SWING LIKE A CEILING FAN
If someone told you, "you swing like a ceiling fan", you may take it as an insult but if you want a perfect squash swing, it's not such a bad thing.
Squirrel Squash
There I was peacefully driving along on a country road minding my own business when without warning, a vicious creature bolded forth from the bushes directly at my car. Its beady eyes shimmering in the pale sun light, its paws rapidly pounding the pavement and then in an instant, squashed between my tire and the warm asphalt, all life was extinguished.
“I can’t believe you just ran over that defenseless squirrel,” the person sitting next to me called out. To which I most naturally replied, “The squirrel ran into me!”
This is a duality. A duality is a relationship between two apparently different objects or two apparently different viewpoints. Each view point is a suitable explanation of what has occurred; they are different yet relate to each other. The question is who impacted who? Did I make impact with the squirrel or did the squirrel make impact with me? I will turn my back to this mystery and leave it to inquisitive bearded men.
We now venture deep into the catacombs of the squash player’s brain--sometimes not much bigger than the squirrel’s. If asked I’m convinced, most players will claim with absolute certainty, that they are striking the ball with the racket. Man likes being the active body instead of the passive element. We like doing; exerting our own dominance and control over our surroundings.
Conjuring up a moment of Zen, we take a look at impact from a different angle. What would happen if the ball was the active component, reducing us to a passive player in the greater scheme of things?
A good example is the analogy of a ball hitting a ceiling fan. One day I woke up with this sudden urge to throw a squash ball into the ceiling fan; don’t pretend you never had such desires. If you throw the ball into the plates shortly after you turned on the fan, not giving the fan enough time to accelerate to full rpm, the speed of the ball will be-- --let’s just call it disappointing. Yet if on the other hand you wait for the rotors to get up to full pace (a word to the wise, I suggest covering all fragile objects in the vicinity) this will produce a ferocious strike with a destructive force not commonly witnessed in the home.
What can one take from such an analogy?
1) To create the best impact you have to make sure your racket head has enough time to speed up before the ball hits the strings. By starting your swing a fraction earlier, you will be able to get your racket moving faster at the point of impact.
2) The ceiling fan is unaware of the ball hitting it and simply continues its motion without tightening up, as if nothing happened. Emulating this in your swing will result in more accuracy. For the best outcome your swing has to remain relaxed and fluid.
To get a feeling for this, take your racket and akin to a golfer, take some practice swings. Learn the size of your swing. How long does it take your racket to speed up? Try to stay relaxed as you swing, feeling no tension throughout the impact zone. This is the feeling you are trying to recreate. When everything is timed correctly, the ball feels light on your stings as if no contact was made. If the ball feels heavy on your strings, you swung too late or tightened up during impact thus throwing off your impact.
To get your racket head up to the fastest speed, think through your swing from the smallest muscle group to the biggest. It is like a chain reaction explosion in your arm starting at the wrist, moving to the forearm, through the elbow and ending in the shoulder, moving your arm through the impact zone. This will create a fluid movement and generate the greatest racket head speed. You will find that even the tightest spaces grow in size as you restructure your swing and let the ball move into its path.
Good luck on your journey and be aware the first step on the path to knowledge is opening one’s eyes to the multitude of reflections spread bare in front of you; be mindful though, there is no knowing where one might be swept off to.
Ron Koenig, originally from Germany, has worked the last 7 years in the local area as a squash coach and teacher. He is a certified level two coach and is presently working at The Squash Club, Chestnut Hill. He is also the varsity coach at Malvern Preparatory School.
Ron’s passion for the game carries over into his teaching. He believes strongly in the connection between mind and body and has introduced biofeedback theories in his instruction. Ron will be a regular contributing author to PhillySquash.com.
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