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TennisOne Lessons Feeling Your Way Through a Game-Based Approach Wayne Elderton In a recent TennisOne article, Happy Bhalla commented on the interesting phenomenon on how humans learn to walk. This is a process where people successfully learn without the help of a coach. What then are the applications to learning tennis? The key is that intention is the driving force behind learning a motor pattern. If your body knows the goal it is striving for, it will attempt to arrange muscle movement to accomplish it (children are trying to get somewhere so they learn to get there more and more effectively through the stages of learning to walk). This is where the coaching trend called the Game-based approach (GBA) comes in. The idea is that tennis is a game. Games need to be played using tactics (whether that game is basketball, chess, or tennis). Tactics are performed by the application of technique. If the technique is good, players will minimize injury, not waste energy, and perform consistently and at higher speeds. The Game Based Approach In a GBA, technique is second to tactics (but it is not secondary!). Intention (what I need to do) must always come before execution (how I need to do it). This is the best way humans learn. Let’s face it, who "invents" technique anyway? It certainly isn’t coaches! The world’s best players create technique to handle the situations they encounter during match play. Coaches simply "reverse engineer" the technique of top players to make it "bite size" so the rest of us can adapt. In other words, top players engage in "situational learning."
A GBA helps players learn solid technique by setting up a series of systematic intentions (tactics) that act as problems to be solved by technical actions. The best definition of a GBA is: "Get people to play, and help them to learn to play better." The key is to connect tactics and technique. So much of modern coaching today is isolated and disconnected technical instruction (even if "modern" technique is used). The coaching style that best suits a GBA is for the coach to shift roles from a "directive teacher" to a facilitator who guides the player along the best path (finding good technique that accomplishes the tactics to win more points). Practical Application One of the best ways to help players learn technique in a GBA is to unlock the power of Kinesthetic learning (what I like to call "Sensational Tennis"). When a player feels what they need to do, he or she can reproduce and adapt their technique to the various situations they encounter when they play. To this end, we can identify basic feelings a player can have when performing strokes. Players can use these feelings as "triggers" that help the body understand the motor pattern required. In traditional coaching, the basic strokes are the forehand and backhand groundstrokes, the forehand and backhand volleys, and the Serve. These are learned by mimicking a series of stroke model movements (e.g. take the racquet back, step, stroke, etc.). With a little modification, we can turn these strokes into useful kinesthetic categories. Rather than the basic strokes, players can learn the basic "feelings" for "neutral" groundstrokes, volleys, and serves (don’t start with attacking or defending feelings). The intention of neutral shot situations is to keep the ball in play with control. As we go through them, many coaches and players will recognize they use some or all of these processes. The reason? They found out how powerfully they worked! The key here is to put all this knowledge together in a connected way (so it is understood why it works, and how you can do it more, and systematically). I first learned this from top international coach, Louis Cayer. It used to kill me that the players didn’t need my expert technical explanations (and actually learned faster and better without them). The three key feelings listed below are very powerful learning tools. Used well, they are the best way to create solid technique in players. Neutral Serve Feeling There are many situations in serving that require different techniques. First serves vs second serves, spin vs flat, power vs precision, etc. A great place to start however, is to see the serve as a "throwing action." From that basic feeling, all the others can evolve. This is why many coaches now use throw development as a tool for serve development. A throwing action is a multi-segmented movement using the body, shoulder, elbow forearm, and wrist in a smooth sequence of links. This is in contrast to a pushing action. The tasks involved in serving are:
More advanced feelings include:
Neutral Volley Feeling Like the serve, a player at the net volleying encounters many situations that require different techniques. Are they receiving a ball that is fast or slow, low or high, close or far? Do they want to send it with power or precision, deep or angled? All these require more than learning the typical "punch" (The ‘punch’ volley wouldn’t even be the most common one needed by players). The volley action is best learned by feeling the ball with a "catching action." The idea of the catch is to absorb the power of the oncoming ball and re-direct it. Typically, the ball speed would be maintained (without trying to add speed or take speed off). The tasks to be achieved would include:
At more advanced stages, the player would add pace, add more angle, take pace off (e.g. Drop-volley). Neutral Groundstroke Feeling There are a myriad of adaptations that have to be performed for successful groundstrokes. The best place to start is with the intention of a neutral rally. For this, it is best to use a medicine ball (preferably one that bounces). For smaller kids, I like to use those "promotional" balls that people get players to sign at tournaments. A soccer ball works fine as well. Even if the player uses a one-handed forehand, by sending the medicine ball with a two-handed sidearm throw, the body will be engaged with balance and good linkage (if it is not, that is what the coach is there to fix). This also works for a two-handed backhand. One-handed backhand medicine ball work is a little trickier and we will cover it in subsequent installments. The groundstroke tasks include:
Practice with "The Accordion" It is important to constantly alternate back and forth between the feeling exercise and the stroke (e.g. medicine ball, to racquet, to medicine ball again, to racquet etc. or, Throw, to racquet serve, to throw again, etc.). This "accordion" method helps players build a bridge so they can more easily transfer the feelings they have without the racquet to the feelings in their stroke. It is an easy trap to fall into to do the feel exercise once and think it’s finished. Incorporate the feeling exercises into a warm-up and watch the technical learning soar. Conclusion By having their bodies understand the feelings required to perform certain tactics, players can learn solid motor patterns faster and more effectively than with traditional coaching techniques (feeding and being shouted at). Many coaches just can’t wrap their head around the fact that their technical lectures aren’t required and showing and telling people what to do isn’t the only way to convey technique. To modify our original walking analogy a bit, people also learn how to run naturally. However, many people don’t run well at all. This is where guidance would help. Having dealt with thousands of players at our public tennis center, I am not a believer in the notion that learners will somehow discover excellent technique on their own. Much of tennis technique is counter-intuitive. Add this to the fact that people may have poor (but comfortable) ingrained motor patterns and, that often their body feelings lie (they think they are doing something when they are not). A coach to guide the process is invaluable to short-cut the natural trial and error process. These exercises don’t automatically produce excellent technique. The idea however is to shape the feeling rather than mimic a stoke model. In the remainder of the series, we will explore a number of basic sensations that are valuable when learning to perform successful tennis technique in various situations. Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Wayne Elderton's article by emailing us here at TennisOne.
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Wayne Elderton