John's Legacy:
Visual Tennis

By Jeff Counts

In 1988, John released his breakthrough instructional video, "The Winning Edge". It was one of the first tennis instructional videos to use clear slow-motion video and stop-action footage of top professional players (John McEnroe and Ivan Lendl, no less) as a way to teach the game. Not only is that video awash in sequence after sequence of effortless ball striking in slow motion, but it's also set to music. As Mac and Lendl punch volley after volley, the Cars' "Shake It Up" pulses in the background, capturing the rhythm of high-level tennis (Click Here).

If you bought the video to improve your game, you'd be forgiven for thinking, "This is really fun to watch, but where's the instruction?" And it's true—there is no verbal instruction. "Use this grip." "Take your racket back early." "Follow through!" None of that here. But that was the secret sauce. John's brilliance was in understanding that the verbal, tip-based instruction that dominated (and still dominates) tennis instruction is not how human beings learn complex motor skills. (Click here for The Myth of the Tip.)

The "Lecture" Approach

This insight became crystal clear to me years ago, though I didn't realize how important it was at the time. I was standing on the court, waiting for my hitting partner to show up, when a group lesson for beginners started on the court next to me.

The instructor kicked things off with what I thought was a really impressive overview of the serve. He talked about advanced concepts like the kinetic chain and pronation—things you typically hear in high-level coaching. It was clear he knew his stuff, and the students listened intently, nodding along like it was all clicking. I was honestly impressed with this coach's technical knowledge.

But then came the moment of truth.

He lined everyone up on the baseline and told them to serve. And what followed looked like something out of a comedy sketch. Tosses flying over heads. Racquets swinging at air. Balls bouncing everywhere except over the net. It wasn't that the students were bad—they were beginners, after all. It was the contrast that struck me: the polished, highly technical lecture followed by total chaos on the court.

That's when it hit me—something is seriously broken in the way we approach teaching motors skills to students.

And that was just one of many examples that intrigued and frustrated me. Examples where I saw teachers teaching physical skills the same way a professor would lecture to a bunch of students sitting in a classroom.

I remember another time when I was hitting, and on the next court, a private lesson was going on. Same pattern, but to me, even more frustrating than the serving "lesson". The instructor would feed a few balls, the student would hit them back, and almost immediately, the coach would stop the session, call the guy to the net, and start lecturing—for ten solid minutes. Then back to the baseline for a few more balls, back to the net for another lecture. Over and over. Somehow this poor guy was supposed to absorb a mini-lecture, go back to the baseline, and turn it into a rhythmic, technically sound stroke.

Watching that, it felt like an exercise in futility—and honestly, a colossal waste of money. There had to be a better way, but nobody was doing it differently. Until John Yandell.

Visual Tennis

The Winning Edge was just the opposite of the lecture approach. Instead of a barrage of words, this was purely visual. And it was rhythmic. As you watch The Winning Edge, you get an immediate sense of the timing, the rhythm, and the shape of high-level strokes in a way no verbal description could ever capture. You can just feel Lendl's windup in his backswing as he hits his forehand in slow motion. The shoulder turn, the left arm stretch, the timing of the stroke, and yes, the extension and follow-through—all of it gets absorbed like osmosis as you watch. You just *feel* what these guys are doing.

In 1990, two years after The Winning Edge, John published his book Visual Tennis, where he outlined his theory of visual learning.

The frustration many players experience in traditional tennis lessons stems from the way lessons deliver information, primarily through detailed verbal descriptions of technique. This is not the way most players learn. The preference of most learners is for precise visual demonstrations, the opportunity to involve the body directly in learning, and, especially, the opportunity to evaluate the learning process by reference to clear models.

John's insight back in the late 80s wasn't based on known science. It was just something he experienced himself—as well as something other players frequently expressed. It was anecdotal, but undeniable. And he filmed The Winning Edge and wrote Visual Tennis based on his own experience of visual learning.

Mirror Neurons

In 1992, four years after The Winning Edge and two years after Visual Tennis, a breakthrough study was published in the journal Experimental Brain Research. A group of Italian researchers, led by Giacomo Rizzolatti at the University of Parma, were studying the premotor cortex of macaque monkeys.

The researchers had electrodes implanted in the monkeys' brains to record activity in individual neurons while the monkeys performed certain actions—like reaching for a peanut. But then, something unexpected happened. When a researcher in the lab reached for a peanut—not the monkey—some of the same neurons in the monkey's brain fired, as if the monkey were doing the action itself.

This was the first evidence of mirror neurons—cells that respond both when an animal performs an action and when it observes someone else performing it. And it was hard scientific proof that supported John's video and his book. But it was relegated to an academic journal that only researchers would know about.

In May 2006, the cover of Scientific American Mind caught my eye. The headline read, "Human See, Human Do. Brain Cells That Mirror Actions We See Are Key to Learning, Empathy, Even Culture." It was about "mirror neurons". I tore through that article, realizing that with the discovery of mirror neurons, we now had proof that "visual learning" was not just anecdotal, but biological.

The discovery of this mechanism, made about a decade ago, suggests that everything we watch someone else do, we do as well—in our minds. At its most basic, this finding means we mentally rehearse or imitate every action we witness, whether it is a somersault or a subtle smile. It explains much about how we learn to smile, talk, walk, dance—or play tennis.

So when you watch that clip of Ivan Lendl above, you aren't just watching with your eyes. Your brain—through mirror neurons in the motor cortex—is firing as if you are imitating Lendl's motion. You can feel your arm and racket go back in the same looping motion. You can feel your left arm stretching out. In your mind, you can't help but imitate Lendl's swing because your mirror neurons are firing.

Now think about the poor student who kept getting called to the net to hear a stream of words come out of the instructor's mouth. Or the group of beginners listening to a 15-minute talk about torso rotation, elbow extension, and pronation. There is no visual model to imitate. Mirror neurons lie dormant as your thinking brain tries to interpret a sequence of words—words that can't come close to capturing the rhythm, timing, and shape of the stroke that your brain would pick up instantly by glancing at a slow-motion clip of a professional stroke.

John's Legacy

We have John Yandell to thank for bringing Visual Tennis to the world—not just through his groundbreaking book and instructional videos, but through Tennisplayer.net. For over two decades, he traveled the globe, captured the game's greatest strokes, and built the most comprehensive visual archive in tennis history.

His vast catalog of articles covering every technical element of the game, filled with slow motion clips to demonstrate his deep technical insight (click here), are a treasure trove for future generations.

John's work lets us see, feel, and absorb the game the way our brains were built to learn it—through the eye, through motion, and through the timeless power of imitation.

So when you watch, don't just watch. Study. Mirror. Become. That's Visual Tennis. That's John Yandell's legacy.