 In week one we spent a little bit of time getting to grips with the basics of tennis. We talked about movement, we talked about hand-eye coordination. Hey everybody and welcome to our fourth tennis session. In this session we're going to be looking at the most important shot in the game and it's called the serve. Hopefully you can remember the other sessions we've done. So far we've worked on our basic tennis skills and movement. We've looked at the forehand, we've looked at the backhand and now this week is going to be the toughest one yet. Before we get into it, like always you're going to go on a bit of a hunt around the house to see if you can find a few things that are going to help you with your session. The first thing that you need to find is a tennis racket or something similar. Remember the trusty chocolate lid or if you've got a book at home or something you've been using in previous sessions you can use that. The second thing you're going to need is your ball. It could be a tennis ball or anything that looks like a tennis ball that bounces or a ball of socks. And finally you're going to need a cap. We use the cap in session number two. So you're going to bring along a baseball cap as well. Now if you can't find some of these things don't worry you can use your hands instead of a cap and I'm sure you could roll a ball of tissue into a ball instead of using socks or a tennis ball. But your job is to try to find as many of those things as you can in one minute. Remember to check with your parents beforehand just to make sure that you're using the right items and make sure that when you set up you've got a nice safe space not too close to any televisions or any breakable vases or windows make sure you've got a nice clear area. Okay you've got one minute to find all of those items your time starts now. Okay your time is up so gather all of the things that you found put them in a small space in the room that you're working in and make sure you've got a bit of an area where you can move around in. So before we get warmed up I'm going to quickly explain what a serve actually is. So remember we've learned the forehand which is where we use our favorite hand only we've learned a backhand where we use both of our hands and now we're going to learn the serve. Now the serve is the most important shot in tennis because when we play tennis matches every single point starts with the serve. Now you might have seen if you've seen any professional tennis players play tennis on the television a serve is where you throw the ball up above your head and you've got to hit it like so. I'm going to grab my ball. Now the serve is the most powerful shot in the game of tennis and there are some professional tennis players that hit the ball at 150 miles per hour can you imagine that? So we're going to learn how to serve properly today and the most important part of the serve is being able to hit it when it's above your head so we want a nice controlled throw and a nice hit stretching up as high as we possibly can. So before we start serving we're going to put all of our equipment down and we are going to do a very quick warm-up so find your space this game is called the memory game. Now I'm going to shout out a number each number is going to correspond to a different shot in tennis so if I shout number one you're going to show me your best forehand using your hand now one is because we use one hand for our forehand if I shout the number two you're going to hit with two hands what's that shot called that's right we did it last week it's the backhand so if I shout two you're going to show me your best two handed backhand if I shout three you're going to pretend to throw the ball up above your head and smash it into the court for number three they're the three numbers you've got to remember first of all but we will make it tougher so in between each shot I want to see you on your toes jogging on the spot because we want to get nice and warm so start jogging and remember the different numbers one forehand ready steps in between one good two two one well done three three don't forget to throw the ball up and hit it above your head good two one three two and pause well done so let's step it up a level your job is to shout the numbers now so I'm going to show you the shot and you're going to tell me what number it is okay so same thing when you're shouting the number I want you to do the shot at the same time are we ready good shout it nice and loud excellent well done three more to go don't forget to shout that number an easy way to remember is how many hands am I using yes two yes one unfortunately I don't have three hands but that was number three well done and rest okay good final round this time I'm going to shout out the name of the shot now it's so instead of shouting one two or three I'm going to shout forehand backhand or serve and you're going to show me your best technique but to make it tougher I'm not going to join in because I know your game you'll be copying my moves so I'm going to shout out the name of the shot and you're going to demonstrate it perfectly for me ready jogging on the spot first forehand good one hand for forehand isn't it backhand good jogging on the spot in between serve great serve serve throw that ball up and hit it nice backhand forehand forehand serve and backhand amazing work right grab yourselves a quick drink that is your warm-up complete after all of these home tennis sessions when you finally get the opportunity to play tennis on a real tennis court you are going to know exactly what you're doing and the nice thing about playing on a proper tennis court is you don't have to worry about breaking any windows you can hit the ball really hard into the corners of the court and you can hit all the different angles and all the different heights it's great fun but for now we're learning loads of skills at home okay so we're ready to start using some of our equipment so what I want you to pick up is your racket or your substitute racket and your ball or your substitute ball and you're going to find a space that is not underneath any lights okay so make sure if you look up at the ceiling there's nothing above you just a roof just the ceiling okay we don't want to be near any lights you're going to put your racket on the floor like so and you're going to hold your tennis ball in your weakest hand so remember from last week if you don't know which hand is your favorite hand I want you to see if you can start writing your name in the sky and that hand that you're using should be your writing hand so we're going to hold the ball in our other hand so this is going to be really tricky because this hand is usually a lot tougher what I want you to try to do is stand sideways on and hold your tennis ball or your pair of socks above your racket and just to make sure you're in the right place you're going to drop it to see if it lands on your racket so that shows that I'm in the right place so do that now for me good do it a couple of times so you're going to stand sideways on and you're going to drop the ball onto your racket and again drop we'll do three more good remember we're using our weakest hand we're not using our good hand good okay so now that we know that we're in the right place we're going to practice the first most important part of the serve which is throwing the ball up if your throw is wonky when you serve it's going to be impossible to hit so it's really important that we can throw the ball straight so I want you to see if you could throw the ball above your head and you're going to see how close to your racket you can land the ball so watch me first up oh yes I hit the racket have a go yourself good if it's really good and you do better than me it will hit right on the middle of the racket strings so throw the ball up good I hit the edge again so remember it's got to go above your head I know lots of cheeky tennis players that cheat on this one and just do a tiny throw like this but it must go above your head oh I'm good at hitting the edge keep going everybody make sure you're using your weakest hand throw the ball up and get it to bounce on the strings good okay that should be enough practice time so let's make it into a competition like we normally do 30 seconds to see how many you can get now if you're like me and it keeps hitting the edge it's going to be tricky to get a big score because you're going to be chasing the ball around everywhere so I think in 30 seconds a good score would be two or maybe three points so I want you to see if you can beat that score your time starts now off we go okay every time it hits the racket you score one point oh yes that's a good one make sure it goes above your head but not too high because you'll lose control going to tip the ceiling well done keep it up you've got five seconds to go make sure keeping count stop well done so how many times did your ball or your socks hit your racket tell me now excellent score really really good it's not easy it's really really not easy if you were using your favorite hand it would have been much easier but we don't like it being too easy we like a challenge don't we because we like a challenge we are going to take it up a level your job is to do the same throw but this time instead of letting the ball bounce on the floor or on your racket you're going to see if you can reach up with your good hand your strong hand and you're going to catch above your head when you catch you're going to see how straight your arm can be so I'm going to have a go here ready throw up and catch and you can see my arm is super straight we're going to try again up and catch if you catch it down here that's okay but it's a bit cheating isn't it so we want to see if we can catch it right above our head like so if that's too tricky you can catch with two hands above your head have a practice off you go good make sure you catch it above your head we don't want it to be too high because it makes it really difficult but we don't want it too low because we need that arm to be straight good remember we're throwing with our weak hand and catching in our strong hand last couple of practices amazing and stop there well done right 30 seconds then this is going to be a lot lot tougher than the last game in fact I'll be impressed if anybody scores any points on this one because it's so so tricky so 30 seconds on the clock how many times can you catch the ball above your head if you catch it below your head it doesn't count for a point if you drop the ball don't worry you can carry on your score afterwards your 30 seconds starts now good throw that ball up using your weaker hand and catching your stronger hand make sure you're catching above your head remember it's too tricky you can use two hands amazing don't worry if you drop it a few times that's fine just count the one that you catch two one stop there well done everybody now can you shout your score to the screen now top top work okay now for the next challenge this is the bit that gets fun but tricky you're going to pick up your baseball cap so for the next challenge you need your baseball cap and you need your ball or your sock ball I'm gonna use my sock ball just to show you that you can do it with both now before we actually do the challenge I want you to get used to swinging your serve in the right way so I'm gonna show you what it looks like using my tennis racket and then I'm gonna show you what you're going to do so I don't want you to use your racket for this because when you do this indoors it's a bit dangerous you could be breaking lights and things so don't copy me yet I want you to watch first of all now when you do a serve like we said we throw the ball up and we hit the ball above our head and you'll notice that when I hit the ball my arm is stretched up super high up here now when I get to the back of my serve technique here we have an L shape okay so we've got a nice L shape here and this is the shape that I want you all to copy in a second you're going to use your hat so pick up your hat now and I want you to hold your hat like this on the peak with your thumb on the inside of your hat so not this way round we don't want the outside of your hat we want your thumb on the inside of your hat like this and I want you to see if you can copy the big L shape that I made so you can see I've got my hat in my hitting hand and my socks in my spare hand and your job is to see if you can throw your socks up just like we practiced before but I want you to see if you can catch your socks in your hat so we're going to try here are we ready so throw catch I actually hit my socks are we ready so we're going to throw and catch and you can see I've got my socks in my hat here it's not easy we'll try again ready so we've got the L shape we've got our tennis ball or socks ideally out in front and we're going to throw up and catch and you can see I've caught it in my hat so have a go yourselves remember we're using our hat to catch the ball or the socks like so off you go so throw and catch make sure we've got a nice L shape at the back here good keep practicing don't worry if you hit a few sometimes it might knock off and go over into somewhere else in the room that's fine if you're using socks they're nice and soft so they're not going to break anything so same again up and catch make sure you've got that nice L shape like I say if you get really good at these your serve is going to be a rocket when you manage to get to the tennis course good I'm going to give you five more seconds to practice three two one and stop there well done so challenge time 30 seconds in fact in this one because it's so much tougher I'm going to give you a whole minute because I remember when I first tried this exercise I failed about 100 times I tried a hundred times and I just couldn't catch it the only reason I can catch it today is because I've had years and years of practice so today if you fail on this don't worry keep practicing and as soon as you get good at it that's the time to challenge your family members to see if you can beat them okay so we're going to start the timer we're going to see how many catches you can get in one minute your time starts now off we go catch make sure we're using that L shape good if you do a nice gentle throw up it's going to make it a bit easier to catch if you throw it too high and it goes near to the ceiling it's going to be really really tricky keep going watching the ball and watching your socks good don't worry if you drop it just pick it up and carry on your score we're nearly halfway keep it up looking good looking good and even those ones you're going to miss it you're still doing your L shape you're still getting your throw 15 seconds to go come on you've got to see if you get one more point 10 seconds throw and catch using that L shape three two one and stop there awesome stuff give yourselves a clap using your cap amazing and your score was tell me fantastic really really top work all of these exercises that we do in the sessions you might find that one of them is your favourite and you can practice these in your own time the more you practice these exercises the better you're going to be when you actually hit the tennis course so there you have it you have just smashed our serving session now before we go we're going to recap some of the things we learned so remember just like the last couple of weeks in your brain I want you to have a little think about some of the things that you've learned today I'm going to give you some examples of the things that I think you could have learned and you're going to tell me if they were what you were thinking of ok good 10 seconds to have a think some of the things that you learned today ok time up so the first thing that you could have learned and if you think this is something you learned today give me a big thumbs up is that the most important shot in tennis is the shot we practice today the serve give me a thumbs up if you remembered that the second thing is that when we serve we need to use our weaker hand to throw the ball which is why it can be such a challenging shot and it's our stronger hand that we use to hit the ball using our racket when we hit a serve do we hit the ball when it's down low or up high can you remember that's right we hit it with our straight arm really high stretching above our head that's going to give us lots and lots of power what letter of the alphabet do we get to at the back of our swing can we remember that's right it's the L position and some tennis players like to call it the Usain Bolt position if you remember Usain Bolt's pose when he won the 100m sprint that is the position you get in for the serve so well done if you remembered all of those things and I'm sure there were some other things that you learned in that session as well in our next session I'm going to be teaching you how to rally and then after that one we've got one more week where we're going to be putting everything together and having loads and loads of fun so I can't wait to see you in our next session see you there a few days ago lots of you had a go at the plank challenge so I thought I'd add a couple of variations for you to have a try at home whether you're kids whether you're parents give these a try if you wanted to make it slightly easier rather than the version we had before where you had to throw and catch we can roll the ball across the floor so we're looking to see how many rolls you can do 6, 7, 8 before you collapse if you wanted to make it slightly tougher you can see if you can do a rally by yourself 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 if you want to make it tougher still do the same thing with your feet together 1, 2, 3 give those a try and let me know how you get on