so jen have you been playing at all i haven't you haven't okay you got to find a way to play
outside of the lessons with me do you have a wall close by where you live a tennis wall
i have to find one yeah and also a ball machine remember we talked about you know you're getting
a ball machine that'd be a good way to do it well you know what else i recommend to some of
my students is like join a clinic like a beginner clinic where you can play with other people and
that way maybe you meet someone you can then hit with on other occasions that'd be a good idea but
do you remember when we did our serve lesson when i had you serving with your hand and it
worked really well so today's lesson we're going to do an overhead basically when you come to the
net last time you learned volleys remember where you just deflect the ball back so when you're at
the net and the ball comes up high you have to do something called an overhead okay so we're going
to start off with just your hand give me your racket and let's get up a little closer to the net you're
going to turn sideways on the overhead so that's something that's super important that as soon as
you see the ball high you go out there it's going to be in a ready position as you talked about last
time but as soon as you see a high ball the first thing that you do on the overhead is turn yourself
completely sideways okay just like you were on the serve so stay right here in the middle
and put your hand in this position make a nike swoosh with your hands you know nike swoosh
like this the other way this is a nike swoosh see it looks kind of like a nike swoosh
so this is going to be down like this no go up here this way nike swoosh
you see okay yeah hold it like this so the important part is that this hand is up high and
this elbow is a little bit lower so you create a slight tilt okay like a nike swoosh and i what are
you going to do super simple from the nike swoosh you're going to extend your arm and make contact
with your hand on top okay okay so go nike swoosh and now extend and make contact on top do it again
perfect if you can freeze the contact and don't hit it too hard or your hand is going to hurt okay
go again nike swoosh and make contact on top you have to like go kind of fast otherwise
the ball will drop and you won't be able to get that full extension full extension
it means like stretching the arm completely out when you make contact with the ball
perfect one more absolutely perfect now stay there i'm going to feed you
the ball now from the other side and you do the same thing come a little closer
go ahead and turn sideways make a nike swoosh and do the same movement go again nike swoosh
perfect and again nike swoosh
completely sideways to your body sideways feet sideways too there you go
okay you want to wait to hit very long so don't like put your hand back here too early because
then you'll be waiting then you'll be hitting from here to here you won't get as much range of motion
so the key is to wait with the nike swoosh as long as possible then you get the more range of motion
more acceleration okay wait go perfect all right one more nike swoosh wow that was perfect all right
now remember the progressions that we did on all our strokes we're going to use these same
progressions on the overhead as well so go ahead and grab the racquet with the two fingers around
the throat three fingers around the string you already know and i'll make a nike swoosh again
there you go make sure that the when the racket is just the extension of your hand okay it's gonna
feel like as if you're hitting the ball with your hand when you hold the racquet here but make sure
that the racket head this thing is on this side of the body it's not going behind you like this
it's over here okay so now i'm going to feed your ball you do the same thing stand good job and
another one extend okay let it drop too low see most people like this feeling of going like this
don't fall into that trap keep the racket on this side even though it doesn't make any sense
but trust me get more range of motion that way it's going to be very beneficial down the road
extend you're waiting too long extend a little faster perfect and extend okay one more time
perfect one more
pretty easy so far right okay now i'm gonna feed you the ball
from the other side you do exactly the same thing
okay wait longer on this side
nice one with a little jump
perfect one more time
absolutely perfect okay now just like all the other shots we're gonna slide the hand down onto
the grip slide it down straight down grip it right here okay now put the racket like this exactly the
same movement it's going to feel like as if you're hitting with your hand the racket needs to stay on
this side so the wrist is straight and neutral you don't want the wrist to bend this way like that
and just hit it from here okay okay accelerate a little faster wait longer perfect one more time
one more time okay now we're going to add something we're going to go down all the
way on the grip now remember on the volley i told you that you could hold it higher you can't on the
overhead and the serve the forehand the backhand because you want that longer lever you get more
power that way so hold it here and now do the same thing go ahead that's good the good thing
because we did this progression holding here sliding down you're already in the correct grip
it's called the continental grip something that's very important we talked about on the
serve remember right here left hand up nike swoosh and that was a horrible feed i'm sorry about that
come again okay go again good one more time excellent let me go over there same
progression but now the ball is going to be coming from the other side so just so we don't
call it nike swoosh because it's kind of hard to say the actual tennis term for this position
is a trophy position you know a tennis trophy always has a person on the trophy like serving
so they call this the trophy position on the overhead and the serve wow what an overhead
that was a bad feed but you corrected with nice little adjustment steps there good job
wow what an overhead this is absolutely crazy what's going on right here
unbelievable all right jen next progression we're gonna hit actual a real overhead and it's
gonna have a finish because your objective on the overhead is to slam the ball down the trajectory
is very steep down and then it goes up on the other side it should go high enough where the
other person can't can't get to it okay it's one of the most aggressive shots in tennis so it does
need a finish and the finish is going to be towards your left pocket imagine if you had
a pocket so you're going to start like this same position and you're going to finish towards your
left pocket allow the body to go with the finish so if the upper body goes down a little bit and
that back leg kicks up that's an okay thing to do with is the body accommodating the swing path
so go in the trophy position okay good and um finish towards your left pocket
okay now remember i said the body must accommodate the swing path so there you didn't accommodate
where the racket was going the racket was going down but the left arm stayed up and the entire system
was straight up so allow the body to go with where the racket is going down like this so left
arm is going to come down the shoulder is going to come down a little bit back leg might kick up
much better best overhead so far absolutely perfect and now the final test i'm going to feed
you a ball from the other side which by the way the tennis term for a high ball when you're at the net
is a lob l-o-b so i'm gonna give you a lob okay come on okay that's a tough feed
you don't have to jump you can let the ball come down okay perfect
wow what an overhead
jen are these fun or what you get to hit them hard you're doing so good
it only took 10 minutes for you to learn the overhead this is absolutely amazing
nice work nice footwork what an overhead wow jen this is crazy
never seen anything like it on a beginner again people they get so confused when the ball is up
high they don't know what to do with their body they have coordination issues the fact that they
have to look up into the sky they get disoriented they lose the ball sometimes so the fact that
you're doing this your first time ever is absolutely amazing and because you're doing this
so fast i want to do one more progression that's i don't know if it's going to work but we can try it
this is the last thing we'll do now try to hit an overhead while moving backwards okay
so basically what you're going to do is start at the net with the racket touching the net
go ahead come up here go in a sideways position right away right there in the middle of the court
i'm going to feed your ball it's going to be behind you a little bit you have to move back
and then hit an overhead okay okay so what you'll have to do is the first thing is you put your
racket in the trophy position and then you move back and back it up a little bit unbelievable
keep your left arm up as you're moving back left arm up go again these are tough very nice try to
move back sideways if you can not backwards like this but more sideways when you're backing up okay
perfect and one more match point this your last one whoa absolutely crazy that overhead
jen another unbelievable performance you learned now pretty much all the shots and again i'm gonna
tell you i never had a beginner learn as fast as you did so my recommendation is for you to
um continue to play tennis you like it right i do i think you have some natural abilities
yes the coaching is insanely good okay all right i'm just kidding no it's good it's good coaching
these are methods developed by my dad that i'm trying out for the first time and i've had a
lot of success teaching beginners in the past with similar methods but the methods that my dad
showed me he left some tapes behind he unfortunately passed away basically focuses
on playing tennis with your hand and that is the easiest way to pick up the game because a lot of
times beginners will hold the racket on the bottom and they have a very difficult time coordinating the
whole body and the lever is very long and they don't have the feeling of the ball impacting the
strings so they're flailing the racket around and don't have any control and the way we are starting
to calibrate all these strokes as if you were playing with your hand by starting with the
hand itself then getting closer to the strings and slowly moving down towards the bottom of the grip
you're doing phenomenally well and you definitely gotta keep going okay thank you all right look
now one more time now with the clunk