Sampling Oscar's Tennis Tips
Dear friends, I love Tennisw Forum and I think more and more people should get the chance to experience the ease and naturality of Modern Tennis. With that in mind, I posted a bunch of tips. Be sure to tell your friends to visit this Forum, join, and post comments. Please refer to the tip you want to comment on, so I can read it and respond if requested. With my best wishes, Oscar
Tennis and Martial Arts.
Quotes by Bruce Lee – Tennis Comments by Oscar Wegner
“Art is the expression of the self. The more complicated and restricted the method, the less the opportunity for expression of one's original sense of freedom.”
“Though they play an important role in the early stage, the techniques should not be too mechanical, complex or restrictive. If we cling blindly to them, we shall eventually become bound by their limitations. Remember, you are expressing the techniques and not doing the techniques.”
Furthermore, the first things you learn in a sport (or in life) are the most marking, affecting future computations. Typically, tennis beginners are taught restrictive procedures and movements to be adhered to systematically. For example, players are taught to move in a certain pattern and assume certain positions for hitting, rather than letting the person accommodate to what they feel most comfortable. Another blight is preparing early, while pros stalk the ball. These techniques are significantly different from the style of the pros. Tennis is perhaps the only sport where teaching the way the pros play is shunned by teachers. The end result is that most people end up limiting their tennis performance.
“. . He is actually becoming a slave to a choice pattern and feels that the pattern is the real thing.”
“One must be free. Instead of complexity of form, there should be simplicity of expression.”
“Do not be tense, just be ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being set but being flexible. It is being "wholly" and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.”
The goal of a Tennis Coach, whether coaching professionals or teaching beginners, is not to add more to the complexity of the tennis technique. Your goal should be to simplify it, have the student appeal to the his or her instinct, move less, and still achieve the same or even better effectiveness of the student’s shots.
“Each one of us is different and each one of us should be taught the correct form. By correct form I mean the most useful techniques the person is inclined toward. Find his ability and then develop these techniques.”
Overall, this is what Oscar Wegner’s Modern Tennis techniques are all about. Efficiency. Natural, powerful moves and strokes, a delicate guidance of the student to help him or her find out, by themselves, what feels good and what does not.
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Timing
This tip is very simple, but powerful.
Fact number one: players of all levels have good days and bad days.
Fact number two: most players,*including professionals, are not certain on how to fix a bad day and make it a good one. They don't know the underlying cause, and they may blame a bad performance, from player to player,*on a myriad of different things.
Fact number three: on bad days, 99% of the time it is your timing that is throwing the rest off. People either tend to rush or they do too much too early.*That is, 99.9% of the time the player is not tracking the ball long enough before hitting it.
Fact number four: it is easy to fix a bad day. You just have to correct the mother of all errors, the one underlying cause: bad timing. After that, everything starts feeling better and you can trust your strokes as much as on a good day.
Therefore, when you are in trouble, check your timing and apply the solution: track the ball longer and longer, waiting as much as possible, tracking it with your eyes, your racquet, your hand. You may be running to reach the ball, but your hand is stalking it, still in front. Forget about having to be perfectly positioned, forget about racquet preparation, forget about thinking at all. Just track the ball as if you were going to catch it with your hand or to stop it with the racquet, then give it your usual whack!
You may lose some power in the process, but you'll be confident that the ball is going in the court. Then you can go for power again, incresing the amplitude of your swing. If your timing is still good, you'll feel wonderful: your power strokes are going in and in.
Most players, including pros, may think this is too easy a solution, and don't believe in miracles. I'd like to insist: if there are some possible miracles in your tennis, this is one of them.
For the other miracles..........you'll have to review my tapes.
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Keep your cool
Bjorn Borg, Roger Federer, Pete Sampras and Ivan Lendl are players who never showed an inch of their emotions on court. (Sampras exception was in regards to his coach's death). Whether you celebrate a point with a showcase demonstration, or you show your disappointment at a point you lost, you are showing some weakness, some lack of control. The above players killed opponents with their impenetrable mask. It made them seem unbeatable, that you couldn't worry them no matter what. The end of match celebration showed that these players were not ice cold, but that it was a decision they made to keep their cool no matter what. Furthermore, you spend less energy in this state and are more aware of what you need to improve either your stroke performance or your tactics. Emotions can cloud your perceptions and your decisions. They can impair your timing and make you feel in a rush. Stay cool and eventually you'll play as well as you want.
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Backhand Volley
The notion that you can volley effectively without changing your grip at all between your forehand and backhand volleys is somewhat inaccurate.
Although many professionals volley without rotating the grip between the thumb and forefinger, there is some change at the heel of the hand.
On the forehand volley the racket grip is usually aligned with the life line of your palm, while on the backhand volley the heal of the hand is a bit more mounted on the grip.
This rotation is instinctive and born from practice, with the player adopting, by feel, the most efficient way to hit the ball.
The best backhand volleys are hit across the body, rather than forward, slicing the ball quite a bit. They are a very short motion, and they firm up at the impact with the ball.
While on groundstrokes it is best to get below the ball and hit up, the opposite is true on volleys. You should hit down, as if your racket was going to the bottom of the net, but with a short and chopping hit.
The racket face should be open, according to the height of the incoming shot.
What works best to learn to copy the top pros on the backhand volley is to advance the butt of the racket across the body, from left to right, as if you were elbowing somebody out of the way.