Where/when-to-look-during-fh-strokes
Graham Mackenzie asked 4 days ago
Hi, coaches and fellow TTD members! I am pretty new to the sport, playing seriously for ~1.5 years, and I have a question about where the eyes should be when doing the forehand drive/topspin strokes. When you do these strokes, is the racket in your field of vision at contact (i.e. do you actually see the contact between the racket and ball), and if it is, is the contact pretty close to the centre of your field of vision or is it more off to the side, in your peripheral vision? Related to this, as the ball is coming in and you are doing your backswing, are you focusing your eyes on the ball right up until contact? I usually keep my eyes focused on where I want land the ball on the other side of the table, which means that the actual contact occurs outside of my field of vision, but my consistency is not high on the forehand and I am wondering if this might be part of the reason why. Thanks for your thoughts!
Dan Academy Coach answered 6 hours ago
Hey Graham, it’s difficult to watch the ball right up until contact because then you will lose focus on zone in front of you and where you want to play, so the way you are doing it is the right way for sure! Of course most players watch the ball coming through towards them but as soon as the ball is over the net then you switch back to focusing on where you’re hitting the ball back towards. So you will never usually see the contact on your bat because it’s too difficult and too fast to keep switching between that and the other side of the table. Hope that makes sense! Dan 🙂
