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.

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.

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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