10 Minutes of Tennis: Your HANDS Are Everything!

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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast,

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With that said, let's get started with 10 minutes of tennis.

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Justin Yeo, world renowned tennis pro in Puerto Rico, who is also an Aussie.

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And we are going to talk today about your hands.

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Why are your hands everything? The title today.

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Your hands are everything. As I use my hands to talk, right?

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Hands are everything. We talk racket sports. You've heard all the

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benjourneys and keep your eye on the ball and keep your hands in front and

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good hands. Oh, somebody hits a nice, oh, good hands at the net.

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Is that what we're talking about? Are we talking a little more technical?

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Where are we going with this, Justin?

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Well, yeah, I mean, it's more than technical. You know, as a player gets better and better

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in the top. One thing that mostly shows is their hands.

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And if you, I don't know, from people that have played this

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port enough, if you actually watch the players, if you watch how they hit

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ball, you just try to amaze by how good their hands are.

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And the, you know, majority of areas come from the hands,

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you know, because the tension for the mind was saying something,

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but the hands, there's got to be an automatic feeling with their hands that

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can make you, you know, win or lose or play well or play poorly.

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But the hands come down to, I guess what we call grip tension,

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understanding, you know, palm of the hands, to give yourself more chances of

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feeling or controlling the ball.

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But yeah, I guess what the whole point is, there are a lot of, a lot of

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players, a lot of, I guess people that hit a lot of balls every day

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and they tell, well, I'm turning the shoulders, my feet are in position,

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I've made a good decision. Why kind of get that ball there every single time?

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Why kind of just, a lot of that comes into when the players hit a not

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ball, it's their hands and connection is direct to ball,

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to change direction or target.

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We'll just do things that they didn't think they could do

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because that ends are the ones that mean the difference.

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And a crazy example, but think about Gullwig and

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Curios and some of these guys with only different trick shots.

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That's not something you technically, you know, you go out and say,

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well, I'm going to do that. It's just they have really good hands.

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And one of the other big ones for a long time, which we all don't talk about

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enough anymore, which I'm very sad about, I brought you better.

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I mean, better at reason why he wasn't so injured, he didn't have to rely so much

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on the body and technique. They all look and I'm saying,

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here for technique, what are you having? Incredible, huh?

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I mean, talk about talent on the hands. Like what he accomplished,

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that no one else could do, a hot, hot bowling back in and, you know,

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rippling forehands and hitting shots that up up the tones or off the

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ball on the rise, you're talking about hands.

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So that's what I'm talking about, that hands. Okay, so that makes me think of,

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that makes when you say Roger, that makes me think of why he's such a great

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server with with a toss that isn't as obviously different. You got an

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antibiotic, maybe not the guy with great hands, but so his served toss is

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completely different on the second serve where Roger seemed to be able to do more

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with a similar toss. I think of Pete Samperous being able to do the same thing,

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but that just makes me wonder are the servant valliers potentially going to

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have better hands? Go back to a John McEnroe, you look at him and he almost looks

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awkward every other time he hits the ball because it's just all about his hands.

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He didn't care how it looked on the court.

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John McEnroe is a great example of hands of in for real.

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You know, we had that odd forehand grip that just he still,

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to this very day in his age, can still hit with some of the best

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because of his hands. So hands are, I mean, I guess the emphasis

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is what I'm pointing out is that when I see teachers,

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a coach and teaching of this sport, we don't spend enough emphasis on your

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hands have to direct the ball with your palm and you have you want to hear you want to hear

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if you want to deep your hands been directed deep. You want to short it can

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it's not just about technique or rolling the elbow or finishing your follow through

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here. A lot of it has to do with what the hands are doing to the ball.

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And that takes me back to the to the beginner almost. Okay, we are example is

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a John McEnroe and Roger Federer. But when I'm working with the seven-year-old

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and I say I need that racket face going forward, I'm talking about the palm of the

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hand. I'm talking about directing the ball left or right or up or down.

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And if they can picture the racket as an extension of the hand,

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that sounds again like another bumper sticker for tennis coaches, right?

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Very direct. It is the bumper sticker for not the bumper sticker. The racket is the extension

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of your hands. Sorry. So that concept even from a beginner to understand the

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racket face similar to the palm of the hand. 100%. I guess what I'm saying,

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a lot of coaches talk about it but eventually it loses sort of traction

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because we're getting technical footwork ride or whatever. But you can't let go.

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Like okay, all my lessons, my first five minutes, I say to people, we don't do

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that half foot stuff. Half foot to me, you're blocking and you're short gripping

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and you're rolling your hands off the bracket, right? So we always start

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reading that isn't that a good thing? Sorry to interrupt.

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Isn't that a good thing? Because that's all I use in the short court when I hit

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as a warm up for myself is just feeling the ball on the hand.

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Because I don't have a full swing. The racket's just in front.

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No, because what do you want to do with your hand? You want to lengthen your hands?

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I want to lengthen the swing but not my hand, right?

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But when you lengthen the swing, what are you doing with your hands?

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The same thing I'm doing at the net, which is a nice easy

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up the back of the ball stroke or underneath the ball.

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Wow, well, we're moving on for the next 10 minutes. It's been like, thank you.

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With a play, it's the ball, he's not doing that. He's doing that.

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Is that why I'm bad at tennis? Is that what you're pointing out?

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I did not say that on my TV, in his podcast. He did not say it.

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I know you didn't say it, but it's what I heard.

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Well, you know, your hands are so important that you can't let go of that.

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I spend the first five minutes of most lessons making people understand

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the first thing you want to do is get those hands hitting up and through the ball

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and lengthening the swing, not shortening the swing, and trying to be elastic and loose.

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Because that's it, if you watch the plays in their first five minutes of their match,

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then they've already warmed up before they've hit the court.

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But as they get to the court, they're learning to see the ball, get the preparation,

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get everything right for the section wise and reading.

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They're equated up the other end by getting their hands and the eyes and the

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hips, like getting it all set. Then the legs get involved. Then the weight trend, then everything

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builds up from there. But their hands are just so critical.

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So aside from the fact that we figured out, I'm bad at tennis today, how are you going to advise me?

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Or why I'm bad at tennis? Well, there's it. So here you go. Justin, yo, fix me.

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So let's say I'm doing this wrong. I'm doing that short court. You're going to suggest not to.

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Let's say it's my pre-warm-up routine. Maybe I don't have a coach right now.

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Or even if I go to my coach and they're doing this, don't pick a fight with your coach, of course.

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But ask the question, say Justin, what are you going to tell me to think about,

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even if I'm not doing that from my coach personally? What's the one thing you're going to tell me

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about my hands that I can practice to get back? Well, one way is to practice against a hitting wall.

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Because that's lengthening and hitting you straight forward. I want a hitting wall in my back yard.

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I want a hitting wall in my front yard. I want a hitting wall everywhere in the world. I think they're

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fantastic. So that's one way to help it. And then the other way is just warm up from the back of the court

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first thing. Because if you're backing off the ball, the ball's going to go short and you can't

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rally with your opponent. You can warm up properly. So, you know, your first instance,

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to be able to get that length, is you're going to have to eventually get your hands

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directly pulled all the way. It just won't happen. It'll be fun to knock it.

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Hear that Atlanta. Get rid of the short court warm-up. Go back to the baseline. Tell everybody,

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you know what Justin Yo says? There's a better way to do this. We're doing it this way from now on.

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Everybody, we just changed the tennis warm-up for 100,000 people right here. I like it.

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Yeah. Justin Yeo, 10 minutes of tennis. Thank you so much. We'll see you next week. I appreciate it,

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buddy. 10. You have to stay elastic. You have to stay moving.

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Well, there you have it. We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use to the studio.

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