Why start with a two handed forehand

I've been coaching young children tennis for over 15 years and have seen many children begin tennis by using the two handed forehand. Many will eventually switch to a traditional one handed forehand. I believe that starting out with a two handed forehand is beneficial for many reasons. Many students, when they begin tennis, aren't strong enough to use only one hand when executing the forehand and that will inevitably lead to technical errors like opening up the racquet too much, starting too high and hitting the stroke downwards. Adding one's second, non dominant hand, allows one to be fully balanced and properly learn the unit turn while hitting a forehand. Rotation of the hips and the shoulders is essential to producing a powerful forehand. Using two hands allows a player to fully acclimate to the rotation of the body. When hitting with one hand a child will be unbalanced (due to not being strong enough)  and unable to properly implement the rotation needed. In addition, while using two hands for a forehand one can fully develop the proper rotation of their hand. In addition, using two hands takes the pressure and strain off of your arms and your hands. 

Now that we have established the benefits of the the two handed forehand the question is when should one switch over to a one handed forehand. About half of all players will stay with a two handed forehand while others will convert to a one handed forehand. One should attempt the switch when one has developed a reliable two handed forehand where they are able make contact with the ball when it is two feet in front with a closed face. 

Stay tuned for my next post about children starting tennis with an open stance. 

For more Information on my coaching, check out www.elftennis.com or email info@elftennis.com 

Working with young kids

Blog post on flexibility with kids 

Some of you have reading this post may have read through my website and are wondering, " what is it really like to teach 3 year olds and what do you actually do during the lesson? How could children as young as three possibly participate in a tennis lessons?" In this blog post, I will discuss some of the approaches used to help make lessons more amenable for young children. Rather than give you a list of activities, I would like to suggest an embodying philosophy. One of the key factors to success in engaging young children is flexibility. Flexibility means being open to ideas presented by the children in the class and picking up on cues from the children. If children state that they are interested in a specific activity, sometimes it's hitting the ball back and fourth on the ground other times it's having a sword fight with the racquets while in some instances its pretending that the racquets are guitars. While some of these ideas may sound outlandish most ideas can be adapted into workable drills and activities that actually build tennis skills. The key to feeding off of kids is to ascertain what element of the suggested activity that they actually like (for example movement, fantasy, the ability to hit the ball in their own) and then create activities that involve those elements. 

In addition, changing activities mid stream is sometimes essential. If an activity doesn't seem like a big hit, then it's best to try a different activity even if you intended to continue with the activity for a longer period of time. 

Here is an example of how to amend activities to a child's needs. Today, I taught a child who has been difficult in the past. And when I say difficult, I mean difficult. He would throw the racquet after he hit every shot and run away from me. I was feeding him balls from the other side of the net and giving him feedback. First we established that he needed to be on a certain side of the net . Then, he communicated that he liked racing and finally, he told me that he wanted to hit the ball back and fourth on the ground make me run for the ball. While agreeing to him making me run for the ball makes it sound like I was a pushover for a sadistic child the activities really did build skills essential for tennis. The racing builds speed while hitting the ball away from me helps him gain comfort with stroke mechanics and learn targeting. 

I strongly suggest that when offering tennis lessons to kids you work with there suggestions while always being mindful of the skills learned and always offering instructional tips throughout the activity. For more information on how I teach email info@elftennis.com. 

Why you shouldn't avoid playing practice sets

Why you shouldn’t avoid playing sets in your practices.

What do you do for your tennis practices? Some people say that they don’t like to play tennis matches. There are people out there who avoid matches just like some of you avoid taxes and dental visits. And I have to admit-I am one of those people. Or I was one of those people. Until, I realized that the only way I am going to improve my match play skills and combat match anxiety is by actually playing sets.

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This week, I went to hit with my friend. I was having a blast playing singles. I was hitting the crap out of the ball (sorry, I couldn’t find a better word for it) and relishing my brilliant shots. Then my friend said, “lets play a set, I need to practice for playoffs”  And I thought, ok, why not. And boy did I learn a lot from playing the set. I’ve been reading a book on mental toughness by Frank Giampaolo called the Tennis Parents’ Bible and it talks about different messages to tell yourself between points regarding strategy. So, I figured playing this practice set would be a great opportunity to practice implementing these mental patterns. I started out roughly. I wasn’t hitting the ball the way I did in the practice session. My balls were landing short and they were just plain weak. Of course, she started out by hitting sharp shots and moving me around the court. I was down 0-2 and I started going back to my usual patterns of scolding myself for being down to a person I felt I should beat. Then, I told myself about how maybe I’m just not the kind of person who wins matches. And then I realized that I had to replace these thoughts with other thoughts. Like, “how the heck am I going to beat her? What do I need to do? What patterns do I need to execute in order to win?” I need to hit to her backhand to start with, then I need to hit to the other side of the court to get her on the run and then I need to go for  a winner when the opportunity is right. Between every point, I kept asking myself, “where is her backhand” While this sounds rudimentary and I’m sure there are more sophisticated patterns, I felt that a simple message like that could sooth me and stop me from self destructing and either allowing her to continue being aggressive and teeing off of my short balls or over hitting shots to compensate for het winners. So, I kept asking myself “where’s her backhand”. Suddenly, I was able to produce deeper shots and even muster the gumption to attempt aggressive shots when the opportunity presented itself. I eventually, was able to come back and win the set, 6-3, after having been down 2-0. I continually assessed what patterns were pertinent and appropriate for that stage in the game. I would obviously risk more if I was up 40-15 and play more safely and allow her to make the errors if it was deuce. At the end of the set, I felt that I had learned to switch from the scolding/ bashing mode to the thoughtful tennis mode well. In addition, I felt that I exhibited more endurance than my friend. However, I wasn’t the tennis goddess I am making myself out to be. I did fail to approach the net and volley’s are my greatest asset.  What will happen next set? Will I improve at my ability to approach the net? Do you think people should play the same way regardless of the score? Email your thoughts to info@elftennis.com. Stay tuned for more tennis tips in the coming days.