Oscar Wegner on the forehand from scratch

[don_budge]

Interesting nine minute video on teaching the forehand. Brilliantly simple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv2UdzaV9HQ&feature=related

1. Catch ball and throw back to instructor with follow through position.

2. Student to hit back ball to instructor with hand using follow through position.

3. With racquet, index finger inside throat of racquet.

4. Push ball over net with racquet to instructor, with finish in follow through position.

5. To hit right, angle racquet right. To hit left, angle racquet left.

6. Stroke ball while moving backwards and forwards...for arm independency.

7. Stroke ball while moving backwards and forwards...while aiming for instructors hand.

8. For rhythm...count to five with the bounce of the ball on count of one.

9. For footwork...walking around the cone and holding follow through position while walking back into position.

10. Gentle rallying.

"Simplicity makes it powerful." -Oscar Wegner

[westcoast777]

Great stuff, d_b.
Thanks for the link.

[don_budge]

bman+johnyandell+oscarwegner=one freaking good model

Great stuff, d_b.
Thanks for the link.

You betcha wc777...I used these techniques in combination with John Yandell's imaging theory of the follow through with a twelve year old boy today with remarkable results. I even had him close his eyes to try and imagine what his image looked like. I have to get some mirrors installed in our little club. I really like John's forehand follow through image...with the catch at the end.

"I teach players to create an image of the hand, arm and racket at maximum extension--wrist at about eye level, hand across the body at the edge of the opposite shoulder, 2 feet or so of spacing between the hand and the torso. They then swing to that image." -John Yandell

Good Luck!

[don_budge]

Oscar Wegner..."Simplicity makes it powerful"

I had a session with my top female junior today. She is also serving as an assistant trainer along with two other of the top juniors. We met today under the guise of my introducing her to a system that we will all use in our little program. She has not been generally overly receptive to change in the past.

I took her through the Oscar Wegner forehand and two hand backhand methods...modified with the John Yandell process of imaging the follow through and swinging to that point. Our session morphed into quite an eye opening session in which I was able to demonstrate via the Wegner method a couple of things that I have had difficulty in getting through to her in the past. After an hour and a half there was visual improvement on both sides...it was remarkable actually! She made a modification to her forehand and her backhand that I found quite profound.

These simple instructions can serve as the basis for stepping stones to get to the heart of the matter...the technique of the swing. Combined with the imaging of swinging the hand to a target position...such as eye level, hand opposite other shoulder the lessons serve as a very nice model.

[johnyandell]

Great result! Too funny that you are morphing me with Oscar...we've had a few "disagreements" in the past. But the main thing is it is working.

[bman]

Care to comment on some of those disagreements?

[bottle]

No, don't make him do that. I just see everybody involved, including myself, as becoming more benign. That has be good, now that the "opinionation" of tennis pros everywhere has been so well documented.

But of course you could look at old posts here at Tennis Player and at Tennis One both. And I can do gossip so long as it's one to one, just send me an email. Not that I know everything. The fact is, that, when these two guys were having it out over hitting through the ball vs. "summing" a bunch of rotational forces for maximum racket head speed I was very impressed with both.

This wasn't the typical reaction. The heavies I've been exposed to usually took one side. But the heaviest of the heavies remained above the fray, and John's amusement at Steve's invoking of Oscar (with result) was mirror reaction to my own.

I haven't discussed any of this with Steve, by the way, but probably will, eventually, since he and I find it easy to talk with one another.

Is that too much? Too little? Hope not. John, Oscar, Steve, Doug, Jim, Don, Vic, Jeff, Ray, Dave, Tyler all have given much to the tennis world and will continue to do so as long as they don't destroy one another.

[johnyandell]

Bman,

One of Oscar's big things is play like the pros. One of my main disagreements is to what extent this is possible, which I think varies with level.

On a technical level, a lot of what he describes I don't think matches the actual technical components of pro strokes. The stalking thing for example, or the up and over at the expense of extension. I think you need both.

Or the insistance on open stance. Or the single model for the two hander when there are several configurations. Or the idea that the pros try to hit below the center of the sweet spot.

The other issues of course are his claims to world grandeur. Recently one of our writers was in Spain for a book he is working on. Let's just say the Spanish coaches have all either never heard of him, or have a different opinion regarding his influence. There are similar problems with his claims about working with Guga and his influence in South America. It doesn't reflect well on his credibility.

If you ever visit the tenniswarehouse message boards you will find he has a cadre of advocates who are not interested in critical debate and shout down anyone who challenges him. Some say the approach is similar to scientology of which he is a member.

There is some good stuff in what he does obviously and I am sure it's had value to many coaches. I just happen to have a different viewpoint on a lot of it.

[stotty]

I went on one of Oscar's courses two years ago. He wasn't delivering the course personally, of course,...he seems to have franchised his concept out to others here in the UK who preach him like the bible. What was it like?

It's just another way of teaching. It doesn't offer any obvious benefits over more traditional methods of teaching. Coaches don't go away and use the concept, at least none of the coaches I know have. It's simply too much of an upheaval to substitute traditional teaching for Oscar's method when there is no marked benefit.

It's not all negative. Some of the staged progressions can be useful. But when it comes to staged progressions and working on footwork in micro detail - through imaginative and practical drills - then the RPT do this better than anyone. The Spanish are brilliant at coaching the micro detail in some (not all) areas of the game...footwork in particular.

I'm not keen on "all encompassing" teaching concepts. One thing we should have all learned by know is that coaches shouldn't have "fixed ideas". What works for one student sometimes won't work for another... and the game changes all the time...it was unthinkable to hit open stance backhands once upon a time...now it's commonplace. If Bill Tilden arose from the grave tomorrow he wouldn't recognise the game as it is today....he'd think the coaches must have gone completely mad while he'd been at rest.

[johnyandell]

Although we have footage of Big Bill hitting a windshield wiper forehand...which is another point--that Oscar somehow invented the modern game...

[bottle]

I really wasn't trying to get John to talk, but I'm going to remember this as a universal rule in eliciting stuff.

If I do want someone to talk, just say, "No, don't make him do that. He's talked enough."

Then he, whoever he is, WILL talk!

[bman]

For what it's worth, in the past, I have researched his teaching, and I didn't find anything that seemed particularly useful or brilliant. I always wondered if I was missing something, or if he was just a master in the art of self-promotion.

[bottle]

~

No, I don't buy it, particularly the glib accusation of self-promotion part. Yes, Oscar does that, but so does every other teaching pro I've ever encountered. And if they're not good at self-promotion, they don't survive.

Same thing with my three books. If I don't promote them, no one reads them. Of course if I do promote them, I've found, no one reads them either so maybe I shouldn't bother, just put my head down and write another one and let the chips fall where they may. For what it's worth the three already up are THE PURSE MAKER'S CLASP, a novel, THE LAST WORDS OF RICHARD HOLBROOKE, a hopefully amusing screed, and A NEW YEAR'S SERVE: PERSONALIZED TENNIS STROKE DESIGN, a tennis book which grew from my long term string here, which people DO read, if you study the numbers.

All three are in the Kindle Store at Amazon.

The surprising thing about Oscar, for people who are overly quick to dismiss him as a scientologist or dusky shaman or anything else, is just how much tennis he knows and how good he is at explaining anything and how generous he can be-- all that should matter, in my book.

[gsheiner]

I'll throw in my 2 cents about the wegner method. I purchased Oscar's material a few years ago as I started to really get into technique. Of course, I was reading the material on this site and others and was aware of the arguments going back and forth.

Although I could certainly hit nice topspin with the Wegner method, I wasn't happy with the penetration of my shots. For the past 9 months I've been focusing on 2 things which have helped my forehand and backhand tremendously.

Drum roll...

1. I've really been focusing on getting a really good upper body rotation with a significant angle between the upper body and lower body. Doing this enables me to get back to the ball with my core and not have to use my arm as much.

2. Extension, extension, extension --but within the context of core rotation. So, the core rotation never stops but at contact I try to extend the hitting arm structure as much as possible. Also, I try to keep my head fixed as possible on the contact point after contact since lifting the head ruins the stroke for me.


I can finish many different ways and don't find that the finish is the difficult part of the stroke.

The concept of extension has also really helped with my first volleys.

Where it gets tricky is the use of the biceps from contact on. I know that there is disagreement about this. From looking at video, it seems that the top players sometimes use their biceps and sometimes don't depending on what they're trying to do.

And, in general I wopuld think it would be easier to take a lansdorp strudent and get them to hit with more top, than take an oscar student and teach them to hit with more penetration.

Glenn

[bottle]

~

I like this, especially since it's about tennis. But I remember Oscar saying (or writing if there's a difference) that he loves flat shots. He just thinks they're hard to keep in the court.

I've always thought that the labeling re Oscar extends to tennis, too, beyond extra-tennis, where people clearly go nuts.

I'm not a scientologist, but I can nevertheless understand that Milton Katselas has the reputation of being the best acting coach in the L.A. film industry.

Getting the most performance out of people may be the aspect of scientology which is least harmful and most beneficial. In any case, Oscar moved away from Clearwater, Florida, so that ought to tell somebody something.

Frankly, I don't see that Oscar's students don't hit with penetration. In the movies I've seen they look like howitzers. I think Steve Navarro's attempt to combine seemingly opposing camps of thought is commendable. JY also seems to be recommending two different things at the same time.

But a lot of tennis players, unless they're oxen, don't have the physical strength they need for increased racket head speed for more spin, and Oscar, particularly in his second book (McGraw-Hill) is terrific in explaining how the rest of us can achieve higher frame velocity through "summing" forces.

The conflation of Oscar's students with horrible juniors who take their racket from two inches toward the net while racket is to the right to two inches toward the net while the racket is in front of their neck to two inches in front when racket is to their left has always seemed to me not only physical impossibility but pernicious propaganda.

On the other hand, I've always been curious about arm-scissoring (as Bungalo Bill used to call it) during a forehand, which Oscar and Chris Lewit both advocate. Me, I'm not doing it right now. Roger Federer, he does it sometimes and not at other times-- "not" probably more.

From the sound of things, Glenn, you're doing the exact opposite-- extending from elbow as you hit the ball.

Chet Murphy used to advocate that on ground strokes, and I'm sure it adds solidity. So many players don't do it any more, however. You give up too much spin IMAO (in my arrogant opinion).