Well, another day of gruelling practice that consists of jogging for 25-30 min., strectching, push-ups and then the squash training. The more I have been working on my game, the more I am realizing that picking up the finer things in the game are proving to be more difficult than the basic things that pushed my game up a certain level.
To give you an example, one of the things that I am trying to practice is to use the momentum generated by the backswing of the racket to receover faster from a certain position in the front backhand/ forehand corner or from the back. But it has been so tough that I am tempted to give up after 3-4 days of practice!! I know I have to keep on working on this till I manage to get this right!!
The two big things that I need to work on over the next 3-4 weeks are:
1. Watching the ball; &
2. Recovering faster.
I forget the number of times my coach has said that I should watch the ball all along - but for me, maybe going to the moon would be easier!! There are two specific time-periods when I do not watch the ball - the first one is when the ball is about to hit the racket. Just a split-second before the ball is about to hit the racket, my eyes move to the spot on the front wall or side wall where I want to direct the ball. Believe me, this is not even fraction of a second - but it makes such a huge impact to the overall timing because lots of times, my shot goes completly awary!! If I am trying to hit a rail close to the wall, I end up hitting the front corner and sending the ball back in the middle.
So to tackle this issue, today, I started solo practice. I was hitting rails from the forehand and backhand back corners and the special effort was to watch the ball till the time it hits the racket. The immediate effect of this was that for deeper shots, I stopped worrying about how hard I was hitting the ball. It simply was not possible to hit the balls landing close to the side wall about 1-2 feet behind the service box with any notiecable power because there is no space to swing the racket!!I was working more on more on hitting the ball from the middle of the racket with proper elevation so that the ball stays as close to the wall as possible. I realised that it is not the power with which you hit the ball that makes as much difference as the height to which you hit the ball on the front wall - and to hit the ball to proper elevation, I had to use my wrists. So instead of taking a swing at the ball to connect - I had to use a filp of my wrists to send the ball high. It was slightly easier on the forehand side to begin with. I am still trying to get the wrist flick under control so that I can control the direction and elevation on the deep backhand shot.
The other instance when I lose sight of the ball is when I am recovering fromt the backhand back corner!! I am trying to scramble to the "T" and watching the court to ensure that I am moving in the right direction!!
So while in both these instances, the time the eye moves off the ball is minimal, we all know the difference fraction of a second makes in a squash game!!
Recovering faster on the other hand is a matter of constantly reinforcing that to myself. So now, everytime I hit a shot, I have made it a habit to repeat "recover" under my breath!! I guess, that is a crude way to verbally reminding my mind and my body to ensure that once I complete playing a shot, I do not stand at that position to see where the shot hits the wall and then start reacting only when my opponent plays a shot!! So the moment, the shot is complete, I start the recovery - easier said than done - but then remember, I have started just some time back and these habits will take time to build up!!
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