Tennis must become easier to learn

Dr Robert Soloway approached Racket Business because he’s worried about tennis. He says the current way we teach tennis is ‘pathetic’ and “simply isn't the way we humans learn”.

He’s kindly written this feature focussing on what he thinks needs to be done about it or you can head over to Conscious Tennis to learn more about his philosophy on coaching…

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is an emergency. Anyone who has seen their local Pickleball courts knows what I mean. The growth of the small court games has been meteoric, and it's due to the ease of learning. You can literally play on day 1.

I now fear that if tennis doesn't become easier to learn, few youth will play it, and eventually it will become a spectator only sport. People of high athletic skills will play and the rest will watch. The middle aged and elderly, the frail, the very young, the out of shape, the busy, will simply pick up the easier sports.

I take my dog to a park with 2 tennis courts and 3 pickleball/paddle tennis courts. Most evenings, there is a line at the smaller courts and the tennis courts are rarely full.

I've had the opportunity to watch two dedicated beginners try to learn tennis alone. It's pathetic. Player 1 hits a ball to player 2's side of the court, but frequently nowhere near Player 2. Even if it is within Player 2's reach, she rarely returns it. They pick up the balls. Player 2 then gets to return the favor of feeding balls all over the place. Many beginners give up trying to feed the ball with a bounce and a forehand, and instead choose to hit a serve-like swing. In fact, many try to hit all high forehands with serve-like swings. To my amazement, they returned the following week. They brought a bucket of balls. It saved pick up time, but it was still sad.

I watched them four times before I interceded. I had to commend their persistence, and I thought the best way was to get them started.

So you're probably thinking I showed them the forehand and the backhand and tossed or hit a few of each. Wrong!

That's what's wrong with current teaching, making it slow to learn. Instruction is all physical. “Swing like this.” Then they hit a bunch and the stroke gets corrected. It's well intentioned, but it simply isn't the way we humans learn.

Let me digress a moment. If you went through normal schooling, or are doing so now, and you're learning a foreign language, you're probably being taught the “wrong” way. It's commonly known that programs like Babble and Rosetta Stone are faster, and more fun because they tap into the natural way of learning language. So why are languages still taught the old way? Because that's what the teachers know. This is the same situation as tennis. One generation teaches the next using the same techniques that have never had any scientific verification of efficacy.

So, if I don't teach the strokes, what do I teach? Well let me ask you, who taught you to walk? Did dad yell, Pick your leg up higher”? Did mom demonstrate balance by walking like she was on a tightrope? Even if they had, you were preverbal. You wouldn't know what they were telling you. And speaking of speaking, who taught you to speak? This is probably the hardest motor skill we do regularly, yet we've never gotten instruction and have no idea what are body parts are doing when we speak. What does your tongue do when you say “G's”? I can't even describe the movement after I feel it. What do your lips do when you say “W's”? It's a little kissy movement. Who knew?!

How do we do our motor skills? If I wanted to go sit in a chair across the room, that would be the last conscious instruction my mind would give my body. No one walks around thinking, “leg up”, leg down”. The body, controlled by the nonconscious mind, figures out everything. The general rule is, the conscious mind sets intention and the body (nonconscious) does the motor skill.

And that's our clue as to how tennis needs to be taught. The conscious mind needs to be taught how to set the intention, on the court, in such a way, as to communicate it with the body. Then the body needs to be allowed to figure out how the intention is best done.

So what is the intention on the court? Well, from the time your opponent hits the ball until you hit the ball, your intention is to hit a particular shot back. We generally call that AIMING. The job of the conscious mind is to aim. That is the immediate intention.

Why does aiming fall to the conscious mind? The nonconscious knows how to do motor skills, like running and hitting something with a stick, but we aren't born with the knowledge of the rules and strategy of the game of tennis. Aiming is how we apply the rules and strategy. It's the only job of the conscious mind in that interval.

Let me give you examples of what aiming does for you. Suppose you were throwing darts toward a target, wearing a blindfold. How much better would you get? Maybe a tiny bit. Now take off the blindfold and you automatically begin to aim. You throw one high and then low and you improve because you now are getting feedback. This feedback loop leads to self correction. Did you change your wrist motion or your arm movement to improve? Who cares?! You improved, just like you improved your walking and talking, naturally.

In tennis, if you don't aim, your rate of self correction and improvement is minimal, like the blindfolded dart thrower. Start aiming correctly and your self corrections and improvements speed up many times.

Aiming is the mental challenge of tennis. In a long match you might have to decide on a target hundreds of times, each in a few seconds. That's challenging.

And aiming is more than picking a spot on the other side of the court. Of course, picking a spot is better than not, but a “target” is much more than that. Here are the problems with a spot on the other side of the court:

1. It doesn't tell the body exactly what you want it to do. If I pick a spot deep in the ad court corner, do I want to hit a lob there? A flat drive? A loopy topspin? A slice? Your body doesn't know.

2. It doesn't fill your mind at the point of impact. You decide on a spot while the ball is flying towards you and then your mind is free to wander. What are you thinking as you're swinging? Maybe not about that spot. You've lost focus.

3. The best aiming is done when the projectile and target are in the same view, like the target at the end of a rifle, like the catcher's mitt in the view of the pitcher as he releases the ball. Same with basketball, the ball and basket are in the same view. If your target in tennis is a spot on the other side of the court, it can't be in your view when striking the ball.

Understand that while the coach focuses on the body (the stroke), the beginner's mind is developing it's own mental game. If the mind isn't focused on aiming, what is it doing? It's probably tensing up because you're a beginner and you miss regularly, or you hate your backhand, or you've already swung and completely missed your first attempt at serving. This anxiety becomes your mental game. This tension can linger for years and inhibits rapid improvement.

Aiming makes you watch the ball more closely. Ours eyes don't take orders, they take requests. Look at your hand. Now see if you have any splinters. Did you zoom into you hand? Of course. Your request required a closer look. It's the same with the ball. If you're just trying to hit it, you look in the general direction. When you try to hit an exact shot, you watch more carefully. This also speeds progress. Ball watching is fundamental to playing and improving.

Part of the problem is that the coaches assume the student is thinking like them. However, most coaches are high level athletes. They might have played other sports before tennis and caught on to tennis quickly. They may aim naturally. That's not the norm.

Here's an example of unproductive coaching. The coach was standing midway between the service line and the net. He's feeding a relative beginner at the opposite baseline. The first ball was hit into the net, right on the strap but with no arch, so it was several inches too low. The coach said nothing. The next ball was hit deep and loopy into the deuce court, but in. The coach said, “Good.”. The next shot landed in the exact opposite corner but in. The coach said, “Good.”. I asked the coach how he knew which ones were good, to which he replied, “Well, they were in.”.

I pointed out if the student had been aiming for the deuce corner, then the second was good and the third bad. If the student had been trying to hit it back to the coach, only the ball into the net was any good.

This kind of general feedback slows progress, The student is left thinking anywhere on the court is good. That's the opposite of aiming. It's nearly mindless tennis. If you aren't using your conscious mind productively, by aiming, it will work against you. This too inhibits progress. A drill without a target, is not as productive as it could be. The student needs the internal feedback loop to self correct.

So what is proper targeting? That's in my next article.