forehand lesson

[bowt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWQHF31Vhro

what do you think of this video?

I never seen this info anywhere

[tennis_chiro]

Interesting and possibly even relevant, but they seem to be unaware or at least unconcerned with the much more important influence of a correct SSC, from which the action they are trying to create artificially would almost certainly devevelop automatically and naturally with a little feel for the ball. Also the importance of hitting through the ball with proper extension which Federer does so well.

don

[johnyandell]

It could be great. But I can't stand to watch this stuff from them.

[bottle]

bot to bowt

great

Can't hurt to know this much, particularly about slowness of the twist from lower and upper halves of the arm. I find the claim that this action is about positioning not power a little hard to believe since it is about both.

The strings are already moving fast from another twist, the twist of the arm around the bod. Racket head speed therefore will increase by simple math through the slightest additive.

But aren't the axle-like twists the instructors are having the kid mime at the beginning of the video the same famous ISR that everybody talks about so much on the serve where it is considered a tsunami?

This emphasis on speed of ISR-- in serving instruction-- is apt to corrupt somebody trying to improve his forehand and cause him to spin his racket too fast with the result that he doesn't properly sand the ball.

That said, Don is right about SSC. He wants a greater emphasis on SSC because he is a great teacher. But the folks in the film, I would submit, have a good defense, viz., the kid already has good SSC and they are just presenting one piece in a puzzle.

[klacr]

I went to college with Ian and we graduated from the same program. He's been doing this essential tennis stuff for a while now. Tennis lessons on youtube are always awkward to watch, the fact that its coming from a guy like Ian makes it surreal. He was a good lefty serve and volleyer back in his playing days.

Numerous things happening in this man's stroke and sure the SSC may be one issue, but don't think any of it should involve a full on production.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[bottle]

Sunday Morning

Already I've driven to my self-feed court to try these ideas out, shopped on the way home, am ready to write.

Twisting the racket in this slow, smooth, mechanical AND organic way can get it perfectly parallel to the court at contact every time.

The combination event of racket face progressing from beveled to square also is slow and interesting, especially since the arm is traveling really fast while that happens.

The compass setting of the racket at contact-- more toward sharp crosscourts-- is one result, but another is GOOD RASP on the ball.

Me, I couldn't care less where my tennis information comes from-- let it be from anyplace.

If I owned a full instructional website like TennisPlayer.net I'm sure I'd be very loyal and even biased toward it.

But that is not my boat. Even though I do carry some pro-Tennis Player bias myself, almost have to.

One has to be open-minded if one wants to be a student of the game.

Good ideas can and do come at any time from anywhere including from old college chums and bowt in Australia, and I personally am grateful to him for bringing my attention to these ones.

[bottle]

A Second Trip to the Court

Yes, the construction of the human shoulder allows the arm to slowly twist axle-like in its socket while accelerating around the rotating bod ahead of the bod.

[bottle]

And Now You Learn the Full Extent of my Sedition

My two Sunday trips to my self-feed court were pure fiction. I made them up.

When I actually made it to the court, at 11 a.m., I found that everything I dreamt was true.

[faultsnaces]

Surely if they spent some time analyzing Fed's swing, they could have found some video that didn't show an off-center contact?! Look at 1:52 in the vid: the ball embeds in the strings way too far off center out to the top edge of the racket, and this causes a pretty huge twist reaction -- the lower edge of the racket visibly jumps forwards, so that the racket is inclined very open to the net. Obviously not a shining example of the Fed FH, so why on earth pick this example? (And let's also point out that this was obviously a Fed practice session, so even perfect hit may not actually have any correlation to the way Fed really hits.)

-frank

[bottle]

Surely if they spent some time analyzing Fed's swing, they could have found some video that didn't show an off-center contact?! Look at 1:52 in the vid: the ball embeds in the strings way too far off center out to the top edge of the racket, and this causes a pretty huge twist reaction -- the lower edge of the racket visibly jumps forwards, so that the racket is inclined very open to the net. Obviously not a shining example of the Fed FH, so why on earth pick this example? (And let's also point out that this was obviously a Fed practice session, so even perfect hit may not actually have any correlation to the way Fed really hits.)

-frank

Yeah, but it's the idea content that matters, as I discovered when I went to court.

[stotty]

I have mixed feeling about the video: Does the teaching method actually work? We don't really know the before and after scenario. Does Phil walk away with a better forehand two months down the line?

I doubt this piecemeal, teaching methodology with video analysis works that well, if at all. More likely it creates havoc for the student to know too much detail. I doubt Roger went through such an ordeal to learn his forehand in the first place.

In my experience it's coach intuition that gets the student from A to B. It's about not about explaining the biomechanics. A good coach finds a way to hit those key positions by sheer coaching skill and the less he says to get there, the better. You don't need to explain the hand, arm and racket rotations on a serve, for example, to create them.

It's common these days for coaches to "show off" their biomechanical knowledge, which I find irritating. Video analysis is really useful but not in that kind of context.

I like Ian's confidence. He's clearly got bags of that. He's supremely confident he is right.

What I like most about Tennisplayer is it's an ongoing body of work and I never feel like I am being sold something. It has a feel about it that puts tennis first and earning money second. This is why I trust and respect Tennisplayer from the bottom of my guts...and why I can never trust Youtube.

[johnyandell]

Stotty,
In your polite English way I think you are on to Ian.

[gzhpcu]

Tennisplayer is so good because John does his job. Only what makes sense gets published. Not like the old Tennisone site which was a hodge podge of articles. Thanks John!

[johnyandell]

Well I forced myself to watch part of it--knew there was a reason I didn't want to. It suffers from The One Example Fallacy. The Roger clip has the racket at certain angles--those are not commonalities and vary substantially--and the variations include the angles that Westerman says the guy needs to change. I wonder what he paid for that "input"???

[stotty]

Well I forced myself to watch part of it--knew there was a reason I didn't want to. It suffers from The One Example Fallacy. The Roger clip has the racket at certain angles--those are not commonalities and vary substantially--and the variations include the angles that Westerman says the guy needs to change. I wonder what he paid for that "input"???

It's funny because after watching the clip I went to the archive (as you do) to watch dozens of Roger's forehand. I came to the same conclusion, the variance is significant. Another thing worth noting is the balls were fed in higher so the student couldn't help but meet the goal.