Athlete: Coach I know my footwork needs work but I see my problems as serve and serve return.”
Okay so now Coach has a problem. I have not explained it correctly because my athlete misses the point of the footwork flaws. That is not my athlete’s fault but more mine. The ramifications of poor footwork go beyond one or two rallies. It creeps in and affects every part of a player’s game. The two biggest areas are serve and return of serve.
So here is an example. If an athlete steps to the side to return serve, the return will be affected. Unfortunately this is the new pendulum swing of racquetball. What I mean by that is in the early days it took years to convince mainstream you should not swing down on the ball. Today I fight the struggle of well meaning coaches who make their athletes step to the side wall. This is one of the worst habits to get into and even worse to teach. It leads to all sorts of issues, but the first and biggest is return of serve. Does this mean you never step to the side wall? No, of course not. In emergencies and when you have to go for it but most of the time smaller more efficient steps will make for better serve return.
The improvement of my athletes who practice this is amazing. Someday mainstream coaches will all be teaching this. In the meantime, the old school racquetball folks will be teaching the sidestep and I will be re-teaching footwork as much as I can!