Ten Minutes of Tennis: Is Your Serve REALLY Your Serve?

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with 10 minutes of tennis.

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- Hey, hey, this is Shaun with GoTennis!

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And this is our ten minutes of tennis.

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So today we are talking with World-Renowned

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Tennis Coach Justin Yeo and the topic is the question,

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is your serve really your serve?

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And before I even let that sink in,

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is your serve really your serve?

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That makes me worried.

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That makes me, have I been doing it wrong all this time?

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We've got a couple of ways to look at it.

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One, I'm an adult player, am I really doing it wrong?

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And I've been copying the best and try to make it the best.

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Or I've got my son and I need to teach him

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the right way to do it.

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So Justin, what do we mean by that?

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And can you help us answer that question?

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- Absolutely.

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How you doing guys?

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It's quite simple for the last, probably least 25,

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almost 30 years I've been teaching people,

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find out what their throwing action is first,

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to then build their serve.

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What we found is that when you get a throwing action

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from a little age, your throw is your throw.

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So whether you're a short arm or you're a full long arm,

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you can start to identify whether you should maybe look

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at more of a modified service action.

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And you can talk about like on the female side,

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just for Google or on the male side is TFO,

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Francis TFO, very short arm, very explosive.

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Andy Radik was one of the biggest ones

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that started the whole concept of it.

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And made people realize that if your throwing action is there,

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all you've got to do is build off that.

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So it's not something that's commonly talked about,

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but I've had very, very, very good success rate

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that allows people also less mental issues

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when they're over the ball,

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because it's already a map that's in their brain

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that they know how to throw.

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So I try to build a serve around their throw.

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When you throw two, you tend to use your hips.

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So there's a lot of service actions

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where nobody uses their hips

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and they try to place their foot to replace the hips,

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where they try to turn too much of the upper torso

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to make up for the hips.

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And that's when they lose balance

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or the ball toss goes off all the time.

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And there's all these things compensating,

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when really if you can just learn how to build,

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just serve around your throw,

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it can make a big difference

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and it can really make it very easy to build.

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So I'm an adult, which I like to think that I am.

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I'm an adult and I already have a serve.

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I've been playing since I was nine years old.

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Let's just use me as an example.

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You're gonna watch me throw a ball.

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Now you've told me previously,

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there are three different ways people throw the ball.

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What is it?

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What are those?

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Yeah, I looked at all from a baseball crew

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many years ago, but he was explaining that there's a full arm

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thrower, there's a modified serve thrower

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and there's a side arm thrower.

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Side arm people are pretty much screwed in tennis.

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So just saying straight up,

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that's one of the hardest things

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if they've already got a side arm throw,

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it's gonna be really hard to develop the shoulder

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to go that way, but on the other side,

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I've seen a lot of big full arm service actions

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and when you see them throw modified, it's like,

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well, okay, why wouldn't you just go up into that

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trophy stance straight away?

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Learn to balance with your hips and learn the ball toss

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and then just use your throwing action.

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And I've corrected a lot of full arms into modified

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and then I've gone the other way too.

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Watch the full arm thrower who's been trying to modify

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and he's too stiff here,

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whereas when you see him throw,

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he's actually really relaxed and easier to throw.

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So we can go over all the mechanics,

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elasticity, mental needs to be nice and relaxed to become.

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I've always just said balance, rhythm, control,

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very simple things to make it easy,

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but if you build it around a throwing action,

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a throwing action naturally has a good in hip rotation,

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it naturally is you tend to be balanced when you throw a ball,

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you naturally know how the chest goes first shoulder,

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all the mechanics start to work easy

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if you just build it up around a throw action.

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So something I've found very successful,

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I've seen adults change mid-life and all of a sudden

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don't have knee issues or lower back issues

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because they've just learned to build this around

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the throw action.

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And so as an adult in my 40s,

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I don't need, it's gonna create a mid-life crisis

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if my serve isn't working for me

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because maybe I've got it wrong.

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So I just need a mid-life serve adjustment.

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So I need to call, instead of the mid-life crisis,

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we need to go with a mid-life serve adjustment.

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It may be hard, it may be that one step back

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to take two steps forward, go to my coach.

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I'm gonna, if I've got my coach, I can go to him and say,

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hey look, I heard this thing, right?

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And I think players do that a lot where they go,

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hey coach, I saw this thing on YouTube,

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but I heard I was supposed to hold my pinky up when I served.

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Like there's always some weird thing online

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you can learn, but this one seems to really be focused

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in inside the biomechanics of Awea.

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And so I can go to my coach and say,

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hey can I throw a ball and have you just double check me?

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Maybe we can make a couple adjustments in that case.

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It helps that mental toughness.

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We talked about Andy Roddick,

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or not Andy Roddick, Andy Murray the other day,

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where Roddick served with just there, always there

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'cause it was just what he did, his brain knew it,

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his body knew it, and Andy Murray kind of had this big,

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that hope it works, kind of look on his face every time.

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But switching from that, if I've got a child

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and they're still learning to throw even,

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is there a way I can just have them,

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I've got some videos of kids just throwing a ball,

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eight or 10 times, throw a ball over and over again.

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They still even know how to throw.

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Well, how do I look at that as a coach?

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Now I'm the coach and I say, all right little Justin,

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I'm watching you throw a ball, let's go into this.

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I want you to go home and watch Francis, not Fritz, right?

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Or the opposite, go watch Fritz and try to emulate him

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and that's some pretty good advice for a kid.

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Yeah, yeah, I mean, you did two parts in that question.

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First one was that the adults over 40,

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anyone over 40, the shoulder is pretty much where it is.

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So you're either really strong external rotation

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or you're really strong internal rotation.

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So, build your server around where that strength is

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because I see a lot of guys too externally trying to do things

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and really their strength is on the internal.

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So build the server around as you've got older

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because we get flip over 40 cancer like we were 20.

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So your shoulder is not the same person anymore.

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So build the server around what you're strength is.

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On the side of the other side of that with kids,

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I think a lot of kids don't do enough band work.

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We hear it all the time with the players,

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they're getting their band and their tennis bag.

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Kids at an early stage could do band work

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to keep the external rotation

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and the internal rotation working.

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That to me is a healthy shoulder

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and a healthy long-term shoulder.

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It'll also help develop the throw action.

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But throw action, any pro should be pretty good at a

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notified seeing that the old one is going too far around plain.

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So they're not developing any generate,

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they need to be inside the plane.

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So mechanics and elasticity works really well.

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And just work on a little bit of hip rotation

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and just develop the throw, develop the throw.

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And try to think of a center field

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so that they're like a bow and arrow,

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they're trying to throw it that way

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versus throwing it down in like a baseball pitch.

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Baseball pitch doesn't hurt either

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because you work the internal rotation of your chest

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and your torso and you learn that.

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So there's all these advantages around throwing.

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So I don't want to stay kids away from tennis

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but baseball will really help their tennis.

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Well, we see that a lot with the younger kids

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to kind of wrap it up.

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We say the kids go throw the ball.

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We want parents to know this as well.

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If go play catch with your kids,

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that's actually good for their tennis.

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And even go play catch where the ball has to bounce once

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or however many times it takes.

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You've got a four-year-old and you say,

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well, tennis lessons are expensive.

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Okay, it's free to play catch with your child

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in the driveway.

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Absolutely.

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And I'll give you a quick one

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in my big academy in Melbourne.

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We used to hit the ball at throw the ball far

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so the kids learn depth perception early, very early as well

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because you'll be amazed how many kids

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when a log goes up, the ball's going past the head

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because they don't have depth perception early.

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So that's another one you can mess around

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with while practicing the throw.

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I like it.

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Go to your coach, whether you are a coach,

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if you're a coach, talk to your players about this,

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have them throw a few balls, double check your players,

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serve, help them out.

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If you need to go to your coach

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and ask those questions, that's great.

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Parents, go play catch with your kids

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and walk up to the coach and say,

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hey, I heard this thing on YouTube.

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It's not about the pinky this time, I promise.

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Justin, Yeo, I appreciate it.

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Thanks so much for your time.

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You're welcome, mate.

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We'll see you next week.

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