TennisOne Lessons

Improving Player Instruction

By Ray and Becky Brown

Tennis instruction has made very little progress since 1948 when the seminal book, The Tom Stow Tennis Teacher and Stroke Developer was published. Stow's book was significant when first published in that it provided a disciplined approach to training instructors and subsequently influenced many instructors that followed. Further, many of the ideas set forth by Stow are significant today. However, science has made major advances in technology and learning theory since Stow's seminal work; but tennis instruction has not kept pace with these advances. The consequence of this is that the difference between professional skills and the skills of the general public has widened to the point that the general public can no longer relate to the skill of players they see on TV.

To better understand why tennis instruction is lagging so far behind other sports we begin by noting that Stow's classic text has had a profound effect on all instruction that followed. For example, here is one line from Stow's text which is a cornerstone of his method that has achieved the status of dogma (a tenant believed as authoritative which has no scientific basis):

An example of the fact that Stow's ideas have had a significant influence can be seen in a quote from Dick Gould who states in his classic book Tennis Anyone that "...your chance of hitting the ball well is enhanced if the start and finish are right." This single statement by Stow launched a teaching culture that is still with us today and is an example of how great pioneers such as Stow, if taken as gospel, can at once advance and restrict the future of their discipline.

Dick Gould states in his classic book Tennis Anyone that "...your chance of hitting the ball well is enhanced if the start and finish are right"

As recently as two years ago, the great Robert Lansdorp repeated these very words in a TenninONE article. There can be no doubt that a pioneer as distinguished as Stow never intended to write a "tennis gospel" which would shackle all future instruction. As all good researchers, Stow surely expected that those who followed in his footsteps in the teaching profession would continue to advance the state of formal tennis instruction initiated by his work rather than stop in their tracks, effectively proclaiming that everything that was needed was known about how to teach tennis.

One of the most distinct results of Stow's codification of the stroke boundary condition in his book was the emergence of the "culture of the follow through."

For example, Jack Groppel states in his High Tech Tennis" that as you hit the ball, practice a long follow-through after impact." This unscientific culture has single handily done more to restrict the progress of tennis instruction than any other practice.

The reason that this culture is an institutionalized roadblock to progress is explained by appealing to three of the key specifications required by any system of instruction:

1. An effective and efficient system of instruction must be complete, covering all issues

2. It is must be consistent in that no two instructions should contradict one another

3. It must be scientifically correct

The the stroke boundary condition and the culture of the follow through violates the last two of these three specifications in being contradictory and being scientifically incorrect.

Lets take a closer look at the boundary condition. As to the scientific correctness of Stow's statement, the simple answer is that what happens between the start of a stroke and the finish of a stroke is so complex that there is virtually no chance that it will "...usually take care of itself."

As an example, note that the grip a player uses has a profound impact on what happens between the start and finish of their stroke. Not only are the intermediate mechanics dependent on the grip, they are also dependent on the speed of the stroke, the foot position at the moment the racquet begins to advance, whether the player is in position, the stance, and so on. Further, today, the forehand has over a dozen "follow-through's," hence there are at least a dozen stroke boundary conditions.

The follow through depends on the dynamics of the racquet at contact. Since these dynamics can vary greatly, the follow through must vary accordingly and the boundary conditions vary as well.

If Stow's statement were to be implemented carefully, it would require teaching at least a dozen boundary conditions to cover as many cases as possible. While the variability of the boundary conditions provides a serious limitation on classifying them for the purposes of instruction, worse still is the variability of the human biomechanics of the forehand. The inherent variability in the movement of the limbs, especially the shoulder joint, makes it impossible to assure clean and forceful contact by relying on boundary conditions. For example, the speed of the stroke must vary greatly between the boundary conditions and this speed can affect the stability of the movement causing the racquet face to tilt downward enough to send the ball into the net. No boundary condition can account for this.

As a last point we recommend conducting the following experiment. Get a student to make good contact with the ball by emphasizing ball contact. After a short period of time you should see improvements emerging. Now have the same student focus on the follow-through. What you will usually see is a total breakdown in the contact. The reason is that the human brain cannot focus on good contact and on a good follow-through simultaneously and at the speed of a even a slow tennis stroke, these thoughts are nearly, in a relative sense, simultaneous.

Robert Lansdorp helped to turn Maria Sharapova into a champion but this alone isn't proof that teaching the Stow stroke boundary condition works.

One might point to Lansdorp's many successes as proof that teaching the Stow stroke boundary condition "works." This is a serious mistake. No single concept in a teaching method can account for success. If we single out the boundary condition for examination then we should look at all of Lansdorp's students over his entire teaching career (with whom he has made the boundary condition a central theme) and divide the number of professional successes by the total number of students to get a "probability" that the boundary condition promotes rapid stroke development. But even this is insufficient. An easy counter argument to the boundary condition is to note that Lansdorp is a great disciplinarian and discipline, after self confidence, is more important than any other concept of instruction.

Some critics might continue this argument by stating that the student's inability to learn using the stroke boundary condition is due to their lack of talent. But this is "blaming the victim," the student, and not the instructor. There is ample scientific evidence to show that whatever talent is, its contribution to learning is small. On the contrary, the single most important factor in conveying information is correct, unambiguous communication. Thus we must conclude that every student within one standard deviation of the mean is capable of learning to hit a powerful forehand without every being taught a boundary condition and if this is not happening, then it is the lack of information provided by the instructor and not the inadequacies of the student that is the problem.

As an historical aside, some readers may wonder what lead Stow to formulate the stroke boundary condition in the first place. The likely explanation is that Stow did not have access to the video technology of today. Given the lack of technology available in 1948 when Stow's book was originally published, all that an instructor could see was the start and finish of a stroke and nothing in between (note that humans can hardly resolve 6 frames per second much less 180 plus frames per second needed to resolve a tennis stroke), and thus the stroke boundary condition was the best possible teaching aid based on the information available at Stow's time. The formulation of a first approximation teaching tool (of which the boundary condition is an example) is common in many areas of research: But no researcher intends that this first approximation be taken as "gospel." In general, the first pioneers in a field usually set the framework for a system of thought based on their best analysis. All others that follow are responsible, and expected, to improve on the analysis of the early pioneers.

While the boundary condition theory on instruction set forth in print by Stow has been a deterrent to progress, in other areas, Stow laid a solid foundation for the advancement of tennis but subsequent researchers failed to advance this foundation. For example, Stow emphasizes being able to demonstrate what you teach.

This points to a second significant problem that has restricted instruction and student achievement. Humans think they can teach a stroke even if they cannot execute it. This is a mistake as noted by the quote from Stow above. Imagine trying to learn calculus from someone who does not know the subject. It is a fact that one cannot effectively teach more than they can do. However, in special cases in which the student comes with a good base of knowledge, an instructor might provide a clue for the student that will cause their knowledge to fall in place. In these cases, the instructor has not taught anything, but has functioned as a facilitator with the student doing all the work. It is not uncommon for instructors to take credit for a student's progress under these circumstances This error in judgement does not result from their ego needs, but comes from a misreading their own contribution to the student's progress.

What Stow did not say is that one may be able to do something really well but not be able to teach it. Just recall the last math or other class you sat through in college that was taught by a famous professor in the field. It is typical that virtually no one can understand what they are saying. Teaching what you know requires being able to reflect on your knowledge and formulate it in a clear and unambiguous manner. Stow was a pioneer at this. One can have a perfect forehand and not be able to reflect on how it is done. This is because the human brain does not record everyday actions in a place for which we have conscious access. More importantly, the skill to reflect on ones actions is not a common human trait.

To elaborate on Stow's implied thesis, let us take a closer look at why one cannot teach what one cannot do. To set the stage consider this: Is it possible for someone who does not know calculus to teach you calculus? Obviously not! The reason is that the teaching process has several stages. One is the ability to formulate in clear unambiguous language the information to be conveyed. To do this one must have a clear concept of that information. As one cannot invent information, it must be gained from experience and from deductions from experience through a conscious process.

As noted above, we do not have such conscious access to our actions. So how do we get our knowledge. Through a trial-and-error process. When we carry out an action, we do have a fleeting memory of a fragment of the action which will last a very short period of time. During this time, if we reflect on this fragmentary memory, we can form a conscious memory of that fragment. If we do a similar action many times, it is possible to acquire a complete set of fragments that we can string together, after some pain staking analysis, to from a complete picture of what we are doing. If we then write this down (memory is very faulty) we are in a position to convey it to someone else. Thus we see from this discussion just how hard it is to be a good instructor.

The process of acquiring the fragment, as noted above, is by trial-and-error, or experimentation. Once this is done, the knowledge can be passed on to others in a three stage process. First it must be organized and recorded. Next it is communicated in words. Third it must be communicated in examples. As Stow correctly notes, examples are crucial and if the instructor cannot demonstrate the concept by example, the student will suffer accordingly, unless they already have much of the information and only need a few clues to complete the concept.

Students who come with a broad base of knowledge in place that they have not acquired from an instructor are often favored over those that do not because they are easier to "teach." But this is not teaching, it is facilitating their development by providing them with clues, some of which are random. Most people do not come with inherent knowledge, so the instructor must be able to teach the average person who comes to them. In any case, if the instructor cannot set an example, the burden of learning is placed unduly on the shoulders of the student.

Even by providing the student information and examples, any communication between student and instructor will necessarily be incomplete (note at this point that experience has played two roles. First experience is crucial in acquiring knowledge from "experimentation;" second, experience is required for conveying knowledge by setting an example).

Another component of the learning process requires that the student do exercises, just as in any other class, in order to fill in the blanks and develop an intuitive understanding of the ideas being presented by the instructor. The exercises (which should not be thought of as repetitions but rather as experiments) must continue interactively with feedback from the instructor. As Stow notes, they must start out as simple as possible at first: "By using this mechanism [Stow's stroke developer], it is now possible to practice strokes and footwork with a stationary ball. This is extremely important as It allows the pupil to practice a given stroke over and over until it is mastered without worrying about the timing the ball." However, the instructor must be careful not to fall into the trap of micro-managing the student. The student needs freedom to experiment and if this freedom is constantly blocked by the instructor, the student's progress will stall.

Stow's emphasis on simplification was not extended by subsequent researchers but rather has been accepted for years without significant modification. Our stroke research starting around 2002, nearly 50 years after Stow's work, has finally advanced Stow's intuition significantly to every part of the stroke.

Thinking uncritically is common in tennis, and is therefore a common problem

Another area which has not kept pace with science is the concept of teaching by "feel." There are many examples that can be found among instructors that rely on feel. Stow was a proponent of teaching the "feel" of the stroke. Stow's emphasis on feel was not misplaced; however, advances in neuroscience allows us to do far more with this concept and to avoid its pitfalls, than was possible at Stow's time. What Stow could not know was that when first learning professional technique (as opposed to amateur technique), most people will not be able to feel anything sufficiently distinct to reproduce the components of a professional stroke from feel.

A problem with this approach is that when a student cannot feel the stroke component, they assume that they will never feel it and just give up. Feeling is a feedback process connected with some, but not all, physical actions. This feedback process helps guide the learning process in many cases. However, the human brain does not start out having a distinct feeling corresponding to many complex motions common to tennis. For example, upper arm rotation has virtually no feeling at all for most humans, but it is essential to some versions of the power forehand such as Roddick's. Elbow positioning for a power forehand has the opposite problem in that it feels awkward to most people and they thus abandon it. So the feeling approach must be supplemented with an understanding of the feeling feedback loop. In particular, the student must be counseled that they may not initially feel anything, but that by doing exercises, feeling will usually develop corresponding to an action.

But the feeling approach, even when combined with the boundary condition thesis makes it very difficult to explain how professionals produce so much power at contact. The answer is that humans have two distinct motor systems. A nominal system and a ballistic system (a method of rapid acceleration referred to as a "spring" by Doug King). Keep in mind that they are very different modes of action. Some people are born with a sensory perception, or feeling, of the ballistic system, but most are not. A powerful professional stroke requires the use of the ballistic system, but if you teach based on the feel thesis without knowing this, your students may never learn this critical form of acceleration. Clearly, the feeling thesis is not wrong, it is just scientifically incomplete and provides another example of how tennis has not kept pace with science even though Stow gave us a good direction to go in.

One area in which tennis technology has advanced is the use of slow motion video to analyze strokes. In fact, Stow foreshadows the need for slow motion video. In referring to demonstrations, Stow states: "...but for the moment the instructor need be concerned only that the stroke be made slowly, so that each pupil can see plainly." Where tennis has not kept pace with science is that even using 5000 frames per second video, it is not possible to fully see what is needed for the modern professional tennis stroke. More information is needed than just video and this must come from a scientific analysis of the video combined with systematic hypothesis testing.

Elbow position before contact is related to the grip and is a key to power.

Another example of where tennis has not kept pace with science is provided by an analysis of the elbow position (mentioned earlier) before racquet head acceleration. Because the shoulder is so unstable, elbow position is a critical element in high-speed stroke production. However, this subtle element lies between the start and finish and cannot be easily seen by the naked eye. Recall that the human eye has difficulty resolving 6 frames per second accurately. One consequence of this that instructors cannot see the elbow position at contact, regardless of how "perfect" the start and finish may be. Also, as stated above, students cannot feel this position easily. However, using standard video or even still photography, the subtitles of elbow position can be easily resolved.

As can be seen in the graphi on the left, the elbow position before acceleration is related to the grip and is a key to delivering power as well as being a key to adaptability.

Yet another issue that only science can shed light upon is stability at high speeds. Because today's game operates at high speeds, a very slight errors in balance or in the advancement of the racquet to the ball can lead to large errors at contact. By relying on boundary conditions rather than directly observing contact through the use of the visual technologies, there will be no possibility of training an average player to operate at high speeds.

In addition to the feet and elbow, another key source of instability is the control of the upper body during the stroke. Since the upper and lower parts of the body are supported by the fragile spinal column, the possibilities for unstable motions to develop from the force of a high speed stroke are enormous. This cannot be observed and can be the source of copious unforced errors. Also, if the instructor is not able to hit at high speeds themselves (that is, demonstrate consistent high speed strokes), they will never know how important conditioning the core muscles is to control the upper and lower parts of the body during a high speed rally. In the video below, following Stow's admonitions, we demonstrate an exercise to develop core strength for high speed rallies.

The exercises illustrated in the video on the right are superior to core training using a medicine ball in that it consists in hitting 50 forehands at high speeds, as seen by the radar, as fast as you are able. A medicine ball cannot be thrown at these speeds. We do 200 reps of this exercise every few days. The radar provides immediate feedback about your progress and is an eye-opening experience in that you will find that hitting at high speeds requires a very high level of core strength.

Consistent with Stow's teachings, it is a fact that as an instructor, until you are able to hit forehands and backhands from a dropped ball at over 75mph you will be very limited in explaining to your students how this is done. Also if you can't do this, why should your students believe it can be done, or that what you tell them will work.

Only the Tennis Industry has the Economic Power to Improve Instruction

There have been numerous individual efforts to organize tennis instruction. The work of Braden, Groppel, Van der Meer, Gould, Stow, Brody, the USPTA, PTR, USTA, and others are significant in this effort. However, all trade organizations and individuals so far have been unable to produce a text that would meet the high academic standards such as are necessary for a quality college course. The efforts of these individuals and trade organizations demonstrate how hard the problem of writing a text on tennis really is.

Integral to this problem is the fact that tennis has not kept pace with other sports in the utilization of science and technology. The next question is "WHY not?" The answer is economics. For example, football is a multi- billion dollar industry. With so much money at stake, football has pushed the limits of technology. Winning the super bowl has brought technology into play at every turn to gain a competitive edge. On the other hand, the economics of tennis are driven by the tennis industry which stands to gain the most from a vibrant tennis market. Unlike football and other team sports, tennis does not have franchises capable of putting money into significant research and analysis. No individual is financially strong enough to do this and none of the current teaching organizations, including the USTA, are financially strong enough to do this. In short only the tennis industry is capable of providing the leadership and financing needed to bring tennis instruction to a level comparable with other top sports.

Wilson Sports understood this years ago and made an attempt to bring about change. However, their mistake was in entrusting the management of change to individuals who had no experience in change management. It was assumed that if the managers-of-change understood tennis (i.e., had domain experience), they could shepard tennis into a new era. However, anyone having extensive experience in large-scale acquisitions knows that "domain knowledge" is only one requirement for developing a successful education program. Because tennis is so complex as compared to football, the change managers must also have a sound technical background. Because building anything new and complex has unique management challenges, the change managers must have extensive experience in the acquisition of large-scale systems.

From our experience in developing complex multi-hundred million dollar defense systems, it is clear that developing a well disciplined curriculum for educating tennis professionals and students in a manner comparable to electrical engineers requires the type of results-oriented focus that is common to managers that have to compete in the market place. While an educational institution must ultimately be able to operate without product biases, its establishment must have firm management discipline guided, not by traditional tennis dogma, but science and technology.

The specification for building the right educational system is for the tennis industry to form a consortium headed by a dynamic manager with proven results-oriented management skill who understands technology, tennis and project management and is passionate about tennis. This manager must be very familiar with organizing, planning, and controlling projects using cost, schedule and performance criteria. The manager must also be good at reaching consensus, motivating people while at the same time enforcing the kind of well thought out discipline necessary for achieving a goal with high standards. And this manager must understand how to combine the best of tradition with the best of technology to ensure wide spread buy-in of the new system.

Summary

It is clear that the current state of Instruction for Instructors is overly reliant on outdated teaching techniques, unproven teaching methods, uncritical approaches to teaching, and a lack of understanding of technology. Also many potential tennis players from the ranks of the general public try tennis once and walk away because they do not relate to the unscientific approach to instruction.

The best solution is for the tennis industry to take tennis education into their own hands. They have the means and the motivation. Better, more scientifically guided instruction means more players and thus more sales. Attempts in the past have failed because the qualifications for changing the teaching professional were not fully understood. Domain experience is not enough. Change-management leadership must also understand technology and be skilled at project management based on cost, schedule and technical performance. With a technologically well founded approach, the public will better play better and better relate to current professionals, develop their own skills faster and have a renewed demand for tennis products.

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Ray and Becky Brown's article by emailing us here at TennisONE.

Ray and Becky Brown are the founders of EASI Tennis^TM. The EASI Tennis^TM System is a new and revolutionary method of teaching stroke technique that can dramatically reduce the time needed to learn to play master, or any level, of tennis. To learn more about the EASI Tennis^TM System, click here.

Ray Brown, Ph.D.
Over the past ten years Ray Brown has been working in the area of neuroscience and brain dynamics. During this time, he has conducted extensive experiments in conjunction with his wife to determine whether neuroscience can be applied to dramatically accelerate tennis training. Dr. Brown received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in the area of nonlinear dynamics and has over 30 years of experience in the analysis of nonlinear systems. He has published over 20 articles on tennis coaching and player development and over 35 scientific papers on complexity, chaos, and nonlinear processes.

Becky Brown, M.S.
Using the new training methods developed in research with her husband, Becky Brown went from a USTA NTRP tennis rating of 3.5 to a professional world ranking of 1,069 in less than four years. Prior to the inception of this neuroscience research, Becky Brown had no previous high school, college or professional experience in tennis. Ms Brown received her M.S. in applied mathematics from Johns Hopkins University and has over eighteen years experience in the development of high technology defense systems. With her husband she has co-authored numerous articles on tennis training and coaching.