If you have not seen the story of Venus and Serena Willians in the movie King Richard yet, I urge you to do so. Richard Williams had a dream for his daughters to be professional tennis players and with that dream he had a plan, a 78 page plan to be exact. The basis of his plan is repetition, repetition, repetition. He takes his daughters out everyday rain or shine. What he was lacking in tennis information he made up for in good old fashion hard work and consistency.

Repetition really is the secret to excelling in tennis. Richard Williams might be crazy, but he was consistently crazy, and that consistency in getting the reps was the foundation for their success.

When you can combine information on how to efficiently hit a tennis ball with repetition great things happen. I have seen it over and over again with the GreatBase Tennis Curriculum that we utilize. Hard work definitely beats talent every day of the week.

Once you know how to hit a tennis ball there are so many ways to get in your repetitions. The limit is really only your imagination.

You can shadow swing in front of a mirror, hit off a cone or combine the two as in the video below.

You can hit off a wall or portable backboard.

You can use a metronome app on your phone.

And this is why I love the summer. When kids are out of school there is time. There is time to slow down and learn how to hit a tennis ball efficiently. There is time to practice every single day. And when you do that day in and day out the repetitions accumulate and skills are developed and refined.

Please consider joining us for our summer daily tennis training sessions. Your goal may be to be the next Serena Williams or it might simply be to learn the sport of a lifetime. Regardless, everyday we work to provide opportunities for learning and getting repetition, repetition, repetition.

Additionally, if you are interested in learning some more creative ways to practice at home. Please check out one of my mentors, Steve Smith, and his course on GreatBase Tennis, How to Practice at Home.

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.