Does this sound like you?
- My stroke feels different every day.
- I’m good in practice, bad in matches.
- My level should be much higher than it is.
Your hand-racket interface is almost certainly broken, and you are functionally playing blind.
The digital library’s first section is titled Your Hand-Racket Interface, and it’s where you’ll start. You can start right now, or read more about the hand-racket interface below.
Without Haptic Feedback, You’re Blind
Tennis requires racket-eye coordination, the same way something like handball requires hand-eye coordination. The difference in tennis – your tennis racket has no nerve cells. That’s why it’s common for athletic people, with great hand-eye coordination, to have poor racket-face control. If your hand isn’t properly innervating the racket, telling your nervous system knows where the racket is and how it’s moving, then you’ll never develop high-level control or consistency.
Your hand-racket interface is almost certainly broken.
You must engineer a grip which provides sufficient haptic feedback for you to perceive the racket’s position and velocity through contact. Your style, hand size, grip type, grip size, and even the exact shape of your handle all play a role in what’s best for you. The Hand-Racket Interface section of the program walks you through this process step-by-step, and you’ll have me to review your videos to make sure you’re really getting it, or to warn you if certain parts of the handle still look unmapped, and will hold you back long-term.
Once you fix your hand-racket interface, your ball-striking will skyrocket pretty much overnight, provided you attend to your new grip, and your match level will begin slowly rising. The attention piece is critical, though. Early on, before the new hand-racket interface is habit, you will still need to actively attend to the feelings in your hand in order to maintain your newfound consistency. Matches are pretty distracting, so you’ll constantly forget to attend to the hand and miss the way you used to. Over 1-2 months of practicing, it’ll become habitual, and you’ll be able to think about tactics, strategy, or even what you’re having for dinner later, without your forehand falling apart.
Whenever you’re ready, it’s time to turn the lights on.