I had a great time down in Ojai this past weekend attending my niece Morgan’s wedding.
Family, lots of new friends, perfect weather, and the entire production could not have been more perfect.
Uncle B and the beautiful new bride Morgan
Probably wasn’t a dry eye during the ceremony.
She got her guy, and he got her gal, and how cool it is to see two young people so crazy for each other…
Thank goodness that some traditions remain classic and that lots of weddings haven’t gone the way of a full blown western so-called modern forehand. Please…
On Saturday morning before the wedding, I played some doubles with the groom Bill, one of my nephew’s Tim, and Bill’s business partner Devin.
These guys are all classic young early 30s tennis players who can play at about an NTRP 4.0 level who have grown up watching semi to full western forehands on TV and are trying hard to hit forehands with pretty big swing shapes.
“Shank you very much” was sort of the common theme with these young guns meaning that they were constantly giving away free points by simply miss-hitting easy balls.
And after we were done playing, Devin asked me what one thing should he be thinking about with his strokes.
And if you’ve been with me at WebTennis for any amount of time, you know what my answer to him was likely going to be.
“Spatial relationships…”
And I love the look I get when I first say that term to someone who’d not familiar with my teaching style.
And this is a smart kid who I’m sure is a business genius in his field, but that look of “huh, uh…” just took over his face.
So of course mister nice guy here can’t let him wallow too long, so I rescue him with the meaning of spatial relationships in tennis.
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You’ve got to specifically align your body to the path of the incoming ball so you can make whatever stroke you have as repeatable as possible.
What’s the ideal distance away from the ball do you want to be aligned to the path of the incoming ball when you swing your racket?
The less focus and attention to spatial relationships with the path of the incoming ball, the more you have to improvise your swing.
And trying to improvise an amateur semi to full western forehand is worth the price of admission.
The term “shank you very much” was coined with these guys in mind.
Real smart business guys with Ivy League degrees can look just a tad uneducated, if you know what I mean.
And the same applies to all of us whether we have classic continental grip style games to even today’s baseline stuff, without a consistency for your spatial relationship with the incoming ball, you’re going to be a mishit wonder.
I was recently interviewed about winning the national 60s Hardcourts this past April, and I kept coming back to the same answer for what helped me play well enough to win that title.
I kept not missing the perceived easy shots because I was focused on spacing first and allowing my instincts to dictate where I was going to hit this next shot.
We spend way too much time trying to perfect swing shapes, etc., and not nearly enough time grinding through the boring stuff of using our feet to insure we have the exact distance away from that path of the incoming ball so our swing can be greatly simplified.
Just imagine how many possibly poor spacing possibilities there are for say a standard forehand groundstroke.
I mean there must be thousands and thousands of ways we can misalign ourselves to the ball.
Could we ever practice enough to be able to deal with each and every one of those spacing situations?
No way…
If a very specific spatial relationship is not the #1 practice focus on each and every one of your strokes, then you’re going to be limiting your ability to improve and to truly enjoy this game.
Improvisation is what creates the “shank you very much” comment.
Here’s an email I got this last week from one of your fellow WebTennis subscribers.
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“Brent,
Your videos on spacing have proven to be an enormous asset to me.
I have always suffered from focusing too much on stroke mechanics, especially in tournaments, blaming this or that for not playing well.
Getting the stroke mechanics out of my head during play hasn’t been easy.
I can see I need more practice at it.
Thanks for giving me my game back!”
Tom L, Seattle WA
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And there you have it folks, thanks Tom, that’s all that needs to be said.
So, your focus this week is to get out there on the court, and if you only have time for a practice match, at least spend the time during the warm-up thinking about the distance you need away from that path of the incoming ball.
Create that ideal distance with your feet and not having to improvise with reaching your arms.
For now, trust your instincts to tell you where and what kind of shot to hit.
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Good article Brent!
I often say the following to tease fellow teachingpro’s who are firm believers in the ‘ideal technique’.
‘If I would get single cell twins, who never had played tennis before, and I had to teach them… And as an experiment, one of them I would teach nothing about the arm, but everything bout the legs and where to position himself on te court. And the other I would teach nothing about the legs, but everything about the arm and where to hit the balll… and after a year they would play ten matches… the boy with the legs would win 9 times out of 10.’
No question that if a player cannot get into the proper hitting position, then the arms are meaningless.
Teaching pros spend so much time feeding these perfect balls to their students that don’t require any adjusting to the path of that incoming ball.
The students end up with these great strokes only if their opponent hits the ball perfectly into their strike zone.
So, one of the key strategies when we play singles or doubles is to play shots that force our opponent to move their feet to be able to deal with our shots that end up too far out wide, too low, too high, and directly at them.
Generating power doesn’t always get the ball into one of those non strike zone areas that I described above.
You can hit with a ton of power all day long, but if that power is going directly in a player;s comfort zone, you’ll most likely lose that match.
Great comment Jerome.
Brent
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Hi Brent
Which one of your training DVDs addresses the spatial relationship issue?
Kind Regards
Bharat
Each one of my lessons devotes some time to helping you determine where that ideal spatial relationship to the path of the incoming ball should be.
http://www. webtennis.net/Tennis-Lessons.htm
All of my lessons spend some “quality time” with the importance of spacing to the path of the incoming ball.
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Thanks for your comment and question.
Brent, I play at a 3.0 level, maybe a little higher on good days. But the one thing I have observed with those who struggle is their lack of footwork in general. Whether it’s forever shuffling their feet during a serve or thinking they can leave their feet like Nadal on a groundstroke, they seem to miss the fundamentals of footwork–and in this case, the importance of setting up your body AND feet in the right “spatial” position to make that repeatable shot. Now I take advantage of this observation and look to place my shots right at my opponents’ body/feet. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of improvement ahead to be more consistent, but your tips have helped a great deal in my being able to self-coach and self-correct when I make those mis-hits. BTW, a good instructor will point this stuff out during a cardio class which is a lot of footwork. Thanks!
Once again BGF, you’re right on target with your thoughts on this topic.
I serve at least 70% of my serves directly at my opponent, especially first serves.
I play lots of approach shots directly at my opponent. And that doesn’t always mean right down the middle of the court, I mean literally directly at my opponent, wherever they happen to be during that moment in time.
There is no question that moving to a ball is much easier than moving out of the way of a ball.
Unfortunately, our natural instincts for where to play our shot’s direction is typically to hit away from our opponent, and yet in reality, if we don’t hit an outright winner, all that does is make it easier for our opponent to attain better consistency in their spacing to our incoming shot and opens up better geometric angles for their next shot.
Work more on serving directly at your opponent, especially those opponents who love to come into net behind their return of serve…
http://www.webtennis.net/Tennis-Serve.htm
Brent