Change the paradigm-think outside the box or better, think for yourselves!
If you are coached by me the first thing you have to learn is not to do everything I tell you. There are times you must think for yourself and whatever happens in a match, you may have to do something counter to what you have been taught.
Here is an example. My athletes work hard to get a drive serve just over the short line. We are so good at this we often get the shaft on aces which are called short. But I looked at a video where one of my athletes had someone mismatched. My player kept hitting short serves.
If I had been there I would have told them to bomb away and just get the serve in. Even if it came off the back wall this player would have trouble with the drive serve. Instead my player shorted first serve and lobbed and z’d and lost!
This is an example of thinking about what is needed, not what was taught. Here is another.
Conventional wisdom always told me to go to the ceiling when playing young folks. I’m getting beat by a guy and I notice his footwork off the serve is terrible. At that point in my life, (right before my hip replacements), I had a hard time moving. Even so, once I started shooting from the back court, defying conventional racquetball rules, I started winning and beating this guy!
So to paraphrase the late great football coach, Bear Bryant, from Alabama fame, “Two types of players I hate. The first one is is the one who does nothing I tell them to. The second one I hate more. That’s the player who does everything I tell them to.”