I haven't read off your substack for months and am trying to get back into it after just finishing my season of training for the 22-23 year. And having applied a lot of your theory from your threads I find myself recently going back to your early ones and needing to make conversation as I feel I am at the stage of knowledge where I can not only figure out why your theory makes sense from logic but also having used it a lot in training I understand the "feeling" of why it is all correct.
So in this part of death of a forehand you mentioned how desirable difficulties for developing pupils can achieve a great outcome in the long term however how do you apply desirable difficulties to an much more older player who's already played for some time???? I say this having started tennis when I was 14 so using red/orange/green balls was out of the question and using only yellow balls my entire time playing tennis I had a lot of bad habits on strokes before I read this substack a year ago (which have thankfully cleared up). But at 22 and playing better quality tennis with now a heavy racket (can't remember exact numbers off the top of my head I will check some other time but specs are 370-ish grams, 390-ish swingweight and 3 points headlight) what are other desirable difficulties you could think of for someone like myself in terms of equipment? I have gone already and put some down for me just to see if you could approve or not.
1. I use poly strings but now after reading this again I might chuck away the RPM Blast and search for an old school (1st gen) poly string that doesn't aid strokes with the "extra silicone coating", "funky sided shapes", "rough texture" and "funky injected material composite for 25% extra snapback for more spin and comfort" that the polys are infested with today. The first generation polyester that was just 100% polyester and were normal round shape that made any spins/rpm on the ball a product of your own technique and not because of added benefits making you a lazier player to achieve topspin with a "flick of the wrist" (I suspect this is why if you give Nadal any string he will outspin anybody for topspin even if they use the most "advanced" poly but if us academy players did the same it would turn out poorly because he grew up probably using gut for a minimal amount of time before he spend his childhood up until 2010 using Babolat Duralast which is a first generation poly). Is this a desirable difficulty or am I reaching here, because natural gut is so expensive just to buy let alone re-string and for the way I hit I would tear it up so fast and the nature of maintaining/looking after natural gut in your racquet is so mercurial it would turn into an undesirable difficulty for my wallet instead?.
2. For racquets I have been using a Babolat Pure Drive Tour (2015 model) however I have acquired a new old stock Pure Drive Plus that is the 2nd generation model (circa 1998) and that era of pure drives were not only hailed for being the best feeling amongst the pure drives then and released now but also is one stripped of all the technology crap they have stuffed in their racquets now. I understand as well after doing research that the 1998 Pure Drive Plus will play a lot different even though I will emulate the same specs on my current racquet due to the twistweight being so low and no dampening technologies on the frame meaning no forgiveness on mishits, feel will be 100% sensation unlike the pure drive I use now and even though the sweetspot of the 1998 pure drive isn't as big as the pure drive I use now because it is an earlier version it is slightly smaller than the one I use now but in exchange for a more "raw" feeling stringbed the sweetspot is insanely powerful compared the today's pure drives. Is using this far back version of the pure drive a desirable difficulty or again am I reaching?
3. You mentioned "Viewed through the same lens, we should not be surprised that the skill set of players has weakened as the conditions of modern tennis have narrowed." What would you tell someone trying to get up the ranks in tennis to offset this weakening of a tennis players skill set as bigger, softer and slower balls and slower courts are not something we as tennis players have control over?.
4. You also mention in the same paragraph "Courts aren’t as quick and most players are baseliners with a two-hand backhand." Is playing at the baseline a bad thing? I will not lie I would definitely consider myself an offensive baseliner but am recently working on my intangibles, mainly marrying the serve and volley in my game since I have a decent serve to back up volleys that I can work on. And as for the two handed backhand is this also a bad thing???? Does having a two handed backhand mean that your skill set is far inferior to the one handed backhand player? I was contemplating on switching to the one handed backhand a few months ago but after reading your substack there has been a sharp improvement in it, as in it is a shot that has technically become so much better it's not just the shot power that's improved but my corner to corner defence and dictation of point has 1-up since reading the two handed backhand guide you did a while ago. Would the weakening of ones skill set and two handed backhand being mentioned in the same paragraph mean that no matter how good technically it becomes it is the worse shot compared to the one handed backhand and you are less skilled for using a two hander?.
I am up for any suggestions for desirable difficulties at this stage, but do they truly lie in switching to a Wilson pro staff 85 with a full bed of gut or is there more I can do that's more specific to me?
I haven't read off your substack for months and am trying to get back into it after just finishing my season of training for the 22-23 year. And having applied a lot of your theory from your threads I find myself recently going back to your early ones and needing to make conversation as I feel I am at the stage of knowledge where I can not only figure out why your theory makes sense from logic but also having used it a lot in training I understand the "feeling" of why it is all correct.
So in this part of death of a forehand you mentioned how desirable difficulties for developing pupils can achieve a great outcome in the long term however how do you apply desirable difficulties to an much more older player who's already played for some time???? I say this having started tennis when I was 14 so using red/orange/green balls was out of the question and using only yellow balls my entire time playing tennis I had a lot of bad habits on strokes before I read this substack a year ago (which have thankfully cleared up). But at 22 and playing better quality tennis with now a heavy racket (can't remember exact numbers off the top of my head I will check some other time but specs are 370-ish grams, 390-ish swingweight and 3 points headlight) what are other desirable difficulties you could think of for someone like myself in terms of equipment? I have gone already and put some down for me just to see if you could approve or not.
1. I use poly strings but now after reading this again I might chuck away the RPM Blast and search for an old school (1st gen) poly string that doesn't aid strokes with the "extra silicone coating", "funky sided shapes", "rough texture" and "funky injected material composite for 25% extra snapback for more spin and comfort" that the polys are infested with today. The first generation polyester that was just 100% polyester and were normal round shape that made any spins/rpm on the ball a product of your own technique and not because of added benefits making you a lazier player to achieve topspin with a "flick of the wrist" (I suspect this is why if you give Nadal any string he will outspin anybody for topspin even if they use the most "advanced" poly but if us academy players did the same it would turn out poorly because he grew up probably using gut for a minimal amount of time before he spend his childhood up until 2010 using Babolat Duralast which is a first generation poly). Is this a desirable difficulty or am I reaching here, because natural gut is so expensive just to buy let alone re-string and for the way I hit I would tear it up so fast and the nature of maintaining/looking after natural gut in your racquet is so mercurial it would turn into an undesirable difficulty for my wallet instead?.
2. For racquets I have been using a Babolat Pure Drive Tour (2015 model) however I have acquired a new old stock Pure Drive Plus that is the 2nd generation model (circa 1998) and that era of pure drives were not only hailed for being the best feeling amongst the pure drives then and released now but also is one stripped of all the technology crap they have stuffed in their racquets now. I understand as well after doing research that the 1998 Pure Drive Plus will play a lot different even though I will emulate the same specs on my current racquet due to the twistweight being so low and no dampening technologies on the frame meaning no forgiveness on mishits, feel will be 100% sensation unlike the pure drive I use now and even though the sweetspot of the 1998 pure drive isn't as big as the pure drive I use now because it is an earlier version it is slightly smaller than the one I use now but in exchange for a more "raw" feeling stringbed the sweetspot is insanely powerful compared the today's pure drives. Is using this far back version of the pure drive a desirable difficulty or again am I reaching?
3. You mentioned "Viewed through the same lens, we should not be surprised that the skill set of players has weakened as the conditions of modern tennis have narrowed." What would you tell someone trying to get up the ranks in tennis to offset this weakening of a tennis players skill set as bigger, softer and slower balls and slower courts are not something we as tennis players have control over?.
4. You also mention in the same paragraph "Courts aren’t as quick and most players are baseliners with a two-hand backhand." Is playing at the baseline a bad thing? I will not lie I would definitely consider myself an offensive baseliner but am recently working on my intangibles, mainly marrying the serve and volley in my game since I have a decent serve to back up volleys that I can work on. And as for the two handed backhand is this also a bad thing???? Does having a two handed backhand mean that your skill set is far inferior to the one handed backhand player? I was contemplating on switching to the one handed backhand a few months ago but after reading your substack there has been a sharp improvement in it, as in it is a shot that has technically become so much better it's not just the shot power that's improved but my corner to corner defence and dictation of point has 1-up since reading the two handed backhand guide you did a while ago. Would the weakening of ones skill set and two handed backhand being mentioned in the same paragraph mean that no matter how good technically it becomes it is the worse shot compared to the one handed backhand and you are less skilled for using a two hander?.
I am up for any suggestions for desirable difficulties at this stage, but do they truly lie in switching to a Wilson pro staff 85 with a full bed of gut or is there more I can do that's more specific to me?
Thanks for the thread as usual.