Oscar Wegner on the 2 hand backhand from scratch

[don_budge]

Interesting little five minute video on how to teach the two hand backhand. Brilliantly simple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZu4zD9bMNw

Brief summary:

1. Catch ball underhanded with the left hand.

2. Throw back ball to teacher with the follow through of the throw to other side of opposite cheek.

3. Grip racquet with index finger of the left hand through the throat of the racquet.

4. With both hands on the racquet practice lifting the racquet to the same position where the left hand followed through to the opposite side of the cheek.

5. For emphasis of left hand dominance put the right hand behind the back.

6. Using left hand lift racquet into ball.

7. Using both hands lift racquet into ball.

8. Alternate using one hand and two hands.

9. Feed balls to student walking backwards and forwards.

10. Feeding a ball with student turning back to starting point with racquet held over the shoulder after the hit, then returning the racquet to the belly button for the beginning position.

"Simplicity makes it powerful." -Oscar Wegner

[don_budge]

What a beautiful thing...."Simplicity makes it powerful"-Oscar Wegner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZu4zD9bMNw

Because I have never used a two hand backhand I have never felt totally confident in teaching it. Using this method...substituting the John Yandell image of the follow through for the left hand, I had some very interesting results with a variety of students of different levels of play. The lowest level was an eight year old boy that I had only limited success with. He is not developed enough for the imaging phase of the lesson. A twelve year old relative beginner with good ability caught on extremely quick with noticeable results. An eleven year old boy that is playing in some local competitions had noticeable improvement and his father who was watching from behind the glass partition came around to tell me how impressed he was. Finally my top female junior made an amazing metamorphosis with her two hand backhand in an hour and a half. I was extremely pleased!

[don_budge]

Getting the left to collaborate with the right...

The thing that I really like about the method that I have developed by combining a number of different ideas...including my own (which are most likely somebody else's too), is the use of the underhand throwing motion. When it comes down to it...the only truly original thing about my teaching is the presentation, which is truly a work of acting, of art, of science sprinkled with metaphysics, religion, hypnotism and shamanism (you must have the faith of your disciples), magic and sleight of hand...with a heaping dose of philosophy and a genuine love for classic tennis mixed in, too. Probably a bit of bullshit as well...speaking of which, the horse shit and stall cleaning is giving me a backache.

Moving to Europe at the age of 49 years old has taught me a thing or two...and one thing that I realized early on is that this continent does not revolve around American sports. A very interesting aspect about this little cultural peculiarity is that as a consequence...most of the kids that come to me have very little experience throwing balls. Overhand or underhand. Soccer...a slightly less stupid game than American football and just as apt to pack stadiums full of the herd, is the sport of choice, followed by hockey, stick hockey, and a game called handball that in my long, storied and diversified sports career/knowledge/experience, I never knew that it existed...until moving here. It came as quite a shock to discover...that I didn't know it all, afterall.

When throwing underhand you learn to coordinate a shift of weight from the rear foot to the front foot, you learn to aim by directing the entire motion of the arm and body to aim at a target, you learn to swing the arm as a unit from the shoulder, you learn to rotate your shoulders a bit...and finally you learn to take the hand to the target and follow through the same way every time in the hopes that you can achieve repeatable results with repeatable motions. This was a fundamental key to human existence or rather survival in prehistoric days, or so I am told...at least it was before they discovered guns. The progressions in the Oscar Wegner videos make a lot of sense to me and my little experiment at my little club here in Sweden, and it has initially led me to conclude that as usual...I am right. At the same time, I don't use the over the shoulder follow through that was advocated in the video, so I guess that makes Oscar wrong, doesn't it? Just kidding, Oscar. Who cares?

Another thing that I have started to use in my training is a drill that attempts to get the student to react like a shortstop in baseball. They must move to catch a moving, bouncing ball in a sort of volleying position...then right themselves into a balanced position to make a technically sound underhand throwing motion to a target. Teaching the student to throw both left and right handed with an underhand throwing motion while moving from right or to the left gives them a bit of an appreciation for the skills that any good shortstop develops over time.

I never realized how simple an underhand throwing motion was until I started to incorporate it into understanding the motion of swinging a tennis racquet. It is much less complicated than swinging a tennis racquet and therefore it is a sound basis in which to get the student to begin to understand some of the basic fundamentals of swinging a tennis racquet. Using the upper hand in collaboration with the lower hand is the tricky part of hitting the two hand backhand and by training the upper hand to do something as specific as finishing in a position of “eye level and in front of the opposite shoulder” has the effect of smoothing out this process. Using the basic exercises in this video simplifies a lot of things which makes it possible to “install” a rather rudimentary version of the backhand into the students memory banks and gives the coach something viable to work with...something to build upon.

[DougEng]

The thing that I really like about the method that I have developed by combining a number of different ideas...including my own (which are most likely somebody else's too), is the use of the underhand throwing motion. When it comes down to it...the only truly original thing about my teaching is the presentation, which is truly a work of acting, of art, of science sprinkled with metaphysics, religion, hypnotism and shamanism (you must have the faith of your disciples), magic and sleight of hand...with a heaping dose of philosophy and a genuine love for classic tennis mixed in, too. Probably a bit of bullshit as well...speaking of which, the horse shit and stall cleaning is giving me a backache.

Moving to Europe at the age of 49 years old has taught me a thing or two...and one thing that I realized early on is that this continent does not revolve around American sports. A very interesting aspect about this little cultural peculiarity is that as a consequence...most of the kids that come to me have very little experience throwing balls. Overhand or underhand. Soccer...a slightly less stupid game than American football and just as apt to pack stadiums full of the herd, is the sport of choice, followed by hockey, stick hockey, and a game called handball that in my long, storied and diversified sports career/knowledge/experience, I never knew that it existed...until moving here. It came as quite a shock to discover...that I didn't know it all, afterall.

When throwing underhand you learn to coordinate a shift of weight from the rear foot to the front foot, you learn to aim by directing the entire motion of the arm and body to aim at a target, you learn to swing the arm as a unit from the shoulder, you learn to rotate your shoulders a bit...and finally you learn to take the hand to the target and follow through the same way every time in the hopes that you can achieve repeatable results with repeatable motions. This was a fundamental key to human existence or rather survival in prehistoric days, or so I am told...at least it was before they discovered guns. The progressions in the Oscar Wegner videos make a lot of sense to me and my little experiment at my little club here in Sweden, and it has initially led me to conclude that as usual...I am right. At the same time, I don't use the over the shoulder follow through that was advocated in the video, so I guess that makes Oscar wrong, doesn't it? Just kidding, Oscar. Who cares?

Another thing that I have started to use in my training is a drill that attempts to get the student to react like a shortstop in baseball. They must move to catch a moving, bouncing ball in a sort of volleying position...then right themselves into a balanced position to make a technically sound underhand throwing motion to a target. Teaching the student to throw both left and right handed with an underhand throwing motion while moving from right or to the left gives them a bit of an appreciation for the skills that any good shortstop develops over time.

I never realized how simple an underhand throwing motion was until I started to incorporate it into understanding the motion of swinging a tennis racquet. It is much less complicated than swinging a tennis racquet and therefore it is a sound basis in which to get the student to begin to understand some of the basic fundamentals of swinging a tennis racquet. Using the upper hand in collaboration with the lower hand is the tricky part of hitting the two hand backhand and by training the upper hand to do something as specific as finishing in a position of “eye level and in front of the opposite shoulder” has the effect of smoothing out this process. Using the basic exercises in this video simplifies a lot of things which makes it possible to “install” a rather rudimentary version of the backhand into the students memory banks and gives the coach something viable to work with...something to build upon.

Hi Steve,

I hope you meant this 2-handed backhand thread. Just let me know which thread if not (I'm not good at tracking horses on the forum...and you definitely qualify for the Pony Express). I actually spent time teaching and learning from Oscar like 21 years ago and don't use this but yes, I agree teaching how to toss does some amazing tricks in tennis. For a beginner, there are 3 basic motions in tennis to learn: toss, throw and catch. Toss for the forehand (and I use a similar method on the 2-handed backhand that some people are copying), throw for the serve and overhead and catch for the volleys. Of course, it's a beginners approach.

Best,
Doug

[DougEng]

Also, medicine balls

The thing that I really like about the method that I have developed by combining a number of different ideas...including my own (which are most likely somebody else's too), is the use of the underhand throwing motion. When it comes down to it...the only truly original thing about my teaching is the presentation, which is truly a work of acting, of art, of science sprinkled with metaphysics, religion, hypnotism and shamanism (you must have the faith of your disciples), magic and sleight of hand...with a heaping dose of philosophy and a genuine love for classic tennis mixed in, too. Probably a bit of bullshit as well...speaking of which, the horse shit and stall cleaning is giving me a backache.

Moving to Europe at the age of 49 years old has taught me a thing or two...and one thing that I realized early on is that this continent does not revolve around American sports. A very interesting aspect about this little cultural peculiarity is that as a consequence...most of the kids that come to me have very little experience throwing balls. Overhand or underhand. Soccer...a slightly less stupid game than American football and just as apt to pack stadiums full of the herd, is the sport of choice, followed by hockey, stick hockey, and a game called handball that in my long, storied and diversified sports career/knowledge/experience, I never knew that it existed...until moving here. It came as quite a shock to discover...that I didn't know it all, afterall.

When throwing underhand you learn to coordinate a shift of weight from the rear foot to the front foot, you learn to aim by directing the entire motion of the arm and body to aim at a target, you learn to swing the arm as a unit from the shoulder, you learn to rotate your shoulders a bit...and finally you learn to take the hand to the target and follow through the same way every time in the hopes that you can achieve repeatable results with repeatable motions. This was a fundamental key to human existence or rather survival in prehistoric days, or so I am told...at least it was before they discovered guns. The progressions in the Oscar Wegner videos make a lot of sense to me and my little experiment at my little club here in Sweden, and it has initially led me to conclude that as usual...I am right. At the same time, I don't use the over the shoulder follow through that was advocated in the video, so I guess that makes Oscar wrong, doesn't it? Just kidding, Oscar. Who cares?

Another thing that I have started to use in my training is a drill that attempts to get the student to react like a shortstop in baseball. They must move to catch a moving, bouncing ball in a sort of volleying position...then right themselves into a balanced position to make a technically sound underhand throwing motion to a target. Teaching the student to throw both left and right handed with an underhand throwing motion while moving from right or to the left gives them a bit of an appreciation for the skills that any good shortstop develops over time.

I never realized how simple an underhand throwing motion was until I started to incorporate it into understanding the motion of swinging a tennis racquet. It is much less complicated than swinging a tennis racquet and therefore it is a sound basis in which to get the student to begin to understand some of the basic fundamentals of swinging a tennis racquet. Using the upper hand in collaboration with the lower hand is the tricky part of hitting the two hand backhand and by training the upper hand to do something as specific as finishing in a position of “eye level and in front of the opposite shoulder” has the effect of smoothing out this process. Using the basic exercises in this video simplifies a lot of things which makes it possible to “install” a rather rudimentary version of the backhand into the students memory banks and gives the coach something viable to work with...something to build upon.

Hi Steve,

I hope you meant this 2-handed backhand thread. Just let me know which thread if not (I'm not good at tracking horses on the forum...and you definitely qualify for the Pony Express). I actually spent time teaching and learning from Oscar like 21 years ago and don't use this but yes, I agree teaching how to toss does some amazing tricks in tennis. For a beginner, there are 3 basic motions in tennis to learn: toss, throw and catch. Toss for the forehand (and I use a similar method on the 2-handed backhand that some people are copying), throw for the serve and overhead and catch for the volleys. Of course, it's a beginners approach.

I also use a medicine ball for the two-hander and other throwing/weighted objects (use a small bag with like 15 QuickStart balls). Works well with kids and they love it.

Best,
Doug