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TennisOne Lessons It's About Time: Learning Tennis as an Open Skill part 2 Wayne Elderton We are continuing our series on learning tennis as an Open Skill. Tennis is rife with technical coaching and information (especially with internet, video, etc.). But is copying the "Federer forehand" really what it's all about? The skills required for ‘game sports’ are different than the skills required for ‘technical sports’ like diving, gymnastics, figure skating, etc.
For example, diving is about the correct technique in a ‘closed’ situation (one that doesn’t require the skill to be adapted). Tennis technique is important, however, success is every bit as much about correctly adapting the technique at the right time as it is about moving correctly. As a matter of fact, ‘correct’ technique in tennis can never be divorced from the situation since it is based on the situation. See the first article for a further explanation of this concept. The implications of this are that we need to learn tennis in a different way than those other sports. Unfortunately, the majority of tennis world-wide is learned as if it were a closed skill sport. To help doing the right thing at the right time, we need to look not only at the technical movements themselves, but also at the skills required to gather the proper information about the ball and the opponent (called, ‘Perception’) and, the decision-making needed to perform successful shots. This article will provide some unique training methods for Perception Training. The two key elements of Perception Training are:
All of winning tennis rests on effectively interacting with these critical variables. The first listed variable of Ball-based Perception is the one to master first. Any clues we can get about what the ball is going to do pays big dividends on getting into position early. I am not talking about anticipation but simply ‘reading’ the ball characteristics (it’s height, direction, distance, speed, and spin). Having said that, reading the ball and focusing attention onto the opponent’s side of the court when they are hitting is the important first step to open the door to anticipation training. Our video will cover reading two situations:
These are not the only situations possible and a smart player or coach will be able to see the learning principles used in these situations and apply them to other situations as well. By training perception, you will feel like you have so much more time to get into position and hit the shots you want. Of course, it is not just about reading the ball as a player must react with the appropriate movements, however, our focus is not to go into the details of the movement, but just to isolate the perception to improve it. 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