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TennisOne Lessons 
Progression Drills: Training an 8-Year Old—Part Seven David W. Smith, Senior Editor TennisOne There is a logic to training anyone in anything that is skill-based. Whether it is a musical instrument, martial arts, gymnastics, or a racquet sport such as tennis, students who hope to reach skilled levels of play will need to master elements which maybe initially uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or counterintuitive. If you have been following this series of “real-time” training of an 8-year old, you have seen the very progressions I use in training all my students, including my 8-year old daughter, Kyla. The uniqueness of this series is that you are witnessing the actual training as I have employed it with my daughter. Often I see a tennis speakers discussing ways in which they might employ various teaching strategies designed for training young kids. Then they bring out some kids who have been playing for several years to demonstrate many of these teaching strategies. While there is no question that many of their teaching techniques has value, it is, in my opinion, more interesting and revealing to witness the actual implementation of such strategies with a player who is essentially playing at the levels described. We are now in the tenth month of Kyla's training. As I mentioned earlier in this series (click here to review the previous training lessons), I did introduce Kyla a number of months earlier to the grip and swing patterns of certain tennis strokes; however, we spent literally less than 60 minutes over the course of an entire year on that training. Yet, the early training of grips and strokes, even in a limited format, has helped Kyla gain some of the intrinsic skills that helped her in her overall stroke production when we did indeed put in more specific time on the court. So, while she had been introduced to some elements of tennis, the vast majority of her improvement and progression has occurred during the last ten months that I have been working with her. During this training period we have spent about 45 minutes on the court an average of three days a week. Yet, even with this relatively limited exposure, Kyla has made considerable progress towards becoming a skilled tennis player. I have purposely limited her tennis in so as not to overexpose her at a young age. In short, I wanted her to look forward to our sessions and to want to play more. I feel this process has been very successful. While it is rare she doesn’t want to go out and practice, it is far more common that she will ask me to hit with her. This is rewarding, to say the least. Nothing is worse than pushing a kid so hard that the element of play is lost and the desire to want to play is diminished or in many cases eliminated completely. Surprisingly, some of the most interesting things have occurred e when she was not even prepared to practice or play and an opportunity arose. One particular evening when I was teaching an adult clinic, Kyla was with me (instead of being home doing her homework, practicing her piano, or attending her Karate class!) because her mom had a meeting and she jumped into a volley drill barefoot. The drill was a backhand approach volley followed by a backhand angle volley off my live ball volley. She hit far better than any of the adults and amazed me with her execution of the volley sequence which was better and more consistent than at any time prior. Later, she did her up and down bounces reaching over 100 downs and 100 ups in a row for the first time ever. She always had difficulty with these bouncing drills seldom reaching more than 20 or 30 at best. The pride in her accomplishment was compelling and she only wanted to hit more and more. The day before, I had a tennis colleague visiting me to observe my tennis teaching program and Kyla asked if she could rally with him. Rally after rally, Kyla hit 15, 20, and 30 balls with this man, baseline to baseline, in a way that again resembled a high-level performer. Considering she spends more time playing the piano and attending her Karate classes than she does tennis, her skills in tennis are far better than even I had expected her to achieve. The beauty of her ability to master nearly all tennis strokes, (including slices, dropshots, kick and slice serves, overheads, and her bread and butter topspin groundstrokes), is that she moves into live ball rallies and match play without resorting to more mediocre and simplistic shot making just to “get the ball back.” In this article, I want to share many of the more advanced live ball drills we are now working on. While we are indeed moving towards live ball rallies, we still employ many “Pro-fed” drills to continue her development in a logical progression. Too many players transition to live ball games and drills too soon and find themselves developing inferior habits due to the consistent exposure to games-based or live ball hitting environments.
Progressions As Kyla develops and masters all her strokes, I will start working to improve her ability to move to the ball. It is important that she starts looking not just to move well to any ball, but to go beyond this type of movement and start moving to hit specific shots. That is, not just turning and hitting a forehand, then turning the other way and hitting a backhand; I’m looking to help her read shots so that she can move in such a way that she dictates play. A great example of this is when a player intentionally runs around the backhand to hit an inside in or inside out forehand. It isn’t that Kyla has a weak backhand, (on the contrary, it is as strong as her forehand!). But, I want Kyla to be a “pro-active” player, looking for the psychological as well as strategic advantages of determining what shots she can hit because she is moving well and with intention. Footwork Drills It has often been said that tennis is a game of movement and the key to great tennis is good footwork. This has been stressed to the point that many pros believe that footwork is tantamount to good strokes. And certainly, without good footwork, advanced play is seldom achievable. However, my belief is that without good stroke mechanics, getting in position properly and effectively will seldom produce a good tennis stroke. Thus, my training involves, first and foremost, the mastery of all the strokes; from topspin groundstrokes to volleys, from serves and overheads to slice approach shots and drop shots. After such mastery, then it is a natural progression to employ more diverse and advanced footwork patterns. Footwork actually encompasses two elements: speed and efficiency in getting to a ball, and various footwork positions and patterns when hitting the ball. Both of these footwork elements must be addressed at proper times. I have trained Kyla in the mechanics of hitting closed, neutral, and open stance strokes. The next progression is to help her learn to develop footwork patterns to set up these footwork patterns on command. This drill can be used for every level of player once proper stroke patterns have been achieved. Toss a short ball and have the player move up and attack the ball then follow up with a high, deeper ball—where the player must move and set up quickly. The key here is to be able to swing with balance and control.
Lateral Movements In most clinics, lateral or side-to-side footwork drills are more common than up and back drills. In addition to simply moving in one direction and hitting consecutive shots, I like to employ drills that include a “backing out” element. That is, the ball is tossed towards the backhand side of the player yet the player moves back and takes the ball as another forehand. In this way, the player is learning to dictate the shots he or she chooses to hit instead of simply letting the dictate play. Moonballs Among young players and even for many adults, the dreaded “moonball” can be difficult to handle. At many levels, players who have traditionally worked exclusively on "advanced" stroke patterns have difficulty handling high-bouncing, softly hit balls. The key to returning the moonball successfully is rooted once again in footwork. Often, players don’t recognize the trajectory and resulting bounce of such balls. One of the interesting, yet obscure, observations I have made over the years is the fact that many players, when faced with a slow-moving ball, tend to move their feet in a similar, equivalently slow fashion. Then suddenly, the player has to rush at the last moment to make any kind of shot on this, higher-bouncing, usually deeper ball.
The key here is to move with the intent of either taking the ball off the bounce before it gets high, (a practice I will discuss in a moment), or to move back quickly, judge the bounce and attempt to hit the ball in the ideal hitting zone. The anticipation and movement of this strategy is something that takes practice and this is exactly why I am training Kyla in this situational shot. Obviously, simply hitting this ball back is only part of the equation. Taking this shot and hitting a ball that is effective is another level of training that will come later. For Kyla, my desire is for her to learn how to move, judge, and respond with a balanced, steady stroke, one that will, at minimum, keep her in the point. Speed and Pace Obviously, if when you become more advanced, you end up playing better opponents. At tat level, a player will not only need to learn to execute more effective shots, they will also need to learn to defend against more difficult shots struck by their opponents. One of the drills associated with this learning strategy is to throw relatively hard and fast balls to the student so they learn how to react and hit such shots. It is important for all players to push themselves within these drills. Through training, players learn to adjust to the pace of these faster shots by preparing earlier both mentally, and physically with their feet and stroke.
As beginners, almost any ball hit from the other side of the court to our side seemed relatively fast as we had not experienced many tennis balls hit to us. As we played more tennis and saw more and harder hit balls, we became accustomed to such shots. As we progressed further, many of our everyday rally balls would have seemed like rockets to us as beginners. If we hope to progress on to even higher levels, we must learn to recognize and react to even faster balls so they too, in time, seem more manageable and less challenging. That is how pros can return serves of 130 mph and faster. As mentioned earlier, one of the shot choices a player can have against a moonball is to take the ball earlier, right off the bounce. The timing of this stroke is more critical than that of moving back and taking the ball after it has come down from the peak of its bounce. This drill where the player learns to take balls quickly off the bounce and on the rise, will result in the student gaining confidence and skill in executing this very shot. Conclusion In working with any player, you will need to go beyond simply “hitting” balls. Obviously, you will need to employ many footwork drills to develop the right responses to on-court situations so players will have the experience to draw from when in the heat of competition. The drills I have provided here should be done with all the different strokes, including backhands, slices, lobs, drop shots, and you should employ additional footwork patterns also. (These footwork patterns should include open stance strokes, carioca steps, and recovery steps such as brake steps, drop-steps, reverse pivot steps etc.) When you put all the pieces of the puzzle together, you will be well on your way to training your students to reach their full potential. Next month, I will be discussing more live-ball drills and the when, where, why, and how of competitive tennis for these young players. Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Dave Smith's article by emailing us here at TennisOne .
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