This is my own perspective from teaching tennis 23 years. I believe there are a hundred ways to learn to hit a ball well, but I have not discovered a better way to teach than Oscar's MTM. Let me know if you do. My 15 years in the AF allowed me to teach tennis from Asia to Puerto Rico. I came across Oscar's ideas 15 years ago and I saw them dismissed by "famous" tennis coaches who claimed (in writing "the open stance forehand is a lazy forehand."
I have taught students word for word from books by Groppel and even trancribled Nick B.'s Tennis for Kids video. If someone claims to make the game of tennis grow with their teaching, then the mark of a truly great teacher is his or her results can be duplicated by others. I won't hide how I currently feel: Oscar is the hub and everyone else is the spokes when it comes to solving the problems of teaching tennis. I still read dozens of articles weekly but am careful to never violate the basic premise's of Oscar's philosophy: find the ball, feel the ball, and finish the swing. Add one caveat: Ockham's Razor, meaning in science, if you have two competing theories, the simplest one is usually the correct one.
A lone voice who started as one of three National Coaches in Spain, spent a year in Germany, and then eight years in Brazil, Oscar focused solving problems in tennis teaching, avoiding the politics of tennis hierarchies who consistently dismissed his ideas. I have seen dozens of teachers duplicate the claims on the court made on Oscar's website. I have seen great teachers get great results long before Oscar as well as without using his techniques since Oscar came along. But no one gets the results his methodology gets on the court across a broad range of people. Once I understood Oscar's techniques purely, I don't believe anyone I have ever taught has gone off the court and not wanted to play tennis again, nor do I believe they have ever gone back to the old way of teaching without coming back to Oscar.
Just want to let everyone know why Oscar Wegner has been very busy and has not been on the site. Oscar has bigger fish to fry that this forum. England is about to undergo it's own tennis revolution and you can read the press release below that appeared this week in the newspapers. The LTA is not going to be happy.
Oscar was traveling in Spain and Europe earlier this year, watching Federer/Nadal in the Mallorca hybrid grass/clay court and watching Federer practice as a guest of Tony Roche, then Roger's coach. He sat with Richard Williams in Amelia Island earlier this year during a Venus match. I know he spends his time coaching coaches rather than players. While people find him controversial, I note that people at the highest levels in the know such as Cliff Drysdale praised Oscar's ideas personnaly when I was curious what he thought about Oscar. I nearly choked at the US Open two years ago when Dennis Van De Meer, President and founder of the PTR who had criticized Oscar's ideas for so long (as did most of the tennis hierarchy) praised Oscar's videos as "great stuff" and told Oscar personally even he was using some of his stuff in the PTR certification. I am PTR Pro certified and will confirm that some of the recent PTR certification is taken right out of Oscar's 1989 book which Tennis Magazine panned in the Dec '90 issue. I note Tommy Haas, Kim Cliisters, and Todd Martin have all said nice things about Oscar when approached in person and inquired of about his teachings. Tommy told me on a practice court at Cincinnati that Oscar was a very famous teacher when I noted he hit his backhand exactly as Oscar teaches. And www.tennisone.com, did a tribute last year to Oscar noting his controversial claims about how the game was played and they stated regarding Oscar: "History Proved Him Right."
If you haven't seen this latest press release that precedes Oscar Wegner's visit to England next week, read it carefully. EIGHTY indoor tennis clubs that are owned and associated with David Lloyd (the brother of Chris Evert's first husband) are converting entirely to teaching Modern Tennis Methodology. Over 600 courts and it's 470,000 members are about to be exposed to Modern Tennis Methodology through the MTCA, which is the parent umbrella name for the MTM Coaching Academies in the UK, Ireland and sites across Belgium, Spain and Holland.
In other words, 400 tennis coaches in England decided to bypass the LTA (Lawn Tennis Association) because they know Modern Tennis Methodology must replace conventional tennis if the sport is to grow. Even Andy Murray in an interview on Moderntennis.com.uk admits the LTA coaching destroyed his brother's game and Andy thus escaped to Spain and stayed out of the LTA as did Henman and Rusdeski, neither being a product of the LTA. Eighty clubs in England is a very large portion of their indoor program given the size of the country.
http://www.moderntennis.co.uk/coaching/ngcprel.htm (paste this in search engine or click on it.)
Also, little prodigy 5 year old Jan Silva was offered a scholarship in France because he will draw a lot of publicity to the Academy. He since has been on the cover of USA Today in a huge article. I also know his father credited Oscar Wegner as a primary influence and has spoken with Oscar besides the quote he gave for Oscar's site. I was surprised no mention of Oscar in the USA Today article.
I just wanted to state that I believe I have studied every tennis theory the last twenty five years that has been published. I subscribe to tennisone and tennisplayer and note they are all moving toward Oscar's theories. I hate to tell you guys, but Hi-Tech Tennis founder is a big fan of Oscar's and Oscar's new Ultimate Professional Tennis DVD will prove how simple it is to teach exactly how the pros play. Yes there are coaches out there who have misconceptions about Oscar's MTM, especially the footwork part, and how the bending the arm at the biceps for the windshield wiper (not the forearm) must be emphasized in the beginning for both children and adults, as well as the fact that the "flow of the stroke" must not be interrupted until the student figures it out on their own. Oscar's premise that tennis is played by "feel," not by thinking is even proven by Yandell's Myth of the Tennis Tip where Sampras, Agassi, and McEnroe all admit they can't even tell you how they hit; they all play without "thinking." That is the hard part that causes USA coaches to fail despite every effort of the USTA to grow the game or develop the next great player. Those issues are being addressed by Oscar's formation of the Modern Tennis Methodoloy Coaching Academy to certify and clear up misconceptions in teachers who use his MTM.
I find it incredible when people who don't even know how to teach Oscar's Modern Tennis Methodology criticize it without having seen it or now how to teach it in it's pure form. It does not mix with conventional methods. My experience is you have to teach a student to hit the ball walking backwards (with no footwork) before you teach them to hit the ball walking forwards to get instant independence of the arms from the feet. This step is not understood by even proponents of Oscar. I have a 4 and 1/2 year old I started with three weeks ago who regularly rallies over twenty balls back and forth racing from sideline to sideline (not set up with a soft feed so he can groove his stroke) and might be at least as good as Silva once he gets a hundred hours under his belt. In a third week with an eight year old girl who was considered by her father not athletic enough to play tennis after taking a couple lessons from a highly certified pro who emphasized footwork, the girl today rallied FROM THE BASELINE ON BOTH SIDES 144 balls, looking exactly like a pro as Oscar claims, That girl didn't even want to play tennis three weeks ago, only doing it because I told the father he could connect with her through the game.
So this is my contribution to this forum. Oscar will return from England soon, and I suspect he will gladly take a group of people who have never played tennis and instantly demo how they can all rally and play at a fairly good level in a couple hours, just like he did for Bud Collins when challenged, and just like he did for me and several other coaches when we challenged him. I dare any coach out there to take on Oscar, and I know he would take and easily win the challenge, therefore there will be no takers. Best wishes to all and I hope my letter makes you think differently of a man who is truly humble but to my knowledge, has never been proven wrong regarding his tennis theory. Write him personally if you have a question about why you wait for the ball to bounce or get very close to you "before you commit your swing path." If you have truth, truth withstands any attack. I note that the the USPTA has announced a phaseout of conventional tennis teaching. I just got their latest 41 page release. I guess they were "right" up until recently when they announced they are moving toward much of "modern tennis." Revolutions in any arena, even tennis, are not without hurt feelings. I lost sleep for two months thinking about all the thousands of tennis players I kept from enjoying the game to the fullest with silly verbal commands such as "move your feet." I now coach players from beginners to satellite pro players and they all love the simplicity of my visual images. I was teaching the Nadal forehand with Oscar's MTM a year before Nadal came on the scene. I simply tell my students tennis is like the Karate Kid: wax on, wax off, paint the fence (Nadal's FH is from bottom to top of the fence finishing with the butt of the racquet pointing to where the ball just went).
He'll be back from England in a few weeks. Write him. He'll gladly answer any replies personally.