Different learning seems the best way to learn tennis. in closed situations, like the service, there are a lot of ideas, but they are not complete. Shaun Sharp, tennis coach in the Meehan Tennis Academy in Melbourne has developed and experienced with drills that are based on serving from different positions and different targets.
Shaun Sharp born in Heidelberg, Australia ;-), working as tennis coach at the Meehan Tennis Academy in Melbourne, Australia, describes an implicit drill do improve and develop the service:
„I’ve been doing a serving drill where players serve from various positions in court, to varying targets….normally not to service boxes, and allow the students to work out how to serve ball to each target….
Via exploration and some visual or verbal instruction the students are able to discover how to best achieve the goal that is set.
It enables the kids to practice the flat serve, slice serve and kick serve without any explicit instructions….and kids are able to solve the motor problems themselves.“
This is a drill to improve service, return and first ball. It is an implicit and differential drill. Avoid to much repetitions and let players develop technical and tactical solutions. This drill can also improve serve and volley.
A player has problems with the ballthrow. She always has one ball in her hand, and the second ball is in the pants/skirts pocket.
The idea of the coach is, that too many joints are used throwing the ball: fingers, wrist, elbow, shoulder. That makes the control of the ball throw more difficult. Under an internal focus, the player observes, according to the coach’s instructions, to let the arm stretched. However, in several studies on external focus and implicit learning, the authors conclude that an external focus is more helpful and implicit learning is more effective and sustainable. Serving and controlling ball throw weiterlesen
Coaching with metaphors. Goal: Improving service, hitting the ball in the highest possible point.
„Imagine to pick a cherry from the tree. The best fruits are hanging in the top of the tree. Throw the ball so high, that you can pick the best fruits with your racket (hand)!“
This is something from mental coaching and improving your serve in learning and stressful (match-)situations.
From studies about „choking under pressure“ and from Yogi Berra (US baseball coach), we know, that „you can’t think and hit at the same time“. In stressful situations (serving in hard scores in tennis, putting in golf, shooting penalties,…) a lot of athlets start thinking
about failure and about their technique. This uses capacity of the prefrontal cortex and prevents the access to automated and frequently used motions.
The consequence is a slowdown of the motion and can lead to deviations from a successful solution.
In this situation we use so called mental tricks to „trick the mind“ and to avoid conscious thoughts. Am-ster-dam weiterlesen
Beispiele aus der Trainingspraxis:
Eine Spielerin spielt beim Aufschlag den Ball fast immer nach außen in das Aufschlagfeld. Sie fragt mich, wie sie den Schläger halten muß oder ob sie den Ball anders werfen muß, um den Aufschlag auch in die Mitte spielen zu können.
Ich erkläre, dass es nicht hilfreich wäre, sich über die Technik Gedanken zu machen. Stattdessen empfehlen sich folgende Übungen: Examples weiterlesen
Service from different positions.
Player A and C are serving from different positions. B and D play return cross. Changing rules and frames by unused and paradoxical standing points accelerates the service. You can set serving points everywhere you want!
Sometimes players hit the service nearly 10 of 10 directly into the net. Normaly the coach gives several tipps to improve the service. But there is an paradoxical, easier and implicit way by changing frames (INNER COACHING – TMS).
Ask the player to hit the service over the net between service- and baseline. When the player reachs the goal, go back to hit the service into the service-fields.
The result should be amazing!
Manchmal kommt es vor, dass Spieler*innen beim Aufschlag den Ball konsequent ins Netz spielen. Normalerweise gibt der Coach dann verschiedene Tipps, um dieses Problem zu beheben. Doch es gibt einen zuerst paradox erscheinenden, impliziten und einfacheren Weg:
Bitte die Spieler*innen, den Aufschlag über das Netz zwischen T- und Grundlinie zu spielen. Wenn das gelingt (der Ball geht mittlerweile natürlich häufiger übers Netz), dann kehre zum Aufschlag ins Aufschlagfeld zurück.
Das Ergebnis dürfte überraschen!
Eine hilfreiche INNER COACHING (TMS) Übung stammt wieder einmal aus dem Inner Game von Timothy Gallwey und aus dem systemischen Coaching: Skalieren beim Aufschlag.
Beim Aufschlagtraining beginnen immer wieder Spieler ihre Aufschlagbewegung verkrampft Scaling 2 weiterlesen