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#1     How to live up to your parent's expectations.

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#1     How to live up to your parent's expectations.

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I grew up in a household that valued physical activity. It seems like from the time I was old enough to walk, my parents signed me up for just about everything. From gymnastics and golf to basketball and hockey, I did it. Both of my parents were double varsity athletes in high school, and had high hopes for their daughter who shared absolutely zero of their genetic makeup - athleticism included. The sports I excelled at heavily relied on my practiced skills rather than my inherent abilities. Unlike a skill that can be honed by practice, an ability is described as a limiting factor that cannot be modified by practice.

My father comes from a family of athletes. My uncle played in the National Football League (NFL) and many of my cousins were collegiate athletes. The picture to the right might give an idea of the differences in stature (and the natural ability of strength that comes with) between my cousins and myself. When I was younger, I wanted to play in the NFL just like my uncle. However, my father recognized my lack of ability for such a feat and crushed my dreams. Looking back I probably would have looked more like the kid below, but at the time it seemed unfair. Compared to his siblings, my father would be considered short. Although his height could be considered a limiting factor, he overcame that through acquired skills and had the highest percentage of offensive and defensive rebounds. Maybe football wasn't the sport for me to take a page out of my father's book, but tennis was. The extra effort I put into refining my skills prevailed.

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#4     How not to hit your doubles partner.

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#4     How not to hit your doubles partner.

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I spent a third of my varsity tennis career playing doubles. Some advantages include a larger court to land the ball in and less running. My coach used to tell us that singles players endure almost three hours of stop and go running during a match. A disadvantage includes having to coordinate your movements with another person.  I would be lying if I said I never hit my doubles partner. It's even more essential determine which shots you do or do not take (especially those tricky ones that fly straight down the center line). The problem? The theories of attention suggest that we only have a limited amount, and the main focus of the game is still the opponent. Even more reason to reach the automatic stage of learning.

When it's my turn to serve, I go through each quadrant of attentional focus. My broad-external focus is used to assess the position of my opponents and other factors that may affect my serve. My doubles partner and I agreed to crouch below the net to avoid unnecessary focus being pulled away from the serve. It also allowed us to avoid being hit unlike the pair below. My broad-internal focus is used to analyze that information to decide on the type of serve that I should take. If my opponent is leaning one way, maybe I'll opt for a slice serve. My narrow-internal focus is used to mentally rehearse my serve. How will I grip my racquet? How will I toss the ball? How will my racquet make contact with the ball? Finally, my narrow-external focus is used to execute the serve and prepare to receive the return. It is now that I must shift additional attention to my partner.

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#2     How to finally learn tennis after 17 years.

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#2     How to finally learn tennis after 17 years.

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The first time I played tennis was my sophomore year of high school in physical education. I was so great [insert sarcasm], that I thought it would also be the last time I played tennis. Fast forward to my junior year of high school. My friends and I decided that we would join the tennis team for fun. Even though it was one of the no-cut sports at our school, my parents suggested I take some private lessons before the season started. This brings us to the second time I played tennis. If you didn't already know, you're not supposed to move the racquet to your non-dominant hand when hitting a backhand stroke. Despite my rocky start, I ended up enjoying my time on the tennis court and aspired to be better. During the off-season I took lessons (one-on-one with a personal coach and in a group at a private club), signed-up for mini tournaments, and often went to the courts after dinner to practice my forehands, backhands, and serves.

Would it surprise you if I told you I was on varsity one year later? To get there I, like many learners, went through the three stages of motor learning outlined by Fitts and Posner. The first stage - the cognitive stage - is characterized by large improvements and inconsistent performance. I finally learned how to hit the ball and get them over the net, yet my performance in rallies was overall inconsistent. My first practices largely consisted of my coach feeding me balls to hit back over the net. This allowed me to determine which strategies worked and which strategies did not. The second stage - the associative stage - is characterized by smaller improvements and more consistent performance. At this point, I was able to detect my own errors. After a rally, my coach would let me give myself feedback first. The third stage - the autonomous stage is characterized by, as the name suggests, almost automatic movements. At this stage, the amount of unforced errors is decreased because I am able to correct most of my errors during play. I am also able to focus more attention on analyzing the movements of my opponent or communicating with my doubles partner rather than solely on my own movements. At some point, my coach and I mutually agreed on switching my forehand grip to increase topspin. While I essentially moved back into the cognitive stage, I moved through each stage more quickly.

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#6     How to pass on your tennis wisdom.

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#6     How to pass on your tennis wisdom.

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I've never actually had to pass on my tennis wisdom, but I imagine doing so would not be an easy task. The processes of memory include encoding, storage and retrieval. Memory encoding entails receiving information from the environment. This would include listening to my coach teach a forehand stroke or feeling the movement of a backhand stroke. Memory storage entails retaining that information in one of two systems - the declarative memory system and the procedural memory system. Declarative or conscious memory refers to the "what to do" and can be further broken down into semantic and episodic memory. An example of semantic knowledge would be to break the forehand down into a step-by-step. One, grip your racquet with your dominant hand. Two, turn your body towards your dominant side. Three, drop your dominant hand down and behind yourself. Four, follow through by extending your racquet toward the ball until it reached your non-dominant shoulder. In my experience, solely describing these types of movements in enough detail to actually help someone learn is near impossible. An example of episodic knowledge would be of my first match win. Procedural or non-conscious memory refers to the actual doing. This would include my ability to demonstrate a certain type of stroke. Memory retrieval entails retrieving and recalling this stored information. This is essential to the coaching process as it allows us to share our step-by-step of the forehand or stories of won matches when necessary. It is important to recognize that often times it is hard to put procedural knowledge into words. This is likely why it was so hard for me to coach.

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Many sports require both speed and accuracy, and tennis is not an exception. However, Fitts' Law describes the relationship between speed and accuracy as a trade-off. This is apparent in my first and second serves. My first serve is powerful and hits close to the service court lines. As Fitts' Law would suggest, this decreases the percentage of balls that land in the service court. My second serve is slower and hits farther from the service court lines. This increases the percentage of balls that land in the service court and decreases my chances of a double fault. Nevertheless, tennis players are left with the ultimate dilemma. The goal of a serve is to force either an ace or a poor return; but where fast (and inaccurate) serves are more likely to land outside the service court, slow (and accurate) serves are more likely to set up the opponent for a strong return.

My first year of tennis, I was notorious for double faulting. It is majority opinion that speed is preferred over accuracy, but like any good tennis player I wanted both. I decided to backtrack and focus on my accuracy before my speed, but after going through Fitts and Posner's stages of learning, I was able to modify my serve to an optimal (at least for me) speed and accuracy. My second year of tennis, I was instead known for my relatively high number of aces.

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Almost never in tennis will you have a rally of just forehands or just backhands. For the most part, this is determined by your opponent. That is, unless your opponent can only hit lobs or you're so fast that you can re-position yourself to always hit a forehand or always hit a backhand. So how do we prepare for this? Contextual interference! This means alternating practice between forehands and backhands, ground strokes and slices, volleys and lobs. I remember my coaches employing this technique when they would feed us balls going in random directions - right, left, close to the net, close to the baseline, high, low. Increasing interference, by increasing practice variability, may decrease practice performance, but it also increases performance on retention tasks and transfer tasks. The elaboration hypothesis claims this happens because we must use working memory to "elaborate" differences between skills and strategies. The action plan reconstruction hypothesis claims this happens because we must continuously reconstruct action plans for each skill that is different from the one before.

When practicing my serves, I would always have a routine. I would start with left side serves and serve to the middle of the service court with a handful of balls before switching to the left of the service court and finally the right of the service court. Then I would move to right side serves and repeat. The hypotheses of contextual interference would say this blocked practice was wrong. What I should have been doing is random practice by varying which side of the court I was serving from and where in the service court I was aiming for every single serve. This will increase my retention for serving in a game when I must switch sides after each point and change up my serve type to keep my opponent on their toes.