Tennis Method

What’s your level?

milisplit — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:41:32 +0000

WHY US – WHY TO CHOOSE MILI SPLIT METHOD?
Whatever level you are, there are questions that you should honestly ask:
1. assessing technique with grades from 1 to 5, what is your level ?
2. how long do you play tennis?
3. how long you have been on that level for?
4. how much time (on and off) you have spent on lessons and studding?
5. how much money have you spent on your learning and practicing?
6. being realistic, when could you approach the level of 5 ?
Make the chart and please do the math. Thank you : )
Depending where you are now, take a look at the chart on the right …

tennis technique progression

Impatience – enemy in learning

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:48:23 +0000

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

St. Augustine

Impatience and hostility are two hallmarks of the “type A” behavior pattern. The notion that a ‘type A’ behavior pattern is ‘bad’ for your health has been around for many years and it has been proven to be valid, especially in these two hallmarks.
Definition of impatience – The inability to accept adversity without complaint and reduce the urge toward restlessness and anxiety when confronted with a delay in getting what we want. A greedy tendency to want things now and expect to get things fast.

Beautiful graceful technique

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:31:01 +0000

This technique is a “tune up”supplement,like an additive to your way of teaching that
very quickly softens the movement and makes it graceful, elegant& effortless, beautiful!
Stroke is technically correct when you are able to control height, depth and direction of a ball (a few meters to the right or left is okay). Later in practice the ball is becoming faster and more precise. Good technique will allow you to hit harder – and the ball will go only faster and not long or high.
Movement is elegant when the movements of arms and legs are synchronized. They are then in harmony. While we play, it seems as if we are almost dancing on the court.
Easy shot (no effort) requires no power but the law of gravity which we deploy. Our arm serves as pendulum.
Sound shot is important and depends on a good technique whereby biomechanics of the shot preserves spine, muscles, and joints. Muscles’ tonus needs to be minimal, while spine needs to be erect and vertical at all times.
Good balance is the basis of tennis. With it, we enhance our shots and make them more stable. After the shot, our body needs to stay still and in the balance while it could achieve this only if we had transferred our body weight from one leg to the other in the proper way. After hitting a ball your body should remain calm, relaxed and still.

Let me mention just a few recognizable technical principles that I teach:
Forehand – arms should be parallel at all times, left arm helps the trunk (shoulders) rotation. The stance is closed and it becomes semi-closed in the pre-competitive level. Open stance is reserved for the competitive level of play.
One-handed backhand – Free arm has the principal function in both the spin and slice. Transfer of our body weight from the rear leg onto the front leg must be highly emphasized.
Two-handed backhand – left arm performs its forehand motion while the right arm is deployed as the support and stabilization only. The moment of contact is achieved through a particular mechanism, which is produced by both arms.
Rear leg has the role to restrain, i.e., to slow down the hip rotation (F&B).

Tennis elbow – what to do?

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:04:24 +0000

It’s not a big deal if someone’s technique is … lets say – not good enough. Many people want just to have fun playing without learning the technique first. But sometimes, not rare, instead only to loose a game – we loose healthy elbow and we get a tennis elbow instead.
This injury is known to appear when people play with not good balls, rackets and strings.
Some people are just lucky – beside their bad technique and equipment – they have no problem!
Some are not that lucky.

So, what happens, actually?
You know that racket strings when hit a ball make vibrations. Those vibrations are “micro traumas” to our body but they are too small to hurt the (hitting) shoulder.
But in time, they are not too small to hurt smaller joints like elbow and wrist.
And not any “kind” of elbow - mostly when we make backhand motion (supination) with the arm not STRAIGHT but bent!
When arm is straight – those vibrations are “passing by” and they diminish when they hit bigger – shoulder joint – and they just scatter. If the elbow is bent – micro-traumas will finish inside the elbow. Is there a cure? Is it too late, once the pain doesn’t want to go away ? Changing sport for a while could be temporary solution, anyhow the pain management period, unfortunately, is probably not going to be short-lived. Similar problem can happen inside our wrist and metacarpal aria, where are tiny bones with even more tiny ligaments. They are even more fragile than elbow joint - the lateral connection ligament between Humerus and Radius (HR).
It’s not rare that some tennis lovers don’t want to make a brake or change,
instead of quilting – they start playing with other hand !
Two years ago, a guy from my club Partizan (the same club that Novak and Ana are coming from), asked me to correct his Forehand and he took a racket in his left hand. Today, he is in love in his “lefty” playing and winning often, and he doesn’t want to come back to play with his right arm even the pain was gone since a year ago.

Anyhow, there is tennis “cure with the instruction” beside known medical therapies:
Learn proper (1-handed) Backhand technique and hit only with “locked” elbow!
What actually happens when we keep the elbow straight?
The vibrations are traveling from the racket (strings) toward the wrist, then fore-arm, passing the elbow on their way to the “too strong shoulder joint”on the end.
It works as a thunder hitting the thunder stick that will “guide the danger” all away down to the ground/earth.
Remember: if you keep the elbow bent – vibrations will finish inside your fragile HR joint

Backhand – 1 or 2 hands?

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:00:15 +0000

You mean: elegance vs … ?
It depends mostly of someone’s age but in general – one handed, of course.
Kids? Two hands- if they start young as 4, 5, 6,7, 8and 9.
Two handed BH is also for ladies who have tiny and weak wrists.
If you are grown up person – one handed. There are of course some rare exceptions.
If you are girl – not really one handed before 12. Two handed gives to young players much more stability and the freedom of one handed will show more slow than with 2-handed.

Why one handed backhand for adults?
Tell me, how really comfortable and natural do you feel when you grab a racket with both hands and then you make good swing rotation? You can be comfortable only if you started as a kid. And if you are rubber man : )
How comfortably are you when you rotate more than 100 degrees from your “closed stance” turned left toward your right with your follow through.. and arms together.
Ask your lower torso - lumbar area – how does it feel. No pinch, twist, cramp, spasm…?
Then you should do with two hands. Otherwise – not very healthy for your lower spine.

One handed backhand is fluid, free, elastic, elegant and much, much more comfortable – where with a right technique you won’t feel any impact on your body.

In modern competition tennis – there is big advantage for two-handed biomechanics, it is steadier and wrists’ mechanism (lever) can easily make difficult angles and handle and attack strong balls in rising!

But still, … “One is … one!” : )
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Note: Be sure to stay within your scope of practice when working with clients who are injured or have special needs. Whenever it is appropriate, refer clients to a physical therapist or other allied health professional.

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