You never know where you will find tips for training and for help on your game. I am watching a tv show called Brain games. There I learned that our brains are programmed to watch movement. There was a clip of a football game and some cheerleaders on the sidelines. Then the viewers were asked about the game, and then about the cheerleaders. The viewers never noticed the cheerleaders were men dressed in drag! Why? Because we, the viewers, watched the motion of the football players.
Okay, let’s transfer that to racquetball. One of the first things I do with athletes is to get some movement programmed into the serve and shots during rallies. Because we watch movement a good service motion can confuse the best of us.
How do you do that? Well, without giving away the secret sauce, look at a baseball pitcher’s windup. That windup is designed to disguise the pitch. So let’s apply that to the basic racquetball 1-2 step drive serve. On your first step add an arm movement. Pull your hitting arm back or up or both. This can disguise your serve and cause a slight hesitation for the receiver of serve. That hesitation is often enough to gain points.
Go back to brain games and take this even further. How can you do different motions to confuse the receiver of serve?
Go get’em Tigers!!