One Inch of Solid Sideways Travel
Tennis is the game of willfulness (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/willful). What you want to do is equally important with your capability. On a good day the two will come together.
My friend Ron Carloni has been studying tennis recently with my friend Sebastien Foka, the Wayne State star and teaching pro from France who grew up hitting with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
The other day Sebastien told Ron, "You're just going to revert to what you've always done anyway."
"Recidivism!" I said when Ron told me that. We prison teachers used to consider recidivism rates as essential part of our line of work. And Tom Okker in the forehand section of MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES used the same word to disparage the majority of persons who take tennis lessons.
Fortunately for me I never thought the baseline of whatever I initially acquired was particularly good so have always felt entirely free to torpedo it.
My subject today is total commitment to BAM! forehands since I am about to go to the neighborhood courts where I shall compete.
Today's cues for that stroke: 1) one inch to the inside of solid sideways travel of racket and bod as a single unit before commencement of the forward swish, 2) FEEL for the ball, for the correct pitch, for the proper aim setting while holding elbow back, 3) push through a stuck cellar door with arm imagined so strong that it moves equally much with all of the other body parts, 4) meld preceding actions into smooth followthrough over the shoulder yoke.
Too much to think about. Right. So spread out the acquisition of this instruction over the next ten years. We are athletic, read psychotic out on the court. But this is written form in a forum where things are different sometime.
Note: There are two kinds of BAM! forehand as far as I am concerned: 1) conservative and 2) passionate. In the conservative version one slightly rolls racket as elbow pushes to keep one's strings square. In the passionate version one simply lets the elbow rip the ball, having relied on one's perfect contact point and other perfect decisions to achieve one's perfect consistency.
Tennis is the game of willfulness (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/willful). What you want to do is equally important with your capability. On a good day the two will come together.
My friend Ron Carloni has been studying tennis recently with my friend Sebastien Foka, the Wayne State star and teaching pro from France who grew up hitting with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
The other day Sebastien told Ron, "You're just going to revert to what you've always done anyway."
"Recidivism!" I said when Ron told me that. We prison teachers used to consider recidivism rates as essential part of our line of work. And Tom Okker in the forehand section of MASTERING YOUR TENNIS STROKES used the same word to disparage the majority of persons who take tennis lessons.
Fortunately for me I never thought the baseline of whatever I initially acquired was particularly good so have always felt entirely free to torpedo it.
My subject today is total commitment to BAM! forehands since I am about to go to the neighborhood courts where I shall compete.
Today's cues for that stroke: 1) one inch to the inside of solid sideways travel of racket and bod as a single unit before commencement of the forward swish, 2) FEEL for the ball, for the correct pitch, for the proper aim setting while holding elbow back, 3) push through a stuck cellar door with arm imagined so strong that it moves equally much with all of the other body parts, 4) meld preceding actions into smooth followthrough over the shoulder yoke.
Too much to think about. Right. So spread out the acquisition of this instruction over the next ten years. We are athletic, read psychotic out on the court. But this is written form in a forum where things are different sometime.
Note: There are two kinds of BAM! forehand as far as I am concerned: 1) conservative and 2) passionate. In the conservative version one slightly rolls racket as elbow pushes to keep one's strings square. In the passionate version one simply lets the elbow rip the ball, having relied on one's perfect contact point and other perfect decisions to achieve one's perfect consistency.
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