and attack this one bremen come on up go go go come on up attack it be aggressive
okay remember our first lesson we talked about holding the racket properly on the forehand
are you reminding yourself to do that yeah not to hold it too
tight in here with the fingers but to have more spreading and an angle
that's going to allow the racket to go back further and it's doing that to some extent
remember on the backhand there's less twitch which is great
but you got a huge gap between the left hand and the right hand when you switch your grip when you
hit a forehand a backhand comes when you're here slide down all the way like this yeah let me see
let me see that one yeah sometimes i feel like i was getting here sometimes i was going too high
yeah and i feel it so i'm trying to get used again even lower even lower than that here take a look
you go the right hand will be in the same position as always with the pinky towards the edge okay and
the left hand needs to go so it's like right next to the right hand there shouldn't be any gap okay
if you hold up here you're basically making the racket shorter the higher you go here the shorter
the racket will be okay so by going lower you have more length here you got a longer lever all right
finish with the backhand all the way come
come on forehand side come back to me good job backhand
i was hitting the ball back to you with my volley and you're
hitting a certain way i want to just make a test and feed you the ball
soft and i want you to hit it very hard into the corners okay all right and let me just see one
specific thing that i'm looking for you want a baseline and you're going to corners aggressive
so bremen i have good news and bad news on the forehand you're doing fine on the backhand there's
a little bit of a problem let me explain so when i was rallying with you and volleying to you the ball
that was coming at you from me had sufficient pace so when that's the case when the incoming
ball is fast you can get away with a certain style of technique in other words your
finish can be shorter all right the overall the stroke can be shorter so in other words
you don't need as much body because you're taking the pace out of the incoming ball so your backhand
and we're playing it was going from here to like here the stroke was stopping here and that was
fine when the ball is coming fast however now that i've fed it very slowly you can't do that anymore
and you need more of a full swing so the good news was that on the forehand you were
doing much better you had a full body swing meaning that you have full torso rotation and
the body was helping the racquet out however on the backhand not so much so when you take
a look at your backhand in slow-mo you'll see it's going from here and it stops right here
like the chest is pointing straight forward instead of going a little bit more this way
so we got to try to do and i'm going to feed you these next few balls soft
you have to use your body more on the backhand there are several things that you can do
the easiest tip that i can give you something that's been around for a long time is hit
yourself in the back that in itself might fix everything so when you attempt to hit a backhand
think about hitting yourself in the back like this here watch watch me you see where i'm
hitting myself do you see it right there it's like my my left shoulder blade and don't do it
too hard don't hurt yourself but you want to hear that thud of the racket hitting your back okay
do it again
there you go
okay come again
all right
and come all the way to the middle all the way to the middle and again
okay i'm hearing a thud that's good
and one more time
all right i'm hearing you hitting yourself on the back and i said this might fix it
by itself but unfortunately it didn't and what the
mistake you're still doing is on the finish both of your elbows are pointing forward
so your torso rotation is limited still so even though you're hitting yourself in the back
this is not resulting in in the right elbow going further back and getting a little bit
more torso rotation so now we have to may have a different intention on the finish and we're going
to try to finish towards your car right there so you're going to finish with your elbow towards
where your car is parked that's going to be more rotation there's going to be more body
involvement on the two-hander you'll get more power and it'll feel a lot more comfortable
more if i froze the finish there your right elbow is still pointing somewhere there
one more time
that one was like the elbows were actually pointing forward
both of them let me just test something go ahead and go in your finish clean your finish
like finish the backhand make sure you go sideways
turn sideways turn sideways okay and go ahead and do just do a dry swing
don't do that at the end like that's good that's going to make it easier so i want you to
i want you to turn sideways and swing just swing and finish
okay don't come through at the end just stay sideways okay this elbow right here more that way
can you make that little twist at the end that's right all right
another one come
did not like that one can i show you a few yeah yeah yeah all right i'm gonna stand
here so you can see it you just depend you can stand right there that's a good spot to
stand because you'll see my you'll see my finish you'll see my right elbow take a look at this
you see this and i think take a look at yours it's more like this
you see how much less movement there is at the body let me show you one
good one again and take a look where my torso ends up and where my right elbow is
you see that so it goes all the way here you see it's almost like a golf swing you ever play golf
i have an idea okay it's very similar to a golf drive i always make that comparison
because you're going here here and then all the way here you see that
now whether that back foot comes through or not that's going to help but i don't want the
back foot to make the turn for you because that back foot is going to come through at
the very end okay so we'll just focus on making that turn with the torso in isolation for now
what do you think tell me it's still pointing forward right because i feel like yeah i feel
like i'm not i'm trying to stop i'm trying to focus on that last finish instead of just going
through but go through your whole stroke but have the intention to finish more at the beginning of
the stroke okay let the contact happen by itself that was the best one you hit so far
your intention has to be on the finished product what happens in this area let that happen on its
own you're already doing good you actually have a pretty good contact on the backhand you have good
feel on that side don't worry about it much much better that's looking way better come again oh
what do you think yeah much better so much better
bremen it's night and day man night and day
look at these backhands what do you think
you got it you gotta you're ready in there it's a little uncomfortable because i'm not
used but i i try to accelerate you have to exaggerate because it's gonna feel like an
exaggeration because you've never done it it's gonna feel weird it's gonna feel wrong but the
difference is that first of all the stroke looks more continuous looks longer it doesn't look so
hacked up and so short when you stop a stroke here it's going to look short and i feel the difference
i understand now because when i'm playing now whenever it's a little slower yeah i have all
the time but i i'm not able to i'm hitting on the net just because the technique is not there
so i feel like like it's not i'm not giving the right the topspin to go because i'm not finishing
i i think i think well it doesn't have to do so much with topspin but what you're experiencing is
a generally a comfort on your backhand side when the ball is coming fast but then when you play against
guys who don't give you anything they're dinkers and they hit your backhand and you hit the shot
without finishing all the way it's going to feel like as if you're not getting any power yeah not
getting any spin sure exactly it's going to feel terrible yeah so what i'm telling you here is that
there's a time and a place for the backhand that you had before for example when somebody hits
a very fast on the return of serve if you're picking the ball up from the baseline hit it
that way no problem at all but when there is time you gotta take a full swing with the entire body
being involved like you're doing now no for sure yeah definitely and when you play dinkers now all
of a sudden you're going to be able to generate power off no pace because
your whole body is involved now let's do 10 more okay love that one brandman this is clean man
look at this backhand this is crazy what's happening right here come on four more
bremen you're on absolute fire three more come on two more
nice work here's another good news remember our first two-handed backhand lesson
remember we had that twitch yeah the racket was switching back there i don't see it anymore so
that's completely gone you were able to um get rid of that which is great i feel like
i'm turning much warm remember okay okay i was going to tell you that next because it's
gotten a lot better but it can be even a little bit more yes that's my next tip to you is that
you need a towel yeah go ahead it's so humid if you imagine me hitting this way so if i'll copy
your backhand you're you're somewhere here in this area and that's not bad this is not the end of the
world by any means you can hit a quality backhand that way but it's not like 100 optimal because
if you take a look at the greatest two-handed backhands in the world all of them without any
exception they go here meaning that the shoulder blade is towards the incoming ball but it's not
only that they will also create a tilt in their shoulder so they will go not only here but also
a little bit here okay naturally what that does also it gets the racquet head to be a little bit
higher above the grip all right so look you get a backhand you go here this a little bit of a dip
and a big turn so the shoulder blade is towards the ball and now look here the racquet head is a
little higher you won't maintain this position naturally the racket is going to drop down
and you get a little bit more acceleration from that as well but most importantly you get a little
extra rotation into the contact which will result in more power good all right let's try it out
nice bremen new that was maybe the best backhand you hit today strong finish and a strong setup you
felt it this is great what i'm doing now like when i have you come from the middle and i'm feeding
the ball diagonally here i'm making it easy for you to do a lateral step what i mean by lateral
step is that your right leg is going to go across the left leg which will naturally put you in a
position where your body is turned let me show you this way look if i step this way when both
my feet are parallel to each other in regards to the side fence now i have to force the turn here
and this is sometimes the position you'll have to be in especially from the middle of the court
however if the ball goes to the side naturally it's going to be very natural to not come up here
and go like this but to go with a lateral set up where this leg goes across and now there's a gap
in here but look when i do a lateral step look how naturally i'm turned this way
okay so when i'm feeding the ball like this i want your right leg to go across the left leg
and more or less up to the side and then cross it no the way you move in the most efficient way
is in the following way when you're in a baseline in a ready position okay and you observe the ball
in the ready position you say okay it's a backhand the first thing you'll do is turn towards the
backhand side okay you're going to turn towards the backhand side now there might be us one side
step this way but there might not be sometimes depending on the severity of your movement if you
have to sprint you're likely not going to go like this and this you'll turn and sprint right away
but generally with a little bit of time there'll usually be a position where you're you step here
and then you will run this way there's absolutely no need to sidestep to the ball when you're moving
towards it laterally when you're recovering yes you want to move laterally when you're
moving towards the ball in your mind just think i'm going to move in a natural way i'm going to
i'm going to turn and move forward like this when you're recovering then you can be more lateral
because when you're in recovery you have to be lateral because you have to be able to change
directions fast and your only concern when you're running to the ball is getting there fast enough
how do you move faster laterally versus like this you move faster this way right okay let's try it
again lateral step if i took a picture of your feet they're still in the same level right here
this leg has to go a little bit more here do not be afraid to step out with that leg okay
even more do it again back to the middle lateral step come on now we're talking here we go
even more bremen exaggerate can you feed me one i'll show you feed me one with your hand
you'll see a lateral step on the backhand go ahead feed me one right there
perfect so even though that was short i still made lateral go again
oh this is tough bremen this is tough okay feed it under hand otherwise i'm too slow to react
perfect ah and i missed it but you saw the lateral step give me one more i want to make it
there you go beautiful backhand right see my right elbow going there you saw the setup was
like this that's what i want you to do because when you step that way the turning of the shoulder
happens by itself it happens naturally oh that's just maybe the best backhand you hit all day
what a clean backhand man that must feel good doesn't it oh yeah
all right i understand i have the feeling you know what you're saying from before from now i
can feel it it feels different right yeah yeah so let's recap we have to finish the right way
but also preparation is important very important now one thing that i'll say there's exceptions
to everything so the way you're hitting the back and without the preparation will also sometimes
take place like especially in emergency situations especially depending on your location in the court
so maybe from the middle of court you'll be more often forced to hit it like that
return a serve and i'm talking about ideal situations where you're perfectly set up
the way you were hitting the back end there is the best way to hit it
and again lateral setup finish all the way clean you got a couple more last one right here blasted
yes that's the one right there man that's the one nice work thank you very good nice
a big improvement from last time we played so the first two sessions that we had this
is our third session today they helped a lot there was no more twitching on the backhand
on the forehead you had absolutely no lag remember you were going like this so there's more lag on
the forehand now it's it's improving a lot and now with these little corrections here you're going to
keep getting better and better i think you have a lot of potential man you're in great shape
and you just got to keep going okay yeah nice work man thank you very good very good