Teaching with the Eye Coach

[gzhpcu]

If you have a court, why not a ball machine? The Eye Coach is good for me when I don't go to the tennis club...

[hockeyscout]

I can get away with anything at my tennis courts in the village. The director went away for a weekend once and left me in charge, and said, "I trust hockey-scout." That weekend I dug up a big hole, and roasted a pig. Need I say more? Good idea - I am thinking on this idea. Thanks.

[tennis_chiro]

can you make me a sketch tennis_chiro -- sounds interesting.

I'm not set up that well with the graphics right now, but I can put it in simple terms for you. I am assuming you at least have some courts with 8' or 10' fences. If you come out 10' from each corner, you can string a non-elastic cord across the top of the fences. The middle of that cord would be about 7' from the corner and about 5' from each fence. Pull that non elastic cord tight. Then at this center point attach a piece of slightly elastic shock cord that reaches down to the ground. If you have a full sized 120' x 60' court, this point will be at least 15' behind the baseline and far enough out of the way not to be a distraction. Now it gets just a little tricky. You need to put some kind of a recessed hook in the surface of the court so that you can attach the elastic cord to it (If you can't put some kind of a hook there, you could have a 10 or 20 KG weight to which you attach the elastic cord). You put a hole in a tennis ball and run the elastic cord through the ball so you can slide the ball up and down on the elastic cord to the height you desire. Now you have a ball on a cord at whatever height you want to work and you are a good 5' away from both fences so you should be able to execute full forehands and backhands. When the device is not in use, unhook the elastic cord from the base position and you can hook it on to the fence and it will be sufficiently out of the way. If you are really touchy about not having anything above the players even this far out of the way, then you need to use a much longer piece of non-elastic cord so you can release it, allow it to fall to the ground and then just hook it on to the side and back fence out of the way. Then when you want to use it, all you have to do is hook the base attachment in place (or put the weight in position) and pull the end of the non-elastic cord until the overhead piece is in the correct position. Such cords are cheap and I imagine you can get away with hanging some devices up on your courts.

don

[hockeyscout]

can you make me a sketch tennis_chiro -- sounds interesting.

[gzhpcu]

Actually, I am using it more as a "stroke coach" and "eye coach" as a byproduct.

[gzhpcu]

Why should the Eye Coach be hard on the arm? The ball is almost still, not like having to return a heavy, topspin shot.... I hardly notice it at impact... I still prefer to let it rebound until it is almost still, hit it and keep my head still...
I am not training my eyes in particular, as I always did keep my head still. I am training my strokes...

[tennis_chiro]

But, if it works for gzhpsu ... go for it. It appears he is working smartly with it, and is not overdoing it with the reps or going nuts with it. We have an appartatus you guys will see soon that does the same thing as this, but, maybe delivers a bit more kick for the dollar in developing the tools required for a world class stroke, punch, pitch or shot.

With the kind of setup you have there, it should be easy for you to simply put a ball on a vertical tether; that is, put a rope through a tennis ball and attach the rope above and below; then you simply move the ball to the height you want the contact point to be and you are in business; and with a lot less stress at impact for those young arms.

don

[hockeyscout]

But, if it works for gzhpsu ... go for it. It appears he is working smartly with it, and is not overdoing it with the reps or going nuts with it. We have an appartatus you guys will see soon that does the same thing as this, but, maybe delivers a bit more kick for the dollar in developing the tools required for a world class stroke, punch, pitch or shot.

[hockeyscout]

Actually, hockeyscout, you have a point there. It's a lot easier to hit the ball when it has reversed direction and is moving away from you again, but then you are not training the eye properly to adjust as the ball completes its path to the contact point. When the ball is swinging at you on the EyeCoach, you have to overcome the momentum of the entire arm of the apparatus and this is a lot more than the 2 ounces of the tennis ball. It's not a question of holding tight at contact, but more a question of getting the momentum of the racket moving right through contact on the intended trajectory. If you make a mishit or strike a glancing blow with the EyeCoach, the racket will turn in your hand and it is not a good feeling. I love it as a device to demonstrate and train a new contact point or body position at the contact point and it seems that it would be really beneficial to a new student in the manner they suggest in the EyeCoach promotional materials. But I wonder if it wouldn't be better to put a couple of extra ounces of lead tape on a spare racket to use on the EyeCoach to overcome the additional momentum and inertia of the apparatus that each stroke has to overcome.

What do you think about using a weighted racket like that? You would be strengthening the arm and the whole hitting motion, but you would also be training a slower swing. On the other hand, when you actually went to play the racket would feel lighter and easier to swing and the impact you had experienced on the EyeCoach would be closer to the impact you would now feel on your actual live ball strokes.

don

I got a ten year old who is 5'11 - so, I wouldn't touch it with a very delicate young arm. I don't think I would use it with an older player either. The big issue for me is how do you train a child safely? Or, an older athlete (that an issue with pro's - they are always hurt, and you have to work around a series of 100 plus car crashes they have been in over the course of there career). So, I have developed a lot of proprietary equipment to do it. Older athletes, who are 30, prefer to be trained like children in a proper functional manner, however, its a tough sell for 15 to 26 year olds who believe in outdated Rocky IV performance training methodologies which just wear and tear the muscles. In the Armageddon thread we will post video which will show how we are working through the problem of delivering clean reps to a young body. I've changed how I have trained all athletes (of any age) in the past year here big time, and am more concerned with creating feel - nuerological pathways to the brain. Obviously, it all results in cleaner strokes. I developed a MMA heavyweight champion of Russia here with these principals, however, I've found a young athletes body responds better to the type of stimulus we are doing to the central nervous system than an older athlete as they recover better and are much more adaptable. The biggest thing I learned in the MMA world is getting an athlete back to a performance level after a fight, and concussions. Thats tricky, and takes a lot of patience. But, that is what you need to do with a tennis player - its a game of touch, spin, placement, and you need to activate a lot of nuerology and make a lot of cross connections to be successful. I sure have a better appreciation now for pace and rhythm from MMA, and how to bring over the foot - hand - hip - brain connection over to the sport of tennis. I think you guys will really like the Armagedon thread when it gets going and you can see video. I cant show everything that we do - but, I can show some stuff.

[gzhpcu]

For forearm strength, I excercise with a handgrip daily.

[tennis_chiro]

Doesn't that hurt your arm?

Actually, hockeyscout, you have a point there. It's a lot easier to hit the ball when it has reversed direction and is moving away from you again, but then you are not training the eye properly to adjust as the ball completes its path to the contact point. When the ball is swinging at you on the EyeCoach, you have to overcome the momentum of the entire arm of the apparatus and this is a lot more than the 2 ounces of the tennis ball. It's not a question of holding tight at contact, but more a question of getting the momentum of the racket moving right through contact on the intended trajectory. If you make a mishit or strike a glancing blow with the EyeCoach, the racket will turn in your hand and it is not a good feeling. I love it as a device to demonstrate and train a new contact point or body position at the contact point and it seems that it would be really beneficial to a new student in the manner they suggest in the EyeCoach promotional materials. But I wonder if it wouldn't be better to put a couple of extra ounces of lead tape on a spare racket to use on the EyeCoach to overcome the additional momentum and inertia of the apparatus that each stroke has to overcome.

What do you think about using a weighted racket like that? You would be strengthening the arm and the whole hitting motion, but you would also be training a slower swing. On the other hand, when you actually went to play the racket would feel lighter and easier to swing and the impact you had experienced on the EyeCoach would be closer to the impact you would now feel on your actual live ball strokes.

don

[gzhpcu]

No, why? I have been playing since the age of ten and never did my arm hurt... Also, I have a loose grip until the moment of impact...

[hockeyscout]

Doesn't that hurt your arm?

[gzhpcu]

Thanks, will try it out....

[tennis_chiro]

I train in my garage...

Phil, you should try to hit the ball while it is still moving towards you instead of after it has reversed directions again, even if it is on the third recoil instead of the 2nd recoil that EyeCoach advocates in their videos. That way you are training your eye to track the oncoming ball with the last few "saccades, smooth pursuit movements, vergence movements, and vestibulo-ocular movements" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10991/).

don