Black Belt Tennis?
Jelena Janković was the number one female tennis player in the world at the start of the year, but has fallen rapidly since (like her compatriot Ana Ivanović ). Janković is now number six, while Ivanović is number twelve… but Janković seems a tad more desperate, as rumor has it that she’s considering a coaching switch to the guy behind this video:
I don’t think that can be a good sign.
08 Jul 2009 at 14:23
As Second Degree Black Belt myself, I can totally see how martial arts movement and rotation applies to the game of tennis. I wish Mr. Hooper luck with his endeavor. I think it has much promise.
23 Jul 2009 at 20:54
In theory, it’s possible that some principles could be fruitfully applied to tennis from martial arts. However, the above video looks appallingly gimmicky, and trying to simply port sword or other weapons movement styles over to the tennis racket is unlikely to be too useful.
Furthermore, the concepts of rotation, balance, efficiency of movement, etc. are already critical and well-known parts of tennis training and theory. The above video doesn’t appear to add anything new to this, instead going for showy moves and a hyper-enthusiastic narrator.
It looks like a total gimmick, so either he needs new publicity or it really is as much of a gimmick as it appears.