Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Blind faith



Yesterday while practicing I firmly decided to glue my head to the right shoulder and look sideways at or just past the point of contact, and resist the temptation to look where the ball's going after the hit. This is after I realized that I hit almost every forehand on the frame (top of the racquet or trailing side), meaning that I pull away from the ball because I'm trying to look where the ball's going. I figured that if I look where the ball's going, I'm going to miss the shot for sure. If I don't, the worst that can happen is I won't be able to react as quickly to the opponent, but it won't matter if I don't make the shot in the first place! So it's decided: I shall look behind the point of contact for as long as I can, before my shoulders turn my head towards the net. It does seem to magically work; I'm not going to try to figure out why. I need to figure out how to replicate the very weird feeling associated with looking sideways on the backhand (because on the forehand I actively seek to press my chin into the right shoulder, whereas on the backhand I'm sideways to the net and square to the ball; need to look at some Federer backhand photos). Ok, looks like his head is leaning just a bit to the left, looking over the top of the racquet:

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