Tennis Lessons in a Book

            I had a young lady in one of my beginners classes that obviously had played tennis before but that could not hit a forehand over the net.   Her whole problem was that she did not hit through the ball at all.   She was stuck with the bad habit of bringing her racket straight upward at the instant her racket made contact with the ball.   No wonder the ball always just dribbled into the net.   She had a very difficult time that day of trying to break that bad habit.   Even after explaining to her what her problem was she still couldn''t break the habit  --  at least not that day.   That must have bothered her immensely.   And she must have practiced on her own during the week to hit through the ball and to imagine she had to hit through all 5 balls of a string of 5 balls, lined up one behind the other coming at her.

            The results of her practice were beautiful and they showed up during our class on serving.   She practiced the serve with the rest of the class, but she also positioned herself on court to return serves from other members of the class.   And I just caught this out of the corner of my eye.   Then when I saw what she was doing and saw how effortlessly and beautifully she was now hitting her forehand I stopped the class and called their attention to it and had her demonstrate for the class.   I fed several nice easy shots to her forehand and she beautifully returned all of them.   I could tell by her follow through that she was imagining having to hit through a string of 5 balls each time.

            I complimented her and told the class that this moment is the moment all tennis instructors live for.   That pleased her very much.   Her boyfriend was also in the class.   He went over to her with a big smile on his face and complimented her with a "thumbs up" and a big hug and a kiss.