November 15, 2009
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Balance Jim McLennan Center of gravity. Base of support. Posture. On center. Standing tall while engaging the legs. The Alexander Technique. Feldenkrais. Performance Fundamentals. McEnroe. Federer. This one is all about balance. But not in an obvious way. Just as in a group of friends, you can easily notice who stoops, who stands somehow rigidly tall, and who holds themselves in a way that appears both up and relaxed. The same occurs on court. More often than not, players are hunched over in the ready position, or lean over and into the ball at impact. And over time, slight off-centered movements become habitual, and awareness of these inefficiencies becomes obscured. My initial introduction to these intricacies came from the meticulous tinkering of Tom Stow. Somehow I (and many others) was never exactly on balance with my turn to the forehand (or backhand) side. And worse, somehow I was never precisely on balance as I finished the stroke. Over time, as I got a little better at this; my consistency improved, and my game as well. At about the same point in time, I became interested in related readings on balance and posture. This opened doors in to Feldenkrais, Alexander, Swigard, and many others. Always about the same thing, how posture becomes habitual, but in all things there might just be a most efficient way to stand, to move, and by extension, to play the game of tennis.
So over the years I have collected various balance boards and tools that challenge centeredness, give insight into balance, and provide, at the same time, excellent workouts for the legs. And you can find many of these tools from an internet search. The two I am most familiar with are the Indo Board and the Cosom Board (that I ride with some difficulty in this article). And the point of these tools and the demonstration is that whenever even slightly off-balance, the arms move reflexively, and sometimes quickly, as a counter-balance. I believe the same thing happens, if less obviously, when we move about the court. Any time off-balance, there are muscular tensions used to hold us up (imagine the Leaning Tower of Pisa) – or rather quick physical actions with our arms that influence, if not corrupt, many of our hits. Graceful players make the game look easy. Off-center players somehow make the game look entirely different. And this even applies to vision. Bill Harrison has done similar work with baseball batting, combining balance training with visual acuity (in fact he listed Tom Stow as a resource within his book, Vision Dynamics). Harrison shows rather convincingly, that any time one is off-balance, the eyes immediately move off-task to horizontal or vertical elements in the line of sight to regain balance. And if one’s eyes deviate even slightly from the moving ball at off-centered moments, this many explain many of our inexplicable unforced errors.
In the professional game, all the men and women are generally on-balance. Years of practice has honed and simplified their movements, but equally, as regards natural selection, players extremely off-balance are winnowed from the competitive ranks for they are either less likely to win or more likely to become injured. But that said, some players have an even more refined sense of balance than others. Federer would obviously come to mind, but perhaps McEnroe even more so. To play at such a high standard at the age of 50, one must be economical to the extreme, and as regards posture, balance, and grace, to my mind Mac leads the league. The clips of McEnroe (above) show an effortless balance, gliding movement, and the quietest of hands, all the result of playing on center. You can approach this awareness, but only if you put balance on the top of your list when evaluating your game. As always, we would love to hear from you! Questions, comments, personal experiences all create helpful dialogue for everyone! Please click here to send us your email.
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