November 15, 2010
Tennis Warehouse – New Products – Liquidation Shoe Sale - Nike CourtBallistic 2.3 (Rafa's shoe) - $79; Asics Gel Resolution 2 - $79; Prince Rebel - $59.95 Stunt Pilot, Kaizen, and Topspin Forehands Jim McLennan Our game has evolved and will continue to evolve. In the 1970's I received (and have saved) a tennis teaching proposal from an old friend and college coach Wayne Dawson, in which he essentially advocated teaching the game as though it were ping pong. No shoulder turns, no backswings, no real emphasis on "stroke production" but rather a way to play simply with one's hand. Wayne felt the traditional teaching methods obscured a natural feel for the game, as the jargon of teachers is often over laden with technical and technique-oriented phrases. As I work through submissions to our site, I wonder why we have made this game so darn hard.
Well, at the professional level, these days, the game does appear like ping pong–racquets are lighter and last second acceleration of the racquet (paddle) at impact appears to be the norm. Where once we were trained to hit smoothly through the ball, imagining there were 10 beer bottles that must be swept from the table, now it is about waiting until the last moment and then accelerating at impact. If you still reside within the old school, the following material may be unsuitable. On the other hand, if you are working on some of the "new stuff," then read on, there may be a hunch or two that will give you a yet heavier ball. Stunt Pilots Stunt pilots can pull two or three G's when coming abruptly out of a steep dive. The acceleration force created from swooping up swiftly from a steep dive appears remarkably similar to the arc shown by Vic Braden on the Ivanovic forehand. And my hunch is that just as the pilot becomes heavier at this moment, something similar occurs with the hand and racquet as it accelerates up from its downward swooping arc.
Kaizen And what about Kaizen (had you been keenly reading up to this point)? In the Kaizen (Japanese for the process of continuous improvement), factories commonly speed up the production line to see what aspect of the interrelated assembly breaks down. This speeding up identifies weaknesses, and when addressed and remedied, the process becomes improved. Tom Stow (the legendary coach and my coach for a while) used a similar method years ago, asking the student to hit the ball much, much harder. So much harder that I would truly lose control. But then under his watchful eye, he would glean which aspect of the technique (mine in this case) contributed to the loss of control, and we would return yet again to the drawing board to tinker, tinker, and tinker some more. Your Topspin Forehand Experiment So in this article I propose you select the topspin forehand, and experiment with the application of significantly more racquet head acceleration, such that you cannot always control the shot. But in this process carefully feel and observe how your body is working. Further, this acceleration must come from the ground up, meaning you must use your legs and hips.
Direct your eyes to a few important features. Nadal plays from a crouch and gets a lot of initial work from his legs and hips (power always comes from the ground up–push on the ground and the ground pushes back). Relatively simple and short preparation, but note the racquet starts quite high to enable a big swooping arc. His grip is semi-western which helps this topspin effort, but truly there is a significant upward acceleration as the racquet meets the ball. Light racquets, poly string, a lifetime of topspin–whether Nadal or the new breed of junior player–everyone on the tour appears to have this stroke. Now it's time to experiment to incorporate a version of this stroke into your game. Jim McLennan's DVDs are in the TennisOne Writer’s Store:
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