 Hey everybody and welcome back to lesson five of our six lessons of home tennis now My name is Asher news and I'm here at the Avenue tennis club in haven't this week We're going to be working on your rallying skills Which is where it gets really exciting because rallying is what the pros do when they're playing in matches and Next lesson we're going to be looking at how to play a match So first of all what is rallying now rallying is where you hit a ball back and forth with another player If you're playing singles if you're playing doubles You'll be hitting the ball back and forth with three other players where we have two against two now when we play proper tennis We're playing on a big tennis court like I'm standing on here And we play over a tennis net and what we need to do is try and get our tennis ball To go all the way over the net to the other side so that our opponents can hit it back to us So rallying is very very important if we want to win tennis matches Now in today's session when we practice our rallying skills We're going to be in a smaller space Which is going to be great for us because it's going to help us with our soft touch and our control And that's what some of the best tennis players in the world have compared to other players They have the ability to hit the ball really hard and really slowly so in today's session We're going to be working on the control side so before we get into it We need to make sure that we've got the equipment we need for the rest of the session So the first thing that you're going to need is a tennis racket Or something that you could use instead of a tennis racket Now it could be your hand or if you've got something like a chocolate lid Or a hard back book something that you'll be able to hit a ball with Then that will be great as well As well as your tennis racket you will need a ball of some kind So I'm going to be using this ball today if you've got a tennis ball that's amazing But a ball that bounces is going to be really really helpful today If you don't have a ball in the house you can scrunch some paper or some tissue paper into a ball Or like we have in the previous sessions you can use some socks The final thing you need is going to be four markers So I'm using four cone markers here as you can see You could use jumpers you could use socks Anything that you've got in the house that's not going to break Okay so you want something that you're not going to break But we need four of them to mark out our space And make sure you bring a drink along with you because we're going to get thirsty during the session So just like before you've got one minute to have a hunt around your house for all of those things Your time starts now Off we go Well done everybody you've got 10 seconds left to find those items Remember just like we said before don't worry if there's some items that you can't find You can use your imagination using your hand in these things is absolutely fine Well done and stop there So just before we get started make sure you've checked with your grown-ups That you're allowed to use the pieces of item that you're using And make sure that you've got a nice area nice space ready to set up your equipment We don't want that space to be near anything like televisions or windows or lights Because we don't want to break anything But it doesn't need to be a big space somewhere small is fine So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to take your four markers And we're going to have a very quick warm-up Now this warm-up is going to help us to warm up all of our muscles in our body But also our brain which is super important when it comes to playing tennis and other sports So with your four markers your job is to place them down in a nice line You're going to put one big step Two big step three and four So we've got our four markers there so make sure you do that for me now Excellent now once you've got your four markers down We're going to start on marker number one And you're going to start in your ready position that we've practiced before Now remember the ready position is nice and low With our feet shoulder width apart and our hands out in front of us So we're standing behind cone number one in our ready position Now if I shout two you're going to side step and stand behind cone number two If I shout three you're going to go to three and four you're going to go to four And one is going to be all the way back to the start But remember we learned this in lesson one when we play tennis We want to be facing towards our opponent all of the time You're going to be facing towards your screen so that you can see me at all times Let's have a little practice run are we ready ready position three One do those ready steps in between each one four one three two three one three two four And rest well done everybody right so that's your practice run This time round I'm going to give you a number but after you've gone to that number You must return to cone number one or jumper number one whatever you've put down on the floor So I'm going to shout two three or four and you've always got to get back to your ready Position behind cone number one ready three perfect ready steps four one Oh we're already on one that was a trick wasn't it two two three and rest excellent I'm a bit out of breath how are you feeling if you're not out of breath that means you're Much fitter than I am that's not a surprise is it okay so next level now that we've Got to grips with this drill you need to practice your four hands when you get to the given number cone so if I shout three this is what it will look like your side steps to number three you'll swing with your favorite hand and then you'll go back to number one let's do that again three so remember we finish right over our shoulder with our elbow in front and then we get back to number one again four excellent now if you want to do this really well when you get to your cone let's look at number four I want you to step forwards over the cone before you swing and then side step back let's try that again number four so side step step over the cone swing and recover back two excellent recover back three step over the cone swing recover back three amazing four big one step over the cone excellent and recover back okay let's switch it we're going to switch the numbers around now so this one is now number one two three and four and we're going to practice our backhand so this is the two hands isn't it so ready position three step over the cone with two hands excellent recover back two swing excellent don't forget to finish with that elbow up nice and high two always getting back to cone number one three three and rest amazing final exercise before we use our ball now final one we're going to stand right in the middle of all of our cones okay this time round I'm going to call two things I'm going to call out a number and a shot so we're going to go back to our first numbers one two three and four if I shout out number one and I shout out backhand you're going to do a backhand with two hands okay remember a backhand is two hands then we get back to the middle if I shout four and four hand I'm going to go to number four and I'm going to swing with one hand because that's my four hand okay let's have a practice three backhand three backhand excellent this is really tricky this is where the brain training comes in let's go for one backhand one backhand amazing four backhand all this one's a tricky one all the way over here turn and recover three four hand that's right in front of us good three backhand turn the other way two hands good we'll do a few more two four hand one four hand finish right over your shoulder one backhand excellent and last one four four hand back to the middle amazing give yourselves a pat on the back that was superb now that's one of the toughest warm-ups we've done in fact I think it is the toughest warm-up we've done so far the reason we did it that tough is because you've been smashing it in the last few weeks I wanted to see how far we could go and how challenging we can make it but you did superb so let's grab a quick drink there really really well done amazing right so we'll pop our drink down and we're now going to grab our ball so if you've got a tennis ball or a football whatever ball you've got pick that up and we're going to walk over to our markers now this time round we're going to make our markers into a square shape so we're going to have a a very small tennis court okay so as you can see here I've made a nice square like so now remember a rally is where two players hit the ball back and forth together now we are doing these exercises on our own so we're going to be practicing self rallies which you'll remember from one of the previous sessions but we want to make it challenging for you so we're going to do a few tricky exercises to get you really really working hard so first exercise you're going to place the ball in the middle of your square and your job is to see if you can use your right hand to push the ball outside of the court then you're going to sidestep and use your left hand to push the ball outside the other side of the court so we're going to be hitting the ball back and forth like a rally using both of your hands have a go at that for a bit of a practice make sure we're side stepping after each hit good keep it up see if you can keep your knees bent so we're nice and low we're always watching the ball and we're always facing towards the screen so that we're side stepping keep that up we'll do another 10 seconds of practice and stop there well done right mission number two now this is really tough and I don't even think I can do this one but we're going to have a try we're going to try this one together this is called a plank rally now a plank is an exercise that you can do that helps you to get really really strong with your core which is your stomach your six pack and your upper body your shoulders and your arms as well so this is fantastic for tennis players or if you want to get really really strong so we're going to go down into a press up position or push up position and what that looks like is my hands are on the floor my body is straight with my feet on the floor as well okay now if it's tricky to get into this position you can do it with your knees on the floor instead of your feet on the floor okay so you have your knees and your feet on the floor like so and your job is to see if you can hit your ball from side to side so you can do it on your knees or if you're really strong you can do it on your feet and you've got to change from side to side so have a go at this now so we're having a rally on the floor in a really tough plank position off you go that's it if your arms start to shake that's normal I actually stood up and gave up because my arms start to shake but you're not going to give up you're going to keep going and if your arms do start to shake you can go down to your knees to make it a little bit easier okay so let's carry on for a few more amazing okay stop there so that's your practice done we're going to set a 30 second challenge to see how many hits you can do in that short amount of time let's see if you can do 10 hits okay your time starts now off you go make sure counting one two three four keep it up make sure counting if the ball goes out of control or your knees have to come down to the floor that's okay you carry on your score 10 seconds to go keep it up keep counting and stop there well done right shout at the screen how many points did you get now fantastic really really good it's a tough one but we are on lesson five and we do want to make it tricky because that's how you're going to get better you're going to get stronger and you're going to be ready to play real tennis on a real tennis court like this okay next challenge we are still doing rallies but this time we're going to introduce a bounce because when we play tennis remember from a couple of weeks ago we are allowed how many bounces that's right we're allowed one bounce before we hit our shot and if you play wheelchair tennis you're allowed two bounces one two before you hit your shot so this next self rally that we're going to do is going to involve a bounce and we're going to see if we can start outside of our court and you've got to see if you can throw the ball up get it to bounce inside your court and then catch it on the other side so we're going to throw it up side step catch it on the other side throw it up side step it's a bit windy for me out here if you're indoors it'll be much much easier try again throw it bounce catch good throw it bounce catch have a little practice off you go so with outside the court the ball bounces inside the court and we side step to catch on the other side this one's really tricky amazing work very good if that's too tricky you can stand inside the court and just practice your catching like this amazing if you want to make it more challenging you could see if you can catch it with one hand outside the court that would be really tough have a go going to give you 15 more seconds to practice that one excellent watching the ball make sure we're side stepping all of the time good stuff and stop there amazing right then final challenge before we start using the racket this time we're going to do hand tap rallies so you're going to stand in your tennis court you're going to drop your ball on the floor and using the palm of your hand you're going to tap the ball upwards so watch here we're going to go bounce and tap one two every time the ball bounces in your court you add a point to your score but if it bounces outside of the court it doesn't count you've got to come back in and we're going to start the whole score again here so we're seeing how many you can do in a row if you only get two one two and then the ball goes out of the square then you can start again but two is your record so we're going to see how many you can get to okay have a little practice first then we'll do the 30 second challenge you can use one hand you can change hands if you want you could use two hands but your job is to keep the ball bouncing in your zone or in your mini tennis court awesome stuff watch the ball carefully and remember if you get yourself into a good ready position you're a bit lower that's going to make it even easier for you to get a high score excellent couple more to practice amazing okay are we ready then for the challenge we got we got 30 seconds to see how many we can get in a row now remember if it goes outside of your square you've got to go all the way back to zero so this is going to be mega mega tough a good score on this one i think would be maybe three points so let's see if you can beat three points okay your 30 seconds starts now off we go 10 seconds to go really good bending those knees making sure that we're using our palm to push the ball upwards and stop there excellent work well done let me know how many did you get into your tennis court great scores well done right we're going to grab a drink and then we're ready to get back with our tennis racket it's the fun bit have a quick drink first okay hopefully you've had a little drink now and you're going to grab your racket or whatever you're using for your racket it could be something like this it could be your hand whatever you've got that's absolutely fine but we're going to use our racket and our ball and we're going to head back into our tiny tennis court okay so this challenge is called the one two three challenge it's going to start as the one two three challenge and then if you pass the test we're going to make it a bit more challenging for you but this is what the one two three challenge looks like your job is to bounce the ball on the floor if you throw it on the floor it's going to be really tricky because the ball will bounce out of control so we're looking for a nice drop on the floor like this and you're going to gently use your racket face or your strings to tap the ball up we're going to try and keep it in our court okay one tap and then we're going to catch it and then we score one point so let's watch this first so this is number one one tap and then we're going to catch the ball now if you manage to catch the ball you're then going to go on to two taps so here we go we're going to drop the ball first one tap two tap and catch and then as the game suggests one two three we're now going to go for three taps so drop the ball one tap two taps three taps and catch if you manage to get three taps then you can go for four and then you can go for five and six and so on and we're going to see what your record can be now it doesn't matter on this one if you lose control of the ball if you drop it if it goes rolls under the table somewhere else that's absolutely fine you can carry on from your score you don't have to go back to zero but if you manage to pass one and catch then you go to two so have a go starting off with one bounce one tap and a catch once you've managed to catch it after doing one tap you're going to try two taps the key on this one is to make sure that you've got a nice ready position so we want our knees bent so we're nice and low we want to have our racket strings pointing up to the ceiling like so or up to the sky and that way the ball will stay under your control if you've got a wonky racket then the ball's going to fly into different directions we don't want to hit the ball above our head because that's going to lose control we don't want to hit the light see the doing so see how many how many have you got to so far well done if you've managed to get two or three if you've done even more that's amazing keeping score we'll give you another minute on this one because this one is a really good one and if you can get high score it's going to be really awesome good stuff amazing so it's good one for your counting skills in a minute we're going to take it up a notch excellent don't worry if you're still on number one or number two keep practicing when I was your age I couldn't even get past one I've had years and years of practice at this and hopefully you guys will too excellent stuff keep going very very good hope you guys are enjoying your tennis one day I'd love to see you come to this tennis club excellent stuff good last couple then brilliant hold your balls still really really good give yourself a clap using your ball and your racket well done okay so now that you've done that we're going to test your maths skills okay now the way we're going to test your maths skills instead of playing the one two three game we're going to use a number of your choice so what is your favorite times table now my favorite times table is three talk me through the three times table we've got one times three is three two times three is six three times three is nine and so on so because we know that the three times table goes three six nine and twelve that's how many taps I'm going to try to do so I'm going to start with three so here we go drop one two three and catch what number am I going to try next that's right six so this is more challenging because we've got to do a lot more hits here we go one two three tiny taps four five six and catch and then I've got to do nine and then 12 and so on now this is incredibly difficult not just for maths but you've got to do more hits this time so what I want you to do is choose a times table now if you found the one two three game easy then you could do a bigger times table you might choose the five times table for example if you found the one two three game difficult that's fine you can do this next game using catches instead so let's say if I choose the two times table I could start by doing one two catches and then that's past the level then I'll go to four captures one two three four and then what comes after two and four and six that's right so that's what you're going to do choose a times table have a go now off you go so you can use your racket or you can use your hands to catch the ball it's completely up to you but we're going to give you two minutes to practice this game off you go excellent excellent the key on this one is to watch the ball and to remember what score you got to good stuff make sure you're bending your knees and if you can try to keep the ball in in your mini tennis court if the ball goes out of your tennis court you don't have to go back to zero you can keep counting amazing good I could see some of you have used a four times table that's a good one excellent and if you have to stay on the one two three game that's absolutely fine the more practice you get on that one the better you're going to get at it you could become the world champion of the one two three game excellent stuff we've got about a minute left let's see if we can get a nice score let's see if we can get past the two or past the three and after this session you could challenge your other family members to this game see if they can beat you excellent stuff if you've got an older sibling or your grown-ups you could challenge them to do something like the nine times table that would be really tricky wouldn't amazing stuff good let's go for 30 more seconds you're doing so well after this 30 seconds we've got our game our challenge good keep it up last few goes let's go for 10 more seconds nine eight seven six five four three two one and stop there well done everybody give yourselves a nice pat on the back and we're going to grab a very quick drinks break amazing you guys have done so well we've got one more session after this one which is where we learn how to compete or how to play matches which will be really really fun and after these six sessions you will be so good when you get the chance to play on a proper tennis court like this so far in the first five sessions we've been playing on these courts here these orange color courts and they're called clay courts now clay courts are really nice to play on because I don't know if you can see from there but they've got like a sand on them and the reason the clay courts are really cool is because when you play tennis you can slide to the ball like this now next session in our last session I'm going to show you another surface that we play on here at the avenue and it's called artificial grass we've got real grass courts which are played on Wimbledon and we've also got artificial grass so we're going to show you those next week right then let's get into our game I'll stop chatting so we're going to head back over to our markers but this time you're going to set up your markers slightly differently you're going to set up one two and three markers as targets and you're going to set up one marker here to stand in your ready position on and what we're going to practice is our accuracy because like we say when we rally we need to be really good at aiming because you want to get the ball over the tennis net and into the court so your challenge is this you're going to be in a nice solid ready position with your ball in one hand and your racket in the other hand and your job is to drop the ball just like we did when we did the one two three game and we're going to use our racket strings to tap the ball to try to hit one of the cones okay so let's have a go now so we're going to see if we hit cone oh I was close I missed it so I'm going to pick up my ball I'm going to go back to my cone again and we're going to try another one oh so close so off you go we're going to see if you can join me in trying to hit your cones and if you manage to hit a cone you're going to put it on your one you might have jumpers you might have socks whatever target you've got in front of you if you hit it you're going to bring it back to your home base here we go join me that's it I haven't hit any yet let's try another one yes I managed to get one so I'm going to take mine back make sure you're doing it gently we don't want your ball to be going through any windows or anything so nice gentle taps hopefully your targets aren't too far away from you oh I managed to get on the second bounce keep going well done oh just missed it and again I've got one left how many more have you got to get don't worry if you haven't got any yet keep going remember we're using our forehand here aren't we we're using our favorite hand to tap the ball to the target we're going to give you 30 more seconds to go let's see if we can get all of them bounce and tap oh that one I hit was too hard so I need to do it a bit smaller here we go again oh so close last couple then yes I managed to get it amazing now if you haven't managed to get all of your targets yet press pause on your tv or your phone or whatever you're using and carry on and then once you've finished click play again and come and join me but well done everybody you absolutely smashed that session and that was I think was one of the most fun sessions so far because we were actually hitting the ball and controlling it a bit like a proper tennis rally now next lesson like I said we're going to be practicing our competition or our match play so we're going to bring everything that we've learned all together so just to recap in our first session we learned a bit about the basics and our basic movement about always facing forwards in the second session we learned about the forehand third session we did the backhand with two hands fourth session we did the serve above our head and today we did rallies so next session we're going to bring all of that together you guys did so well I'm really really proud of how you're doing so far and I can't wait to see you in the next session so remember make sure you've got all your equipment ready for the last one and I will see you there take care