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Welcome to Tom's Online Tennis Lesson, sponsored
by TennisWarrior.com, "where you can learn
to think like a pro!"
If you would like to learn to play tennis or reach a higher
level at a quicker rate you must understand that stroke
production is based on a 'feel' of a particular stroke,
not 'mechanics.' Are you thinking, "not mechanics,
I thought strokes were all mechanics!" Well,
that is what conventional methods would lead you to believe,
but it simply is not true.
The truth is all pros have developed a feel of a given
stroke by many hours of repetition. Either by having
someone feed them balls or just having fun as a child
playing day in and day out. As they develop a feel
for a given shot then the mechanics work correctly.
Did you catch that? The feel of a stroke allows
the mechanics to function properly. The mechanics
themselves do not make the stroke function correctly.
An example of this would be a player who has the perfect
mechanics and looks good, but cannot keep the ball in
the court with any consistency. He has painstakingly
forced himself to do the mechanics correctly, but has
developed no 'feel' of the stroke through repetition.
What do I mean by 'feel'? A feel is an identification
with a stroke as a whole unit, not its individual parts.
By the way this is true for all sports. If you think
Michael Jordan was one of the all time greatest basketball
players because he had the best mechanics you would be
dead wrong. His 'feel' of the game, shots, and situations
were beyond most players in the history of the game.
He developed that 'feel' from long hours of repetition
when most would become bored! The same is true in
tennis. Develop a feel of a shot and that feel will
make the mechanics work correctly. Try it and see
for yourself!
Go out and practice any one of your shots for one month,
just one half hour a week or more and watch what begins
to happen. Use a ball machine or a partner that
will simply feed you balls. Hit for ten minutes,
then rest by practicing another stroke for three minutes,
then come back to the same stroke for ten more minutes.
Do this for as long as you like each week for a month
and watch the different 'feel' that develops for that
particular shot. Even if you are not doing everything
perfectly you will still improve!!! Why? THE
MAGIC OF THE LOST ART OF REPETITION!
That's right I said the lost art of repetition.
Most players now-a-days want a pro to tell them what they
technically did wrong so they can correct it and then
they think everything is fine. Only one problem,
if that is all there were to it everyone would be a pro!
Everyone seems to forget repetition. Repetition
is so powerful that many times you do not even have to
be technically correct and you will still improve.
Besides with a little guidance and a lot of repetition
many of the mistakes you are making will disappear on
there own. Why? Because most of the mistakes
players make are based on incorrect balance, timing, judgment,
and undeveloped muscle. All four can only be developed
by repetition, not by forcing yourself to do a host of
technical things.
This is the same problem a child is having when he learns
to walk. He lacks the balance, the timing, the judgment,
and has undeveloped muscle. How does the child solve
this problem? With the same principle you should
use to develop your game - REPETITION!
REPETITION develops balance, timing, judgment, and undeveloped
muscle which in turn leads to a feel for any given stroke
and that feel makes the mechanics work properly.
This is exactly how repetition taught you a feel for walking
as a child and eventually a feel for the advanced skill
of running. Learning tennis is based on developing
a 'feel' for the whole stroke through repetition, not
on learning each and every intricate mechanical movement.
Your email tennis pro,
Tom
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