David Ranney's Tennis Blog

About How To Practice

Here is the main question that was asked by David, one of my book owners. He then pretty much answered his own question and hopefully I added a little more to the answers he found in Lesson #15 and #41 in my book.

 

"Is there ever a time on court, during a point, when one should consciously think about strategy (or stroke mechanics)? I think the answer is no during a tournament match or match that is important. But how does one practice stroke mechanics and consciously be aware of your body mechanics and/or strategy? Only during practice or drills? "

 

And he answered himself with this:

 

"After I emailed you I realized that probably all I had to do was go back and read "the book" again. Of course, it's all right there. I found some good answers to my question in lessons 15 & 41, and they are very helpful. I have been working so hard on my stroke mechanic and strategy stuff that I'm afraid I have neglected practicing the mental game. As you have pointed out, we all practice the other stuff at the expense of not practicing the mental game. Perhaps the answer to my question lies in deciding when and what to practice at any given time. Or, as you have pointed out in lessons 15 & 41, one can practice both strokes and strategy and the mental game at the same time. In a tournament match however, it's all mental game. Thanks again for your help and congratulations on your good summer season."

 

Here are my additional thoughts:

 

I am glad that you found the answers to your questions in my book. That saves me a lot of thinking and typing. (lol). Maybe, that should be my answer to all the questions people ask. I should tell them to just read my book again.

 

One of the things I would add is that you can use what happens when you hit balls to direct your practice. Here is what I mean. When I am practicing, different things happen as I hit the ball. Maybe I am hitting balls long. When I become aware of this, I then spend a few minutes dealing with that issue. If, for some reason, my backhand feels “off,” then I will deal with that for a few minutes. Maybe I notice that I am not breathing properly. I will then spend some time being aware of my breathing. So, what I practice on will depend on what is happening at that moment, but I will only work on one thing at a time. These things will change from day to day. How to “fix” these things, as you said, are all in my book.

 

Now, I also have a check list that I use from time to time. My check list is a list of things that I have become aware of that I need to either work on or need to make sure I am doing. See the index of my book for a list of some of these check lists. And, I add to my check list as I become aware of different things that are going on with my game. This check list is a work in progress.

 

I use the same process to fix “my problems” when I play games except that as things come up, I only visualize the correction and then I let it go and just go back to my core principles. I do not work on fixing it (except in my mind and in between points) when I am playing points. If it continues to be a problem, then I will work on it in my next practice session.

 

My last words of wisdom are to make sure that you spend enough time practicing the core principles. I practice them this way. Let’s say that I am hitting backhands cross court and I am working on my footwork. After a time, I will then play a game of seven points, again just hitting backhands cross court. Now that I am “in a game mode” I will forget about my footwork and just work on seeing the ball and breathing (core principles). See Drill #5 in my book for more ideas.

 

Thanks for your e-mail and I hope I have added to the answers you found in my book.

Questions About Breathing

Here are some good questions about breathing by Michael.

 

“I really enjoy your book and newsletter.  Thanks for providing a common sense, concise and fresh perspective to the game of tennis... and beyond.

 

Questions that I have for you regarding breathing during tennis ---are...

 

1) When do you recommend the exhale begin as it continues throughout the tennis stroke?  In reading your book, on volleys and return of serves I get that it begins as the ball is coming towards me. 

2) Does that includes the throughout backswing?  (or part of the backswing?)

3) How about on the serve, overheads, and ground strokes...  Should the exhalation begin at the backswing and continue through the whole swing and follow through?  (or even begin during part of the backswing?)

4) Does exhalation become more intense when the tennis ball is actually on the strings?

 

I don't mean to get caught up in the specifics (and lose sight of the forest by looking at the trees). However, since breathing is so fundamentally important the rhythm and focus of the game, your insight is appreciated.

 

Thanks for sharing your time and perspective.”

 

 

My Answer:

 

Hi Michael,

 

Thanks for the good questions.

 

My answer is very simple. It doesn’t matter when you begin your exhale as long as it starts before contact. Remember the whole purpose of the breathing is that the upper body can be as relaxed as possible when hitting the ball.

 

When practicing, I usually work on timing my exhale based on where the ball is, but not in relationship to my swing. I like to start my exhale somewhere around (either before, as, or after) when the ball bounces when I am hitting a ground stroke and just after the ball leaves my opponents racket when I am at net hitting volleys. On the return of serve, I start it when the ball is hit.

 

Now that I think about it, I believe it makes more sense to time the exhale with where the ball is because that will help keep your focus on the ball even though we are not actually working on seeing the ball. However, if, for you, the timing of the exhale works better when you start it sometime during the stroke, then you should do it that way. As I said, the important thing is to start before contact and let it be long and relaxed. I am assuming that you know that when you play points, you do not think or try to work on breathing “correctly.” At this time, just let it be what it will be. If you are aware of it not happening properly, re-program it and practice it in a later practice session.

 

The answer to your last question is no, the exhale should not be more intense when making contact with the ball. In fact, that is one of the critical things to be aware of. Are you still doing a relaxed exhale on contact? This is harder to do when hitting a serve, but even more important. And, yes, you can swing as hard as you can on a serve (or any other shot) and still have the exhale be long and relaxed.

Changing Unproductive Thoughts

 

I have really enjoyed your mini lessons and just found out from your last lesson, that ONE of my problems is CHOKING. Thank you so much for that lesson! 

 

My question is.....once you let the win or losing thoughts come into your thinking, what do you do then? Is it too late to recover from such thoughts? My partner and I both "suffer" from thinking too much.....especially about the outcome of the game.

help!

 

 

The first step is to be aware of these unproductive thoughts. Only when you are aware of them can you begin to deal with them.

 

The moment you are aware that you had an unproductive thought you say to yourself “Cancel Cancel”, take a sighing exhale and then make a statement that is productive. The kinds of statements that I am talking about are as follows: “OK, body, I can’t win this. You will have to do it and I will stay out of your way and I will just see the ball and breathe.” Or, “I am going to just let my body play and let the outcome be what it will.”

 

Please don’t use a negative like “I am not going to try to hit the ball into the court” as they say in NLP circles your subconscious mind does not hear the “not.” It just hears “I am going to try …” and hopefully you know trying doesn’t work very well.

 

The other thing you can do if you find yourself “thinking too much”, is to occupy your mind by watching a ball (any ball) and listen to your breathing in between points. That will keep you in the “here and now” and it will harder for “other thoughts” to intrude.

 

I hope this will help.

 

David

About Visualization

 

Here is another good idea from “my listening audience.” I give my idea about visualization below.

 

What about in the blog have players suggest their own visualizing that works. Thomas my son play with a great player and when he was missing shots in the net that he hit from behind the baseline she said: just imagine/visualize you are targeting the net behind me. Sure enough every shot Thomas hit from behind the base line went over the net. Now maybe other readers have similar suggestions to things that works for them.

 

Now for the ones with kids who want's the kids to start understanding/reading about these concepts I found a solution. I convinced his LA teacher to allow him to read first Gallweys book and make a book summary. The concept about 2 self are very abstract for kids and if you involve the teacher they work just a little harder to figure it out. Just remember to explain to the teacher that you will give them questions about the book that will ease their understanding of the concept. His teacher loved the idea and I got her started on her going in and out of the Zone bowling.

********************************************************************************

I believe that just about any visualization works. The one you described that your son did obviously did the trick. I like to have my students do the visualizations that address more precisely what I believe is happening. When the balls go into the net, I believe it is caused because the racket and the arm are not low enough. So, I have my students visualize relaxing their arm and wrist which will allow the racket to get lower so that the natural swing forward is now more up which carries the ball over the net. At the same time, I have my students visualize the ball going 1 to 3 feet over the net. Then, of course, the student must relax and let it happen. For those of you who have my book, see Lesson #11 for more detail.

 

One of the things that I don’t hear very often about the visualization process is that once you have visualized, if you then try hard to make it happen it just may not work very well. So, once you visualize, you must let go of trying, go back to seeing the ball, breathing and relaxing your body more so that the other than conscious mind can execute the shot or learn to do it if it doesn’t already know how.

 

If there are others out there reading this and you want to share your way of visualizations, please feel free to contribute to this discussion.

 

The Ultimate Goal in Playing the Mental Game

What is the ultimate goal you want to achieve when you play the mental game? Do you know?

I sometimes forget to talk about this as often as I should, but it is important to always keep this in mind as you are playing the mental game. When you have goals, it is ideal that you have the ultimate goal as well as smaller and/or short term ones. When you have the ultimate goal, then you can’t get too far off the path and the mind has a way of leading you to it more efficiently.

Anyway, here is what I believe is the ultimate goal. It is for you to find what relationship the conscious mind has to the body (or the other than conscious mind) so that you not only play your very best every time, but continue to create an environment so that you learn and grow as a player.

I cannot tell you what this relationship is. I wish I could. What I can do is lead you to the things that will lead you to find out for yourself. When you focus on the core principles, when you work on letting go of your judgments, when you let go of aiming, of trying to stroke it correctly, when you let go of hitting the ball into the court and you let go of winning, you will be discovering this ultimate environment. (How is that for a sentence?)

My wish for you all is that you will discover this in the shortest time possible as there is no better way to play.

What I Learned at My Last Tournament

What I learned at my last tournament

This last week, I played in the Pacific Southwest Tennis tournament at the Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach, CA. I lost in the quarter-finals in the 60’s Singles and in the Semi-finals in the doubles. I always learn a great deal when I lose and this was no exception.

As you may know, I have been talking about and doing the bounce-hit while I am playing matches and this tournament was the first time I did it in a tournament. Have you been doing it when you are playing games?

I played a guy who was very consistent and did not hit a hard ball but had very good control. I usually don’t play very well against these kinds of players and it usually takes me a long adjustment time when I go from indoors to outdoors. Nevertheless, I played very well doing the bounce hit. However, I had some problems. In the past, I was thinking that doing the bounce hit may be causing me to use more energy and maybe tensing me up more than usual even though I always try to say the bounce hit softly and relaxed. I just thought that my being more tired was caused because I was hitting more balls in the court and therefore having to work harder.

After the first set, I was very very tired. I realized that as hard as I wanted to relax when saying the bounce hit, I was very tense. So, in the second set, I went back to the normal breathing pattern. I felt very much more relaxed but I felt I missed more balls. That could have been because my body was so tired. But I still played better than I usually would have.

So, what I am going to do now is experiment with some combination of the bounce hit and my breathing. It may be that now that I have been doing the bounce hit for a while that I still will be able to play as well when I do the breathing instead.

In my doubles, using the bounce hit was amazing. In the past, I don’t handle (I miss them) hard balls hit to me (what I call reaction volleys) when I am at net. I think I have hit more reaction volleys in the court than I have in the past 2 years. I don’t think I am exaggerating but maybe I am. In any case, doing the bounce hit while playing doubles has helped immensely.

I am hoping that after reading this you go ahead and try the bounce hit. I am sure it will never hurt and the benefits seem to be huge. At least for me.

Having trouble with the breathing? Who Isn't?

I got an e-mail about having difficulty with the breathing. Anybody out there not?

 

Yes, I know the breathing part is hard. It was the last thing for me to be able to do. However, the end result is worth it so just keep on working on it. Remember, this whole mental game is a process and like any skill, it takes time.

 

Have you tried just focusing on the breathing and not thinking about anything else? Have you said to yourself, “ I am going to play a different game today. Today, I am going to just focus on a relaxed exhale and if I miss every ball and lose 6-0, 6-0, I won’t care about it.”

 

Here is another idea. Sometimes when I was playing, I would play two points breathing, two points seeing the ball and then two points combining.

 

In case you want to know why people have difficulty with the breathing, it is because they have to really let go of trying. The conscious mind really wants to get involved with hitting the ball and will take away focusing on things like the breathing.

 

So, have fun with it and know that it will be what it will be when it wants to be. I think you will have to translate that into plain English. Let me know if you need any help with the translation.

How to practice on a back board

I have talked with some of my students about hitting against a back board but not many people actually do it I think it is because there are not many around.

 

Anyway, here is what I tell my students.

 

Because the ball comes back so much sooner than when playing on a “real” court, you must stand back far enough so that the ball bounces twice. This will also mean that you need to hit the ball higher on the backboard so that when the ball does come to you on the second bounce, it will not be too low.

 

You can practice seeing the ball to the blur, breathing, being aware of the relaxation of your body and doing the bounce-hit while hitting on the wall. Doing the “Mother of all Tips” (holding the follow through) is a little more difficult because the ball is coming back so soon. But you can work on your “stroke awareness.” You do this by “feeling” your stroke. Feeling your stroke means that you pay attention to how your racket and arm is going back, the path of the racket as it hits the ball and most importantly of all, where it finishes.

 

If you work on your serve, the thing to do is (other than feel your stroke) is to work on seeing the ball to the blur of the racket and making sure that your breathing is relaxed before you hit the ball.

Singles Strategy for Young players

I get many great questions from my book owners. Here is another one that I thought may be of interest.

Do you by any chance have any suggestion to good strategy books software that is really good for younger players.(teen and younger)?

I do not know of any books on good strategy for younger kids. However, from my way of thinking good basic strategy for kids (or anyone) is not difficult. I think that too many people try to make strategy too complex and therefore difficult. Here is what I know works and what I tell my all my students. Even the very advance ones.

When serving, hit all balls to the backhand. First serves and second serves. Once you are able to do that, start mixing up the first serve but 85% to the backhand and 15% to the forehand. If you have a fast serve you can try hitting right at the person. Hit 98% of second serves to backhand. Have you noticed where Roger Federer serves his second serves almost 100% of the time?

When returning serves, hit the returns like I talk about in my book (Lesson #32).

After the serve and return of serve, hit all the balls to the backhand. I do mean all. Once the student can do this, I have them hit at least the first 3 or 4 balls to the backhand, then keep hitting to the back hand until they get an easy forehand then hit that forehand crosscourt to make them run. If the opponent returns it, go back to hitting to the backhand.

The basic strategy I have in my book describes this strategy more formally.

The important thing that I don’t see very many players doing is hitting the first ball (after the serve and return of serve) to the backhand. And this applies to advance players.

As an example as to how well this can work, I was coaching a young 15 year old who pretty much wins all the tournaments here in Seattle area. After telling him to hit most balls to the backhand, he still didn’t do it. In his next match, I told him I wanted him to always hit the first 2 or 3 balls to the backhand and it was amazing (even for me to see) how many times he won the point on the first 2 or three hits just by going to the backhand side.

There are many variations to this, of course, but this basic strategy works big time at all levels. I use it unless I discover that my opponent’s forehand is truly weaker.

Do you by any chance have any suggestion to good strategy books software that is really good for younger players.(teen and younger)?

Would Seeing The Ball And Breathing Really Help An Exceptional Player

Here is an e-mail i received.

A friend of mine, ..... plays tennis everyday twice a day, plays doubles all of the time.  I don't think he see the spin or controls his breathing but is an exceptional player.  The thought comes to mind, "I wonder how much better he could be if he only knew?"

Yes, if your friend would get into seeing the ball and breathing, he will benefit greatly, just like you do. But a lot of good players are not open to this way since if makes them let go of control and many people don’t like to do that.

Here is a story about my friend Ken Stewart who wrote the preface in my book. After showing him how to really see the ball, he told me about a match he played about 3 weeks later. He was asked to play doubles with three 6.0 players. He insisted that he couldn’t play at their level but they were desperate for a 4^th. Anyway, he said he was “forced” to see the ball because of the pressure to play well and he told me that he was the best player on the court.