TM: Hitting the ball in front - the ego and the inner game approach

By Tomaz Mencinger
TennisMindGame.com

Here's a situation from one of my lessons: a player with an extreme western forehand grip wants to improve his forehand.

We've been working around 1 hour per week for the last 2 years. He has made good progress (that's why he still comes back to the lessons I guess :) but his forehand still lacks consistency.

Now we have discussed the inner game approach many times and he is now aware that when is thinking he cannot hit the ball well.

So today I reminded him again that he should hit the ball more in front since his extreme grip needs a much more in-front contact point than a regular forehand.

"Just meet the ball when it's coming to you - don't wait for it - and find your most comfortable contact point." - This is what I told him.

Here's what he understood and tried to achieve:

• He focused on his body rotation and tried to rotate earlier to get the ball more in front.
• He focused on his arm to move it more in front so that he'll be able to hit the ball there.
• He focused on starting his swing earlier so that he would be able to hit the ball more in front.

(He explained this to me after the lesson…)

So he was trying all these things without even me instructing him on that. It was just his (Self 1) idea on how to hit the ball more in front.

Obviously his timing was very off because of all that thinking and he made many mistakes.

I felt somehow that he was trying too much so I stopped playing and mentioned once again that he should just focus on the SPACE in front of him and hit the ball there.

HOW his body will achieve that IS NOT HIS PROBLEM.

Luckily - the word SPACE went through his Self 1 defense and he now focused on hitting THE BALL more in front and he wasn't giving commands to his body anymore.

The results were beautiful - consistent, similar looking shots with good rhythm and pace.

And as soon as he tried to be in control again of what was happening he lost it again.

When I observe these situations I wonder - perhaps this game is "designed" is such a way, that it teaches us to trust our intuition and lose the ego. Perhaps there is much more meaning in playing tennis than just hitting a yellow ball into a big rectangle…


Copyright 2006, Tomaz Mencinger -- all rights reserved worldwide

Tomaz Mencinger is the author of The Mental Manual for Tennis Winners and an athletic consultant who works with nationally ranked juniors at the Benc Sport tennis club in Ljubljana, Slovenia.