Learning to Play Tennis
It's all in the feel...
When you are learning to play tennis, it's actually your body that's learning. When we teach tennis, we don't want to teach the mind, we need to teach the body.
When a good player moves and strikes the ball he is not repeating to himself: «Racquet back, bend your knees, follow through…«. It is stored in the body – or in the subconscious mind.
The way to store information in the subconscious mind is to see and feel. Words always need to be translated to pictures in order for the body (subconscious) to become usable.
Unfortunately, most of the instruction is usually verbal and when you are learning to play tennis you usually don't interpret words in the same way as the coach meant them to. So the wrong mental picture produces wrong movements.
Demonstrations and video analysis are the best ways of learning to play. Tennis is based on feel for the stroke and the ball. Surely you've seen many club players with very "interesting" techniques and yet they can all hit the ball in court. They've developed the feel for their particular stroke, regardless of their technique.
You also can't find two professional players with identical strokes. Everyone is different and the foundation for every stroke is the feel.
The best way to describe how you will best learn to play tennis is in the Inner Game of Tennis section and you can read that until you understand it. Also – do the demonstration exercise with throwing balls which will show you that this process takes place naturally.
In summary – very few players are very good at teaching themselves (their bodies) how to hit the ball. Most are too much time in their heads and are obsessed with thinking. It doesn't work very well. A quiet mind is the best way to improve while you are learning to play tennis.
Remember, the coach cannot teach you anything unless he is holding your hands. It is only then that we can say that he is actually teaching you (or your body with kinesthetic feel for the stroke path).
But as soon as the coach steps away, starts feeding you balls or playing with you and saying some words in English (or Slovenian :)), you need to teach yourself.
If you understand the process, you'll move much quicker through the first few lessons of learning how to play tennis.
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