Signs of What Not To Do

Kareem Abdul Jabar is known for perfecting the hook shot. This highly effective shot made him virtually unguardable when he was in the flow of the game. Over the years he has been asked many times why nobody has emulated the infamous hook shot. Never able to give a solid straight answer, he can't put his finger on exactly why this is so. Maybe the introduction of the 3-point line into the NBA, maybe the satisfaction of making a flashy jump shot, but he isn't quite sure. What he does know is nobody has taken the time to learn and perfect the skill of backing someone down to the basket, inch by inch, waiting for the right moment to unleash the deadly hook shot.

The Lakers hired him to be a coach for big man (center) Andrew Bynum. Outside of Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum is considered one of the best centers in the NBA. He was asked, "Why don't you teach Andrew the hook?" The reporter went on to say, "It would seem logical to copy one of the most effective shots in basketball history, time is on his side to learn this valuable skill, and it could potentially elevate his game to a whole new level. It makes perfect logical sense."

Kareem replied, "I don't know. I tried, but you can only push a person so far. I hear what you are saying, everything you are saying is right. For whatever reason, Andrew just didn't want to learn it and you can only push someone so far."

Sometimes there is no changing people. The best approach is to accept them for who they are, quit trying to change them, and appreciate them with the good and the bad. It's very easy for any outsider to say, "So and so should do this and that. It's so easy." Not so fast my friend.

Knowledge is not everything in relating to a player. If one of the best basketball players in the world is unwilling to change, imagine what the rest of us are capable of? Human beings are flawed in one way or another. The best coaches do not try to prove they are right (especially early when signing on with a player). The smart coaches patiently try to build trust, go with the players strengths, before messing with any technical issues. There is certainly an art to making your players feel good about themselves.

Once you have earned the trust (which could take months to years), anything is possible.

Here is an example of what not to do. Watch a world class junior, college, or professional player play 2-3 matches and start suggesting to change their technique with no prior relationship with them. "Change your grip, toss the ball here, angular momentum, apex on serve, crossover step, blah blah and blah blah and blaaaah." Especially if you have never played at the level they have played at- pressure, nerves, confidence, bad luck- all "real" contributing factors that affect performance.

Perfect technique is the holy grail. The quest that will never be reached. The wise coaches understand this is unattainable and instead focus on things they can grasp such as the ability to handle suffering, approach to training, the look on their face during matches, do they genuinely scrap for every crumb, etc. A great warrior with poor strategy willl usually beat a strategist with a poor head. People who have never played before think "two shots here, one shot there" or "why don't they just step into the ball and hit it?" The pressure to win is debilitating at times.

Put Some Vinegar in Their Cocoa

CAtennis.com has had the opportunity to watch a couple of mid-level professional women's events being played in Southern California. At first blush, every one of these players seems like a world-beater. The ball explodes off the string bed like a missile being launched from the battleship and, from the sound of the ball, it appears that they have fire-crackers in their strings. However, if you open your eyes and get past the intimidation factor, you realize how one-dimensional a lot of these players are. They are amazing at every shot that bounces between the knees and the chest. When such a ball comes in the middle of the court...well, fuggedaboutit. They can crank it like the best of them. However, looks can be deceiving. When the ball is high/low and away, things take a whole new dimension. Therefore, it is perplexing to see that certain strategies are not being implemented in the match by someone who is hungry to win. 

As a player, if you want to slug it out and take your chances, then so be it. Ultimately, the best ball striker that day will come out on top and there's no reason to be upset if you end up on the wrong side of the score-card. However, if you want to win, it's important to analyze your opponent's matches as well as practices in order to devise a game-plan. It is really in practices when you can pick up sublte clues about your opponent's game. For example, does she spend an inordinate amount of time crushing cross-courts? Does she rally mindlessly from the middle of the court? Well, then your mentality should be: "I don't care how good you are from that spot because the LAST thing I'm going to hit is going to be in your wheelhouse." Or "you like your forehand?! Great! Hit it a 1000 times in practice 'cause you ain't gonna be seeing any in the match". Or "you like THAT?! I'm going to give you the exact OPPOSITE of what you like; Now drink up." Remember that, for a lot of the players, practices are like safety blankets. They practice one way and they play matches the same way. Take them out of their comfort zone - be it with sharp angles, heavy topspins, deft slices or attacking plays - and they will be dumbfounbded. Why?! The answer is because a lot of players are simply too lazy to do the dirty work in practice. They are comfortable hitting certain shots and continue to work on them long after they mastered them. A good, smart player will always look to expand his/her dimensions and expand his/her mental, technical and tactical horizons. In the long-run, the "same-old, same-old" is a losing strategy. A smart player WILL find a way to punch through your defenses or to neutralize your offense. THEN WHAT?! Are you going to keep hitting harder? Try plays/strokes that you haven't practiced? Give up? 

So next time you see your opponent crushing ground-strokes from a stationary position, don't despair. See how good s/he is while on the run. If your opponent is adept at covering the court side-to-side (the sign of someone with some degree of intelligence), see how good she is at covering diagonals, up-and-back and behind her (i.e., wrong-foot, or contre-pied). Some players do cover the baseline fairly well. At first, these players can be intimidating. However, get them out of this comfort zone (which for them = being on the run "coast to coast") and their games will break down. Very few players will make the effort of performing drills where they cover the deep corner (e.g. BH), the other deep corner (i.e., FH), short FH corner, deep BH corner, short BH corner, rinse-and repeat. When they are faced with situations like this in the match, they will often take the coward's way out and slap a low percentage show just to get rid of the ball. THAT's when you know that you got them! Learn to take your opponent out of the comfort zone, leae them with a bad taste in their mouths from the first point to the last, and you will win more matches and beat "better" opponents. 

Bruce Tarran: Mini Tennis – How a Good Idea Got Complicated

In the next few weeks, CAtennis.com will host a discussion regarding the Pros and Cons of the implementation of Quickstart/ROG [i.e. red, orange and green balls] in the United States. Coaches with decades of experience in the field of early tennis development will share some of their thoughts on the subject. As CAtennis.com doesn't take a particular stance on the subject, we hope that, for everyone's benefit, the truth will be synthesized or distilled through a civilized discussion. In the meantime, we are proud to present the following article (reproduced with the permission of the author) by Mr. Bruce Tarran. If you are a fan of clever, British humor we suggest that, in addition to reading Mr. Tarran's thoughts, you watch the linked videos below. We would like to extend our gratitude to Mr. Tarran for sharing his experiences and allowing us to utilize the article and videos enclosed herein. 

Bruce's background: Bruce Tarran is an LTA Licensed Professional Tennis Coach. He is currently Head Coach at Leicestershire Lawn Tennis Club, an 18-court members club in Leicester, England. He was a county and regional coach for many years, and individual coach to a large number of county and national juniors. His last two clubs were awarded LTA performance status. He believes that there are few pleasures in life like watching children learn to love tennis. For more information, please visit www.tarrantennis.co.uk or http://www.youtube.com/user/Tarrantennis.

___________________________________________________________________________________

A few months ago I put some videos about the negative effects of the current British mini tennis structure on youtube. They have now had around 15,000 views. Just over 100 British tennis coaches wrote to me about them. 6 disagreed completely, 3 said the problems lay elsewhere, and the rest either strongly or broadly agreed with the videos. It can’t be taken as a representativesurvey, of course, (although my experience is that people are more likely to write when they disagree!) but it would seem that the majority of working British tennis coaches have, to put it mildly, some reservations about aspects of our mini tennis structure.

As elements of this structure are now being rolled out around the world, it seems that the experience of British coaches who have worked under this system should be taken into account. Let me say straight away that I believe low compression balls and appropriately sized racquets and equipment are superb teaching tools when used appropriately. The problem isn’t the balls; it’s the complex system which has been constructed around them.

Good teaching demands progression. It must allow for children to be grouped together by standard as well as age. The mini tennis competition structure insists that players are grouped together by age only, so, according to their date of birth an 8 year old cannot play with a 9 year old who cannot play with a 10 year old who cannot play with an 11 year old. Each age must play with a different ball on a different sized court, without mixing and regardless of their standard or rate of improvement. It is not the transition balls that are bad, it is the prescription placed around them.

In competition different ages are not allowed to mix. There is a passport system where players can supposedly move up (from red to orange, for instance). But in practice because of the number of competitive matches required in a short space of time, this happens in a minimum of cases. Most British juniors compete in their designated colour throughout, whatever their standard, and whatever their ability or skill level.

Because each colour covers a single year this reduces the size of competitions. This particularly affects girls who generally much prefer, at a young age, to play against other girls. Instead, because fewer girls than boys play tennis anyway, they are forced to compete primarily against boys and this has decimated girl’s competition in some areas at a young age.

About 1% of tennis courts in Britain are indoors, yet mini tennis is often marketed as an indoor game. Certainly indoor mini tennis, particularly with the sponge balls for starting reds, is superb, but the vast majority of junior tennis in Britain is played outdoors and adapting mini tennis to the British weather is rarely discussed.

In general I have had a wonderful response to these videos, in Britain and across the world. I am very grateful to everyone who has taken the time to write to me and show an interest, whatever their point of view. I believe that discussion and debate are good – prescription and inflexibility are bad. In my opinion it is a mistake to put a complex, prescriptive structure around what is basically a superb teaching tool. Using the appropriate low compression balls with appropriate sized racquets can bring fast progress, but this progress may then demand the flexibility to move the child on. Good teaching demands flexibility – and therefore striving for a less prescriptive and rigid system is essential in the best interests of the child.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Steal This Drill: Figure 8 Variation With Three Players

Here are 2 variations on the Figure 8 drill (i.e., where one player goes cross-court but another goes down the line. CAtennis.com would like to extend our appreciation to Mr. Roy Coopersmith for, once again, suggesting the following variations on this staple tennis drill. One of the issues with the Fig. 8 drill is that it seems to work best in a 1-on-1 practice. However, as evidenced by the following, one can easily incorporate the Figure 8 drill into 3-on-court workouts. 

Variant 1 (Figure 1 on the left): In this variant, Player A hits cross-court and Player B hits down the line. Player C is at the net post. The drill starts by having Player A feed. After Player B makes contact SIX (6) times, Player C jumps in Player B's spot and Player B runs to the opposite net post from where Player C was standing. Then, after Player A hits SIX (6) shots, Player B replaces Player A and Player A rushes to the net post that was originally manned by Player C. In other words, all players have the opportunity to hit TWELVE (12) shots in a row and then get a brief respite at the net. So, to summarize, the players hit and then rotate clockwise. Depending on the levels of the players, they can either hit FOUR (4) shots and move, SIX (6) shots or even EIGHT (8) shots and move. 

Variant 2 (Figure 2 on the left): In this variant, Player B is by herself and hits down the line (or cross court). Players A and C hit SIX (6) shots each and then substitute in and substitute out. This is a great drill because Player B can really focus on hammering the ball down the line (or cross court) without "feeling bad" about making her practice partners move. The two practice partners (A and C) hit only a few shots and then get a brief break so they can (or should be able to) maintain a higher intensity and better quality drill. 

What we like about these drills - particularly if the players possess different styles of play - is that all players get to "see a different ball" coming from their practice partners and have to adjust to the various shots while in the middle of the point. Accordingly, these are great drill for incorporating into a team format such as a high school or college practice. 

Steal This Drill: Offense Defense

In the fields of athletic competition, war and, sometimes, business it is often said that "the best offense is a good defense". Of course, when it comes to putting the ball away in tennis, being the master of defensive shots is often not enough. Many times, players work the point to perfection, get an easy sitter in the middle of the court and then fail to convert on the occasion. Whether they overhit, underhit or it the ball right to the opponent, these players could be well-served by practicing some offense-defense type drills. 

Here's a good and SIMPLE drill that two players (or a player and coach) can incorporate in their practice in order to develop the ability to "pop" the ball. One player (the practice partner) stays in one half of the court and simply moves the opponent (the "principal") side to side with SOFT, medium-height shots (i.e. balls should bounce above 6ft). The principal tries to thump these balls back to the practice partner with hard, penetrating shots. By performing this drill, the principal learns how to move his feet for the ball, load his body weight and also generate racket head speed. Remember that the practice partner is not generating any pace (he simply blocks the ball back - hence the "defense" in the name of the drill) so all the pace is provided by the principal. The principal goes to the point of exhaustion (up to 3 minutes is good; beyond 3 minutes it's great). Thereafter, the players switch roles so each gets a chance to dictate. Sprinkle this drill throughout your workouts and very soon you will master the put-away shot. By hitting these shots with confidence, your whole game will change. You will hit more winners (from an optimal court position); you will force the opponent to go for more on regular shots (since she knows that if she gives you the floater you will put the ball away); and you will develop a more aggressive instinct.