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RAMBLINGS!
Welcome to all the new subscribers to my email tennis lessons. You will receive one long lesson on the first of every month and some quick tips in between.
Send your tennis buddies or whole team to www.tenniswarrior.com to sign up for their free email tennis lessons.
Official subscribers - 8,483
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STROKES ARE BASED ON 'FEEL' NOT MECHANICS!
Remember the basic principles for learning tennis with my system is to develop a 'feel' for different strokes along with developing mental skills through REPETITION. Repetition of simple procedures create that 'feel' NOT an over emphasis on the technical skills and mechanics. Click here for an article that I wrote on 'feel' vs 'mechanics' in April 2001
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Tom's Online Tennis Lesson
It's all up to YOU! |
It does not matter what fantastic stroke, strategy or mental skill you are taught in tennis, absolutely nothing can be accomplished or applied without your internal desire to make the change. You are the key to your own success. Often this takes a lifetime to understand. You read books, you listen to audio CD's, you watch videos, and you receive newsletters. All to no avail, because you refuse to take the responsibility for creating your own success and make the internal mental adjustments. Most players focus on something other than themselves to help them physically and mentally perform. They decide that their success will come from a specific coach, technique, seminar, tennis camp, etc., and not from themselves.
In match play these players see themselves as a victim of bad line calls, the wind, the lighting, their opponent's bright red shirt or annoying personality, their poor play, and a host of other creative scapegoats. Everything that hinders them from winning is always related to external adversities and never related to their own internal poor mental attitude. In their unrealistic view, their mental attitude is just dandy and is completely justified because of the smorgasbord of adversities they use as excuses for their poor playing. How else could they feel?! This attitude makes them rationalize that winning is out of their hands and nothing can be done. They are a victim!
Brad Gilbert, world-class player and coach, stated that when he was playing on the satellite circuit (small tournaments pros play in to earn ATP points to enter the major tournaments) most players, who lost a match complained constantly about their shoes, their racket, their strings, the court, etc. He went on to say that not one of them made it into the big time. The only players who made it, he explained, did not blame anything or anyone and just kept plugging along despite their failures and losses. These players understood that winning depended on adjusting their internal mental attitude, not eliminating external adversities. The principle:
ADVERSITY IS INEVITABLE, YOUR MENTAL ATTITUDE IS OPTIONAL
In the "Roger Federer Story" by Rene Stauffer, on page 194 Roger made this astute comment. "Before, when my coach told me that I should calm down, that seemed impossible to me," he said in 2004. "I simply had to get rid of this tension and these demons in my head. No one could help me. It had to come from me."
That's right! You can study all the latest mental techniques and theories available on the market today but ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will happen until YOU decide to make the mental changes. It has to come from you. You are the only one that can change you. This battle with yourself is a key battle that must be fought before you can advance to another level. You can be victorious in this battle if you will first stop justifying your anger and frustrations in a match. In other words, you take responsibility for your failures and move on.
Have you every heard of Laura Robson? Laura Robson is a 14-year-old British tennis star, and the 2008 Junior Wimbledon Champion. Quite an accomplishment. The British love her. She not only surprised the tennis world, but she surprised herself! Robson has become the youngest player since Martina Hingis to win the girls '18 and under' title at the All England Club. Martina Hingis was 13 years old!
In the finals Laura Robson defeated Noppawan Lertcheewakan of Thailand, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. In the second set Laura became annoyed and angry with herself and fell apart. To her credit she rebounded in the third set and pulled out the upset. In an interview at www.wimbledon.org she was asked about the second set loss. Below is that question followed by her fantastic answer, which was the key to her third set victory and the junior Wimbledon crown.
"Q. Were you a bit worried when you dropped the second set, that you might not be able to push through it?
LAURA ROBSON: I think I lost the second set because I started getting annoyed with myself. So I sat down after the second set and I thought, Well, if I want to win this, then I've got to change my attitude."
Fourteen years old and she has figured it out! I was so impressed when reading her answer that I watched the entire video interview, and her answer to that question had even more of an impact. It was the second question asked. Watch for yourself!
http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/news/interviews/2008-07-05/200807051215287006984.html
Your Tennis Pro,
Tom Veneziano
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TESTIMONIAL
Tom,
As always, I read your latest tennis tip and loved it. As a current Tennis Professional in South Carolina I would like to let you know personally that you are giving great advice to all the tennis players at every level. Keep up the good work. We need more pros like you to share their knowledge!
Sincerely,
Bob Hampton
South Carolina
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ADDENDUM: I teach a total system of thinking in regard to stroke production and mental attitude which I cannot explain in one email. Although each lesson can stand alone you will derive tremendous physical and mental benefit by understanding the total philosophy. These emails, my web site, books, and tapes are part of a course in tennis, not just isolated tennis tips. They all fit together into a system. A system that once understood can help you not only learn tennis at a faster rate, and develop mental toughness, but also give you the knowledge necessary to help guide you and your children to a better understanding of the developmental process.
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