Kaizen - Is it the Missing Element in Your Game?

by Jim McLennan

Kaizen - the constant and continuous quest for improvement. Never being satisfied with your technique, your performance, your prowess.

Kaizen - Toyota engineers accelerate the assembly line until it breaks down. Then they find and fix the flaw and push the assembly line again. They repeat this process pushing the assembly line to yet higher levels of production

Tiger Woods wins the 1997 Masters by a colossal eleven strokes. Then calls his coach Butch Harmon to announce he wants to retool his swing. Now stop a moment. Changing a golf stroke (think tennis stroke) requires unlearning old habits, replacing those habits with new technique, then practicing enough so the new technique becomes a (new) habit. This isn’t easy. 

The golfer or tennis player often becomes overly conscious as they hit the ball, and this heightened consciousness interferes with performance. Sure enough Tiger had about 18 months of struggle trying to get the “feel” of his changed swing. Now, as you are undoubtedly aware, Tiger is really feeling it, and Coach Harmon figures Tiger is about 75% of the way there.  Are you kidding me! Tiger has three major victories this year and he is still only 75% of the way there? 

Celebrate Tiger for his courage, his intelligence and for his work ethic, for his willingness to change.

So back to our tennis world. You the reader, practice endless hours perfecting your tennis technique. A loose and whip like service action, a firm and brief volleying stroke, and versatile groundstrokes hit with underspin, overspin, and disguise. And through it all, you monitor your effort - how hard you are working to meet the ball squarely. Those “perfect” shots occur when you are balanced, when your timing is good, when you are relaxed and swinging easily (this may be the truest parallel between golf and tennis, in that in golf tension contaminates the feel of and for the swing, and the same ultimately is true in tennis).  

Unfortunately, in most instances, players of any ability get cornered by the style of a certain stroke and often do not work to complete the entire repertoire of shots. The flowing rhythm of the serve is different than the staccato approach to the volley. The grips for the groundstrokes are different than that for the serve. The requirements for the approach and net game are totally different than for the grinding topspin baseline rally. The challenge is to address these disparate elements, and work to bring them ALL into your game. 

As you evaluate your own appreciation for Kaizen, have you avoided learning the eastern backhand grip on your serve? Are you unwilling to work on your net game for fear of being passed. Are you tinkering with a drop shot return off your opponent’s generally weak second serve, or unable to get the feel for feathering the underspin? Will you be better at the game in 5 years, or simply playing more or less the same but with 5 additional years experience?

Professional Example: 

• Goran Ivanisivic, great serve but never acquired court sense.  
• Michael Chang, wonderful counter puncher but no real feel for the transition or approaching game. 
• Andre Agassi, wonderful record over the years, but would he have had even more titles if he had developed a taste for the net? 

Jim Courier, interviewed in Tennis Magazine, remarked early on a coach started tinkering with his grips but the changes did not stick, and he lamented that if only the coach had persisted. Talk about misplaced responsibility, the quest for constant improvement comes from within, and that may be the lesson of Earl and Tiger Woods, that Tiger was taught early on the mind set, the attitude, and the need for constant improvement.

On the other hand, Don Budge takes an entire winter off to work on his forehand approach.
On one occasion, while refereeing a match, Budge had seen how early Fred Perry took the ball, running Ellsworth Vines from corner to corner. Budge knew “taking the ball on the rise” would give him a tremendous edge, so he and Tom Stow worked all winter getting to the forehand quickly, on balance, and in the right fashion. 

Brad Gilbert dramatically remakes his serve from college to the professional ranks. 

Bjorn Borg drastically improved his serve, winning five Wimbledon’s as proof. Borg practices his serve two hours a day during this process. At the conclusion, his coach, Lennart Bergelin, describes Borg’s new serve as an arrow. 

A teenaged Pete Sampras abandons his two handed backhand in order to improve his approaching game and volleying technique.  Many in the Los Angeles tennis community questioned the wisdom of changing a stroke in an accomplished junior tournament competitor. Because of  Sampras’ quest for continuous improvement, his keen awareness of the big picture, he knew intuitively of the two handers limitations, and boldly changed his game.

So are you ready to push the envelop, work on the big picture, learn all facets of the game?  If so, where do you start? Begin with Tom Stow The All Court Forcing Game. There is a clear description of a strategic style, and the specific weapons required to master that all court style. Review your grips. Are you unable to hit certain shots because of grip deficiencies, if so CHANGE. Has your game improved over the past few years, or have you reached a plateau. If so, CHANGE.

Masterstrokes

Masterstrokes are those that “tennis historians” regard as the best of all time. That particular estimation comes from the power of those strokes, for their accuracy, for their rhythm and style, for the mechanical leverage and, for their unfailing consistency day in and day out, week in week out, year in and year out. Study these strokes, learn, improve!

Pete Sampras serve and forehand. Andre Agassi two handed backhand. Ken Rosewall underspin backhand. Don Budge overspin backhand. Lew Hoad serve. Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi return of serve. To view some of the masterstrokes, click below:

• Pete Sampras serve
• Ken Rosewall underspin backhand
• Don Budge overspin backhand
• Andre Agassi return

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Jim McLennan's article by emailing us here at TennisONE.  

Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Jim McLennan's journal by emailing us here at TennisONE.