Never Let Good Enough be good enough!

As I watch some of my athletes play at the top levels, it occurs to me they probably are not doing what I am prescribing. Prescription after a poor performance. RX for athletes: 1. Every practice day work on your worst skill 2x more than your strongest skill. 2. Every practice day work your mechanics and footwork. You do not have to do so at full speed or even on a court. 3. Be sure to build in rest days. Too much work and not enough rest leads to poor performance. 4. If you have the mentality that you are …

Questions for Up and Coming Players 101. I am seeing more and more players out there taking a left turn when they should be staying straight on their path up. Surrounding yourself with the correct group of people will take your game will to the top. Surround yourself with the wrong people and your game will plateau! Yes, you are improving and yes, you have great dreams. You will find you will have new friends. These are people who seem nice and will offer you Free advice, and coaching. So here are some rules for you to remember: 1. Were …

Above Left, Yanna Salazar , World Junior Champion, Right, Yanna and Angelica Barrios, former world junior champion, Bolivia Many years ago, yours truly was the head coach of team USA. In pool play, there were many matches that were easy for the USA athletes. Back on those days qualifying for the USA team was harder than winning the worlds. The draws of the USA national qualifiers were stacked with good players. Internationally we had to fight with only Mexico and Canada for the most part and then it was in later rounds usually. I remember watching some of these early …

As the joke goes, a priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar….you can fill in the rest, but the punchline has to be delivered perfectly to make the joke funny! What does this have to do with racquetball? Bear with me! I marvel at the lack of creativity sometimes when watching tournament and league play. What I mean by that is the serve goes in the same trajectory to the same place at the same speed over and over. Eventually the receiver of the serve will dial in and be able to handle the serve. Even if …

So I am talking to a colleague regarding coaching. He told me he was shocked that one of his students took a lesson from three world famous players and/or coaches, and all of them told this student something different about their contact point during the swing. He seemed to think the coaches were wrong but I thought probably all of them were right. There is no one contact point anyway. It depends on what shot you want to hit and a few other factors. Grip: Let’s say you want to hit a down the line. Depending upon your grip you …

This one drifted into my “in-box” some time ago. Dear Coach, Do you work with mental skills as well as the mechanics of footwork and strokes? Signed, No Confidence Calvin Dear Cal, I did not realize i did but from day one I employed a method of teaching that carried over from my classroom days. I received high ratings from kids and parents in my classes and the main reason was I cared about the kids and their growth as human beings as much or more than I cared about teaching English skills. Back to racquetball-a former pro retired and …

Winterton sayings–You can hear some of these in lessons–over the years here are a few goodies! “Hit and get, don’t hit and sit or your game wont be worth spit!” “Use your body, not your arm, to your shoulder will come no harm!” “Shuffalo to Bufflalo Makes your game go, go, go!” “Out and around, not up and down!” “Stop Trying, and stop crying!” “Learn Your Craft!” “Relax, you are hunkered down like a middle line-backer!” “Don’t let the floor beat you!!” “You got a dinky doo in your wavy gravy!” “You have to practice, Coachie Woachie can’t do it …

Thanksgiving day in the USA is a time for the three F’s; football, family and friends. What are we thankful for? I will never forget a memorable Thanksgiving at my sister’s house in North Carolina. She had like 25 people seated around a huge table and we all had to be thankful for something so by the 23rd person it was hard to find something unique to be thankful for so most people were repeating the things like family I love, and a beautiful spouse, etc. We get to our Dad who was at the end of the pecking order …

An old friend of mine is working on their PHD and is rapidly becoming an expert on athletic movement. Since I used to coach this ex-athlete, they knew I’d be excited about the knowledge they were picking up. So this person calls me and immediately we launch into an in-depth conversation about court movement and athletic movement in general. Main idea she was conveying to me was that I was correct many years ago about athletic movement. Most people in racquetball, including very big names, do not understand it. To put it another way, when I discussed what is being …