how to correct what I do.
First, I'll give credit to my mother for enrolling my brother and me into tennis. At the time, I remember being reluctant to want to learn. I'm sure she thought this was a good idea because other people we knew were also enrolling their kids for tennis.
I was 13 when I first learned to play, which, in the scheme of things, is a bit old. The lessons ran for two weeks, and the lesson lasted an hour. My brother and I took lessons for two, maybe three years. Usually, the lessons were sometime in the afternoon, in the peak of summer, so it was often really, really hot.
The first year I took lessons, the guy who taught the class (I think his name was Jay) learned how to teach tennis from Dennis Van der Meer (or more appropriately, a camp run by him). Van der Meer believed you could break down tennis into small chunks, and he felt he knew the right way to teach tennis.
We were taught "classic tennis". Classic tennis is a style that's probably been around since tennis became established, or basically since the 1930s. It continued to be taught through the 1970s, and even the 1980s. I had my lesson around 1982.
Classic tennis is basically eastern forehand grip, eastern backhand grip, step into the ball, hit with moderate to no spin. Racquet goes back to the fence, and so forth.
Although classic tennis is looked at with disdain and is no longer practiced by real pros, it was still effective in its day.
Modern tennis probably started in the 1960s with European clay court players, but really found its expression through Bjorn Borg and then Ivan Lendl, then pretty much every player since then.
Modern tennis basically stressed semi-Western or Western grips, heavy topspin, open stances, and huge follow-throughs. Acceleration is more rotational than linear.
Despite the name "modern tennis", it's been around nearly 30 years. People were talking about modern tennis when Wilander was rising to the top (1982).
Modern tennis has evolved some, as players like Federer (and really, most players today), have huge follow-throughs. The flat style of Connors and the unusual style of McEnroe have long gone, which isn't to say they weren't effective, but that they never got that popular.
I've been trying to hit in a modern style most of my tennis career, which isn't much of a career, to be fair.
I've been trying to work on two strokes for a long time. My serve and my forehand. My serve has gotten a lot more consistent, and I get better spin on it than I used to. I need a better slice serve and more work on my toss, but it's getting there. What I'm missing is pace, and I'm trying to work on that.
My forehand has good topspin, but I find I hit it too high and without enough pace. I've been trying to retool my forehand, trying to contact the ball further in front, and have a straighter arm so I don't use just my forearm to hit the ball.
Now, people tell you that the best way to learn something is to do it without thinking. I find that I end up thinking a lot, which is a mistake, but I'm so analytical, that I can't help it. This has lead me to watch all sorts of videos.
The latest ones that I've picked up are by this guy from Slovenia, who now coaches in Thailand, named Tomaz Mencinger. He's created a series of videos that he distributes through the Internet. Because of this, he has some of the least expensive instruction you can get. Given that there are plenty of teachers that want to make tons of money teaching tennis (some that ask you to spend 75 dollars a month to access their content), Mencinger has to be commended for not doing this.
Mencinger has a knack for coming up with ideas to simplify the teaching of tennis, mostly by breaking down the stroke so that it isn't so complex, and building it up from there. As he encounters problems, he finds drills to compensate for the problem.
A few other coaches do this too. I've been checking out Oscar Wegner, and folks that follow his method. One guy, who goes by "topspin tennis" has many such drills to help students overcome problems with learning to hit the ball (I forgot to try his "paint the wall" topspin drill today--oh well).
I don't know many other racquet sports that gets as much analysis and techniques for beginners as tennis, nor do I know any other sport where the vast majority of pros hit in a style that goes against the most traditional way the sport has been taught.
I love reading or seeing these new ideas, because they give me ideas to try out, as well as ideas to pass on to other people. I find, for example, that when I'm stuck, I end up giving advice from when I learned to play tennis, more than 20 years ago. I give old advice because I don't know how to teach someone modern tennis, even as I've tried to learn it myself.
But, with videos like Mencinger, I know how to give basic advice to someone to teach them how to play, and furthermore, it helps me as well.
I haven't fully picked up everything I need to know, but it's good to know there are resources out there.
What I really need is a video camera to record how I play so I can figure out how to correct what I do.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Visualization
I realize I'm now spending a ton of posts talking about tennis.
In any case, here's yet another one. A lot of good tennis advice provides useful visualizations. It can be difficult to give accurate descriptions in words. You might talk about holding a racquet at a certain angle, and follow a certain trajectory, and in the end, the stroke still looks awful.
Provide a more nebulous visual, and it may be the visual cue you need. For example, I just read a comment in Youtube where the tennis coach said he had heard advice given to Agassi from his dad saying to hit his forehand like a boxing uppercut. Now, I'm no boxer, but I get a vague sense of what an uppercut looks like, and the boxing analogy (Agassi's dad was a boxer) seems to convey a certain level of aggression that might be missing from my game.
In any case, here's yet another one. A lot of good tennis advice provides useful visualizations. It can be difficult to give accurate descriptions in words. You might talk about holding a racquet at a certain angle, and follow a certain trajectory, and in the end, the stroke still looks awful.
Provide a more nebulous visual, and it may be the visual cue you need. For example, I just read a comment in Youtube where the tennis coach said he had heard advice given to Agassi from his dad saying to hit his forehand like a boxing uppercut. Now, I'm no boxer, but I get a vague sense of what an uppercut looks like, and the boxing analogy (Agassi's dad was a boxer) seems to convey a certain level of aggression that might be missing from my game.
One Step Forward
After having a pretty good hitting session yesterday, I started to review what I wanted to change. I noticed yesterday that the flight of my ball was going too high, and so I thought the correction to that shot was to start my racquet face down more, and then stay face down throughout.
Today, the weather was a touch cooler than yesterday, and a bit windier, and I could tell that I was simply not hitting the ball like I did yesterday, which was, of course, pretty depressing, given how well I felt I was hitting it yesterday.
That lead me back to the drawing board to figure out what to do.
My latest idea is looking at more of the Oscar Wegner method. Who is Oscar Wegner? He's a coach from Argentina, who has pushed the idea of a more natural stroke, based on the finding the ball, then hitting it. Like many teachers who claim success, Wegner is pretty sure his method is right, and others are wrong, and there is even a cult-like following.
Having said that, this is tennis, and so, one hopes that a student can take any sort of advice, and see if they can apply it to their own game. At the very least, Wegner's approach seems to echo what modern players do.
One piece of advice Wegner advocates, unusually enough, is not to prepare so early. Early preparation, he claims, makes it difficult to have a smooth stroke when hitting. The mantra "find the ball, then hit it" is all about waiting to hit the shot. You don't want to be completely last minute, but preparing too early is a no-no.
The basic imagery is to imagine trying to catch the ball with your hand. That's about the moment you want to swing. Up until then, you are getting in position to hit the shot.
Now, you can understand why people say to prepare early. Some players prepare late, so what else can you do? But to get the racquet back extremely early may lead to bad habits. It seems, however, this can be overcome.
Anyway, I'll see how his techniques work. I have a book and DVD on order, so we'll see what happens.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
On Drills
Tennis is, I imagine, best learn by doing drills. However, as long as I've played, I've almost never played using drills. My sense is that most players find drills boring. They just want to hit the ball.
Getting better at tennis means working a bunch of different situations and knowing how to manage each of those situations.
The reason people don't do drills is because most players aren't good enough to consistently hit their shots to certain spots on the court.
The other key to drills is learning how to feed balls. I've never quite mastered that, and it's one thing I'm trying to learn. I can tell you, it ain't easy. (To feed the ball means to hit the ball to the same spot over and over, so the other person can get some practice hitting shots).
Getting better at tennis means working a bunch of different situations and knowing how to manage each of those situations.
The reason people don't do drills is because most players aren't good enough to consistently hit their shots to certain spots on the court.
The other key to drills is learning how to feed balls. I've never quite mastered that, and it's one thing I'm trying to learn. I can tell you, it ain't easy. (To feed the ball means to hit the ball to the same spot over and over, so the other person can get some practice hitting shots).
You Can Be a Pro
Lately, given my resurgent interest in tennis, I've gone back to studying how pros his their strokes. Tennis is one of those few sports where people look to the best current players and learn lessons from them. Much of that is due to changing ideas on how to hit strokes.
Tennis "experts" then write books on how to hit the ball, how to strategize, and so forth. But, these books get terribly outdated. They need to take lessons from the computer industry and understand books that are more than ten years old (even more than five years old) are old.
I don't need a book that shows me Edberg, Sampras, and then a series of lesser known players like Cedric Pioline, Richard Krajicek, and Gustavo Kuerten. If you want to appeal to today's players, you need to have Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Andy Roddick, and James Blake. In five years, you need a new crew to emulate.
I've been watching the series On Court with the USPTA, which can be annoying, at times, because of its incessant advertising. However, at the very least, they pay attention to the latest pros. Oddly enough, they show only a smattering of Roger Federer, and almost never show Nadal. Hewitt, who's ranking has fallen is popular, as is Tommy Haas.
In any case, I've been trying to retool my forehand since maybe November of last year. I had been modeling my stroke after Djokovic until about January, when I felt his stroke motion was just a little complex.
Then, I decided to model it after Federer. Federer doesn't seem to be the hardest hitter on the tour, but he hits the best shot under defensive pressure. Nadal's stroke seemed a bit too muscular, too much effort. Federer's stroke seemed economical, yet modern. (Krickstein, for example, has a very compact stroke, but I would rather emulate Federer).
I've seen Federer hit his forehand in slow-motion dozens of time, but I began to realize that it's really hard to pick up all the nuances of his forehand. If you watch his forehand, at some point, his wrist will accelerate forward, and the racquet head will follow behind. Then, the racquet whips until its square, then once hitting, he flips the racquet over.
I had been trying to imitate this, but my arm was pretty rigid, and tensed up. I saw a lesson on how to keep the arm loose and worked on that.
But then I found what, to me, was tennis gold.
Here's the article on Federer's forehand.
What struck me as an epiphany was the idea of dragging the racquet behind. Rather than maintain the angle rigidly, I'm holding it loose and thinking of accelerating my arm. Once I get near the ball I make a rainbow arc, and that imparts topspin.
Note the players shoulders are nearly parallel with the net, as the arm is catching up, and the racquet head is trailing behind.
I gave this a try last night, and it felt pretty good. So good that I ended up not using the "sit and lift" idea I had mentioned earlier.
I do need to modify that shot, because I need the racquet face to point down at the start of the motion, and to incorporate the sit-and-lift idea (for rotation acceleration).
I know I'm trying to describe a physical motion in words, and thus it's a poor substitute for video.
I had been hitting my forehand using more forearm, with the elbow as the pivot point. However, I've been working a few months to swing with the entire arm, getting it a bit looser.
The side effect is that it's helped my serve some. I've turned my body more, and I felt my serve was kicking even more than usual. I still get little pace, but overall, it felt decently good.
Tennis "experts" then write books on how to hit the ball, how to strategize, and so forth. But, these books get terribly outdated. They need to take lessons from the computer industry and understand books that are more than ten years old (even more than five years old) are old.
I don't need a book that shows me Edberg, Sampras, and then a series of lesser known players like Cedric Pioline, Richard Krajicek, and Gustavo Kuerten. If you want to appeal to today's players, you need to have Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Andy Roddick, and James Blake. In five years, you need a new crew to emulate.
I've been watching the series On Court with the USPTA, which can be annoying, at times, because of its incessant advertising. However, at the very least, they pay attention to the latest pros. Oddly enough, they show only a smattering of Roger Federer, and almost never show Nadal. Hewitt, who's ranking has fallen is popular, as is Tommy Haas.
In any case, I've been trying to retool my forehand since maybe November of last year. I had been modeling my stroke after Djokovic until about January, when I felt his stroke motion was just a little complex.
Then, I decided to model it after Federer. Federer doesn't seem to be the hardest hitter on the tour, but he hits the best shot under defensive pressure. Nadal's stroke seemed a bit too muscular, too much effort. Federer's stroke seemed economical, yet modern. (Krickstein, for example, has a very compact stroke, but I would rather emulate Federer).
I've seen Federer hit his forehand in slow-motion dozens of time, but I began to realize that it's really hard to pick up all the nuances of his forehand. If you watch his forehand, at some point, his wrist will accelerate forward, and the racquet head will follow behind. Then, the racquet whips until its square, then once hitting, he flips the racquet over.
I had been trying to imitate this, but my arm was pretty rigid, and tensed up. I saw a lesson on how to keep the arm loose and worked on that.
But then I found what, to me, was tennis gold.
Here's the article on Federer's forehand.
What struck me as an epiphany was the idea of dragging the racquet behind. Rather than maintain the angle rigidly, I'm holding it loose and thinking of accelerating my arm. Once I get near the ball I make a rainbow arc, and that imparts topspin.
Note the players shoulders are nearly parallel with the net, as the arm is catching up, and the racquet head is trailing behind.
I gave this a try last night, and it felt pretty good. So good that I ended up not using the "sit and lift" idea I had mentioned earlier.
I do need to modify that shot, because I need the racquet face to point down at the start of the motion, and to incorporate the sit-and-lift idea (for rotation acceleration).
I know I'm trying to describe a physical motion in words, and thus it's a poor substitute for video.
I had been hitting my forehand using more forearm, with the elbow as the pivot point. However, I've been working a few months to swing with the entire arm, getting it a bit looser.
The side effect is that it's helped my serve some. I've turned my body more, and I felt my serve was kicking even more than usual. I still get little pace, but overall, it felt decently good.
Roddick and Babolat
I don't know what the most popular racquets have been in the past. The Jack Kramer Pro Staff was popular, but undoubtedly due to the number of years his racquet was available. Once upon a time, a racquet might be on the market 10-20 years, and sell well the whole time. These days, companies make new racquets every few years.
Another popular racquet was the Pro Staff 6.0 (or was it 6.1). Both Pete Sampras and Stefan Edberg used this racquet almost exclusively during their career. Jimmy Connors used it briefly when he abandoned the steel T-2000. Recall the 1984 Super Saturday? Connors pushed McEnroe to a fifth set. He used the Pro Staff. That was popular for a while too.
But I've seen one racquet that's been out there everywhere. Is it the racquet used by Roger Federer, which is an update to the Pro Staff, call the Pro Staff Six One (spelled out, rather than numerically written out)? Is it the racquet used by Djokovic? Or Nadal?
No, it's Andy Roddick's racquet. I have one of the older Pure Drive racquets. I see this racquet all over the place. Andy Roddick hasn't had the career that Federer has had, not even the career Nadal had.
But...he does have a huge serve. If chicks love the long ball, then tennis players love the big serve. It's hard to believe any rational tennis player would get a racquet based on how a pro hits it, but then, I've done the same, so I'm plenty guilty (I am willing to say, to my defense, that I pick racquets, these days, by pro styles, rather than whether I like the pro--though that doesn't explain why Roddick's racquet has done so well).
Roddick uses a racquet that now bears his name, undoubtedly because he put Babolat on the map. This isn't to say Roddick's racquet isn't a good racquet, because I think it's pretty good. But, I bet this is what happened. People saw Roddick and said "Here's a good looking guy with a huge serve. If I could get a fraction of his pace, I'd be set".
Yesterday, I saw a guy with a Roddick racquet, yet another of those proficient Asian players that seem to abound. But he was a lefty, and he clearly modeled his game not after Roddick, but after Rafa Nadal. And for an imitation, he's was strikingly effective. Sure, he doesn't cover the court like Rafa, not hit it with the same pace, but he's starting to be the kind of player that, when you stare at them on the court, you say "that's a good player".
Even his two-handed backhand appeared to be an imitation of the Nadal backhand.
In any case, pay attention to your neighbors and see if they have a Babolat.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The Backswing
I'm not an early riser.
I don't like getting up at the crack of dawn, which is typically around 6 AM.
However, one of the better shows on Tennis Channel is On Court with USPTA. You can tell these shows aren't perfectly suited to the 22 minute segment because they were meant to go on DVDs where people want to see more stuff, closer to an hour's worth of material.
One simple question in tennis is this: when do I get my racquet back. Most teachers of tennis tell you "get it back as soon as you can". I was watching Ravi's wife hit shots, and felt she was getting set up too late and wanted her to get her racquet back as soon as she could.
Indeed, when I took a recent lesson, that was the advice I was given. Get the racquet back.
On the surface, that makes sense. If you see someone struggling to get their shot off, more than likely, they haven't prepared quickly enough.
But, as you get better, you're likely to play other people who don't hit a particularly hard shot. So you're waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
Should you get your racquet back as soon as you can? As you get better, you'll be able to get that racquet back really quickly. But suppose your racquet is back and you have to track the ball down, meaning you have to take several steps to your left or right? Having your racquet back too early will slow you down. You want to get to the ball first, then get the racquet back.
When do you get the racquet back?
For the forehand, the key is this. Watch the bounce of the ball. Once you see the ball bounce, the racquet should be pointing up. As it is traveling to you, get the racquet back and swing. The racquet pointed up is a neutral position, and coincides roughly with the bounce.
If your opponent is hitting slow, then you don't need to get the racquet up until the bounce, and you can wait to get setup. The bounce is used as a timing reference.
I'll be trying it out next time on the court.
I don't like getting up at the crack of dawn, which is typically around 6 AM.
However, one of the better shows on Tennis Channel is On Court with USPTA. You can tell these shows aren't perfectly suited to the 22 minute segment because they were meant to go on DVDs where people want to see more stuff, closer to an hour's worth of material.
One simple question in tennis is this: when do I get my racquet back. Most teachers of tennis tell you "get it back as soon as you can". I was watching Ravi's wife hit shots, and felt she was getting set up too late and wanted her to get her racquet back as soon as she could.
Indeed, when I took a recent lesson, that was the advice I was given. Get the racquet back.
On the surface, that makes sense. If you see someone struggling to get their shot off, more than likely, they haven't prepared quickly enough.
But, as you get better, you're likely to play other people who don't hit a particularly hard shot. So you're waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
Should you get your racquet back as soon as you can? As you get better, you'll be able to get that racquet back really quickly. But suppose your racquet is back and you have to track the ball down, meaning you have to take several steps to your left or right? Having your racquet back too early will slow you down. You want to get to the ball first, then get the racquet back.
When do you get the racquet back?
For the forehand, the key is this. Watch the bounce of the ball. Once you see the ball bounce, the racquet should be pointing up. As it is traveling to you, get the racquet back and swing. The racquet pointed up is a neutral position, and coincides roughly with the bounce.
If your opponent is hitting slow, then you don't need to get the racquet up until the bounce, and you can wait to get setup. The bounce is used as a timing reference.
I'll be trying it out next time on the court.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Taking Stock
I've said it quite a few times already.
There is a ton of advice on how to play tennis. With resources like YouTube, you can now find this advice readily. It may not be like having a really good coach correct you all the time, but it's not bad, given the alternatives, which is, I suppose, picking up a book. A book, in general, is really a weak second choice for learning to play tennis.
Yesterday, I posted two videos. One video was about the "sit and lift" idea, which stresses rotational acceleration vs. linear acceleration, which is basically the modern way of hitting (open stance) vs the classic way (closed stance). The modern way isn't extremely modern. I've been hitting open stance forehands since I first learned to play tennis. Borg was perhaps the first "modern" player of any stature, and he played 30 years ago.
In the first video, the guy demonstrating the sit and lift technique is practically doing a lunge, a move I'm familiar with because I used to take fencing when I was in college as part of my phys. ed. requirements.
The second video talks about hitting a natural forehand, and demonstrates this by making you hit a forehand with two (or three) fingers. This relaxed motion lets the racquet move as it would without you directing it so much. Any unnatural movement is eliminated, but most importantly, it forces you to be relaxed and swing more freely.
Surprisingly, I was able to apply both pieces of advice, and they worked reasonably well. I'm still getting used to hitting the relaxed shot on the forehand, but it felt a lot nicer than it has in a while, when it felt completely awkward and inconsistent. I felt tense and tight, and at times, unnatural.
The "sit and lift" idea was also pretty good, at the very least, it forced me to get down to hit low shots. You can hit a much more solid shot when you get down then if you try to scoop it out, so I was hitting the low shots decently, even though my purpose was really to try to get more power.
I'm still not completely there with the power, but it's better.
Again, two courts down from us, two guys were hitting the ball really well. I'm surprised how many Asians hit the ball really solidly, amazed that this hasn't lead to any good Asian players doing well on the pro tour. I suppose it's one thing to hit hard at the above average tennis player level, and to hit at world class level.
I suppose they should have depressed me, given I'm not likely to get to their level soon, if at all.
However, I was happy that I could take these two pieces of advice and make it work somewhat well. A very pleasant surprise.
Even if my serve is still crappy (pace-wise, not consistency), I won 6-3, 6-1, mostly because my opponent could barely get a first serve in, so I was able to break quite a bit.
There is a ton of advice on how to play tennis. With resources like YouTube, you can now find this advice readily. It may not be like having a really good coach correct you all the time, but it's not bad, given the alternatives, which is, I suppose, picking up a book. A book, in general, is really a weak second choice for learning to play tennis.
Yesterday, I posted two videos. One video was about the "sit and lift" idea, which stresses rotational acceleration vs. linear acceleration, which is basically the modern way of hitting (open stance) vs the classic way (closed stance). The modern way isn't extremely modern. I've been hitting open stance forehands since I first learned to play tennis. Borg was perhaps the first "modern" player of any stature, and he played 30 years ago.
In the first video, the guy demonstrating the sit and lift technique is practically doing a lunge, a move I'm familiar with because I used to take fencing when I was in college as part of my phys. ed. requirements.
The second video talks about hitting a natural forehand, and demonstrates this by making you hit a forehand with two (or three) fingers. This relaxed motion lets the racquet move as it would without you directing it so much. Any unnatural movement is eliminated, but most importantly, it forces you to be relaxed and swing more freely.
Surprisingly, I was able to apply both pieces of advice, and they worked reasonably well. I'm still getting used to hitting the relaxed shot on the forehand, but it felt a lot nicer than it has in a while, when it felt completely awkward and inconsistent. I felt tense and tight, and at times, unnatural.
The "sit and lift" idea was also pretty good, at the very least, it forced me to get down to hit low shots. You can hit a much more solid shot when you get down then if you try to scoop it out, so I was hitting the low shots decently, even though my purpose was really to try to get more power.
I'm still not completely there with the power, but it's better.
Again, two courts down from us, two guys were hitting the ball really well. I'm surprised how many Asians hit the ball really solidly, amazed that this hasn't lead to any good Asian players doing well on the pro tour. I suppose it's one thing to hit hard at the above average tennis player level, and to hit at world class level.
I suppose they should have depressed me, given I'm not likely to get to their level soon, if at all.
However, I was happy that I could take these two pieces of advice and make it work somewhat well. A very pleasant surprise.
Even if my serve is still crappy (pace-wise, not consistency), I won 6-3, 6-1, mostly because my opponent could barely get a first serve in, so I was able to break quite a bit.
Forehand to the Fore
I've been working on more forehand for a few months now, and it's still a work in progress. After checking a wide variety of forehands in slow motion, most of the modern players hit the topspin forehand the same way. The problem is duplicating that motion on the court.
The first video talks about using angular momentum and focuses on the body at the waist and below. In particular, the phrase "sit and lift", which means to bend on the right knee and then lift up and rotate counter-clockwise (i.e., toward the direction of right to left). The guy's racquet movement is pretty good, as you can see.
The second video, which is, alas, of poor production quality, focuses on the stroke itself, where the guy suggests holding the racquet with two fingers to get a natural motion.
The great thing about tennis is that people are always trying to figure out how to get you to visualize what to do, and there is a lot of creativity in all of that, so I listen and give it a try. Most of the times, I don't get a big benefit from it, but occasionally, I hope something clicks and works magically on the court.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Tennis on TV
Tennis Channel doesn't have a great amount of instruction. There are three places you get instruction. There are the short one-minute segments. There is a woman who travels from city to city, and she often gets instruction, so you can get some advice from paying attention to what she's being told. Finally, there is On Court with USPTA.
I believe USPTA started with Dennis Van der Meer, the guy who helped coach Billie Jean King to a victory over Bobby Riggs. Van der Meer believed you could break down tennis into a checklist of steps to follow. His successor appears to be Rick Macci, the guy who coached the Williams sisters when they were young.
On Court, when it focuses on tennis, is fantastic. To be fair, I haven't seen a ton of improvement on my game by following their advice, but I'm willing to believe that it takes a while for the body to learn to his certain shots.
The two shows that I care about most are the serve and the forehand. Rick did the episode for both. Interestingly enough, tennis instructors now take their cues from the pros. You would think they already know more about tennis than the pros that play, but in reality, the pros keep redefining how to hit the ball, and the teachers end up looking at what they do to find what they all do well in common.
Today, I woke up early to watch the episode on the forehand. The big lesson I learned was not to take the racquet back early. Instead, the idea was to get the racquet "up", then--and here's the important part, wait for the bounce, and when the bounce occurs, drop the racquet and make the swing.
The idea is to get the racquet flowing, but only when you are ready to hit the shot. Beginners are often getting used to reacting to the ball fast enough, so a beginner might have to get prepared just before the bounce. But I believe the key is the bounce.
The next step is to drop the racquet face and have it face the ground. The next step is to cock the wrist back (easier shown than described in words). Then you move the legs, then waist, then body, then arm and hit the shot, finishing with a closed face when you are done. Apparently, Federer, more than any other player, hits his shot with a straight arm.
Look at nearly every other player, and they have a slight bend in their arm. This shows, I suppose, that you don't have to have a straight arm a la Federer to hit an effective shot.
What is fascinating about the modern forehand, and I should stress that this episode was on the modern forehand, one hit with topspin and power, is that the racquet face starts closed, then opens up just for the hit, then closes up again on follow through.
I've been trying to relearn my forehand, and it's a pain. Basically, I realize I need to turn a lot more sideways to the net, and meet the ball in front. I still don't have the follow through component right. I also think I'm still not swinging fast enoiugh, nor relaxed enough.
Oddly, given I don't think that much about my backhand, I believe it's actually faring better than my forehand. That is a little weird, only because I may have stumbled onto hitting my backhand better without thinking about it that much.
Anyway, I have to say that, at the very least, the topic of the show, namely modern forehands, is very good, and that there is plenty of advice to give. Whether it translates to something effective, only time--and practice, will tell.
I believe USPTA started with Dennis Van der Meer, the guy who helped coach Billie Jean King to a victory over Bobby Riggs. Van der Meer believed you could break down tennis into a checklist of steps to follow. His successor appears to be Rick Macci, the guy who coached the Williams sisters when they were young.
On Court, when it focuses on tennis, is fantastic. To be fair, I haven't seen a ton of improvement on my game by following their advice, but I'm willing to believe that it takes a while for the body to learn to his certain shots.
The two shows that I care about most are the serve and the forehand. Rick did the episode for both. Interestingly enough, tennis instructors now take their cues from the pros. You would think they already know more about tennis than the pros that play, but in reality, the pros keep redefining how to hit the ball, and the teachers end up looking at what they do to find what they all do well in common.
Today, I woke up early to watch the episode on the forehand. The big lesson I learned was not to take the racquet back early. Instead, the idea was to get the racquet "up", then--and here's the important part, wait for the bounce, and when the bounce occurs, drop the racquet and make the swing.
The idea is to get the racquet flowing, but only when you are ready to hit the shot. Beginners are often getting used to reacting to the ball fast enough, so a beginner might have to get prepared just before the bounce. But I believe the key is the bounce.
The next step is to drop the racquet face and have it face the ground. The next step is to cock the wrist back (easier shown than described in words). Then you move the legs, then waist, then body, then arm and hit the shot, finishing with a closed face when you are done. Apparently, Federer, more than any other player, hits his shot with a straight arm.
Look at nearly every other player, and they have a slight bend in their arm. This shows, I suppose, that you don't have to have a straight arm a la Federer to hit an effective shot.
What is fascinating about the modern forehand, and I should stress that this episode was on the modern forehand, one hit with topspin and power, is that the racquet face starts closed, then opens up just for the hit, then closes up again on follow through.
I've been trying to relearn my forehand, and it's a pain. Basically, I realize I need to turn a lot more sideways to the net, and meet the ball in front. I still don't have the follow through component right. I also think I'm still not swinging fast enoiugh, nor relaxed enough.
Oddly, given I don't think that much about my backhand, I believe it's actually faring better than my forehand. That is a little weird, only because I may have stumbled onto hitting my backhand better without thinking about it that much.
Anyway, I have to say that, at the very least, the topic of the show, namely modern forehands, is very good, and that there is plenty of advice to give. Whether it translates to something effective, only time--and practice, will tell.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Run To Me
The one thing that's annoying about road races is that it's almost always scheduled early in the morning. My 5K race started at 8:40. I wanted to give myself an hour to get there, and arrive an hour early. That meant, I had to leave at 6:30, which meant I should be up before 6, which is a lot earlier than I'd rather be up.
In any case, I managed to wake up, get prepared and head to the Metro. We didn't leave until about 7 AM, which was about half an hour after I wanted to go, but it meant we'd still arrive about 7:40 AM, which was an hour before.
Sunday was supposed to be sunny and somewhat warm. Turns out Saturday was sunny and warm, even though rain was forecast the whole day. The forecast changed on Saturday, alas. Sunday then became the rainy day.
When you're on the Metro that early, and there are some 10,000 participants in the race, you expect to see a lot of people on the Metro heading to the race. That was nice, as I could follow them.
As I sat, there were these two girls trying to contact their friend. He eventually joined the group at a Metro stop.
He seemed like a nerd from the 1970s. Long, curly, Garry Shandling-like hair, with shirt and shorts like he was in a gym class. His shoes seemed ten years old. But the guy had nipple piercings which the girls were, ahem, playing with. He was one of those guys who seemed to know how unhip he was, and there was a certain hipness in that.
When we arrived, there were lots of runners at the Metro exit, who hadn't taken the escalator up. They were stretching. Some of us thought it was because it was pouring rain.
It wasn't.
It turns out there aren't that many places to stretch, and it was cold, and so being at the bottom of the Metro stretching kept the wind off you, and allow you to stretch on a place that didn't have mud underneath.
My first order of business was to drop my bag off. Alas, the race doesn't permit backpacks to be dropped off. Instead, they give you a small plastic bag and a label, and you can put stuff (including a tiny backpack if you had one) in it.
I barely had anything. Just the race information that was mailed to me, and that was about it.
It turns out an hour is quite a while to wait before the race, especially since it was drizzly and cold. Fortunately, I had a long-sleeve running shirt as well as long running pants. I had thought I would remove them for the run, but it was too cold to do that. I also brought a cap to keep my head warm and the rain off my face (fortunately, it was only a mild drizzle).
I should have brought my camera. It turns out I have a camera case with a clasp that can be attached to a belt. The day before, I had bought a racer's equivalent of a fanny pack, only it's much smaller, and can only hold a minimum of things. I carried a phone, ID, a credit card, and some cash, and that was pretty much it. I left my main keys in the car, and brought the spare.
We then lined up for the run. I figured I wouldn't be one of the fast ones so I lined up somewhere in the middle.
As we started, I went at a very casual pace. The only problem was knowing where I was in the race. After running a while, I thought I had run at least a mile, but was surprised to discover that I hadn't because they yelled out a mile long after I thought I had reached a mile. They also said the time was 12 minutes, which means I was running slower than I thought.
I was starting to bring up the pace, though I was breathing heavier. The second mile wasn't so bad. I felt my feet were reasonably good given the new shoes, and they weren't hurting me.
By the third mile, I was feeling winded, but I felt I could hold on til the end. Somewhere near the end, I picked up the pace quite a bit, but it turns out I couldn't sustain it, so I had to slow down a bit, but as I neared the last hundred yards or so, I again sprinted to the end.
The final time was 32 minutes, 31 seconds, or an average of about 10 minutes 30 seconds a mile. That's kinda slow. If I had averaged 10 minute miles, I would have been maybe in the top 100. As it was, I finished just about halfway in the middle, at 136 out of 270 men.
Had I been a woman, I would have placed around 250, but then there were around 700 womens running the 5K (the 10 mile is the prestige event). So I would have been about in the top third rather than the top half.
There was a 12 year old kid that was in the top 10 of the 5K racers, so he must have been going blazingly fast.
I think, with some training, I should be able to do a sub 10-minute mile.
As I was racing, this woman remarked to her friend how much easier it was to run when others are running. I have to agree. Normally, I'd stop and walk, as 3 miles is longer than I usually run. However, with everyone running, I felt I could just keep it up one more mile and not walk, and so I was pretty happy that I pushed myself to do that, and mostly because everyone else was running too.
Afterwards, I thought I'd look out for Frank. Having no idea what his time would be like, I waited for nearly 45 minutes. As it turned out, he probably finished minutes after I did (his race started nearly an hour early), and he left nearly right afterwards. So I would have save myself some cold if I had left right away as well.
Even so, despite the cold and win, I thought it was actually relatively fun to compete in a 5K. I don't know that I'd want to go much beyond a 10K, but certainly, 5K is about to my liking. Running for half an hour is about my comfort zone (a 10 K, being twice as long, would mean running an hour).
So this has at least partly inspired me to do better next time.
In any case, I managed to wake up, get prepared and head to the Metro. We didn't leave until about 7 AM, which was about half an hour after I wanted to go, but it meant we'd still arrive about 7:40 AM, which was an hour before.
Sunday was supposed to be sunny and somewhat warm. Turns out Saturday was sunny and warm, even though rain was forecast the whole day. The forecast changed on Saturday, alas. Sunday then became the rainy day.
When you're on the Metro that early, and there are some 10,000 participants in the race, you expect to see a lot of people on the Metro heading to the race. That was nice, as I could follow them.
As I sat, there were these two girls trying to contact their friend. He eventually joined the group at a Metro stop.
He seemed like a nerd from the 1970s. Long, curly, Garry Shandling-like hair, with shirt and shorts like he was in a gym class. His shoes seemed ten years old. But the guy had nipple piercings which the girls were, ahem, playing with. He was one of those guys who seemed to know how unhip he was, and there was a certain hipness in that.
When we arrived, there were lots of runners at the Metro exit, who hadn't taken the escalator up. They were stretching. Some of us thought it was because it was pouring rain.
It wasn't.
It turns out there aren't that many places to stretch, and it was cold, and so being at the bottom of the Metro stretching kept the wind off you, and allow you to stretch on a place that didn't have mud underneath.
My first order of business was to drop my bag off. Alas, the race doesn't permit backpacks to be dropped off. Instead, they give you a small plastic bag and a label, and you can put stuff (including a tiny backpack if you had one) in it.
I barely had anything. Just the race information that was mailed to me, and that was about it.
It turns out an hour is quite a while to wait before the race, especially since it was drizzly and cold. Fortunately, I had a long-sleeve running shirt as well as long running pants. I had thought I would remove them for the run, but it was too cold to do that. I also brought a cap to keep my head warm and the rain off my face (fortunately, it was only a mild drizzle).
I should have brought my camera. It turns out I have a camera case with a clasp that can be attached to a belt. The day before, I had bought a racer's equivalent of a fanny pack, only it's much smaller, and can only hold a minimum of things. I carried a phone, ID, a credit card, and some cash, and that was pretty much it. I left my main keys in the car, and brought the spare.
We then lined up for the run. I figured I wouldn't be one of the fast ones so I lined up somewhere in the middle.
As we started, I went at a very casual pace. The only problem was knowing where I was in the race. After running a while, I thought I had run at least a mile, but was surprised to discover that I hadn't because they yelled out a mile long after I thought I had reached a mile. They also said the time was 12 minutes, which means I was running slower than I thought.
I was starting to bring up the pace, though I was breathing heavier. The second mile wasn't so bad. I felt my feet were reasonably good given the new shoes, and they weren't hurting me.
By the third mile, I was feeling winded, but I felt I could hold on til the end. Somewhere near the end, I picked up the pace quite a bit, but it turns out I couldn't sustain it, so I had to slow down a bit, but as I neared the last hundred yards or so, I again sprinted to the end.
The final time was 32 minutes, 31 seconds, or an average of about 10 minutes 30 seconds a mile. That's kinda slow. If I had averaged 10 minute miles, I would have been maybe in the top 100. As it was, I finished just about halfway in the middle, at 136 out of 270 men.
Had I been a woman, I would have placed around 250, but then there were around 700 womens running the 5K (the 10 mile is the prestige event). So I would have been about in the top third rather than the top half.
There was a 12 year old kid that was in the top 10 of the 5K racers, so he must have been going blazingly fast.
I think, with some training, I should be able to do a sub 10-minute mile.
As I was racing, this woman remarked to her friend how much easier it was to run when others are running. I have to agree. Normally, I'd stop and walk, as 3 miles is longer than I usually run. However, with everyone running, I felt I could just keep it up one more mile and not walk, and so I was pretty happy that I pushed myself to do that, and mostly because everyone else was running too.
Afterwards, I thought I'd look out for Frank. Having no idea what his time would be like, I waited for nearly 45 minutes. As it turned out, he probably finished minutes after I did (his race started nearly an hour early), and he left nearly right afterwards. So I would have save myself some cold if I had left right away as well.
Even so, despite the cold and win, I thought it was actually relatively fun to compete in a 5K. I don't know that I'd want to go much beyond a 10K, but certainly, 5K is about to my liking. Running for half an hour is about my comfort zone (a 10 K, being twice as long, would mean running an hour).
So this has at least partly inspired me to do better next time.
Climbing Mt. Everest
Intuitively, I understand that professional players are much better than I will ever be. That is why they make a living playing tennis, and I write computer programs.
Nevertheless, I try to learn more about playing tennis, and to improve my game. Occasionally, however, I get a little frustrated. Yesterday was one such day.
There were these two guys, probably in their early 20s, playing one another. From time to time, when you go to a court, you see players that are pretty good. Still, despite being pretty good, there's something about their game that looks self-taught, that doesn't quite look right. In other words, it's not a textbook shot.
Furthermore, often some stroke is not that good, usually the serve.
These two guys hit really well, from serves to groundstrokes. Once you're that good, then playing at a public court is usually a bad idea, because you're likely to be playing right next to players that suck and they're likely to hit a ball into your court.
Most good players get really finicky about playing games. If a ball rolls in the court, they immediately stop the point, and play it again. Never mind that things like wind can also cause play to get distracted, and that they could learn to ignore such things and play on. It's just traditional tennis to play this way. Any distraction means a replay in points.
These people started getting upset that we were hitting balls into their court.
Despite being impatient and therefore unlikeable, I thought it was worth paying attention to how they hit. I was also rather frustrated that as hard as I might work, they may still be better than I will ever be. What is it they know that I don't know. I realize I might have to take a gazillion lessons to find out, and those lessons wouldn't come cheap.
And that is frustrating.
Fortunately, I went out today, and hit some more, and that feeling of frustration went away. I didn't hit fantastic, but I didn't seem to mind as much. I think partly it's because I paid attention to what they did and it was helpful to my game.
Nevertheless, I try to learn more about playing tennis, and to improve my game. Occasionally, however, I get a little frustrated. Yesterday was one such day.
There were these two guys, probably in their early 20s, playing one another. From time to time, when you go to a court, you see players that are pretty good. Still, despite being pretty good, there's something about their game that looks self-taught, that doesn't quite look right. In other words, it's not a textbook shot.
Furthermore, often some stroke is not that good, usually the serve.
These two guys hit really well, from serves to groundstrokes. Once you're that good, then playing at a public court is usually a bad idea, because you're likely to be playing right next to players that suck and they're likely to hit a ball into your court.
Most good players get really finicky about playing games. If a ball rolls in the court, they immediately stop the point, and play it again. Never mind that things like wind can also cause play to get distracted, and that they could learn to ignore such things and play on. It's just traditional tennis to play this way. Any distraction means a replay in points.
These people started getting upset that we were hitting balls into their court.
Despite being impatient and therefore unlikeable, I thought it was worth paying attention to how they hit. I was also rather frustrated that as hard as I might work, they may still be better than I will ever be. What is it they know that I don't know. I realize I might have to take a gazillion lessons to find out, and those lessons wouldn't come cheap.
And that is frustrating.
Fortunately, I went out today, and hit some more, and that feeling of frustration went away. I didn't hit fantastic, but I didn't seem to mind as much. I think partly it's because I paid attention to what they did and it was helpful to my game.
Gotta be the Shoes
A few months ago, I was talked into signing up for a 10 mile race, the Cherry Blossom 10 mile, which is held each year during the peak of the cherry blossoms, which, this year, is in early April.
The problem?
I've never run 10 miles.
Up until then, I had been running about 2 miles two to three times a week. To get up to ten miles, I'd probably have to up my run to 3-4 miles, and then an 8 mile run on a weekend.
The problem?
December, January, and February. Those are cold months.
So I stopped running for 3-4 months.
However, with this race coming up, I needed to do some training. Fortunately, it was an easy matter to switch to the shorter 5K race. 5K is a little over 3 miles, which is still longer than the usual 2 miles I normally run.
I started running again about two weeks ago, and started running with my relatively new pair of shoes, the Brooks Beast. This shoe is supposed to be one of the champs in motion control shoes. Motion control shoes are meant to help with people who over pronate.
Over-pronation is, if I recall, the tendency to strike the foot on the outer heel, then roll to the inner side. I found that with Brooks Beast, my right foot would swell quite a bit. That was irritating me.
Anyway, since I had never done a race of any sort, I didn't know the protocol for what to do. After checking the website some, I saw that there was an early registration at the Crystal City Marriott. It said that they were accessible by Metro, which is fine for DC dwellers, but I live at one end of the Red Line, and it would take an hour to get there by Metro.
So I decided to drive into DC, since the directions didn't seem so bad. I brought my GPS, and it did a good job of getting me there.
I found a place to park, which was a relief, because there was supposed to be limited parking and the parking at the hotel was expensive.
I went in, with the intent of getting my running supplies (which was a bib, plus a tracking device to determine my placement in the race) and then head out.
However, the hotel was being used to hold an expo, where various running companies in the area would be selling their stuff.
I had decided to ask this guy about shoes. When I trained two weeks ago, my arches were hurting, and I felt my feet were swelling up. He made a suggestion. In hindsight, it should have been made to me before. Most runners wear shoes at least half a size larger than usual. Maybe this is so ingrained for runners, that they don't imagine someone like me would actually buy a shoe the same size as their own normal show.
I was given a choice between a moderate motion control show by Brooks called the Adrenaline, which cost about 70 bucks, and the expensive 110 dollar Mizuno Nirvana Wave 4. The one thing I disliked about the Brooks was this foam insert. To give you an idea of what this is, look at your right foot.
Imagine drawing an outline of your foot. Start from the top of the big toe, and draw down the left side of your right foot, back to the heel. About halfway down is where your arches would be (if you had arched feet--mine are pretty flat). Brooks puts a foam insert there about halfway down underneath where my arches would be.
Every time I run, I feel that foam insert wedge, and it annoys me.
The Mizuno Nirvana Wave 4 didn't have this, and that was so much nicer. So I decided to go for it, and buy it. The guy suggested I break it in, so I played tennis with it, and it felt decent for that.
And except for an occasional nerve sting, running with it was pretty nice as well.
I really should have had the bigger shoe all along, so now I kinda feel bad I spent the money I did on shoes that were too small.
I'm also now a fan of the Mizuno Nirvana Wave 4, which also has this stair step feel, where the heel feels a little above the toes, with the stair-step around the middle. It's not annoying, which is key.
So a trip to get a bib and registration stuff turned out to be good news in finding a shoe that I plan to use from now on.
The problem?
I've never run 10 miles.
Up until then, I had been running about 2 miles two to three times a week. To get up to ten miles, I'd probably have to up my run to 3-4 miles, and then an 8 mile run on a weekend.
The problem?
December, January, and February. Those are cold months.
So I stopped running for 3-4 months.
However, with this race coming up, I needed to do some training. Fortunately, it was an easy matter to switch to the shorter 5K race. 5K is a little over 3 miles, which is still longer than the usual 2 miles I normally run.
I started running again about two weeks ago, and started running with my relatively new pair of shoes, the Brooks Beast. This shoe is supposed to be one of the champs in motion control shoes. Motion control shoes are meant to help with people who over pronate.
Over-pronation is, if I recall, the tendency to strike the foot on the outer heel, then roll to the inner side. I found that with Brooks Beast, my right foot would swell quite a bit. That was irritating me.
Anyway, since I had never done a race of any sort, I didn't know the protocol for what to do. After checking the website some, I saw that there was an early registration at the Crystal City Marriott. It said that they were accessible by Metro, which is fine for DC dwellers, but I live at one end of the Red Line, and it would take an hour to get there by Metro.
So I decided to drive into DC, since the directions didn't seem so bad. I brought my GPS, and it did a good job of getting me there.
I found a place to park, which was a relief, because there was supposed to be limited parking and the parking at the hotel was expensive.
I went in, with the intent of getting my running supplies (which was a bib, plus a tracking device to determine my placement in the race) and then head out.
However, the hotel was being used to hold an expo, where various running companies in the area would be selling their stuff.
I had decided to ask this guy about shoes. When I trained two weeks ago, my arches were hurting, and I felt my feet were swelling up. He made a suggestion. In hindsight, it should have been made to me before. Most runners wear shoes at least half a size larger than usual. Maybe this is so ingrained for runners, that they don't imagine someone like me would actually buy a shoe the same size as their own normal show.
I was given a choice between a moderate motion control show by Brooks called the Adrenaline, which cost about 70 bucks, and the expensive 110 dollar Mizuno Nirvana Wave 4. The one thing I disliked about the Brooks was this foam insert. To give you an idea of what this is, look at your right foot.
Imagine drawing an outline of your foot. Start from the top of the big toe, and draw down the left side of your right foot, back to the heel. About halfway down is where your arches would be (if you had arched feet--mine are pretty flat). Brooks puts a foam insert there about halfway down underneath where my arches would be.
Every time I run, I feel that foam insert wedge, and it annoys me.
The Mizuno Nirvana Wave 4 didn't have this, and that was so much nicer. So I decided to go for it, and buy it. The guy suggested I break it in, so I played tennis with it, and it felt decent for that.
And except for an occasional nerve sting, running with it was pretty nice as well.
I really should have had the bigger shoe all along, so now I kinda feel bad I spent the money I did on shoes that were too small.
I'm also now a fan of the Mizuno Nirvana Wave 4, which also has this stair step feel, where the heel feels a little above the toes, with the stair-step around the middle. It's not annoying, which is key.
So a trip to get a bib and registration stuff turned out to be good news in finding a shoe that I plan to use from now on.
Friday, April 04, 2008
That Owens Guy
He's one of those guys that go by two letters. T.O. That's Terrell Owens for the uninitiated. He's the diva wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. Wide receivers tend to be a temperamental egotistical lot, and TO has had a lot to do with that. They depend on quarterbacks throwing them the ball so they can make their circus catches. They also whine a lot if balls aren't being thrown their direction.
To be fair, TO, known for wrecking the harmony of the Philadelphia Eagles was, for the most part, a team player last year for the Cowboys, especially without another big personality there, Bill Parcells, who had stepped down for the more passive, Wade Phillips.
Even so, you'd think TO wouldn't be around checking out other athletes, especially in, of all sports, tennis. Maybe it's one of those Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Nike made me do it, kinda deal. Whatever the reason, TO has been seen in Miami attending matches with Andy Roddick.
Roddick's frustration with Federer is legend. For a guy that's in the top 10, and at times, in the top 3, Roddick has never had it easy with Federer. Roddick had, up until last night, lost 12 consecutive sets to Federer. The fact of the matter is Federer hits his groundstrokes so much better than Federer.
Roddick typically stays even with Roger because of his serve, and because Federer, for all his greatness, makes a lot of errors. Federer can toss in dozens of errors. He usually gets away with it because his errors don't come in bunches. There are players that have lapses of concentration, whose errors cause them to lose games. Even if Federer is making errors, it's typically one error every other point.
Apparently, Roddick got some advice to deal with Federer from TO, and he beat him in three sets. However, watching the way he handled in-between points, you see elements of Connors, his former coach. Connors would typically follow up any point he played by straightening his strings (these were the days before Luxilon).
In other words, he'd not dwell on the success or mistakes of the previous point. Roddick's problems have typically been mental. He was more like Courier before Courier met Higueras, or Agassi before Brad Gilbert. You never felt (and to my mind, still don't) that Roddick knows how to mentally tough out a match.
I tend to diss Roddick's mental toughness, but certainly, he has some, because his groundstrokes, while good, even better than average, are not spectacular. He depends as much on steadiness to win points (again, possibly due to Connors) as he does power.
So as much as TO might get credit for a breakthrough against Federer, you have to realize that RFed is not having a particularly good year, failing to make final after final. He was eliminated in straight sets by Mardy Fish, now losing to Roddick in three sets (and losing to Djokovic at the Australian).
Even as they've parted ways, we may credit Roddick's win to that Connors guy, rather than that Owens guy.
To be fair, TO, known for wrecking the harmony of the Philadelphia Eagles was, for the most part, a team player last year for the Cowboys, especially without another big personality there, Bill Parcells, who had stepped down for the more passive, Wade Phillips.
Even so, you'd think TO wouldn't be around checking out other athletes, especially in, of all sports, tennis. Maybe it's one of those Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Nike made me do it, kinda deal. Whatever the reason, TO has been seen in Miami attending matches with Andy Roddick.
Roddick's frustration with Federer is legend. For a guy that's in the top 10, and at times, in the top 3, Roddick has never had it easy with Federer. Roddick had, up until last night, lost 12 consecutive sets to Federer. The fact of the matter is Federer hits his groundstrokes so much better than Federer.
Roddick typically stays even with Roger because of his serve, and because Federer, for all his greatness, makes a lot of errors. Federer can toss in dozens of errors. He usually gets away with it because his errors don't come in bunches. There are players that have lapses of concentration, whose errors cause them to lose games. Even if Federer is making errors, it's typically one error every other point.
Apparently, Roddick got some advice to deal with Federer from TO, and he beat him in three sets. However, watching the way he handled in-between points, you see elements of Connors, his former coach. Connors would typically follow up any point he played by straightening his strings (these were the days before Luxilon).
In other words, he'd not dwell on the success or mistakes of the previous point. Roddick's problems have typically been mental. He was more like Courier before Courier met Higueras, or Agassi before Brad Gilbert. You never felt (and to my mind, still don't) that Roddick knows how to mentally tough out a match.
I tend to diss Roddick's mental toughness, but certainly, he has some, because his groundstrokes, while good, even better than average, are not spectacular. He depends as much on steadiness to win points (again, possibly due to Connors) as he does power.
So as much as TO might get credit for a breakthrough against Federer, you have to realize that RFed is not having a particularly good year, failing to make final after final. He was eliminated in straight sets by Mardy Fish, now losing to Roddick in three sets (and losing to Djokovic at the Australian).
Even as they've parted ways, we may credit Roddick's win to that Connors guy, rather than that Owens guy.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Why Weather Websites Suck
I've complained about weather websites before, but I want to do it again. First, the NWS really needs to improve their text. For years, they've done the same thing over and over. Sure, they have better equipment, make better predictions, but they still disseminate the information the same way they always have, which is in ALL-CAPS with ... everywhere. It's as if they predicted IM text (except they use all-caps).
I find that the weather, as told by meteorologists get at what I want. First, I want to know what the weather is like now. Is it raining? Is it sunny? Second, I want to know if there is rain, when it's likely to arrive, and if it's raining now, when it's likely to stop.
weather.com has an hour by hour prediction of temperature, and they are usually pretty good. But, I want a side-by-side live temperature, to see how far the prediction was off, or a history of the prediction, for a given time.
For example, at for 2 PM, April 3rd, it might say rain at 11 PM, April 2nd. By 8 AM, April 3, they may have revised their predictions to say "cloudy". Obviously, as you get closer, the prediction will be more accurate. I want a sense of how bad these predictions are.
Instead, once the time passes, they don't bother tracking the weather. There was a prediction of rain all afternoon and evening two days ago. It was sunny and windy instead. How often do they botch this up? There should be a number to track this and then explain why it went wrong. It will let the people watching weather to get a sense of what's going on.
Part of this accuracy depends on the NWS, and how often they update their information to the public.
We depend on weather, and yet I wonder if the NWS has looked to improve how it presents this information people depend on.
I find that the weather, as told by meteorologists get at what I want. First, I want to know what the weather is like now. Is it raining? Is it sunny? Second, I want to know if there is rain, when it's likely to arrive, and if it's raining now, when it's likely to stop.
weather.com has an hour by hour prediction of temperature, and they are usually pretty good. But, I want a side-by-side live temperature, to see how far the prediction was off, or a history of the prediction, for a given time.
For example, at for 2 PM, April 3rd, it might say rain at 11 PM, April 2nd. By 8 AM, April 3, they may have revised their predictions to say "cloudy". Obviously, as you get closer, the prediction will be more accurate. I want a sense of how bad these predictions are.
Instead, once the time passes, they don't bother tracking the weather. There was a prediction of rain all afternoon and evening two days ago. It was sunny and windy instead. How often do they botch this up? There should be a number to track this and then explain why it went wrong. It will let the people watching weather to get a sense of what's going on.
Part of this accuracy depends on the NWS, and how often they update their information to the public.
We depend on weather, and yet I wonder if the NWS has looked to improve how it presents this information people depend on.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Slow Mo Too Slow
I've been a fan of watching slow motion YouTube videos of tennis players. Here's the problem. It's too slow. Of course, you need it to be slow to see what's going on.
But because it's so slow, you forget just how fast the pros are swinging the racquet. I was watching the Sony Ericsson Open being held in Miami (I think), and pros really swing very fast, which, of course, explains the pace.
Of course, the faster you swing, the better your timing has to be. I tried swinging faster yesterday, and sent lots of balls sailing skywards.
So while it's good to look at slow-motion videos, watch them at regular speed too.
But because it's so slow, you forget just how fast the pros are swinging the racquet. I was watching the Sony Ericsson Open being held in Miami (I think), and pros really swing very fast, which, of course, explains the pace.
Of course, the faster you swing, the better your timing has to be. I tried swinging faster yesterday, and sent lots of balls sailing skywards.
So while it's good to look at slow-motion videos, watch them at regular speed too.
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