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 tennis shots 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.
