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Smart Tennis Lessons
Introduction to Tennis Lessons:
- Learn to play tennis correctly: 1) Tennis is a fun and challenging sport, 2) it is great exercise and challenging for your body and mind, 3) accordingly, it is important that you learn to play tennis correctly.
- Taking tennis lessons is a necessary first step: 1) tennis lessons will avoid the biggest danger for a beginning tennis player, which is learning astroke the wrong way. 2) once the body learns a movement pattern, it's becomes hard to unlearn it, 3) erasing muscle memory, by trying to replace it with a new correct movement, is a difficult, frustrating and painstaking process and the hardest things to unlearn are those that we learn as a raw beginner, 4) thus, flaws you acquire at this beginning stage are deeply ingrained and can follow you forever, making you miss shots you shouldn't miss, 5) so, if you take tennis lessons as a first step you'll soon enjoy your tennis game with great looking strokes and the ability to hit them consistently, time after time, and with accuracy and power.
- Tennis lessons for intermediate and advanced players: 1) It is also a good idea to take refresher tennis lessons as your game improves, 2) this can help you to not develop lasting bad habits, which can reduce the effectiveness of your game and in some cases can cause sore muscles or even physical injury.
- Beginning tennis lessons: Among the topics typically are, a) racquet control drills, b) forehand and backhand, practice drills, c) serving and net play drills, d) how to play doubles, and e) how to keep score.
- Intermediate tennis lessons: 1) This is an advanced beginner program for tennis players that have learned the basic techniques and are beginning to judge the ball and sustain a rally, 2) it typically, a) emphasizes technical playing skills, and b) introduces game strategy for both single and doubles play.
- Advanced tennis lessons: 1) All of the skills necessary to play tennis at an advanced level are typically introduced, 2) topics typically covered are, a) warming up, b) forehand, c) backhand, d) serving, e) the serve return, f) net play, g) ball feeding drills, h) practicing the serve, i) the serve return and volley, and j) warm-ups in preparing to play, and 3) setting up for play in, a) practice situations, and b) playing strategies.
Details of Tennis Lessons and the Forehand, Backhand and Serve:
- Forehand tennis lessons:
- The forehand hits the tennis ball on the dominant side of the tennis player.
- There is both a one handed and a two handed forehand, however the one handed is used by almost all tennis players primarily because of its greater reach potential.
- The forehand stroke as described below, is essentially the same for both the one handed and two handed forehand except that for the two handed both hands are holding the tennis racket at the same time with the dominant hand closest to the bottom of the racket.
- The pivot and shoulder turn is first thing that a tennis players should do when hitting a forehand, where the outside foot is turned while turning the shoulders sideways which results in the entire body being turned sideways.
- To execute the pivot and shoulder turn, a) the outside foot should be pivoted while transferring the body weight to that foot, b) during this motion the heal of the opposite inside foot should be up, c) at the same time the shoulders should be turned sideways, d) note that pivoting with the outside foot opens up the hips making it easier to turn the shoulders sideways.
- So, to execute the forehand swing, a) you slightly bend your arm holding it straight out parallel to your shoulder, b) you next do the pivot and shoulder turn keeping your arm parallel to your shoulder, c) pivoting with your outside foot opens up your hips and makes it easier to turn your shoulders sideways, d) you follow through keeping your eyes on the incoming ball and hit it in the sweet spot of the racket with your body turning.
- To execute top spin if desired, a) when the body is turned and the tennis racket is back, start the body movement and the swing with the center of the sweet spot of the tennis racket slightly below the path of the incoming tennis ball, b) as the tennis racket comes forward slightly continuously raise it at an angle so that the racket impacts the ball at the center of the sweet spot, c) if executed properly, this stroke will put significant top spin on the ball as it leaves the tennis racket.
- Backhand tennis lessons:
- The backhand hits the tennis ball on the non-dominant side of the tennis player.
- There is both a one handed and a two handed backhand, with the two handed more popular among the weekend/amateur players and the one handed more popular among the professional players (the one hander is more difficult to master).
- The pivot and shoulder turn stroke as described for the forehand is the same basic stroke used for the backhand for both one handed and two handed strokes, except that the dominant arm is across the front of the body.
- Top spin can be executed in the same manner as described for the forehand.
- Serve tennis lessons:
- The serve is considered the most difficult stoke in Tennis to learn because there are so many moving parts of the body that must cohesively and in synchronism act together.
- The Stance: The “party stance,” is an easy-to-learn way of positioning your feet that lets you properly execute the rest of the mechanics necessary for a fundamentally sound serve and is a recommended method.
- Tossing the Tennis Ball: a) a properly placed, consistent toss is one of the keys to developing an effective serve, b) techniques exist that train you to put the tennis ball in the same spot every time, allowing you to both be more consistent and better disguise your serve.
- The Backswing: a) The backswing gets your racket up above your shoulders in the L position, and puts your arm and the racket in position to swing up to the tennis ball correctly later in the motion, b) the key to this step is to raise the racket while keeping your palm facing the court as long as possible.
- Knee Bend and Weight Transfer: a) The weight transfer and knee bend allows you to get your body’s momentum and legs into your serve, b) the weight transfer and knee bend happen simultaneously with the backswing and toss.
- The Trophy Pose: a) The trophy pose is the completion of your service preparation which is after you toss the ball, complete your backswing, and bend your knees and begin transferring your weight forward, b) it is called the “trophy pose,” because this is the position you see embodied in nearly every tennis trophy, c) from this position you are ready to begin your swing up to contact the tennis ball.
- The Racket Drop: a) from the trophy pose, the racket drops down behind your back -before- it swings up to contact the ball, b) the racket drop is a critical element of the serve, and every good server gets to this position during their motions despite the fact that their preparations look different.
- Leg Push: At the same time the racket drops behind the back, one needs to push up and off with the legs so that the feet are just barely coming off the court at the exact instant that the racket is pointed straight down behind the body.
- Swing Up to Contact Ball: From the racket drop position of above, swing up to the tennis ball with an L-shape between your arm and racket.
- Pronation Wrist Movement: a) The up swing movement just described goes on to just before ball contact and then the wrist is snapped forward (pronation) to open the racket face to the ball at the last moment, b) this pronation action significantly increases the impact force to the ball, while also adding great top spin.
- Follow Through: a) The follow through completes the service motion and is accomplished by smoothly decelerating the tennis racket and the body, b) there are specific techniques that allow the finishing of this motion so that the body is on balance and prepared for the opponent’s return.
- Other Tennis Lessons: The are many other tennis lessons available such as, a) grips, b) kick service, c)slice serve, d) return of serve, e) footwork, and f) net play.
There are many more fundamentals that you will learn such as grips, kick service, slice serve, return of serve, footwork and net play. All are available through tennis lessons and practice.
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