Become an energy master. Internal timing and what it means to your game.

[GeoffWilliams]

Become a body clock energy master.

By Geoff Williams
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You can practice all day, but if you don’t polish your control over energy, you won’t improve at all and you won’t win. We are defining energy as: accelerated speed (AS) x emotional frequency of the force ( F/f )you apply to your shots. Part of that force is the mass of the frame, the swing weight, the twist weight, the accelerated torque or twisting force the rebounding strings apply to the ball. Part of the frequency is the emotional frequency you put into the shot, either fearful or confident. “Play within yourself.” How many times have you heard that phrase? You are playing within yourself whether you like it or not. At any time fear can poison your energy, and turn adrenaline into a negative force which blocks you, instead of aiding us. So what makes adrenaline positive or negative, and what makes energy positive or negative? The truth is, we can still miss shots no matter what type of energy is predominant. Fearful energy places us into a fumbling mode, but positive energy ignores mistakes. You just know you are going to play well no matter what. Some call it self belief, but it's really creating a future reality by visualizing it, knowing what will occur regardless of any mistake made. Confidence is not an attitude, it’s a knowledge of your future. And so is fear. The emotional “knowledge” you put into each shot has its own frequency, a sort of vibration.
Within each of us, there are two types of physical “engines”, an upper body engine and a lower body clock engine. To control these engines well, we need to become aware of and master both conscious and unconscious control over several types of physical energy flows. Our upper engine controls our unit turns. This consists of our arms, hands, wrists, and torso. The unit turn determines how much we turn sideways, and “load” our sideways coil, our power is then developed, and which type of energy (AS x F/f) flow we use on each shot. The lower body clock controls our leg speed, foot work and court coverage and it also controls which type of energy we can apply into each shot. When you master the engines, and choose a positive energy flow, you will create dominant play.
The arms, hands, wrists, and torso have to remain super relaxed for the most speed of coil possible, and the lower body is the opposite: Legs and feet are Samuari stiff and choppy quick, shins tensed, on the balls of your feet, knees kept bent, legs kept split wide off ready position split step.
It’s the initial burst of speed we are tuning. That initial burst of speed is something all top players share. The upper body derives this burst of speed from upper core relaxation, while the lower body derives it’s speed tension: from leg/shin/knee/foot pad tension. It’s the Kuerten drunken monkey upper body, super loose upper body speed, versus the Bruce Lee lower body martial arts speed, which is tense and super fast. It takes a lot of focus and intention, and disciplined practice to train both types of energy simultaneously.





My purpose in writing this piece is to help you become an energy master. A greater awareness of the interior energy battle will help you win the exterior one. If you master the body clock/engine transitions and your unit turns, those errors will go away for the most part and you will now beat players you never beat before. You will become more aware of your energy level, and how to apply it to your own shots. It will allow you to go for more power and at the same time make fewer unforced errors. You will no longer experience any fear during match play.
Even at the highest level of play, most points are lost due to mistakes. Two out of three points are lost to mistakes, not winners. Most mistakes are caused by body clock rhythm errors with most of those self induced and some induced by your opponents. On slower courts, this figure goes up even higher! It’s your mental energy flow to the body clock engines that controls and creates these mistakes you make. Energy flows also determine which style we are playing, lull-(slow and steady without risk), jam- (radically changes ball path after the bounce) or finish-(hitting a winner).
Most club players make far more mistakes than the pros, even while hitting for far less. The club player typically has no idea about the relationship between movement and the load, inside him which are totally controlling and causing his mistakes as well as the great shots. Coiling and loading shots requires a lot of speedy energy.


THE REASON YOU WIN OR LOSE IS THE SAME ONE DETERMINING WHETHER YOU IMPROVE OR NOT
So you have gotten yourself into a match, and now you have nowhere to run or hide from the body clock and the score. You are going to win or you are going to lose. The court is a box. And so are your body clock/engines. “It’s fight or flight out there.”, and our emotions create and fuel this internal energy. This internal energy has two sides to it, a mental side and a physical side. We are going to train for speed in both.
This application of physical/mental energy flow to the body clock engines is the reason why you win or lose, and it’s also the reason whether you improve or not. Your mastery over lull-jam-finish modes, and their transitions, and your ability to put together sequences that your opponent does not like, creates win or loss and not so obviously, controls improvement. Most errors are made in transition from one mode to the next due due to slowed reactions, jammed reactions which block the flow of energy.
Every match is made up of many small energy bursts and small emotional bursts. These bursts power our internal body clock/engines during a match. These energies fall into three categories.

THREE BODY CLOCK ENERGY CATEGORIES: LULL-JAM-FINISH
Lull energy: It is felt internally as a “no miss” energy, a slower speed, low risk, lower speed of racquet and shot. It’s the, “put your opponent to sleep” shots with 2-5’ high net clearance and medium spin and your version of a medium mental attack. It feels as if you are projecting your thumb across the net onto the forehead of your opponent and managing him with that thumb. Is putting your opponent to sleep and moving him around just enough to allow him to beat himself without much pressure on your part. The French players are expert at this, Simon and Monfils, while Gasquet and Chardy are expert at finishing modes. The lull master keeps his shots out of the middle of the court, yet near the sidelines without taking risk.
Jam energy: It’s energy that jams your opponent’s timing. Heavy top spin, heavy pace, heavy slice, great drop shots, great kick serves, great flat shots that skid, any shot that changes the height, or depth, or pace radcially after the ball bounces, is jam energy. Even no pace slow balls are jammers. It’s a transition energy, that is higher risk and faster in nature. It is felt inside your body as a higher speed, higher risk application of spin and speed/depth/height change. Even drop shots have to be disguised quickly. This energy changes the speed of the ball radically or the direction or the height just after the ball bounces, and it’s this “radical change” which jams internal opponent rhythm. It’s as if you are jamming a spike into his body and causing his energy to jam. Psyches are also used to jam.
Finish energy: The riskiest type of energy. It’s low net clearance, high speed or high touch. It’s simply higher risk, put the ball away. Some of those bursts are finish based: they are clean winners. This applies to drop shots as well as flat or angled winners. This is lower net clearance, higher risk, higher stick speed shot. There are psychological components of each of these energies as well as the physical incoming shot.
Mastering the energies requires the ability to master both psych and body energy.
DEFEND THE BODY CLOCK INTERNAL SPEED Blazing fast Cheetah feet, and drunken monkey upper torso.
There are two internal body clock/engines running us at all times, an upper body engine and a lower body engine which are fueled by our energy types at all times. Our mental unit turn tells us to kill a shot, or push a shot, or jam a shot, or lull a shot, and the feet are on board if moving quickly in a martial arts, choppy way, and the upper body is on board if moving fluidly in a whip snapping relaxed way.
When the feet slow down, your clock/engine jams up. When the engine running your torso slows down and there is no fluid coil and no load to your shots.... If the incoming shot upsets your timing, it has succeeded. Most of the time when we make errors it’s due to a bad coil, or failure to maintain contact point. Both of these are caused by energy flow into our bodies.
The body clock is jammed when one or both of the bodies’ engines slows down . They have to be running at the same speed, a fast one, no matter what incoming shot! You have to defend your body clock speed just as you defend your contact point, regardless of incoming shots.

[GeoffWilliams]

DEFEND THE CONTACT POINT, THE ARC YOUR ARM MAKES IN FRONT OF YOU.
Keep the engine speeds high and defend the contact point in front of you. Most errors are either coil errors, or contact point errors. Both are more commonly made in a transition from one mode to the next mode, lull to jam to finish. Most transition errors are made due to slow reactions and jammed engines. We are trained to hit the ball the same distance in front of us, no matter what the incoming shot. That causes a huge amount of mistakes. The correct contact point is not straight wall up/down in front of you. It varies according to the incoming shot’s height. It is shaped like an arced curve. This arc is determined by your own length of arm. Higher incoming shots have to be struck more out front, and lower shots are allowed into the body more before striking your own outgoing shot, due to the length of your own arm. If you place your arm straight out, eye level high, and let it drop, that is the arc you are defending on contact, both at net and on ground. If you use the same contact point on a low ball that you use on a medium high ball, you will net it. If you use the same contact point on a high ball that you use on a medium ball, you will hit it late and go out long. Our best contact point is when our arm is barred out front so the wrist can be locked at contact for maximum consistency, and that point is determined by the incoming shot’s height. Another facet of contact point is the spot in the string bed. It has to be in the right place in the bed. If too low, or too high, the strings are too short, their frequency level of rebound is too high, and there is not enough control. Some like to strike the ball high up, such as 3rd cross down from top. Some like it in the middle, 10th cross down. Most are inbetween.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE UNIT TURN AND THE SPLIT STEP
Edberg came into net almost sitting down in his split. That gave him quicker lateral movement. Murray will go 6”-9" up in the air on his split. So did Chang and Hewitt. Players with the biggest or widest most extreme splits, often have the best defense/better foot work/quicker feet, ie, Chang, Hewitt, Sanchez vicario, Nadal, Murray, etc.. The split step affects the unit turn so profoundly. Ever notice how wide Djokovic stands while returning serve? It’s a full shoulder width and a half. So do all top returners, wider than anyone else. The advanced split step will point one foot to the side fence (the same side the ball is heading towards) and plant the other foot pointing towards the net, perpendicular to each other. This advanced split step causes a faster unit turn, because the turned foot pivots the upper body when that pivoted foot lands. When the pointed foot lands, it forces a faster unit turn, a faster decision on which shot you are going to hit. Turning sideways faster is a strategy is all about removing time from the unit turn, deciding ahead of time which shots to hit, so you don’t have to waste time thinking about it during the point, and to at the same time to force your opponent to spend more time reacting and thinking! Your mental unit turn has to be just as practiced and polished as the physical, and your decision on which energy type to use has to be automatic: lull-jam-finish. That is the decision of which energy to use, lull, jam, or finish, and how deep and hard and high the shot will be.

PRACTICE SEQUENCES
Typical combinations are: two lull shots, two jam shots, and two finish shots.
The physical unit turn is the only thing all top pros have in common. It’s the mental unit turn and their mastery over the three energy types that separates the very top from the next tier down.

THE CONSCIOUS AND THE SUB CONSCIOUS CLOCK/ENGINE
In each match the clock’s timings are also under pressure of all types the entire duration of the match. Some of it is conscious: such as the shots we are facing up against, the wind, the sun, the heat, the court, the onlookers, our equipment. And some of it is unconscious: such as your diet’s internal effects, your digestion such as gluten intolerance, extra weight you carry effecting your speed, the psych jobs you are facing up against, your underlying confidence, your core self beliefs, your latent emotions and desires and conflicts and hidden internal stress! These both react to create the matched energy flow within us at any given millisecond…. Our conscious and subconscious control over our clock/engines will determine how we will play at any given time. You must make a conscious choice to turn quickly and decide quickly which shot and type of energy to use. Many pros have sequences set up like boxers, such as two lull, one jam, and two finish. Once you begin to do both automatically without conscious thought on every shot your timing will improve dramatically. Researchers set up An MRI brain scan of women knitting and shown a tv screen, telling them which knots to use. When they used a knot they knew, the scan showed very little brain activity, only in the unconscious zone, a small red dot. When told to use a knot that they did not know, their brains lit up all over, and they fumbled with it until they learned it, when the scans went back down to a small dot again.
Timing is everything in life and tennis. Uncle Tony once heard Jack Nicklaus say, “First learn to hit it far, then learn to keep it in.” , and he taught Nadal to hit the ball hard as a child. He also taught Nadal to be a master body clock jammer. His whole game is designed to jam his opponents, with psych, and extreme spin, both top spin pace and slice and mind games as well... His whole strategy is based on jamming both mind and body.
CONSCIOUS VERSUS THE UNCONSCIOUS
The unconscious often confuses positive with negative thoughts. For example, good hypnotists don’t use negative words, such as: don’t, not, no, never, cannot, do not, etc. because the unconscious mind will often confuse these statements to mean, do, always, can, etc, and they then have the opposite effect intended! Positive thinking is crucial regarding the unconscious mind and how it “listens” to the conscious mind’s decisions. Therefore it is recommended that in your own thoughts, to use only positive statements and imagery, such as, “I am going to turn sideways faster.”, or, “I am going to move more quickly with smaller steps.”, or “I am going to feel confident today.”, rather than, “Don’t be sluggish.”, or “Don’t move so slowly!” , “What’s wrong with you?”

Visual positive energy also works, such as seeing yourself accepting the trophy from the tournament director, seeing the score by which you win by, seeing your calm self come back from defeat. The unconscious mind does not hear negatives. Those who cooperate with hypnosis, only hear positives, so that when you say, “You will not be nervous”, the mind hears, “You will be nervous.”
Frustrated public outbursts also are negative, and only tend to help your opponents confidence and harm your own! (McEnroe was a freakish exception unless you count the French open against Lendl where he collapsed on the ground and then lost a two set lead. Even the great Mac was vulnerable to the destructive effects of negative emotion on his body clock/engines’ timing.) Avoid any negative thoughts and actions and use positive ones, like the gloat scream, the fist pump, the “Come on!”, the thoughts like, “I will come back and find his weakness.” Projecting these thoughts across the net to your opponent also works. There is more to a match than we can see or measure. That is why live tennis is so different than tv tennis.
Positive energy will even help you beat a superior opponent, one who thinks he will easily beat you! The best internal body clock energy runs fast and free, like a torrent of water, during the point, when we are in the fluid/fast energy mode. When the point is over, the ideal energy is still flowing! Fluid energy wins matches and protects our internal rhythm and loading our coils. This causes our feet and hands to attack the ball quickly and smoothly and confidently, on all types of shots coming in, without a jammed fear of missing.
FEAR WILL JAM YOU
Fear can jam you badly, and jam up your internal energy and rhythm, worse than any other factor, and yet, fear is often driven by unconscious thoughts and commands! Fear poisons adrenaline. Instead of aiding us, it hurts us. Those are the ones we can’t normally hear nor argue with. They are hidden from us. All sorts of negative forces and influences are there at all times attempting to jam your body clock. You can overpower their hidden influence. Develop your own interior mantra for this purpose. Also a visual image. That is why so many players are grunting and screaming now, to unconsciously shout down the silent forces inside the mind and enforce the dominance of your conscious will over the unconscious will. This intended effect is stronger if it is conscious, a conscious attempt to project dominance across the net. Did you see Murray smiling at Djokovic during the us open final while returning? Lendl told him to do that for a good reason: project emotional dominance. All great players do this in their own way.

[GeoffWilliams]

THE MENTAL UNIT TURN
When your internal clock is getting jammed: The mental unit turn is the dead give away. It’s the mind’s ability to coil itself and to decide which of the three energy modes to draw from and it separates top players. The unforced error made is made most often in a transition from one mode to the next mode. If you cannot move from lull to jam or from lull to finish in match pressure, you will make a lot of easy errors and it doesn’t matter who you are playing or how good they are, you can lose to anyone!
If you are feeling too much fear/nerves during a match, you are in danger of jamming both the mental and the physical unit turn, removing it’s smooth power, and removing your fully relaxed power. Fear of losing is very common, looking bad, loss of status, loss of self worth and all the money and time you spend on the game. Fear of missing is a strong one. Fear of shot choice is another. Nerves are another. Frustration is common. Anger over cheating or psyches is common. Fear of winning and losing can also occur simultaneously…. Fear of making a bad shot is extremely common underneath the conscious surface on any given shot…. Mental unit turns have to be free of fear in order to be smooth and fast.
All of these can jam the fearless flow of adrenaline, and stop your feet from moving well, stop your hand from relaxing, stop the torso from coiling and if there is no coil there is no power. If there is no mental coil, there is also no powered relaxation. Match stiffness will take over. It’s the conscious/unconscious thought of winning over losing that jams people up. Or performing badly in front of others.
THE MENTAL COIL AND THE PHYSICAL COIL
You have to coil your mind to obtain power just as there is no power without the upper body engine coil. Coiling the mind is deciding ahead of time which energy mode to use, and how hard and fast to use it. Lull mode demands a high net clearance and a patient energy that is willing to grind. Jam mode varyies, but finish mode demands a low net clearance whether it’s a flat shot or a drop shot. If you are going for a winner, aim lower over the net. If you are going for lull mode, aim higher and slower over the net.
The unit turn is the only thing all pros have in common, because it turns them sideways, fast, and prevents loss of time and stops the body clock from being jammed easily. They all differ slightly in take back, snap back, and follow through. But if you look at slow motion clips of the pros, they all look the same at the unit turn. If you are landing/pivoting on the ground as your opponent is hitting his shot, it’s hard to be surprised by that shot or overpowered by that shot because you have given yourself the most amount of time possible.
You can deal with all psych jobs and defeat them all by creating an internal mental unit turn. Decide which mode to use before you hit the next shot, lull-jam-finish as quickly as you can, before the physical unit turn is made. You can learn how to prevent most balls from playing you, by attacking shots with quick feet as well as quick hands, even on slow or stopped balls, on short balls, on deep balls, and on heavily spinning balls. This is especially true at the net. Many let a slow incoming shot slow down their internal body speeds. (Agassi was great at this, especially effective after Gilbert taught him the lull game.) That’ what James Blake game has always lacked. He’s not a lull guy. It’s flat out one speed only. Like Chardy and many other pros who are one dimensional and cannot beat those who are not.
Decide where you are going to hit the return before the serve is struck. Decide which strategy you are going to use before the match starts. Decide which is your opponents weaker side and attack that side more often. When Nadal plays Federer, he hits 85% of his shots high to Federer’s back hand. When he plays Murray, he hits 54% to his back hand and 46% to his forehand. You have to decide which side is the weak side, or if both sides are equally strong.

DECIDE TO IGNORE ALL ERRORS.
Use your will power to control and shape your emotional energy. The goal is to arrive at a fast footed, fast handed state, that feels relaxed, fearless, a controlled adrenalized state. Excited, but not too much so.. Speedy relaxed state is what you decide to feel. Ignore all errors. They don’t matter. You are going to win and or improve anyway. You will no longer feel fear in match play. Adrenaline is not fear. It’s there to help you move faster and hit harder.
IT’S CALLED MOTIVATION.
Football coaches tell their teams, the other team is coming into their house, to take their belongings, and steal from them, and hurt their families. What the coach is really doing: is adrenalizing the team…. Focusing their emotional energy and raising their adrenaline levels so they move faster, hit harder than normal… It’s a focusing of emotional desire. It is a conscious call for speed and power. It’s also a way of focusing the unconscious by making it believe there is a physical threat to survival!
When you feel like you are playing poorly, decide to play with confidence and decide to walk with confidence. Your opponent will pick up on even the smallest ques regarding your confidence levels. It’s your emotions that determine your adrenaline flow during any match! Emotions can block or release the right hormones. Decide to be the master of your own emotions, and your own hormone flow. Fear jams the body clock. Hungry desire opens access to the righteous- fearless adrenaline. Find out which thoughts spike your adrenaline. Maybe it’s a sexual thought. Maybe it’s a thought of loss. Maybe it’s a thought of violence. Maybe it’s a fantasy of revenge against those who have wronged you. Maybe it’s a fantasy of beating the IRS head or your room mate or your boss or the last guy who beat you. The unconscious mind can relate to all those thoughts very easily and give you the adrenaline boost you need to move well. Discover what releases the right adrenaline into your own system on command. It’s usually sexual, violent, or battle motivation that turns our cranks. Find out what turns yours.


IT'S NOT YOUR MIND THAT DETERMINES WINS AND LOSSES.
It's your body’s ability to obey your mind. How many players have you seen lose to relaxed lull master pushers, who are not trying to win, just trying to watch the other guy lose? How many players go out and try to win the point on every shot? And the body says, "What are you, crazy? You think I can hit a winner from every position? Why don't you video tape me and see what a dumb ass you are?"
Whether it can change its energy from lull to jam to finish at will, from both sides, with all types of shots. Everyone's body clock and internal energy motor is unique! Some of us are more vulnerable to slice, flat, spin, depth than we would care to admit! Find out which shots your body refuses to obey your mind. Find out which shots your opponent does not like. Avoid those shots that jam you and feed the jamming shots to your opponent suddenly, off lull mode. Why do you think so many run around their back hands? They are more easily jammed on that side. They want to develop a more consistent weapon so they dare you to hit to the open forehand court. The open court psych: “See if you can hit a winner on me to my wide open forehand, sucker.” All pros are taught this tactic.

[GeoffWilliams]

The transitions are more make-able, if you keep the feet moving fast on slow shots, medium shot, heavy shots, jam shots, or finish shots, lull shots. Think of the cheetah, and its incredibly fast feet running down an antelope in the green veldt, volcanic crater. Think of a drunken monkey, and its happy looseness, lithe and fluid/flexy body, strong enough to rip your arm off.... (A monkey once ripped me into its cage in the San Francisco zoo as a child. He stretched out his arm and hand all the way over the guard rail. I stood up on the concrete curb and reached out to touch his little hand. He was about 25lbs. I was just a rag doll for him, and he was just a small howler monkey.) I have never felt such a powerful yank in my life. That monkey was about three feet tall and almost killed me. I went flying into the steel cage at about 25mph. My shoulder still hurts. (There is such a thing as unconscious injury protection and injury memory.)
Kuerten was a perfect example of the drunken monkey fast cheetah. The feet have to have the same speed for all of your shots, or you will end up making too many mistakes. Too many let the feet stop, on a stopped ball. Too many let the feet slow down like lead, on a slow ball, due to the body clock trying to match the too slow rhythm of the incoming shot! The result: too many losses to inferior players who are not trying to beat you, but are trying to watch you beat yourself.......You should try this lull tactic with all opponents. It is safe and aggressive, as if you place your thumb on the forehead of the opponent from 85’ away.


The goal is to smoothly ramp up from medium to extreme, and stay relaxed in the change, while moving the feet fast at all times, keeping the upper body relaxed at all times...... It's like two different engines driving and running the same car, at differing speeds, with different tensions, different intentions, simultaneously..... Cheetah feet, drunken monkey torso....... Floppy arms and samurai feet. Does that remind you both of Kuerten and Federer? The lower body engine stays on the balls of the feet until you have decided to run. The knees are bent and the lower legs are like spring steel rebounders. The upper body engine is like a javelin thrower cocking his whole shoulder sideways so he can throw the spear further. The hips are used to uncoil the shoulders first, to create drag and draw. The shoulders coil, the hips uncoil first for the most power.
The speed of upper body has to match the lower body speed. And it all has to feel like fast water flowing smoothly. Does that remind you of how Federer moves and hits?


In the lull:jam:finish routine, the way the body feels hitting each type of shot is different. The energy you use to hit most of the shots:lull energy, is like the energy you use to rally with in the warm up, that is, it's not trying to win the point outright, just keeping the ball in play and medium paced, medium depth, in a no error mode, designed to put the opp. body clock on one speed: sleep mode speed.
Some use the lull type shot on their serves as well.... Even the pros use this mode (in a pro pace vs a normal pace) for most of their shots. Two of every three pro shots on average, are lull type shots. Maybe they hit 6 in a row. Maybe they hit 3 jammer types in a row, or a couple of finishing shots to take the point, but you can see right away, when the point is taken over by one of the players and who will probably win that point. It may take a few shots, but the point is already gone. The speed of the court will determine how many shots are winners. Take a pen and pad, and note how many shots are lull (rallies), jam, and finish. Most shots are lull, and much more so---- on a slower surface....
When switching/transitioning to jam shot mode, the energy inside the body is entirely different. This mode requires an intense delivery of spin or pace, to either slow the ball down drastically (joker drop shots or fed short angled slices to two handers) or speed it up drastically after the bounce: (super top spin groundies ala Nadal to the back hand side which bounce very high or Djokovic flat groundies), and changing pace after the bounce is key, which is why depth is commonly referred to as the reason for Djokovics recent results. Deeper shots give us less time if we are playing off the bounce, not the shot. And it’s a natural tendency to time your shot off the bounce instead of the ball because the angle of the bounce is sharper if that bounce is closer to you, and the ball has not slowed down as much as it would have if it had been a shorter shot with more time to react to it! The deep shot has not had as much time to be measured by our timing engines, nor to slow down due to wind resistance.

THE USE OF DISGUISED SHOTS TO JAM THE BODY CLOCK/ENGINES
Federer uses disguises flat groundies to a corner or a line, or a drastic angle which causes a lot of running like a hard driven slice cross court and so do all the pros. They all show that they are going to hit the inside out forehand, and then go down the line, freezing your body so you cannot react. The disguised jam shots literally feel like someone has driven a stake into our body so it is not smooth anymore, and jars us into hitting a weak reply or an error, and jams our internal body clock/engine rhythm, which is why disguised shots are more effective in doing so, as they take away our time regardless of incoming speed or shot for that very same reason that shorter shots give us more time......We are no longer a drunken monkey or a fast Cheetah when jammed, only a losing one. Once you get jammed, the point usually goes to the other guy but there are exceptions. Disguised shots are paramount to instill the jam.

Some of us are vulnerable to a lull shot in this regard (Safin, or some of the other russian men who hit flat and kill most shots). The lull:jam transistion is a dangerous one and difficult to learn. It's as hard to learn as the net:attack transition game. We go from not trying to win the point outright, to a very different type of shot with extremity tied to it, the mental unit turn! It’s the transition. It’s the decision to use a different energy on your next shot. This has to be done with smooth speed and fast feet, fluid water like upper engine, and samurai fast lower engine movements.

The finish shot is just as hard to learn as the jam shots are. We have elicited the weak shot, short in the box, and now we have to move in quickly for a better angle and a higher ball, and hit flat to a corner or a line or an angle for the finish. Very different energy and some are vulnerable to jamming them selves when they move to finish mode, and frame the ball way too often, even on easy shots we have worked so hard to elicit..... You’ve done the time and now you pay for the crime all over again and again, and that’s what it feels like when all along it’s the jammed body clock causing the errors. Such as when you go to kill a short ball, showing finish mode, and then hit a drop shot that misses or pops up. Once again it’s the transition that causes the body clock to jam itself.



BODY CLOCK/ENGINE JAMMERS
Some body clock engine jammers are: fear, tightness, frustration, anger, anxiety, over eagerness, physical conditioning, too much emotion, fear based adrenaline, not enough adrenaline, hatred, cramping, nerves, sickness, bad diet, may all combine in part to jam the timing of your internal rhythm.
Have your feet ever stopped moving fast, due to the slow speed of the ball, and you ended up too far away from contact point, and framed the slow sitter with a fast swing? Your body clock was jammed and your energy was too eager and too tight! Give you another chance to hit the same sitter without match pressure, and you crush it easily for a winner!
LIST OF COMMON CLOCK JAMMERS
Fear
Slowing down the body clock engines

Hatred for opponent
Psych job
Caring too much
Trying out something new in stroke or equipment
Not knowing your own weaknesses
Not being able to test for opponents weak points
Vulnerability to a particular type of incoming shot: spin, slice, high balls, twisting serves, change of pace or depth
Match pressure
Not enough practice
Cramps due to loss of salt, and water loss
Confidence dropping factors such as lack of sleep, etc.
Fear for any reason such as missing the shot
Physical factors such as jet lag, injury, weight, etc.
Self belief or lack thereof for any reason
Hate your opponent? That can lock up internal rhythm. Has a psych job ever worked on you? Has an opponent called a ball out that was 6” in, and you went ape over it? Care too much about the win vs. the loss? Vulnerable to heat cramps? Not ready to play? Injured? Not confident? Know you are going to lose to a better player? Did you change a stroke before the match? Are you trying a new stick or string or new tension or new pair of sneakers? Playing within your self isn't just knowing which shots you can hit under pressure…. It's knowing what jams you up, and how to prevent it. Decide to be fearless.

[GeoffWilliams]

FIND OUT WHAT MODE JAMS YOUR CLOCK AND PREVENT IT

If your diet is not good, or if you are overweight, or out of shape, it won’t matter how good your strokes are. You will not be able to maintain a high quality clock/engine mode during a match….. One thing all top players have in common, is fitness of body and fitness of mind/energy modes. (Recently Mardy Fish lost 30 lbs and won 16 of 17 matches in 2010 and has reached his highest ranking ever.) Look at Djokovic and what he was able to do when his weight went down after changing his diet. Djokovic now owns Nadal, who said, “He is in my head.”, after beating Rafa in six straight finals. Beforehand it was Rafa who beat Nole 5 times in a row in finals. Djokovic steps inside the baseline and attacks Nadals high topspin shots and drives them flat. Nadal can’t get any free points on his service games anymore. His jamming/psych game does not work on Djokovic anymore.
If you've ever seen a match, where one of the players all of a sudden started playing better and dominating an opponent who used to beat him, like Djokovic vs. Nadal, you have seen a player regain control over the clock/engine battle. Djokovic hired a psychological nutritionist, Igor Cetkovic, and started using a CVAC chamber along with the diet change. Igor left after Djokovic won Wimbledon and Nole hasn’t been the same. He lost to Nishikori. He almost let Troicki beat him. He defaulted to Tsonga. He defaulted in Davis cup play. All after his psychological nutritionist left him- 2011 July. You may have also seen a player suddenly start missing due to fearful nerves, and then lose a big lead and his prior dominance… His adrenaline caused fear and fear caused tightness and tightness caused his body to become jammed! Since his doctor left him, Djokovic’s energy is jammed.
WHAT ENERGY ARE WE STRIVING FOR?
The fast running, smooth burn of a fluid, flowing, fearless adrenaline. It’s an extremely relaxed yet very fast energy. Just enough adrenaline to make us faster and smoother than we normally are. This smooth yet quick energy, determines how relaxed we are, determines how freely we swing the stick, determines how accurate and powerful we are under pressure and how fast we move our feet. Good butterflies in the stomach! But it is up to us to realize that truth, and up to us whether or not we make the decision to use that knowledge to work on and perfect our adrenaline flow! It’s just like a shot, only more important.
Some people call it intensity. We must polish our adrenalized energy just as much as we work on any other part of our game. This energy is affected by both conscious and unconscious factors. This energy determines how well our clock/engines run. It’s the oil in the pistons. Some call it “psyching yourself” up.
So how do you psych yourself up? It’s related to breath. It’s related to emotion. It’s related to intensity/intention and focus. It’s related to health and confidence. There is always a reason to gain your confidence and it should be foremost in your practice routine, a regular intention to notice and improve how confident you feel. Call for confidence into your game and it will come. It’s related to self belief. Some use breath, like yoga or chi or weight lifters. Some use interior mantras, short slogans you repeat in your mind. Some use emotion like McEnroe used to attack his energy mode. Some use the antelope Nadal method, of jumping up high and sprinting off to the baseline. Some use the gloating vampire scream, like Serena, Kvitova, Nadal, etc. Some use psychological nutritionists, like Djokovic did. Some use off court training to increase their confidence. Some use a lot of practice to ensure their self belief. Some use sports psychologists and hypnotists to reach their unconscious mental energy. If you don’t have the ability to self psych, then don’t be surprised or upset when you lose. It’s a good idea going into a match thinking you are going to play well and win. You have to be able to warm yourself up. You have to be able to hear the interior mantra and call on the warrior intensity. Grunting breath energizes adrenaline. That’s why so many use the gloat scream after a tough point, to vampire energy off the opponent.

THE WARM UP EFFECT ON OUR INTERNAL CLOCK
Many matches are won in the warm ups. Most of us find out in the warm ups how consistent and how powerful or confident our opponents are in that first five minutes. We make up our minds without realizing it, whether we have a chance to win…. The expert body clock jammers use the warm up to plant the fatal suggestion in the opponents’ mind, that they have no chance, to win the match. The expert psych artist will make great effort to make every shot in the warm up. They will celebrate good shots. They will move fast and suggest they are in better shape than their opponent. They will fast serve you and work to under mine your confidence. They will probe you with all types of pace/spin/depths. They will insult you under the surface. The thin veneer of civilization is thinner in the worst psych masters. Cheating for them is not a loss of honor, simply a necessary tactic to win matches.


PSYCH JOB EFFECT ON THE INTERNAL RHYTHM
Every psych aims to jam your body clock up, and make you play worse than you would if you were loose and relaxed. Whether the opponent admits it to himself or not, whether he does it consciously or not, that is his goal. To jam the flow of your adrenaline by manipulating your emotions and your internal view of your own body…. It’s your emotions that determine the quality of your adrenaline, whether it is a fearful or whether it’s an excited or confident flow…. Emotions can either jam us or super charge us! McEnroe and Djokovic and Serena and Nadal all play with a lot of emotion. He’s trying to make your feet move a little slower, to make your arms feel a little more tight, to make your core rotate a little slower, just enough to make you miss the next shot – and lose the next game. He’s trying to make himself feel more powerful and able to move smoothly. Psych is all about the body clock/engine jam.
Currently, the best pro psych jammer is Nadal. He’s also the most adrenalized player and one of the most emotional players. For example, he always enters the court second. He makes his opp. Enter the stadiums before he enters. Always. He controls his opp. before a single shot is struck. He always antelopes up to the baseline just after the coin toss. He always vampires out a huge gloat after winning a big point. He vibrates his feet up and down on the change overs super fast. He scrapes the clay baseline clean after each game. He arranges his water bottles in a very particular manner. He makes his opp. wonder, “Is he on something, to be so fresh after 4 hours, when I am so tired?” Nadal is an adrenalinilized psych master! Not only does he use his game to jam your rhythm, he uses his whole emotional persona to free his own...No one can psych him. They are too busy defending against the Nadal psych…..”First learn to hit it hard, Rafa, then learn to keep it in.”, uncle Tony drilled Nicklaus’ wisdom into Rafa’s head over and over…Nadals body clock was jam proof, until he ran into the new and improved Djokovic…..
No psych, works on him..The only time a shot can jam him is the flat ball, (or the great drop shot) which is how Soderling, Federer, Murray, Delpotro, and now Djokovic have all been able to beat him: by hitting down flat on his short and high bouncing top spin balls on faster surfaces, and they jam him with pace and angle and depth changes and superior drop shots.


ASIDE FROM EMOTION: THE SHOTS THAT JAM MOST OF US:
The most common shots that jam our clocks are the ones that change speed radically after the bounce. The American twist serve to our bh return, makes the ball speed up and change direction after the bounce. The heavy top spin shot that kicks in speed and height after the bounce. The heavy rpm slice ball that either speeds up or slows down after the bounce. The flat ball hit hard and deep, that makes the ball skid low and heavy. The short low drop shot that makes the ball kick back wards and side ways. The top spin lob that kicks hard and spins to the back fence. The slice serve that slides sideways low and out of reach.
To prevent these shots from jamming us, we must practice against them before the match ever begins. To jam others, we must practice these shots until they are second nature. We must practice the transitions, from lull, to jam, to finish, every time out…Most errors are made in transition from one energy stage to the next. We must practice sequences, such as three lull, one jam, and two finish so the tactic is natural in a match. Some players are also vulnerable to a given sequence, such as three jam, one finish, or three lull, one slice jam. Have practiced sequences ready to go for a given opponent. Practicing these transitions also makes it less likely you will jam yourself when making them. It’s the transitions that are the equivalent of the mental unit turn. The decision to move from lull to an attack mode causes errors. The unforced errors are made most often when switching from one mode: lull-jam-finish: to the next mode. We see so many rallies, where both players are trying to lull the other by taking no risk. Then when a weak short shot presents itself, we see one of the players pounce on it, only to make an unforced error off an easy sitter. Why is that? No practice off the easy ball sitter. Fear of missing an easy shot. Early coverage by an opponent distracts us.

[GeoffWilliams]

VARY ALL ROUTINES DURING MATCHES TO JAM MORE OFTEN
I played Rob Levin in an open tournament about 30 yrs. ago. He was a top norcal junior player. He had a watch, which he would turn on when serving, which let out a mnemonic tempo/beat, very loud beeping, 1-2-3-4, when he was serving. Then he would turn it off during the point! His father had controlled him to do this on every serve he hit in matches. It was extremely irritating! When I played Herman Bauer in singles, I found, that if I went to a no bounce ritual, in my serve, like old men do to young men, that he would miss his returns at a far higher rate. This was more effective, if varied, and not done all the time. It's part of the old man psych. I also found that when I changed my return position, to move way back, it affected his serve as well.
People are far more dependent on the sameness of athletic timing, in their own games, than they realize. They unconsciously depend on you doing the same thing. If you've ever seen Doug Sykes, return, from four feet above the serve line, against anyone, it also drops the time down the server has to react to the return than they normally have and can upset their routine because no one else does this.... Vary your routine during matches. Show all forehand on returns. Change the number of ball bounces during serving. Get up close to the serve line. Delay your net attack and then go. Play inside the baseline during rallies. Change up your pace and spin and depth. Try the lull game. Try the serve/volley game. Hit some soft kick serves. Try the flat attack or the high ball to the back hand. Find out what works the best against him and then stab it into the jugular over and over again until you win the match.