Stretching your Game Space
To stretch your space you need to stretch your know-how.
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To participate effectively in any social context, you need appropriate social skills. This is as true in tennis as in any other activity. At every level of the sport, tennis players are always looking to improve their game, and many videos, magazine articles, and books of instruction have been prepared with tips on how to go about doing just that. The material covers subjects ranging from physical to mental conditioning, with a wide assortment of topics in between, all designed to help sharpen your skills and make problem-solving easier.
To play tennis well, you particularly have to use your racket strokes properly, which means you have to know precisely how to contact the ball with your racket to hit your target -- it's the ball/racket contact that guides and controls the stroke. It is with your brain that you read and react to the ball. You need the good swing in order to be able to make well timed and accurate contact with the ball, but you also have to know how the racket face must meet the ball in order to direct the motion of your racket. Both a good swing and the correct contact are needed. Understanding is essential for both aspects.
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It should be clear that you play tennis to hit the bloody ball. That's the bottom line -- you have to what you're trying to accomplish. But to direct your stroke properly you have to know what conditions of the racket will produce the trajectories for given oncoming shots from your opponent and you must know how to swing your racket to get the required racket values.
Select 'n Shoot programs that I've written to help you are designed to make such learning possible; they make you look at the details of the ball/racket interaction. With them you can practice hitting return shots against different oncoming shots from your opponent.
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The tennis court alone isn't tennis. To have tennis you need players and you need tennis rackets and a tennis ball. Not just any racket is acceptable and not just any ball will do the trick. You wouldn't think of playing tennis with a squash racket, for instance, because it's too light to hit a tennis ball properly over the net. The tennis context is the social setting that includes the court and the players and the rules. It is an arrangement created by us to engage in a specific form of recreation and competition.
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