Mastering Straight Drives | Essential Squash Training for Precision & Control — Transcript

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1. 0:00my name is Ahad RZA and today I'm going
2. 0:02to take you through a series on how to
3. 0:05hit straighter drives whether you're a
4. 0:07beginner intermediate or Advanced player
5. 0:08chances are hitting straighter it's
6. 0:10going to benefit you we're going to get
7. 0:11into some technical aspects and then I'm
8. 0:13going to show you some drills number one
9. 0:15when it comes to your Technique at
10. 0:16hitting straight you have to think about
11. 0:18your contact point the contact point is
12. 0:20actually where you make contact with the
13. 0:21ball relative to your body if you're
14. 0:23looking at me head on you could see that
15. 0:25this is approximately me making contact
16. 0:27on time with a forehand this is me
17. 0:29making contact early with a forehand
18. 0:31this is me making contact late with a
19. 0:33forehand so now if you think about this
20. 0:35if I'm positioned here and I make
21. 0:37contact late where do you think this
22. 0:39Ball's going to hit it's going to hit
23. 0:40into the side wall if I make contact
24. 0:42early it's going to go cross if you are
25. 0:45hitting a straight drive and you're
26. 0:47finding that you're hitting the shot and
27. 0:48you're clipping sidewall early chances
28. 0:50are you are hitting late if you are
29. 0:52hitting a shot and your ball is spraying
30. 0:54into the middle of the Court towards you
31. 0:56chances are that you are hitting it
32. 0:57early so what you have to do is you have
33. 0:59to find that that mid contact point one
34. 1:02of the most fundamental things you have
35. 1:03to think about is developing this
36. 1:05awareness over your racket face start
37. 1:07thinking about whether your racket face
38. 1:09is open is it flat is it closed am I
39. 1:11hitting on time am I hitting early am I
40. 1:14hitting late and the opposite holes
41. 1:15through on the backand so if I'm hitting
42. 1:17a backand this is going to be me hitting
43. 1:19on time this is going to be me hitting
44. 1:22early this is going to be me hitting
45. 1:24late same thing if you're hitting a
46. 1:26backand and you're clipping sidewall
47. 1:29early and then it's hitting sidew wall
48. 1:30front wall coming into the mid Court
49. 1:32chances are that you're hitting the ball
50. 1:33late if you are hitting a straight drive
51. 1:35and you end up spraying the ball into
52. 1:37the middle of the Court chances are that
53. 1:39you are hitting the ball early out in
54. 1:41front of your body now that you know
55. 1:43about this contact Point piece anytime
56. 1:45you're on the court you can go and
57. 1:46problem solve and troubleshoot yourself
58. 1:49and begin making Corrections the next
59. 1:51technical aspect you can think about is
60. 1:53your spacing spacing really refers to
61. 1:55how close or far you are from the ball
62. 1:57when I'm in this position if the ball
63. 2:00is over here and I step basically onto
64. 2:03the ball and then I try to hit it the
65. 2:05fact is that you are way too close to
66. 2:06this ball a Telltale sign of
67. 2:08inappropriate spacing is when you find
68. 2:10yourself getting ready to hit and then
69. 2:12having to pull off your shot you're
70. 2:14either kind of sticking your bum back
71. 2:16trying to create space with your hips or
72. 2:18you're leaning backwards those are all
73. 2:19signs of inadequate or inappropriate
74. 2:22spacing so what you want to think if the
75. 2:23ball is there you want to make sure that
76. 2:25when you step you are extending to the
77. 2:29ball so you want your arm to be extended
78. 2:31out and you want to make sure that you
79. 2:33are not being forced to create space by
80. 2:35stepping off the shot the next technical
81. 2:37aspect you got to think about is your
82. 2:39racket preparation one of the mistakes
83. 2:41that people make they prepare their
84. 2:42racket a little bit too Slowly by the
85. 2:44time the ball reaches them their racket
86. 2:46is getting ready and then the ball is
87. 2:48getting behind them and they're hitting
88. 2:49it late every time you play your shot as
89. 2:51soon as you know whether a forehand or
90. 2:53backhand is coming you want to set your
91. 2:55racket for that shot for example if I'm
92. 2:57on the te and my opponent's hitting from
93. 2:59behind me if I see the forehand coming
94. 3:01the first thing I want to do as I start
95. 3:03moving is get my racket prepped we can
96. 3:05talk about the height of the racket but
97. 3:06for now just think about getting the
98. 3:08racket back on the side now if I was on
99. 3:10the T here and then I see my opponent
100. 3:12hits a back hand the first thing I want
101. 3:14to do is get my racket prepped on this
102. 3:15side to reach for that backand what does
103. 3:18this look like with the ball let's show
104. 3:20you so if someone hits I want to have my
105. 3:22racket set so that I can hit the next
106. 3:24shot right away the mistake that people
107. 3:28make is that when the ball is coming at
108. 3:30them they're here and then they get the
109. 3:33racket up at the last second again watch
110. 3:35the difference between these
111. 3:41two
112. 3:53versus the last technical element we're
113. 3:55going to discuss in terms of hitting
114. 3:57straight is your follow through and
115. 3:59creating a line through the ball what
116. 4:00this really means is that when you
117. 4:02finish your swing you want to make sure
118. 4:04that you don't just stop your swing you
119. 4:06want to make sure that you extend your
120. 4:07racket towards its destination this is
121. 4:09what creating a line through the ball
122. 4:11looks like you want to make sure you set
123. 4:13your racket up nice and early just like
124. 4:14we talked about a moment ago and then
125. 4:16finish your swing to the front wall so
126. 4:19this is creating a line through the ball
127. 4:21the mistake that people make is that
128. 4:23they'll hit and they sort of stopped
129. 4:25their racket as you notice that ball
130. 4:26came out into the middle of the Court
131. 4:27you want to make sure that this line
132. 4:31will come through your shot racket
133. 4:33follows through towards your
134. 4:36destination this is going to help you
135. 4:39tremendously if you find yourself
136. 4:41hooking the ball into the middle of the
137. 4:42court you are hooking your racket across
138. 4:44into the middle if you find that you are
139. 4:46not getting consistency through the
140. 4:48court you're probably stopping your
141. 4:49racket early there are times and places
142. 4:52where you do need to take a slightly
143. 4:53shorter follow-through but even then and
144. 4:56if you watch top Pros when they're
145. 4:57digging the ball out of the back Corners
146. 4:59they still have a shorter line through
147. 5:02the ball so there's still some space of
148. 5:04acceleration but whenever they have time
149. 5:06you will see them extending their racket
150. 5:09through the court to create that line
151. 5:10and so that's the technical side of it
152. 5:12outside of just hitting straight drives
153. 5:14like I just showed you especially if
154. 5:15you're a beginner it's very hard to hit
155. 5:17consistently off that back wall what I
156. 5:19would encourage you to do is the
157. 5:20following drill and I'm going to talk
158. 5:22through the details as we go
159. 5:35so basically what we're doing is we are
160. 5:38trying to hit a drive into the side wall
161. 5:41so forehand drive here backhand drive
162. 5:44here and you notice I'm just trying to
163. 5:46hit the ball nice and high on the front
164. 5:48wall on the side wall rather I'm not
165. 5:51trying to hit this hard just yet and
166. 5:54then all of the technical things that we
167. 5:55just spoke about are what I'm thinking
168. 5:57about so step one I'm thinking about my
169. 6:00contact point if my contact point is
170. 6:03good you're going to find that this ball
171. 6:06is generally what I'm trying to do is
172. 6:09hit it straight so it gets as close to
173. 6:11this Short Line this guy right here in
174. 6:14the middle of the Court as possible so
175. 6:17that's my target my target is to get
176. 6:19this ball bouncing on the short line now
177. 6:21in order to do that other than contact
178. 6:23point I'm thinking about my spacing so
179. 6:26if you see I'm trying not to do this or
180. 6:30this I'm trying to move my feet back if
181. 6:32I hit the ball at myself like here and
182. 6:35then I'm stepping into the shot the next
183. 6:38thing I'm trying to do is as soon as I
184. 6:40hit my shot I'm getting my racket
185. 6:42prepared with my back swing so my
186. 6:44preparation is nice and early and then
187. 6:47I'm watching my
188. 6:49spacing and I'm thinking about my
189. 6:51contact point and then finally if you
190. 6:54notice my follow through is always
191. 6:57towards that side wall
192. 7:00now when you get comfortable with this
193. 7:01Rhythm you can try to test your accuracy
194. 7:05and technique with lower quicker shots
195. 7:09like so and you see now I started
196. 7:11spraying it a little bit so I got to
197. 7:13dial myself in and think about all of
198. 7:18the little technical things we just
199. 7:20spoke about
200. 7:32okay that right there I would highly
201. 7:34encourage you to do start slow really
202. 7:36think about each of those pieces and
203. 7:38then build up your pace build up your
204. 7:40accuracy build up your consistency get
205. 7:42your feet moving stay active and then
206. 7:44it's going to translate into other areas
207. 7:46of your game I hope you learned from
208. 7:47this if you did give the video a thumbs
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213. 7:55back to you take care and we'll talk
214. 7:57soon