A few weeks ago I began an experiment. I wanted to teach myself to play tennis right handed. As a reference I am actually left handed in all I do.

I wanted to do this experiment for several reasons.

1. A fellow coach @BigFootTennis can play righty and lefty which inspired me.
2. I wanted to better relate to the kids I work with. I wanted to experience what it was like to learn a stroke from scratch.
3. I wanted to see if I could discover a way to speed up the learning process.

So each night my 4 year old son and I head down to the garage and pull out the cars. I toss him some balls, he tries to hit me, he gets some coaching without knowing it and we have a lot of fun before bed. Once he loses interest I spend 5 minutes practicing with my right hand. Sometimes I practice with only a racket doing shadow swings and other times I use my Eye Coach (Coupon Code “SlezakPro” gets you a discount). My practice session is not long but I do it each and every day.

In a couple of few weeks I have seen tremendous growth. More importantly I have found out exactly how to speed up the process of acquiring a skill and it even works well in a pandemic.

1. You must understand the movement. If you do not know what exactly to practice you are in a cycle of trial and error. That cycle wastes a lot of time. This is where a knowledgable coach whether in person or online via video analysis comes in. A coach is invaluable because they save you time and the only thing in life you cannot get any more of is time. Believe me I wish I knew then what I know now about tennis.
2. You have to be consistent. I did not spend a ton of time each day practicing but I did show up everyday. By practicing just a few minutes each day it sends the brain a message that, “this is important and we want to become efficient at it.”
3. You have to think about what you are practicing. I started slowly and deliberately focusing exclusively on getting the movement right. Gradually the motion got smoother and more coordinated. I noticed that when my toddler would distract me my practice was terrible but when I was thinking about what I was doing just for a few minutes it was obvious how good the practice was.
4. It helped not to be on a tennis court. It helped tremendously to not have an end result to focus on. By not seeing a tennis ball flying through the air it allowed me to focus exclusively on my technique, which goes right back to number 3.

I am not surprised by any of the things I learned. In fact it only reinforces what I have known as a coach for years. But I hope learning to play with my opposite hand in my late 30’s inspires youngsters to practice just a few minutes each and every day wherever and however they can.