Richard's Secret

I think Richard is probably the player who has improved the most in the last year from all of my students. I used to beat him very comfortable, but now I have to be at my best. I think I still may have an edge due to my serve and return, but I'm aware that it may not last for long. When we rally from the baseline he is probably stronger.
So the question we must ask is, Why did Richard improve so fast?

Here is what I think is Richard's secret:

1. Richard is responsible for his learning.
2. Richard is a believer of visual learning.
3. Richard practices constantly.

Richard is responsible for his learning. This is one the most important secrets for all of us who wish to become masters of any skill. Its great to have a teacher and someone to guide us, but at the end we are the ones responsible for learning. that's why Richard become a member of tennisplayer.net, he is always curios about someone else shots, he sees a lot of videos from the pros, etc.
So many times I have students that come for a lesson and they are waiting passively for a miracle. They believe that their learning depends only on the coach's knowledge. They are dependent and feel no responsibility from their learning. In this case learning is minimum until the student realizes that his reality is unique and it is He (with the teacher's help) who must find a way to learn.

"when the student is ready, the teacher will appear"

Richard is a believer of visual learning.

Visual learning has the power to accelerate the improvement of your skills beyond your greatest expectations. Seeing yourself hitting a forehand or a serve will give you a great awareness of what you do. It will create an internal visual image that you can bring back and recreate in the moment of execution. Every time I hit a topspin backhand I visualize Federer's Backhand and easily imagine my own backhand since I've seen myself on video. And that helps me to have a great awareness of my own swing and helps me every day on improving the swing.
We just have to follow the great masters of learning, babies and little kids. They learn by observing. Kids have no fears because they don't judge. They observe without judging. We adults do it all wrong, we become paralyzed by our fears because we judge without observing.
Richard is always keen to see his videos. Who hasn't seen Richard swinging in front of the club house to see his own reflection in the window?

Richard is constantly practicing.
'Repetition is the chariot of genius'. I first heard that expression from Tom Veneziano (www.tenniswarrior.com)and I really like it. Richard practices a lot on the ball machine. The ball machine is such a great tool. Unfortunately not so many players use it. You can hit 300 or 400 forehands in an hour and as long as you stay reasonably focused it can do so much for your game. While using the ball machine you can afford missing some shots in order to observe better what you are doing with your swing. You have time to think and you can take more risks and perhaps try out new ways of swinging that you wouldn't if you were playing with your friends.

I think that for us to improve faster at any skill, first of all we have to learn how to learn. A child learns to walk, run or riding a bike without any coaching. He can learn a new language in two months without any instruction. All of that he learns by observation and practice.

Thanks Richard

Thanks Richard for sharing your tennis videos with us. I'm sure that your footage will help many players improve their game.

Richard's 2009 Forehands

This was Richard's forehand when I first recorded him even before I started coaching him. From the start his Unit Turn wasn't as good as it should be. The Unit Turn is one of the most important concepts for a player to develop a solid and compact technique. The Unit turn is the first part of the preparation. It starts with the turn of the shoulders with no independent movement of the racket, hand or arm. As you can see on the first forehand, Richard moves his racket first and the shoulder turn comes after. The last three, four years since I've been using this great concept in my coaching,(thanks to John Yandell and his site tennisplayer.net) I've been looking at it with deeper eyes and normally I can detect an imperfect unit turn On most of my students straight away. Sometimes though I need the assistance of the high speed camera to be sure and for the student to see it.
As a result of an imperfect unit turn, the shoulders that start to turn a bit late in the swing, don't turn as much as they could. On his full turn, Richard has his shoulders perpendicular to the net and you can't see his back. If you compare it with my forehand (see Forehand 3) you can see that my shoulders turn more than perpendicular to the net and you can see part of my back.
There is so much more about his forehand, but let us see the new way that Richard found to hit his forehand a year later


08/02/09




08/02/09 (500 fps)



20/11/09

Richard's new Forehands - Open Stance

This is the new forehand. It looks very different than before. I think his footwork is much better and its allowing Richard to be in a better position more often. I can feel the power and consistency on Richard's forehand when we are rallying, much more than I used too. Perhaps the biggest difference on his swing now is that on the forward swing, Richard keeps his racket on edge (flat) while accelerating to contact and I think that is a major improvement and is allowing him to hit the ball with much more power and depth. On the previous videos we can see how the racket on the begginning of the forward swing goes with the strings faced down.
But still there is so much more to improve on his forehand. His Unit turn is much better than before but still not perfect. His racket is moving a bit earlier than his shoulder turn.
On his new forehand Richard brings his racket very high (maybe too high) a bit like Hewitt's forehand although Lleyton keeps his racket more horizontal. On the full turn players normally reach what I call the power position that happens roughly at the same time that the ball bounces and at the last step with the right foot on an open stance forehand. From that point players are fully turned, have the left arm stretched across, with maximum bend of the knees, and are ready to start the forward swing. On Richard's forehand, if we freeze the video at the time that the ball bounces, he has his left arm stretched, he seems to be at his full turn (that could still be better), but he still hasn't landed his last step with his right foot so he lacks ground force (knee bend) and the timing of the rotation on his forward swing is not great. So when he steps with his right foot the left arm is gone and the shoulders have turned already and so there was a loss of power. Maybe as a consequence of all that his extension after hitting the ball is short. Notice how his elbow finishes sometimes too close to the body.
I've pointed out different aspects on Richard's forehand technique. One thing is to have a good forehand and other thing is to turn it into a weapon. I have no doubt that Richard will continue to improve his forehands, and I can't wait to record him in six months time to see the difference.

28/04/10 (Rally with Andre)




28/04/10 (Rally with Andre)




The next two videos were recorded while using the ball machine. On these two forehands, Richard seems to have a better swing. Although we can't see the ball bounce, we can guess that when that happens his power position is much better than on the previous two shots and he has more extension after contact. Was the difference of this two swings from the previous a result of a conscious change of his technique or was it because the ball machine gave him more time to prepare his swing? In fact he is hitting the ball from further back in the court. In that case part of the answer comes down to footwork.

28/04/10 (Ball machine)





28/04/10 (Ball machine)

Richard's New Forehand - Neutral Stance

When using the neutral stance Richard just before hitting the ball his last step with the left foot is too short. He needs a big step so he can get lower and more balanced to transfer his body weight forward. His extension seems short, again his right elbow finishes to close to the body. So his footwork was not good enough for that shot. When the ball is not quick enough, Richard can step in really nice to the ball, but he needs to improve his footwork to allow him to use the neutral stance on faster balls.

28/04/10 (rally with Andre)



28/04/10 (rally with Andre)