Master the Non-Dominant Hand for Better Tennis

Everyone talks about how to use the right hand in tennis, but the secret technique that pros aren't telling you is how to master the left hand to absolutely dominate the game. And today, we're going to learn exactly how to do that with Coach Paul. All right, Alex, the first thing we're going to have you do here is hit some balls side to side, and we're just going to see how you transition from the forehand to the backhand side. Okay. All right, and we'll stop right there. Three most important uses for the left hand or the non-dominant hand in tennis. The first thing is it always holds the racket and we keep the pressure off the grip. So you can see here that my left hand is holding the racket and my right hand, hitting hand, is completely relaxed. The second most important part is changing your grips. So we don't want to be bicycling here or motorcycling, changing our grips this way. The left hand is always changing the grips on the racket. So you can see here, I don't want to be moving it like this. Yes. Very awkward. We're just taking that left hand and we're changing the grips. And the third most important thing is the left hand does all the setup work for me. So you can see on my backhand here, the left hand takes the racket back. My hitting hand's relaxed. Then I hit with the right hand. Then I'm back to ready position. Left hand's doing all the heavy lifting here. Then the left hand's going to set the angle up here. And then I'm going to hit again with my right hand. And then I'm back to this ready position here with the left hand, non-dominant hand, doing most of the heavy lifting here while my hitting hand is completely relaxed. I can already tell based from just this first like 30 seconds of talking, this is probably something a lot of you guys don't do but will completely fix a lot of your consistency and contact problems. Absolutely. So should we see some shots back and forth with using the left hand? So how are we going to do that? Okay, so the first thing is we're going to get into a ready position here and we're going to hold the racket in the left hand here. We're going to keep the hitting hand at the bottom here very, very relaxed. So the first step is after we hit a forehand here, I'm going to set up with my left hand. I hit. It's back to the left hand. My hitting hand's relaxed. And then I'm going to change the grip on my backhand here. I'm going to hit with the right hand here and I'm going to go right away back to the left hand keeping my right hand relaxed. And it's going to make you look more professional. So if you're not using the left hand we say or the non-dominant hand, we call that guerrilla tennis. So you'll see at the beginning if I don't use this hand you know I'm just kind of playing like this and we call this guerrilla tennis. So even if you're completely new to this game and we start off with the left hand holding the throat and down here and transitioning every single time, you can see I'm looking much more like a professional player here than an amateur player, right? So the first step is we're going to do is we're going to have this proper ready position here. We're going to set up with this left hand. We're going to hit. We're going to go back to the left hand. And then on the backhand we're going to use the left hand to change the grip and then set up with it and then hit. Okay. This makes a lot of sense. I mean like before I was just changing directions doing this and I was missing the angle. Yeah. But with this it's so much more precise. Exactly. All right. Should we give it a shot? Let's do it. All right. Yes. Excellent. That looks way better. Fantastic. Good. And last one. Good. Excellent. Excellent. I feel like I'm set so much earlier now. Yeah. I'm going to give you a simple exercise here okay to make sure that we are relaxing the hitting hand between shots here. Okay. So I'm going to be fed a few balls here and what I'm going to do is after my shots I'm going to wipe the shorts and then I'm going to put the racket back into my left hand here. Okay. So I'm going to get a forehand. I'm setting up with my left hand. I hit. I wipe the shorts. I get a backhand. I set up here. I hit and this is going to make sure that you keep that hitting hand nice and relaxed between shots. All right. This makes a lot of sense. First of all, probably don't want to wear white shorts unless you change your grip often. Second of all, would you actually do this when you're playing? Like sometimes if your hands are sweaty would you do this or no? You're always going to see that the hitting hand is super relaxed when you watch the professionals play if you watch any professional match. So if you zoomed in, you're going to see sometimes they're even pumping their hands like this a little bit in between shots. Just making sure that that hitting hand is nice and relaxed all the time. The number one cause of injury actually is gripping too tight. So we're taking a lot of the pressure off of that hitting hand and preventing injury. Right. This makes a lot of sense. I mean pretty much we're not using this hand. This hand is power and this hand is control. Correct. Yes, absolutely. All right. So we see the white shorts drill. Okay. We do things differently here. We don't sell courses and we don't hide great coaching behind paid walls because everything we teach on this channel stays completely free. And that's never changing. If you want to help keep it that way, join our YouTube memberships where you'll get access to a private community, member perks, and you'll be directly supporting free education for people everywhere. Now back to the video. That hand relaxed the last second. Yes. Fantastic. I can feel if the viewers can see at home, I have the intention of doing it. Not perfectly executed, but I'm much more relaxed than before. Yes, correct. Yeah. Relaxation is one of the biggest things here for hitting a good tennis ball. Also for power and explosiveness. Yes. Yes. And for stamina. Yes. You know, for power, we want to be as loose as possible. And when we want to have control, we actually going to firm up. So for on a volley, which is more of a blocking shot, we want to be very firm. And if we want to generate any pace on the forehand side, we have to be a lot looser. So does what you teach here apply to every shot in tennis? Yes, we definitely want to keep the hitting hand relaxed to the very last second. Doesn't matter if it's a serve, volley, or a ground stroke. Every single shot, the left hand is doing the setup work for you, and the right hand is doing the hitting for you. Okay. Now we're going to work on how we change the grips with the non-dominant hands here. So we're going to talk over here for a second, whether you're hitting a one-handed backhand or a two-handed backhand, we want to prepare with the edge pointed directly on the ground here for the two-handed backhand or for the one-handed backhand. And then I'm going to hit. And now ideally for a forehand, we're going to come over here. We're going to change the grips, and we want to point the strings slightly downwards for the forehand side. So you can see the left hand's doing all the transition work for me. And over here. And in between, it's keeping the hitting hand extremely relaxed. So we want to see if you can get that right angle. So we see Alex is using a one-handed backhand. So we want to get that edge to the ground, which we see is perfect right here. And now he could take the hitting hand off. Okay. And he has the angle set up correctly. You can just plop your hand right on top there. And that's the perfect grip for a backhand stroke. Okay. For a topspin backhand. Now, if he wanted a slice backhand, he would relax his hitting hand. He would open the throat up, put your hand on top. And there's the positioning of a slice backhand or the positioning of the volley. Now he's going to a neutral position. And now he's going to close the racket face with the non-hitting hand. He can actually even take this off and we can just close the face. You can just put your hand right there on top. And now that's the perfect angle for a topspin forehand. Right. And now if he wanted a slice forehand, he would open the face slightly. And he would just grab it that way. And that way he can find the grip every single time. This is such a simple approach, knowing grip. Instead of someone telling you, oh, you need to hold this grip and doing this shot. Just adjust your racket face and put your hand on the racket. Correct. And that's actually going to the third step is it's the left hand. It changes the grips and it's setting the racket angle up. So right now we're working, you know, on our ground strokes. So we're going to be working on some basic topspin or some flat ground strokes right now. So we're going to set the angle up with the edge facing the ground for the backhand. And we're going to close the face for the forehand side. So let's see if Alex can find that proper position and find that grip change. So find the angle and swing up. Yes. Close the face and swing up a bit. Yes. There you go. Set the angle up and the grip. Finish up. Yes. Close the face. Finish up. Yeah. And you want to go again here. Finish up. Close the face. Finish up. Yes. Change the grip. Finish up. Yes. Close the face. Yes. Excellent. Set the angle up. Okay. Hitting hands relaxed. Yes. Close the face. Good. Set up. Yes. That's fantastic. I can feel the difference. Also, I can feel when I'm not doing very well. I can feel that angle on my left hand was not set up in the right position. Correct. Yeah. I mean, it looks so much more professional. And this is what I'm saying at the very beginning. If he's not using this setup, you know, he's going to look quite like a beginner, very amateurish. Or we don't want him looking like a gorilla, you know, just playing tennis like this. If he can just have a proper position here, this again looks a lot more professional here. And again, the three most important steps for the non-dominant hand. It keeps the hitting hand relaxed. It changes the grips. And you can see it also sets the angle up. All right. What do you think, Alex? I wish I could apply this to my... I've actually... When you taught me this last time in a video, I've applied it to my golf and it's gotten instantly better. The non-dominant hand beating the positioning setup. But I can't apply this to a big ball in badminton. The rackets are too short. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, you're absolutely correct. So let's get you standing in the right way. So when we're talking here in tennis, you can see all the time if I'm giving a lesson here, I'm keeping the finger on the string here and my hitting hand's relaxed right here. This looks a little bit more professional than standing like this. All right. And another tip. If you watch any of the professional players, when the point's finished, you'll see right away that after the shots are done, they're going to walk to the changeover or just walk back to the baseline. They're always walking. You can see that their hitting hand is always relaxed here. And all of the pressure is on their non-hitting hand. So that's absolutely game-changing advice. How to use your non-dominant hand that not enough people talk about. And just from my experience feeling of this, this is already... It's... I know it's gonna make my tennis so much better. Yeah. So if you guys enjoy this video and want to see more like this, make sure to like and subscribe. And check out Call and the West Vancouver Tennis Club in our link down below.