Fix Your Rennis on a Bad Tennis Day
First published on 9-09-2009. Bookmark & share
by Randy Lynn Rutledge - a previously certified USPTA Tennis Teaching Professional
( Note: retired in good standing, but stopped making USPTA dues payments )
( Note: retired in good standing, but stopped making USPTA dues payments )
Breathe (breathing), see the ball better (vision), and take everything early (footwork).
Tennis does not always happen the way we want it to. Sometimes we have bad days.
This articles contains my suggestion on how to salvage your tennis on a "bad day."
BREATHING
VISION
Play Mode
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Use selective vision. I like to draw an analogy between how our tennis mind works and how we watch a movie with fast forward and rewind capabilities.
Ideally, the movie play mode would allow a movie to flow from beginning to end; however, we can stop, rewind, or fast-forward when a commercial break, or any other part of everyday life interrupts the flow of a movie. Each time the movie flow stops we risk losing some of our ability to fully experience and pay attention to the detail of the movie.
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The conscious mind of a well-disciplined, highly-skilled, tennis competitor uses selective visual skills to pay attention to a continuous flow of tennis action in the present moment. A reliable stream of visual input being fed to the brain allows the subconscious mind to respond automatically to every detail, relying on previously programmed tennis habits.
Rewind |
We can access our short or long-term memory (rewind) at any time during the play mode of a tennis match. Accessing memories (rewind) allows our subconscious mind to supply part, or all, of the visual input to the brain. This is done when the tennis ball is not in play.
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Accessing memories (rewind) allows our subconscious mind to supply part of the visual input to the brain. There is a reduction of input from the eyes to the brain while we access memory. We sacrifice mindfulness of the present moment when we access memory or become distracted from the flow of the present moment in any way.
We can use memory (rewind), voluntarily or involuntarily to remind us about anything, tennis related or not, which has already happened during our lifetime. Ideally, rewind only happens in between tennis points, and games.
Fast Forward
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Use your imagination to plan for the future when the tennis ball is not in play, this is fast forward.
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Tennis planning (accessing information stored in the brain from previous experience and using imagination), in between points of a tennis match requires our subconscious mind to supply part, or all, of the visual input to the brain. We are creating a positive script of images (planning) in our subconscious mind about how we want the immediate future to unfold, or, negatively, we could create a negative script (worrying) of images about losing control of a point, game, or match.
Focus Your Eyes to Focus Your Mind
Focus your vision on tennis things of the present moment (tennis lines, tennis strings, etc.) to bring your mind back to the present moment before each point begins. Look around and see the things that are actually within the bounds of the tennis court playing area, tennis equipment, etc.; this gets your eyes and mind working in unison to send a reliable feed of input to the brain about the present moment. Allow your eyes, instead of your mind, to send all of the pictures to your brain for mind processing, while each point is being played.
Mindfulness, being in the zone, or tennis flow happens when our eyes and conscious mind send a reliable and steady flow of visual input about the present moment to the brain. The subconscious mind, free of distractions, becomes free to automatically respond to every detail.
Footwork
After getting your breathing and vision working better, it is time to use your footwork to begin to go to the ball. If you are waiting for the ball to come to you, then you are giving away too much time to your opponent.
A Simple Tennis Sentence
Use this tennis sentence to salvage your tennis match.
Breathe (breathing), see the ball better (vision), and take everything early (footwork).
Breathe (breathing), see the ball better (vision), and take everything early (footwork).
First, fix yourself by getting your vision, breathing, and footwork working properly, then the conscious mind must trust that the subconscious mind has been programmed properly and will take care of the job of playing great tennis, automatically.
Play a Smaller Court
Until this process has fully returned your tennis skills, play tennis as if the tennis court were smaller, do not aim for boundary lines, and do not hit any ball with more force (speed) than what is necessary to win each point.