A New Teaching System: The Forehand Keying Process

[gzhpcu]

John, it was me. Do not know why I showed up as guest!

[johnyandell]

Guest, You didn't login in but thanks!!

Some persons are talented. Like Pancho Gonzales, Roger Federer. Ivanisevic when asked about his serve, just said "I toss the ball up and hit it". Some players have the tennis player DNA, others have to work very hard. We are all different, what works for one person may not work for someone else. Having said that, I believe John's visual tennis concept works very well for the majority.

In addition to visual tennis, the articles on biomechanics are very interesting to understand how the body functions when hitting a stroke. Reading them will help you understand and raise your awareness of the critical points to try and watch when, say, Federer plays.

For most of us, it is an endless quest and the journey to get there is intriguing.

Thank you John, for the best site on tennis on the internet.

[hockeyscout]

HS,
I've been wrong before. But if you are right on those points you will have overthrown the biomechanics of how the body currently works. If you do I want to film that in high speed...

Racket drop, internal rotation on serve, wiper finish are areas of value for you ... but, for me other aspects are of more importance.

I agree with hockey scout on the concept of a "fast eye" that a coach develops. However, a coach is comparing what he sees with the template he chooses from the stored images in his brain's library. Sometimes the library of images are too narrow or at a too high level of performance to use as an effective template comparison. In these instances, high speed video would be especially useful.

[johnyandell]

HS,
I've been wrong before. But if you are right on those points you will have overthrown the biomechanics of how the body currently works. If you do I want to film that in high speed...

[johnyandell]

Kyle, Ha! We have to film him when I am down next. Great jumper no matter what he thinks now...

[klacr]

So we can agree to disagree. Time and time again I have sat with coaches who thought they saw things or didn't see things only to find that high speed video showed them a different version of reality. The contact point is just an example of the problem of human perception. You can't see the racket drop or the internal rotation on the serve or the wiper on the forehand--the list goes on for every stroke. But if you don't care about contact then you don't care about the one moment that matters most.
I will agree with you about sugar--although I don't recall who said what about that when-- it's poison! But the point about visual learning--undoubtedly how the great players learned in the past--there your fellow poster is on sound experiential and scientific ground. Your accountant story is irrelevant (and very long...) Here is one for you. When I learned to shoot a turn around jump shot I just watched Bob McAdoo.

Bob McAdoo is a member of my club. Great guy. His daughter Rashida plays at tennis team at Georgia Tech. She's a big ball striker. Bob loves his tennis more than basketball, but struggles with the serve.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

The racket drop, internal rotation on serve, wiper finish - those are just not important aspects to be me. The moment you value, is likely polar opposite to what I value. MY philosophy and theories on how a young player should hit a ball that fly in the face of convention. You guys will likely hate the way my kids play. But, it may be an advantage for them later if there style is anti-tennis, who knows.

[johnyandell]

So we can agree to disagree. Time and time again I have sat with coaches who thought they saw things or didn't see things only to find that high speed video showed them a different version of reality. The contact point is just an example of the problem of human perception. You can't see the racket drop or the internal rotation on the serve or the wiper on the forehand--the list goes on for every stroke. But if you don't care about contact then you don't care about the one moment that matters most.
I will agree with you about sugar--although I don't recall who said what about that when-- it's poison! But the point about visual learning--undoubtedly how the great players learned in the past--there your fellow poster is on sound experiential and scientific ground. Your accountant story is irrelevant (and very long...) Here is one for you. When I learned to shoot a turn around jump shot I just watched Bob McAdoo.

[johnyandell]

Hockey Scout,

When you call respected coaches "nuts" and make comments such as:

"Its called a fast eye. Every good athlete and coach has it, 100 percent. Can't say I need slow motion. I see it. I know other coaches who have coached good athletes who read scenarios quickly. Its an ability - to you the game is fast, but, to those who have put in the work its painfully slow."

You are revealing more about yourself than you realize...

The human eye films 20 frames/sec. Ten times too slow to see the contact in tennis. As Stotty points out great players and great coaches in tennis figured things out. How many others didn't?

It's a contradiction to laud these researchers in other sports and then claim that the tools that the next generation is using are not necessary.

[hockeyscout]

With the inability to play these kinds of volleys, they can not effectively utilize a serve and volley strategy... and don't! The predominant sentiment (just my opinion) is that the current ground strokes are too fast and too heavy to effectively volley... and that's true with the level and style of technique that players have in their front court games today.

don

Mentality is a major problem ... frankly, I see a lot of coaches (if they call themselves that) and parents with there heads in the clouds (dreamers) saying everyone has a wonderful left arm raise, and there son has a world class backhand. They are only kidding themselves.

Hypothetically tennis_chiro, if you had people who were balanced and willing to work, what would you specifically do to develop that type of game.

It'd be interested in your thoughts - its always nice to see you post here as I respect your thoughts.

[stotty]

In my view, very sadly, the technique Henman utilizes on the the bh volley is almost completely absent among today's pro singles players. They all tend to use the much higher and bigger backswing that Federer uses. As a result they are at a great disadvantage when trying to make the shot Henman demonstrates in the last shot in his Backhand Volley archive:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...tLevelSide.mov

Furthermore they are unable to execute the short stroke volleys he demonstrates here:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...evelFront1.mov

With the inability to play these kinds of volleys, they can not effectively utilize a serve and volley strategy... and don't! The predominant sentiment (just my opinion) is that the current ground strokes are too fast and too heavy to effectively volley... and that's true with the level and style of technique that players have in their front court games today.

don

Nice post.

Tim Henman's high backhand volley is one of the best I've seen, especially the type that borders on a backhand smash, but not quite. That shot is really tough but Tim could stick them away with real velocity.

I used to love watching Tim. He was the last great volleyer. He relied on his volleys because his groundies lacked penetration compared to Agassi and other top players around at that time.

He was unlucky in that 2001 Wimbledon semi with Goran. Tim had that match all won and dusted. Goran's game had completely collapsed. Then it rained. The match went on to be played over three days because the rain delays were so bad. Goran became a different player and eventually won in five. He went on to beat Rafter in the final.

Stotty

[gzhpcu]

Humbug.

Merry Christmas to you. 😊

[tennis_chiro]

I'm so glad you said this. A quick run through the 15 videos in the backhand volley section of Tin Henman in the stroke archive isn't going to hurt anybody and will greatly help volleyers of a certain persuasion and may give complete beginners who are tabula rasa a nice idea.

In my view, very sadly, the technique Henman utilizes on the the bh volley is almost completely absent among today's pro singles players. They all tend to use the much higher and bigger backswing that Federer uses. As a result they are at a great disadvantage when trying to make the shot Henman demonstrates in the last shot in his Backhand Volley archive:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/timhenman/th_volley_overhead/th_backhand_volley/th_backhand_volley.html?THBHVCourtLevelSide.mov

Furthermore they are unable to execute the short stroke volleys he demonstrates here:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/timhenman/th_volley_overhead/th_backhand_volley/th_backhand_volley.html?THBHVCourtLevelFront1.mov

With the inability to play these kinds of volleys, they can not effectively utilize a serve and volley strategy... and don't! The predominant sentiment (just my opinion) is that the current ground strokes are too fast and too heavy to effectively volley... and that's true with the level and style of technique that players have in their front court games today.

don