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Hi, did you practice any this week? Just checking. I mean really practice, not playing. If you practiced on a ball machine or with a friend on a particular shot, that qualifies for practice. I congratulate you If you have practiced because most players do not. Make an effort to just put in one hour a week on some good practice and watch your game soar. You will be surprised! Not many do it consistently. Dare to be different and you will set your game apart from most players!
I have a special friend who has just joined with us in the tennis lesson online. His name is Sam Lacava, a friend of mine since high school. He just got on the internet. If you look at the last testimonial from a tennis pro at the bottom of this email you will find Sam. Sam also became a tennis pro along with myself after college. I may ask Sam to contribute sometimes to the email lesson. Sam and I went to college at the same school and played a lot of table tennis, billiards, and of course tennis. We played table tennis as a team and walked out to play the finals one year with "Italian Stallions" written on our shirts. Don't look at me, nothing that you do at college ever makes sense. Besides it was Sam's idea! HA! Hi Sam, welcome aboard.
Thank you all for sending me names to be placed on the email list. I have done no advertising and we are close to 100. I am waiting for my website to be completed before I advertise. Thanks again for your confidence in my email lessons.
The voice mail Tennis Lesson Hotline is 713 957-6446. Send new email names to tom@tenniswarrior.com
The lesson below is one of my favorite techniques that I teach often, the Relax Technique. It does take time to get players to relax in the heat of battle, but boy when they catch on...watch out! Maybe it is your time to catch on. Read it, reread it, then file it away and read it again later. Repetition. Just in case you forgot.
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Tom's Online Tennis Lesson
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Welcome to the tennis lesson hotline, sponsored by Tom's Tennis Tapes, "educating players one mind at a time." I'm Tom Veneziano. This lesson last approximately 2 minutes and changes on the first of every month.
The Relax Technique. What is it? Lately I have been hearing a lot of good things about the Relax Technique from my lessons, so let’s go over it briefly. By relaxed I do not me asleep! You must learn to be relaxed, but intense. Most players pair relaxed with asleep, and intensity with anxiety. By relaxed I mean the elimination of all the racing and anxiety that goes on in the conscious mind when you are playing.
How do you accomplish this? Practice! Practice what? Practice shutting the conscious mind off, like you would turn a radio off, just shut it off. There will be silence in your mind. No thought! No anxiety! Just silence. Actually you will still be thinking, but you will have successfully turned on the sub-conscious. This is the way tennis should be played. In a sub-conscious, instinctive, automatic mode. Shutting the mind off in this fashion and operating from the sub-conscious is what I call the Relax Technique. When players take the time to learn this technique they improve their game rapidly. You must learn to shut off the conscious mind and access the sub-conscious.
To help you better understand how it feels inside when you use the Relax Technique, let me give you an example that all of you have experienced before. You are returning serve and you are anxious and ready. The serve is a little long, so you yell "out" and at the same time you casually hit the ball back for one of your best return of serves ever!!! You are shocked and stunned at how easy you returned the ball. How did this occur? Actually the answer is simple. Because the return did not matter, missing was not an issue, and as a result you were relaxed. Unknowingly you have shut off the conscious mind and turned on the sub-conscious mind. This is the same mind-set you must access when you play.
Try the Relax Technique the next time you are practicing. Shut off your conscious thinking and have complete silence in your mind. No thought! No anxiety! Just silence! Do not try to over think every point, just let go and ‘let it happen.’ In this fashion you will come closest to thinking like a pro. The pros play in an instinctive, automatic, sub-conscious mode that you also must learn to access. You can access this mode by practicing the Relax Technique often. Now, if all of this fails to work, there is one last thing you can do...take a Valium! Only Kidding.
Your email tennis coach,
Tom
2000 Tom Veneziano, 10855 Meadowglen #1022, Houston, TX 77042
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What others are saying about my tapes!
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"Tom deals with the thinking end of tennis like no one else. It's almost too difficult to explain, you have to experience it. He has an uncanny knack for getting right to the heart of the matter. You come away thinking, that's right: it makes sense!"
Colleen Cremer, Houston, TX.
"It's interesting to note that everyone can use these tapes from beginner to championship level. You can apply the information to whatever level you play on."
Dan Hanusa, Houston, TX.
" Tom's audio cassettes have changed my thinking, aligning it with the correct information needed to improve my game. He's right there with you, inside your head, challenging you to make those changes. It's like having your own personal coach! I highly recommend his tapes for everyone."
Linda Zimmerman, Houston, TX.
"On the way to my HLTA match I listened to Tom's tape, "Some Before Match Pointers." Call it a coincidence, but I won my first HLTA match ever! I just seemed to be in a better frame of mind. Thanks, Tom."
Mary Ogden, Houston, TX.
"Tom and I have been friends for over twenty years. It's not surprising to me players talk so positively about his tapes. He's always possessed exceptional athletic ability along with an unusual analytical mind. Tom simply likes to think! At times he would drive me crazy, but he was the driving force behind my journey into tennis. I'm 6'1" and Tom is 5'6" but I could never beat the little imp! All joking aside, if Tom's thinking is on audio cassettes, you should listen! You'll never view tennis the same way again!"
Sam Lacava, Tennis Professional, Stewartsville, N.J.
Thank you all for the testimonials! I appreciate it! |
