Resistance to Videotaping

[doctorhl]

Forum readers are well aware of the power of videotape for players to compare themselves to whatever template they are trying to copy. At times, I offer to conduct high speed taping of athletes in tennis( as well as in other sports) for free. I even offer to not interpret the taping lest I encroach on the students or coaches knowledge base( which is usually no where near the level we discuss on the forum).Have any of you encountered this resistance?I know setup time to tape may be problematic, but why the resistance? As good a site as this is, it's power is limited if players/coaches resist self taping to help players see how their mental imagery matches their chosen model.

[gzhpcu]

I like videotaping my games. It has helped me a lot. In my club, no pro videotapes their students. I then pull the clips onto my iPad and study them using the Hudl app.

[faultsnaces]

Interesting subject.

Years ago, I was trying to launch a startup that revolved around tennis video for amateurs; I'm actually still interested in this. But I saw a lot of dis-interest and even a bit of pushback. My conclusion is that in general, most amateur and less-serious players prefer to stick with their mental image of themselves, regardless of the likely inaccuracy.

And specifically at the amateur level, tennis is less (or not at all) about improvement, and much more about social aspects - and that includes lessons. Big subject, that.

-frank

[johnyandell]

The initiative has to come from the player or the coach.

[gzhpcu]

Interesting subject.
But I saw a lot of dis-interest and even a bit of pushback. My conclusion is that in general, most amateur and less-serious players prefer to stick with their mental image of themselves, regardless of the likely inaccuracy.

And specifically at the amateur level, tennis is less (or not at all) about improvement, and much more about social aspects - and that includes lessons. Big subject, that.

-frank

That is spot on. My friends are happy to play and never think of improving. The persons I see also want to play a set with the pro, who deliberately holds back to give the student the impression he/she is playing well and can go back to the clubhouse and boast "I got a couple of games off the pro today...".


Luckily, I have a Norwegian friend who thinks as I do, and we train a lot together to improve (an endless quest IMHO). That is why I have been a member of this site for so long. To gain inspiration for improvement. John wrote a book "Visual Tennis" quite some years ago, and since having read it, I am sold on the visual aspect. You need a mental image of what you want the stroke you are working on should look like, then you need video analysis to help you achieve the goal.

You often think you have changed something, but the video shows that you have not. Muscle memory is tenacious, especially the older you get and have been playing a certain stroke in a certain way for many years. Yet, it can be done.

[don_budge]

I've never been so curious as to video my strokes. I do have some 8mm film of me playing doubles with Don Budge though. The real benefit of video is the ability to analyze the Roger Federer game...strokes. Being able to see yourself surely must have some benefit but I am a great believer in "feel". I've never had my golf swing video either. As in tennis I believe that golf is a game of feel as well.

Visualizing is an important process. I don't know if you absolutely need video to do this. Perhaps this is an "old fashioned" approach but I am not ready to concede that it is inferior. It is simply another means to the end.

[EdWeiss]

Video of you playing doubles with Don Budge? That would be great to see!! Maybe Mr. Yandell can provide the needed technological help!

[johnyandell]

DB,
Get it transferred to an mp4

[don_budge]

Interesting subject.

Years ago, I was trying to launch a startup that revolved around tennis video for amateurs; I'm actually still interested in this. But I saw a lot of dis-interest and even a bit of pushback. My conclusion is that in general, most amateur and less-serious players prefer to stick with their mental image of themselves, regardless of the likely inaccuracy.

And specifically at the amateur level, tennis is less (or not at all) about improvement, and much more about social aspects - and that includes lessons. Big subject, that.

-frank

Fascinating faultsnaces. It's amazing how different approaches work. All roads lead to Rome? I have always approached the games of tennis and golf as games of feel. Truly games of feel. Communicating to the student as to what they want to feel and getting that precise result is truly an amazing journey. I have never used video except on one or two haphazard occasions in my teaching. I know I am old school. A bit stubborn too in this regard.

One thing I certainly like to avoid is imitation. I don't like my students to mimic. I want to see them arrive at their own conclusion...with my gentle prodding of course.

[tennis_chiro]

I began videotaping students way back when it was videotape, actually at first in the 60's and in my Tennis Academy in Grand Central station in the early 1970's. The equipment was very cumbersome then and it was an anomaly that few people had seen. I tried to establish a videotaping system with an early portable system that had some slow motion replay on it in about 1975. We couldn't fence-mount those cameras and there wasn't much demand anyway, but I did use it in my tennis camps. I traded that system to Harry Hopman for a couple of extra weeks at his tennis camp at the Bardmoor in 1978. Even at that camp at the time, he didn't have a recording system. Then I got another portable VHS system in 1985 which I used in the few private lessons I did at the time, but I was going through chiropractic school and didn't teach that many lessons anyway. All this time, two things were clear: almost everyone has very poor kinesthetic imagery and they are not really doing what they think they are doing; they need the feedback they get to see what they are really doing if they really want to make significant changes (JY knows that pretty well.) And second, beyond the initial curiosity and fascination, except for the rare student, most people don't care much about seeing themselves on video much beyond that initial curiosity. I was always using it myself, to help myself; in more recent years, that was with my golf game.

In my most recent effort back into teaching since 2002, I have made a more concerted effort to use videotape (and discs, etc) with my students. The equipment and the "handicams" made the process much more manageable and the ability to give students a disc with their video for a material cost of about 50 cents made it much more realistic. So I started recording "before videos" of all my students at their first lessons. In 1998 or 1999 I had procured one of the camcorders that recorded on MiniDV and had a 4" viewfinder that you could use to immediately display the recorded video. I was using that to record pro matches of the players I was trying to recruit to come play Huggy Bears. At first, those cameras were not digital and then they went to digital and it got easier to manage and transfer to other media for my students. But initially, I would record the matches and then go home and transfer the matches using a Windows based desktop computer to a DVD that I could give to the players. I actually recorded the match at Indian Wells that moved Jared Palmer to #1 on the ATP computer and I was able to give Jared a copy of that match when I saw him a week later at Key Biscayne. Imagine: a semifinal doubles match at Indian Wells and there was no recording of the match. Subsequent to that, I finally got Jared to come play Huggy Bears. That wasn't the reason he came, but it was part of my whole shtick to get myself closer to the players... and it worked pretty well.

I continued to video my students and try all manner of attempts to get a better way to play back the video on the court. Portable monitors and bigger monitors or shields and shades so I could see the monitors on a sunny tennis court. Part of the problem was I was not at a private club or court wehre I could set up a permanent viewing area; I had to roll it out for every lesson. I bought one portable tool cabinet for $600 that sits in my garage now because I planned to put a big monitor on it and roll it out on the court and have all manner of extension courts coming out of it, but it was always more trouble than it was worth. I even bought a special 29" used monitor ($5000 new reduced on eBay to about $500 used) because I hoped to be able to use it as a touch screen on the court with that big rolling cart, but it didn't work. Then things got a lot better in 2009 when Casio came out with high speed video for the first time (faster than the standard 30 fps). Now you could actually see what was happening on a 3" monitor at 220 or 440 fps. That really made video much more effective as I'm sure JY can testify. Before that Casio camera, you had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a motion capture system that could get you more than 30 fps. Unfortunately, about the same time, I seemed to stop getting the same kind of elite students that I had in 2006 -2008. Still, I made the effort to do my "before videos" and use video to try to get students to see what they were doing.

One of my great frustrations is that I give students a copy of their "before videos" and a significant library of links to videos I've made as well as videos of lots of pros as well as referring those students to Tennisplayer for their free month of membership; it takes me a not insignificant amount of time to capture those videos and send them to my students via a streaming service; often, they don't even bother to take the few minutes to download the videos. I don't understand this mentality. Someone is paying me hundreds of dollars for their tennis lessons and I'm giving them high quality high speed videos of what they are doing as well as the corrections and examples of what they need to do and they don't even bother to download the video Drives me nuts. I want them to look at the video in QuickTime where they can go through the videos frame by frame and really see what is happening. Of course, some students are diligent, but most barely look at the videos.

So now, I just record the videos with my iPhone 6Plus and immediately text message the videos to them on their phones. I have an expensive camera system for videotaping matches and I put out a couple of thousand dollars to get the advanced Dartfish system so I could tag matches, but there was no real market for the service. My camera records 60 fps at high resolution (you can actually zoom in on the far baseline to see in a call was good or not), but people don't care. They can stick their cameras or phones on a fencepost and record the match for themselves and they don't want to pay for the analytical work that it takes to tag and analyze what's actually going on in a match.

I'm really curious what the real future will be for the Playsight systems that are getting installed at high end tennis centers. So far, what I see is the systems are barely used at all and if they are not used by a lot more people all of these places that are installing them are going to find out the revenue that was projected from membership for using the systems is highly overestimated. By and large, tennis pros are geared to walking out with a basket of balls and their racket and are not used to using technology. (I'm being kind.) Furthermore, if you take the racket out of their hands and they don't have to feed, most of them have very little value to add and they are lost. KLACR may have a better handle on this with all the testing he does, but my sense from watching the people I see giving lessons is that the pro who understands the models and theories taken apart and discussed on Tennisplayer is the rare exception.

don

[don_budge]

I began videotaping students way back when it was videotape, actually at first in the 60's and in my Tennis Academy in Grand Central station in the early 1970's. The equipment was very cumbersome then and it was an anomaly that few people had seen. I tried to establish a videotaping system with an early portable system that had some slow motion replay on it in about 1975. We couldn't fence-mount those cameras and there wasn't much demand anyway, but I did use it in my tennis camps. I traded that system to Harry Hopman for a couple of extra weeks at his tennis camp at the Bardmoor in 1978. Even at that camp at the time, he didn't have a recording system. Then I got another portable VHS system in 1985 which I used in the few private lessons I did at the time, but I was going through chiropractic school and didn't teach that many lessons anyway. All this time, two things were clear: almost everyone has very poor kinesthetic imagery and they are not really doing what they think they are doing; they need the feedback they get to see what they are really doing if they really want to make significant changes (JY knows that pretty well.) And second, beyond the initial curiosity and fascination, except for the rare student, most people don't care much about seeing themselves on video much beyond that initial curiosity. I was always using it myself, to help myself; in more recent years, that was with my golf game.

In my most recent effort back into teaching since 2002, I have made a more concerted effort to use videotape (and discs, etc) with my students. The equipment and the "handicams" made the process much more manageable and the ability to give students a disc with their video for a material cost of about 50 cents made it much more realistic. So I started recording "before videos" of all my students at their first lessons. In 1998 or 1999 I had procured one of the camcorders that recorded on MiniDV and had a 4" viewfinder that you could use to immediately display the recorded video. I was using that to record pro matches of the players I was trying to recruit to come play Huggy Bears. At first, those cameras were not digital and then they went to digital and it got easier to manage and transfer to other media for my students. But initially, I would record the matches and then go home and transfer the matches using a Windows based desktop computer to a DVD that I could give to the players. I actually recorded the match at Indian Wells that moved Jared Palmer to #1 on the ATP computer and I was able to give Jared a copy of that match when I saw him a week later at Key Biscayne. Imagine: a semifinal doubles match at Indian Wells and there was no recording of the match. Subsequent to that, I finally got Jared to come play Huggy Bears. That wasn't the reason he came, but it was part of my whole shtick to get myself closer to the players... and it worked pretty well.

I continued to video my students and try all manner of attempts to get a better way to play back the video on the court. Portable monitors and bigger monitors or shields and shades so I could see the monitors on a sunny tennis court. Part of the problem was I was not at a private club or court wehre I could set up a permanent viewing area; I had to roll it out for every lesson. I bought one portable tool cabinet for $600 that sits in my garage now because I planned to put a big monitor on it and roll it out on the court and have all manner of extension courts coming out of it, but it was always more trouble than it was worth. I even bought a special 29" used monitor ($5000 new reduced on eBay to about $500 used) because I hoped to be able to use it as a touch screen on the court with that big rolling cart, but it didn't work. Then things got a lot better in 2009 when Casio came out with high speed video for the first time (faster than the standard 30 fps). Now you could actually see what was happening on a 3" monitor at 220 or 440 fps. That really made video much more effective as I'm sure JY can testify. Before that Casio camera, you had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a motion capture system that could get you more than 30 fps. Unfortunately, about the same time, I seemed to stop getting the same kind of elite students that I had in 2006 -2008. Still, I made the effort to do my "before videos" and use video to try to get students to see what they were doing.

One of my great frustrations is that I give students a copy of their "before videos" and a significant library of links to videos I've made as well as videos of lots of pros as well as referring those students to Tennisplayer for their free month of membership; it takes me a not insignificant amount of time to capture those videos and send them to my students via a streaming service; often, they don't even bother to take the few minutes to download the videos. I don't understand this mentality. Someone is paying me hundreds of dollars for their tennis lessons and I'm giving them high quality high speed videos of what they are doing as well as the corrections and examples of what they need to do and they don't even bother to download the video Drives me nuts. I want them to look at the video in QuickTime where they can go through the videos frame by frame and really see what is happening. Of course, some students are diligent, but most barely look at the videos.

So now, I just record the videos with my iPhone 6Plus and immediately text message the videos to them on their phones. I have an expensive camera system for videotaping matches and I put out a couple of thousand dollars to get the advanced Dartfish system so I could tag matches, but there was no real market for the service. My camera records 60 fps at high resolution (you can actually zoom in on the far baseline to see in a call was good or not), but people don't care. They can stick their cameras or phones on a fencepost and record the match for themselves and they don't want to pay for the analytical work that it takes to tag and analyze what's actually going on in a match.

I'm really curious what the real future will be for the Playsight systems that are getting installed at high end tennis centers. So far, what I see is the systems are barely used at all and if they are not used by a lot more people all of these places that are installing them are going to find out the revenue that was projected from membership for using the systems is highly overestimated. By and large, tennis pros are geared to walking out with a basket of balls and their racket and are not used to using technology. (I'm being kind.) Furthermore, if you take the racket out of their hands and they don't have to feed, most of them have very little value to add and they are lost. KLACR may have a better handle on this with all the testing he does, but my sense from watching the people I see giving lessons is that the pro who understands the models and theories taken apart and discussed on Tennisplayer is the rare exception.

don

Sort of validates my point. The video that you have posted here on the forum has been of great interest to the teachers and helps us on an educational level. I wonder how much students actually take away from video of themselves. I wonder how much the effort is really worth in the end. I imagine that it varies from student to student. I have yet to hear from students that swear by it.

The most value of the video process is for the coach. Perhaps the coach that is lugging out the video should be lugging the racquet and balls. My partner loves to get out his video device and I, in turn, love to hear his implausible interpretations of the students strokes. I cringe when he is talking to the ones that I am working with. I have to undo. I have an eye for things...and the ability to make myself understood in detail. I use a mirror...a very large mirror I had installed on the side of the court indoors. This is a valuable device...a valuable teaching aid.

With all of the fabulous technology there hasn't been any improvement in the sport of tennis. Actually there has been a huge decline. It has been a long period of devolution and engineering that has led us to the point we are at. The post Roger Federer culmination point. We'll see what happens. I am excited to have gotten a couple of kids to the point where I can get them to serve and volley.

"Follow the second one in too...you have to be a bit fatalistic!!!"

"You've got a great service motion...use it! It will only get better."

"That's ok...you are going to get beat serving and volleying. You must keep the pressure on though."

"Go forwards Young Man!"

Tennis is great fun played this way. It's fun to pit these three players who have bought in against those that don't.

Never video'd any of them. Well...maybe once or twice. They don't seem to have suffered for it. None expect to play on the pro tour and never have. They are all students of the game...nominally of course. They aren't full in. But they really seem to be having fun...by being different.

[don_budge]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xander_Schauffele

Xander Schauffele...23 year old American golfer. He won the Tour Championship last weekend. Son of a German/French immigrant father and Taiwanese/Japanese immigrant mother. Never saw a video of his swing until the age of 18.

"Schauffele's father has been his only swing coach throughout his golf career.^[1] The Schauffele teaching philosophy relies heavily on basic ball flight laws – as a result Schauffele had not seen his own swing until about age 18."

There is more than one way to skin a cat. I certainly wouldn't discount the value of video for some. But then I never say I agree or disagree. It's a very interesting thread...that much is true.

[stotty]

A great post by doctorhi.

What a great response and excellent comments.

Lots of things about the past confound the future in coaching.

- in the past myths were taught but most world-class players turned out fine
- in the past there was no high-speed video but most world-class players turned out fine

So perhaps coaches aren't as important as many think. It's mostly about the player. The really good ones figure things out for themselves.

But then perhaps Murray hasn't figured things out as well as Roger, so needs a little help. This is where coaching is so helpful. A tiny tweak in the right direction can make all the difference.

So who does video analysis help the most? I will tell you who. It helps the guy doing something fatally wrong in a stroke who cannot recognise it himself, the guy who is convinced he is doing one thing but in fact doing quite another. Videoing presents a eureka moment for that guy.

But perhaps most of all it aids coaches' understanding of the game. And through skill and coaching intuition the coach can encourage the right things to a happen. For me this is video analysis at its best. The best coaching you ever do is when the student is mostly, or even completely, unaware of it.

Too much video analysis can clutter a player up and make them too obsessed. A bit like my second in command who is a good-looking fellow and can never pass a mirror or even a reflection without taking a look. Sometimes it's better, in vanity or tennis, to just forget yourself and get on with it.

[klacr]

I'm really curious what the real future will be for the Playsight systems that are getting installed at high end tennis centers. So far, what I see is the systems are barely used at all and if they are not used by a lot more people all of these places that are installing them are going to find out the revenue that was projected from membership for using the systems is highly overestimated. By and large, tennis pros are geared to walking out with a basket of balls and their racket and are not used to using technology. (I'm being kind.) Furthermore, if you take the racket out of their hands and they don't have to feed, most of them have very little value to add and they are lost. KLACR may have a better handle on this with all the testing he does, but my sense from watching the people I see giving lessons is that the pro who understands the models and theories taken apart and discussed on Tennisplayer is the rare exception.

don

Excellent points Don and I agree. The USTA national campus has numerous playsight courts, having been there numerous times for different business meetings/ventures guess how many times I have seen it used? if you guessed zero you would be correct.

Being in the trenches...

For a sport that has relied so heavily on racquet and string technology to bring the game to the modern age, the culture of tennis teaching professionals has remained very rooted in the past. Stepping on court with a racquet and teaching basket and slinging balls across the net is the status quo. When I test, I see a very dogmatic and predictable approach not just in the teaching styles but also in the words, advice and instruction given. Very rarely does a teacher capture the students interest with a genuine methodology and/or proper information to get students to see the light.

Video technology is great for students, another breakthrough is the use of the ball machine. Friend and fellow USPTA professional Stan Oley travels the country promoting and showcasing the thrills and advantages of using the playmate ball machine in all of its versions. From being close to the student to see the details to just saving the professional from the physical toll it takes slinging balls. He gives a great presentation and has embraced technology as a means to improve the current teaching standard. Videotape and ball machines still do not get the play or accolades I feel they deserve. Nothing wrong with not using them, but as a competitor and an athlete, wouldn't the student or we as the coaches not want to use something that may help us? It can't hurt...can it?

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[gzhpcu]

Stotty, the talented do not need too much coaching: things come naturally. Goran comes to mind, asked how he serves, he said simply "I toss the ball up and hit it...". Sampras once said he wanted no analysis of his strokes, as it would only confuse him.

the less gifted, who still would like to improve their strokes (like me...) can benefit from video analysis...