A few days back I saw some of the recent articles with some of the WTA players. Its really interesting. I'm also a double handed backhand player and my style of play is fashioned after Agassi. I found it useful to observe the very slow motion of one of the ladies backhand showing how the racquet stays on path. You guys have another article which shows a moving picture of the tennis racquet first lying flat and then sliding down on the butt path until it stands perpendicular after the rotation happens. So I'm practising just that at home, feeling this movement. I find that mostly it is the elbow that needs to learn to feel it. I think you said elsewhere that the elbow has less neural connections such that it takes longer to learn something new. Is that right? I've been using some of your exercises to train the sensitivity in the shoulers, wrist and elbow. The exercises provide really good training. It seems that lack of consistency in tennis strokes is due to this lack of sensitivity in the arm, elbow, etc. In my case, sometimes I hit a beautiful, paced top-spin ball and sometimes I shank it. I have a very good two-hander but I notice when I want to go down the line eg., the arms seem to want to swing the racket in a certain way and as shown in the stability articles, it comes off the path and shanks the ball. Down the line is more inconsistent than the cross-court. Your exercises to train the neural pathways are helping in this matter. Agni, India |
| Your Site is first rate! Even though I am a 5.0 rated player your explanations and information have made me rethink how I hit a tennis ball: after being at the same level for so many years its of great joy to see my game actually improve. Thank you. Now if I may, a question, you have spent a great deal of time providing information and various exercises for the elbow (4-6 in. from the hip) with regard to the forehand can you provide additional information and exercises for the one-handed backhand drive and the role of the elbow when hitting it. Thank you, John |
| TennisOne:
The animations of EASI Forehand are wonderful - as well as the written explaination. Will you have the same thing for the backhand stroke in the future? Dan Le |
| Becky and Ray, Today was great. I really enjoyed meeting and spending time with both of you. I learned so much today, can't wait to pass it along to my kids. Anything I can do to help promote Easi Tennis please let me know. I am very excited. Thank you! Ed |
| Dear Becky, Hello. I am a high school tennis coach and science teacher in Kansas. After visiting your website yesterday and learning the western forehand from your web page, I went and tried the technique at practice and later that evening in a match and had remarkable results. I was hitting the ball with extraordinary power and control. My opponent told me "you will be ready for the pro tour". I don't know if I could go that far, but I found my love and confidence for the game growing by experiencing immediate results. Ian |
| I have recently joined your site and excited at all the factual information as I am teaching my children to develop their strokes. I do have a few questions. Regarding the forehand return of serve, do professional players use the defensive forehands that you have illustrated? If so, which is the one most commonly used? Regarding the three methods for generating topspin, which is the method most commonly used by the pros? In the illustrations demonstrating topspin, there seems to be a difference in the aspect of keeping the elbow close to and in front of the body. Does this make the stroke less stable, therefore less reliable? Finally, How can I find a certified EASI Pro in my area(houston,tex.)? Thanks so much for your service, John |
Ray and Becky, [In Italy], we have a learning method that is very old and based on"imitation". For example, the teacher works with the student by saying "Do the things I do....". It's not an analytical method and fortunately my personal teacher (Giancarlo Lellini) learned Tennis in USA. I'm already using the site and I think it's FANTASTIC !! I find all the things my teacher is telling me and even more and more.... Francesco Cauli, Italy |
| Ray and Becky, I've been trying to develop a reliable kick serve for some time now, with only limited success, but - as usual - your EASI explanation has lead to the most direct improvements. Andrew Benzmiller |
Ray and Becky,
I have been experimenting with my own forehand based upon your principles. I have had trouble frequently hitting high forehands into the net in the past. By getting my elbow in front of the plane of my body I now hit the ball deeper much more easily. I'm eager to see if this helps other people, too. Best wishes, Bob |
| Ray
and Becky
... I have had success with the forehand! I read your articles and then about 2 weeks later I had the chance to use them on court. It was during a private lesson, so I didn’t get to rally, but I still got to hit some forehands. That was the first time that I was actually hitting with technique that worked! And I have been playing tennis since I was 12 (I’m 21 now.) Unfortunately, a few days later when I hit with my mom, the muscle memory was gone. But this was the first time that I didn’t get too frustrated because you taught me that it’s just part of the learning process and the way the brain works. Well, if I can get the forehand, then that’s really the only thing that matters, even though I don’t have any other strokes. Thanks once again, and keep up the good work! Louis Erickson |
| Ray and Becky,
I have a couple more questions for you if you don't mind. Do you find videotape feedback is useful to your students? I notice that you use the interactive photos of the forehand's transition states on your web site. We currently take digital video of our students at our club. Would we be wiser to show the students stills of their transition states than to show them their whole stroke on video? My impression from the sport science literature is that using videos with specific cueing is helpful. Does your research support that? Do you address at all the scheduling of practice, that is the duration and frequency of practice? Do you suggest random and variable practice rather than blocked practice? I'm familiar with the motor learning research on this, but I'm curious if your neuroscience and systems analysis approach comes to the same conclusions as these other researchers. Thanks as always for your help. Bob Bateman
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| Bob,
While we have used interactive images to illustrate the stages, video does have an important role. This is why we are presently going over every lesson and including video to compliment the discussions. You might say that video is the 'proof in the pudding'. If you have got it right, you can demonstrate it in real time. This is important for building confidence. The difficulty in video is that we really cannot see what is happening, even in slow motion. Further at 180 frames per second there is a flood of information that is impossible to make sense of without an information infrastructure within which to organize the data. This is what the five stages provides since they each have a point and represent distinct transitions during the stroke. Thus we think students need every point-of-view we can provide since no single approach provides all the information available. Random training is likely to be best. I think Vic Braden did some studies on this in the 1980's and reached this conclusion which is supported by neuroscience. We do not use a regular training schedule and we never recommend one, but we do not discourage it either. As to duration, we have found that this depends on the objectives of the session. If you are introducing something new, sessions can be short. If the practice is about experimentation and exploration then this needs time (sometimes as much as three hours of consecutive hitting before a new subtlety is discovered). Becky and Ray |
| Ray
The continental topspin forehand is a great new toy since I am tall
and old
You know, some of us simply enjoy tinkering with strokes. In my own
case,
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| Thanks Ray and
Becky. Your answer did it for
me. All this snow here (Md.) has me itching to get out, but I feel like I'm making some progress working on components even in the basement. I did enjoy a week in Florida last week (watching 24" of snow fall on DC on the Weather Channel) and noticed significant progress on my forehand...when everything clicked into place. I still have to make sure to save the acceleration for the acceleration stage and not try to get up to full speed in the contract or rotate stage. Andrew |