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| Welcome to the June 2017 update from Tennis Server, http://www.tennisserver.com/
Greetings,
In our June edition of Tennis Server, Ron Waite discusses how to rapidly improve your game by breaking from tradition and finding what works best for you, personally. See: Notes to the Tennis Neophyte... Do It Your Way!!!.
And John Mills provides tips for seniors to maximize their enjoyment of the game. See: As You Get Older Playing Doubles.
And in his column in this newsletter below, Tennis Warrior Tom Veneziano discusses how to improve your timing, balance and ball judgment in "The Rapid-Fire Technique."
Have fun on the court!
Cliff Kurtzman
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
Tennis Server
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The Tennis Warrior - Exclusive to Tennis Server INTERACTIVE
Tom Veneziano |
The Tennis Warrior is brought to you by Tom Veneziano (tom@tennisserver.com). Tom is a tennis pro teaching at the Piney Point Racquet Club in Houston, Texas. Tom has taught thousands of players to think like a pro with his Tennis Warrior System.
June 2017 -- The Rapid-Fire Technique
Timing, balance, ball judgment. Together these three skills are essential in developing your tennis game. Notice what is not on that list: mechanics! Mechanics, the exact positions and movements you make during a tennis stroke, will develop themselves with a lot of repetition. Practice relentlessly, and as your timing, balance and ball judgment improve, so will your mechanics. You just have to put in the time!
I know this is not what you want to hear. You want the secret, you want precise instruction, you want the master key that magically unlocks the door to superb strokes. Where is that darn secret and where do you go to get it? Well, there is no such secret. Unless, of course, hitting thousands and thousands of balls is a secret. Since very few people understand the power of repetition, maybe it is!
If you are curious or a little doubtful about the power of repetition, I suggest you experiment with it sometime and see what happens. Today I will give you a technique that I use to help my students improve their ball judgment. This would be an excellent way to test the effectiveness of repetition, if you decide to give it a try. By the way, do not get too excited: this technique is not a mechanic. You won't hear many mechanical techniques coming from this coach! My techniques utilize the process of learning and do not rely on short-term, external fixes that attempt to make players something they are not. Mechanical techniques just waste too much time. Learn to be your own player!
We will call this "the Rapid-Fire Technique." Here is the way it works. Find yourself a ball machine or a partner who can hit fast shots. You may need a pro, but a partner with a basket of balls up at the net can also work. Most of the time, I use the Rapid-Fire Technique with a ball machine.
First, warm up slowly. (I constantly have to remind players to work themselves into their timing and rhythm by warming up relaxed and slow.) Next, set the ball machine to a very high speed that is outside of your level of play. If using a hitter, have the hitter feed balls to you just as fast. Some shots should be hit to you side to side and some shots all to one side. Now swing away! Do the best you can to just keep swinging, throwing yourself into every shot, every now and then racing from one end of the court to the other. Balls will be flying everywhere! Do not let that deter you. You are a Tennis Warrior; your goal is to just keep swinging. Horrible strokes and all, DO NOT STOP SWINGING. That is your only task. There should be no whining, no complaining, no "but I am hitting terribly" and absolutely no giving up! Just keep swinging. You will continue this for 10 to 15 minutes.
You should feel like you are completely out of control. And guess what? You are! Soon complete chaos will set in. What should you do? I already told you: Keep swinging. Your 15 minutes are not up yet. This is not called the Rapid-Fire Technique for nothing! Resist the urge to take conscious control of your swing. You couldn't do that anyway, so you might as well enjoy the turmoil. This chaotic, lightning-fast play is probably the closest you will come to feeling like a top pro, except the top pros are playing in controlled chaos.
Okay, your 10 or 15 minutes are up. Take a rest, get a drink, cool down a little. Maybe contemplate what that madness was all about. Before you head out there again, read the comment below for a hint of what we are doing.
In an Inside Tennis interview, Robert Landsdorp, the famous coach of Maria Sharapova and other top players, was asked this question. Check out his response.
"IT: You're famous for feeding kids thousands of balls.
"RL: It's the repetition. It's the ability to make them hit balls that they don't think they can hit. It's the work ethic. Since I have a great work ethic, you get the same ethic out of them. It's a process of several years, molding the person. Of course with somebody like Maria, Tracy or Pete, they have a championship quality within. But you have to give them the tools and the confidence that all their qualities will work. By having Maria hit her forehand over and over again, she's able to handle it because she's seen hundreds of thousands of balls come to her at 100 miles per hour. I can hit them out of a basket a foot inside the line, a foot from the baseline, 100 miles an hour, over and over. Then I can change the pace all of the sudden. It's just constant work and making sure that the drive is clean and through the ball."
Yes, pushing beyond what they can handle is a common practice mastered by top players. Your training today in the Rapid-Fire Technique is designed to do exactly that. But there is more! After you have rested, begin hitting again, leaving the ball machine at the same speed. Lo and behold, the ball does not seem quite as fast. Wow! Your ball judgment has improved. How did that happen? Remember how your mind in the chaos became tired and strained well beyond what it could handle, and you kept swinging regardless? Now that your mind has rested, the chaos is gone and the ball actually appears to slow down. The ball has not literally slowed down, but to you it is now slower! Previously you were tracking the ball in accelerated chaos, but now, for the moment, your mind has adjusted and perceives the ball better.
The Rapid-Fire Technique is a fantastic technique, but there is a catch. Until you do this training over and over and over again, the slowing down of the ball will not be permanent. The improvement is only temporary and will fluctuate. The reward, though, is that one day you will walk on the court and every ball that comes to you will appear slower. At that point, you will own a brand-new level of ball judgment. The feeling is exhilarating! And guess what? When the ball slows down, you get to every ball sooner, you have more time to prepare and your mechanics improve. Now, you have just learned mechanics without learning mechanics. You can thank the Rapid-Fire Technique for that one!
Your Tennis Pro,
Tom Veneziano
Previous columns from Tom Veneziano are archived online in the Tennis Server's Tennis Warrior Archive six months after publication in this newsletter.
   
In Tom Veneziano's book "The Truth about Winning!", tennis players learn in a step-by-step fashion the thinking the pros have mastered to win! Tom takes you Step-by-step from basic mental toughness to advanced mental toughness. All skill levels can learn from this unique book from beginner to professional. No need to change your strokes just your thinking. Also available at a discount as an E-Book.
Audio CDs by Tom Veneziano:
Recent Tennis Server Columns
Drills and Tips: Turbo Tennis by Ron Waite
Ron Waite |
In his June column, Ron discusses how to how to find what works best for you to quickly improve your game, even if it breaks from established tradition. See:
Player Tip: "Tennis Anyone?" by USPTA Pro John Mills
John Mills |
In his June column, John discusses how seniors can maximize their tennis game. See:
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See you on the courts,
--Cliff Kurtzman for Tennis Server INTERACTIVE
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