This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Tennis, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the tennis technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
As an Alexander Technique I am much more concerned with the quality of the grip, than the grip itself. It is easy to place the hands in a particular position, but the details of the quality of the grip and the relationship of the hands to the arms is much more subtle, and ultimately more important in terms of how the grip on the racket effects coordination and accuracy.
Grip is a very interesting word. To me it connotes holding onto something with too much tension and pressure so you don’t lose it, essentially squeezing what you’re holding onto. A central tenet in the Alexander Technique is that in whatever you’re doing, you invite your whole body to do it in a way that uses the least amount of muscle, in the best mechanically advantageous posture, and with the highest dynamic, so that you flow with incredibly energized movements with the least amount of work.
In other words, when you’re hitting the ball, you use the least amount of muscle so that body can move with the greatest speed and coordination. This means you hit the ball with a lengthening and spiraling back and legs, so that you don’t finish returning the ball hunkered down.
Don’t grip the racket, let the fingers lengthen and wrap around the racket. When you grip the racket you are squeezing the racket, and when you squeeze the racket you are shortening your fingers, which means there is tension in the hands. You can’t have static tension in any part of your body without causing the bones to be compressed against each other. As I’ve said, it is the goal of the Alexander Technique to do an activity with the musculature moving the bones without taking away the space between any of the bones.
It is compression between bones that causes wear and tear, not the amount of repetition. If you let yourself ask the fingers to wrap around the racket and lengthen, it is a very different feeling than squeezing the racket.
I was working with a violinist who had a lot of pain and tension in her right hand, which is the bow arm on the violin. I asked her to do the minimum to hold the bow, to see if this would help her hold the bow and play for hours without hurting. It didn’t. Then I had this brilliant idea, I asked her tell herself that her fingers were super-glued to the bow, that she didn’t have to press the bow with her fingertips, since she was glued to it, and that she couldn’t drop the bow no matter what.
It was incredible! I could see the tension drop out of her hand and arm, and the sound coming out of the instrument was beautiful, as excess tension wasn’t interfering with her coordination. She said it truly felt like her fingers were glued to the instrument. Play imagining your fingers glued to the racket. It will make a profound difference to your relationship to the racket.
