Lesson 2: Improvement Cycle
We all want to improve our tennis skills. We watch some Youtube videos. We attend some lessons. We think we are ready, only to realize that we are not doing anything we have learnt in the real game.
Why is so hard to learn anything in tennis? To understand that, we need to be aware of the improvement cycle.
There are four stages in learning any tennis skills. Stage one is called "unconscious incompetence", which basically means "you don't know what you don't know". That is normally where we starts.
Phase two is "conscious incompetence", which means "you know what you don't know". This is the steps where we are aware of what we are missing in our skill levels and starting to improve them.
Phase three is "conscious competence", which means "you know when you think about it". At this stage, you can do it when you have consciously thinking about it. For example, reminding yourself to turn your body when hitting forehand is one such an example.
Phase four is "subconscious competence", which means "you know it without thinking about it". In tennis terms, it is called reflex. You have build enough muscle memory such you don't have to think about how to react to it. It just come "naturally".
It is generally pretty quick to go from phase one to phase two. After a few lessons and videos, most will achieve phase two.
Moving from phase two to three is much harder. To make the learning easier, good coaches might split that to a few baby steps. The video link below is a good example of that.
The hardest part is to go from phase three to phase four. That is why good tennis players spend days and months to perfect the skills.
If you have played any competitive games, you will know that it will be too late if you need to think about handling an incoming ball. Normally, the ball is coming at you so fast that you will miss it if you need to use your brain to process it. It has to be a muscle reflex on how to handle balls coming to your with different speed, angle, distance, spin and power.
Now it is time to back to the court!
Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1SqynDG_D8