Meet Jina — a 3.0 player in her 40s from California. An Essential Tennis fan for many years, Jina flew out to Wisconsin to work with me personally because, in her words, “I’m ready to take my game to the next level.” Good for her!
When a player plays 3.0, there are obviously many things she might do to improve her game. But I always try to look for what I call the One Big Thing that will make the biggest impact in the least amount of time. In this case, Jina’s One Big Thing was learning how to use her body correctly to create power. In our opening hit-around, Jina hit forehands with a tight, jerky swing that had barely any force behind it. She’d attempted to fix this herself by swinging harder, but the effort she exerted, the more mistakes she made and her forehand fell apart.
In order to improve, Jina had to learn how to reverse how she used her body throughout the stroke: instead of her arm working hard and her body being passive, I taught her how to let the big muscles of her body do the work and allow her arm to “come along for the ride.”
The end result, for Jina and others who learn how to let their legs and trunk do the work, is smooth, calm, effortless power.
