 Hey everybody, it's Ashley again here at the Avenue Tennis Club. We are now in session three of our six sessions of tennis at home. 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. In session two, we looked at the forehand. Remember, that's the shot that we use our favourite hand for to swing from low to high. And in this session, we're going to be spending time working on our booming backhands. Now, before we get into it, you're going to go on a bit of a hunt around the house to see if you can find some things that we're going to use for our tennis session. So the first thing you're going to look for is a tennis racket or something that you can use instead of a tennis racket. I've been using my chocolate lid. It can be anything that's flat and hard that you can hit the ball with or a pair of socks. The second thing that you're going to need is a pair of socks. Now we've been using these socks before, but we're going to use them in a slightly different way today. So you're going to need to find yourself a pair of socks. Now when we're looking for these socks, the longer the better. So I've got quite long socks here. If you've got football socks or any long socks like that, that will be perfect. The third thing you need is a ball. So if you've got a tennis ball, that's amazing. It doesn't have to be a tennis ball though. It could be something bigger. It could be a football as long as it's a lightweight football. And if you don't have a tennis ball, you can always use a pair of socks. But because we already need a pair of socks, you're going to need two pairs if you don't have a ball. And the final thing you're going to need is your drinks bottle just so that we can stay hydrated. OK, so like normal, you've got one minute to find these things. I'm going to leave the list of what you need to find on the screen. Your time starts now. OK, you've got 10 seconds left. Remember, don't worry if you haven't found everything. You can use your imagination. You can use your hands to control the ball or the pair of socks when we get into it later. Well done and stop there. As I always say, make sure you ask your grown-ups if you're allowed to use the items that you're choosing and make sure that when you set your area up, you're in a nice safe space. We don't need to be too close to any televisions or windows. We want to try to be away from anything that could break. OK, now that you've got everything that you need, pop it down in a space on the floor and find yourself a bit of an area where you're going to be able to swing your hands around. Now, before we start warming up, we're going to talk about the difference between a forehand and a backhand. Now, last week when we practiced forehands, we learned that we use our favourite hand on our favourite side of our body to swing from low to high. So if this is your favourite hand, your forehand will look like this. If this is your favourite hand, your forehand will look like this. So it's important that we use just one hand to swing from low to high. Finish with our elbow up like this. Now, the difference between the forehand and the backhand is very simple. We use two hands for a backhand and it's on the opposite side of our body. So if this is my favourite side, this would be a forehand. And if this is my favourite side, the backhand would be on this side with two hands. And I'm going to swing over my shoulder just like we did before. So this will be a backhand. Now, if this is your favourite hand, then your backhand is going to be on the other side with two hands, just like this. OK, so for our warm-up, we're going to get to grips with the difference between our forehand and backhand. Now, the first way I'm going to do it is going to be very simple. I'm going to shout forehand. If I do, you're going to show me your best forehand technique using your hand. If I shout backhand, you're going to see if you can do your backhand side as well. OK, in between every shot, it's important to get back to our ready position. So let's start in our ready positions. We want our hands together just like so. Ready? Backhand. So we're using two hands. Ready position. Backhand. Ready position. Forehand. Using one hand, still finishing over your shoulder. Forehand. One hand, excellent. Backhand. Good. Forehand. And ready position. Excellent work. So that's it. Hopefully you're starting to understand the difference. Remember, a forehand, we use one hand, the front of our hand, and the backhand, we use two hands with the back side of our hand, which is why it's called the backhand. OK, let's try a few more. I'm going to go a little bit quicker now. So ready position in between. Backhand. Backhand. Forehand. Forehand. Don't forget that ready position in between. Forehand. Backhand. Backhand. And forehand. And pause. Excellent, right. Now, just like the last two sessions, it's important that when we warm up our body, we also warm up our brain. So this is the final round of the warm up before we start using the equipment. This time, I'm not going to shout out the name of the shots. You are. So I'm going to do a shot. Your job is to copy the shot, and while you're copying it, you're going to shout out forehand or backhand. So for example, if I do this, you would shout forehand, and you would do your forehand. Now remember, you might like different hands to me. So if I show you a forehand here, this is going to be tricky, but you've got to show me your forehand. So it might be the same side as me, but it might be this side. So make sure you use your favourite hand for your forehand. If I do this shot, you would shout backhand, because it's two hands. OK, so make sure if I use one hand, so do you. And if I use two hands, so do you. Let's give it a go. So you're going to do the shouting now. Three, two, one. Good. Excellent. Well done. Keep it going. Good. See if you can shout the name of my shot before I finish my swing. See how quick you can be. Wow, you were quick that time. Amazing. Three more to go. Shout out the name of the shot before I finish it. Last one. Well done, everybody. Give yourselves a pat on the back. That is your warm-up complete. So you now know the difference between a forehand and backhand. So after this session, I want you to teach your family members so that they understand what a forehand and backhand is as well. OK, grab yourselves a quick swig of water before we get into the next part of the session. OK, now we're ready to start using the equipment. So what you need for this next exercise is your racket or your substitute racket, your socks, one pair of socks, and your tennis ball. Or if you didn't have a tennis ball, your other pair of socks as well. OK, now the first exercise that's going to help you to get better with your tennis movement and your footwork is called toe taps. Now, some of you may have seen this before. If you're really good at football, you're going to be even better than me at this. And if you're a good dancer as well, I think you might smash this too. And the aim of the game is to see if you can tap your ball that's on the floor or your ball of socks if you're using that instead. And you're going to see if you can gently tap the ball with the bottom of your foot. So we're going to alternate between our right and our left foot. So nice to slowly start with me off you go. Make sure you've got your racket in your hand because we're going to use that for the next step if you're finding this too easy. So nice and gently, we're going from one foot to the other foot. So follow along with me. Now you'll notice I'm doing it nice and slowly to start off with, but it is going to get quicker. All right, so we're not squishing the ball, we're just tapping it gently. Right, now if you're finding that easy, I want you to pick up the speed by hopping from one foot to the other foot to the other foot. Still gently tapping the ball and if you're feeling really confident, you can go quicker and quicker until you're going lightning quick like me or even quicker than me if you're an expert. So tap, tap, tap, keep going, good. Remember we're not squishing the ball, we're gently tapping it. Now this is really good for your coordination and for your balance as well. So keep it up, we're going to go for 10 more seconds. Five seconds, four, three, two, one and rest. Well done, okay. So toe taps, have you done them before? Awesome. If you haven't, you've learned a new skill and this is really, really good for all sports people because it helps you to be light on your toes and to have good coordination. So the next step of this, you're going to take your ball of socks. Now if you haven't done it already, stuff your socks together, so you're going to push one sock into the other one so that it makes a nice ball like this. Then you're going to use your racket or your burk or your chocolate lid like I've got and you're going to hold it like a frying pan like this. And you're going to see if you can balance your sock ball on top of your racket. Now today we're going to use two hands to hold the racket because we're practicing back hands and remember back hands, we use two hands. And what I want you to do is while keeping the sock ball balanced on your racket, you're going to gently do your toe taps. Now just like we started earlier, start slowly and if this is tricky, you can keep going slowly. You don't need to go any faster than this. This is a really good skill if you can do it. But if you are finding it easy, you can go a bit quicker to see if you can do it lightning quick without dropping your sock ball off you go. So have a little go at that, making sure that your racket's staying nice and flat. You're keeping your sock ball balanced on your strings whilst doing your toe taps. Now this is tricky because you might want to look at your sock ball, but also you might want to look at the ball that's on the floor as well. So have a go at both. See if you can look at the ball on the floor, is that easier or is it easier to look at the sock ball? Or can you find a way to look at both? If you bring the racket really close to you, you might be able to see both balls at once. It's a really tricky skill, amazing. 10 seconds left, keep it up, go at your own speed. If it's too tricky, go slowly. If it's too easy, go faster. And stop there, well done, really, really good stuff. Okay, so final task of toe taps. I want you to put your racket down now so that we're using both balls. We've got the tennis ball and the sock ball. And what I want you to try to do is do around the world from lesson one. So you'll remember, around the world is when we pass the socks around our body like this, okay. But because you're all so good at these skills, we're gonna challenge you to the next level. I want you to see if you can do toe touches at the same time. So this is really tough coordination. Okay, so start off very slowly. This is a little bit like a challenge you might have done before, where you've got to pat yourself on the head and rub your belly at the same time. Has anybody done that before? That's really, really tough. So, toe touches and around the world. And if you're an expert, you can go really quick and see if you can beat my speed. Good, tiny toe touches. And if it's too tricky, go nice and slowly. We're gonna go for 10 more seconds. You guys are so good. I didn't master this until I was 25 years old. So you've got plenty of time. And stop there, amazing work. Okay. We're now going to reintroduce the racket or your chocolate lid or your book. Because what we want to learn to do is to control the ball using two hands like you would for a backhand. So in your space, this is what I want you to do. You can use a ball or your sock ball for this one. I'm gonna show you with both. So you're going to start with two hands on the racket with the ball or the sock ball balanced on your racket face or your strings. And I want you to gently drop the ball on the floor. And after it is bounced once, I want you to try to catch it. So we're gonna go drop and catch. Drop and catch, off you go. So see if you can do this one. Now, obviously a sock ball doesn't bounce. So carry on, but if you have got a sock ball, you're going to do the same thing, but you're gonna flip it up like a pancake. Good, up and catch. We're using two hands for this one. Good, up and catch. So we don't want to fling it too high. We don't want to smash any lights. So nice and gently, up and catch, up and catch. Keep going. If you've got a ball, you're doing it with a bounce instead. Bounce and catch, bounce and catch. You'll notice I'm bending my knees after the balls dropped so that I can catch the ball with a nice flat racket. If my racket's a bit wonky, the ball's gonna roll off in a different direction. So keep practicing that one. Bounce and catch, or pop and catch. Pop and catch. Keep going. 10 seconds left. I'm gonna do a little challenge. So this is your practice. Amazing, well done. Hand stop there. Okay, so now that you've had a practice, we're gonna make this into a challenge. Just like we have on the previous sessions, I'm gonna give you 30 seconds to see how many catches you can get. So this would be one catch, two catches, three catches. If I drop it, I'm gonna pick the ball up and I'm gonna carry on from three, four, five, and it'll be the same if you're using your sock ball. Six, seven. If you drop it, don't worry, just pick it up and carry on from seven. Okay, so 30 seconds to see how many you can get. I reckon a good score on this one would be about six or seven points. So see if you can beat that score. Your time starts now. Make sure you're keeping your eye on the ball or the socks all of the time. Your racket face should be nice and flat. That's it. Bend those knees to get nice and low underneath the ball. We want gentle control. We don't want to be hitting the ball too hard. Gently drop it or gently pop it. That's what those flat strings. Great work. Let's see if you get a couple more points. We've got five seconds. And stop there. Awesome stuff. So it's not easy that one. I want you to shout your score at the screen now. Amazing work. Well done. So let's step it up and not stem. We're going to see if we can do this continuously. So rather than catching the ball, we're going to see if we can tap the ball. Now this is called a self rally. We're going to be practicing rallies in lesson number five. But what a rally is normally is when you hit your shot over the net and your partner hits it back to you and you work together to keep the ball going as a team. Now a self rally is when you do it on your own and I'm going to show you how. Your job, just like before, is to balance the ball on your strings. You're going to let it bounce. But instead of catching the ball, you're going to keep it up. So we're going to go bounce, tap, bounce, tap, bounce, tap. Now you'll notice that my racket strings are very flat and I'm hitting the ball so gently that it stays next to me. If you hit the ball a bit too hard, you're going to lose control of the ball and it might go into a different direction. So we don't want to do that. We want gentle taps all of the time. If you've got a sock ball, you're going to do the same thing, but tiny taps upwards like this, okay? So have a little practice now. Remember, because we're doing back hands, we're using two hands for these ones. Off you go. Little practice. Gently, we don't want the ball going above your head height. We want to keep it nice and low and keep those strings flat, bending our knees all of the time. Good. Excellent little practice. And stop there. Right, let's make it competitive then. How many do you think you're going to get in the space of 30 seconds? Do you think it's going to be more or less than your last score? It's going to be tricky, isn't it? Because this one, the ball could go out of control. So let's see if you can beat your last score. Your 30-second starts now. Off you go. Make sure you're keeping counting, counts out loud so I can hear you. If you lose control of the ball, you can run and get it and carry on your score. Excellent, soft touch. Don't hit too hard. We're halfway. 15 seconds to go. Concentration, good focus. Tiny taps, doing self-rallies here using your two-handed backhands. Two, one. Stop there. Excellent work. Well done. Did you beat your last score? Give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Good effort. Awesome stuff. Right, we're going to grab a quick drink before we get into our last game of the session. Right then, for the final game, we like a little challenge and this one is the toughest one so far in my opinion. Your job is to put your tennis racket or whatever equipment you're using for your racket somewhere in your room. And I want you to try to put your tennis ball a few meters away from it on the floor. The third thing you need is your pair of socks but we're going to unfold the socks now and you'll see why we needed long socks for this one. So we're going to unfold the socks now and you're going to see if you can make one sock into a ball like this and you're going to put it right to the bottom of the other sock. So it's going to go all the way down like this. Okay, so you should have one sock with the other sock right at the end of it like this. So do that now for me because this is going to be your tennis racket. I know, funny, right? Okay, so keep doing that and make sure you're watching me while you're doing it because I'm going to show you the challenge. So like I said, this is your tennis racket now and you're going to hold the top of the sock with two hands like this and your aim is to see if you can hit your tennis ball towards your racket. We're going to see how many hits it takes to hit your racket with the tennis ball. Now, if you need to do a gentle shot we would like a small swing but if we need to hit it far like I do I'm probably going to need a really big swing and finish over my shoulder. So let's take a look. Shot number one. Oh, that was a good one. So remember we're using two hands and we're using it on our non-favorite side. So remember this is my favorite side so I've got to use it on this side. Shot number two coming up. Right, I hit the racket with two shots. Now I've had loads of practice at this one. See how many shots it takes you to hit your tennis racket using your backhand with socks. Have a go. This game is a really good one and what you can do when you get really good at it is you can hide your racket behind somewhere in the room to see if you can hit your tennis ball around some different obstacles and you can challenge your family members to this too. See how many shots it takes you and see how many it takes your different family members. Amazing. I'm gonna give you 30 more seconds to keep going with this game. Remember if you need a soft controlled shot we want a small swing with your backhand but if you need to hit the ball far you're gonna want a big swing right over your shoulder. Amazing, 10 more seconds. Good. If you manage to get it in two shots I would say next time make that target a bit tougher put it somewhere else or maybe even use a smaller target that would be good and stop there. Well done everybody. So give yourselves a big pat on the back again. Now before we switch off we're gonna recap some of the things we learned today. So just like last lesson I'm gonna give you 15 seconds to think about some of the things that you learned. After I've given you that time I'm gonna tell you some of the things that I think you learned and you're gonna put your thumb up if that's what you were thinking about. Good. So hopefully you've got something in your mind about what we learned today. I'm gonna give you some of the things. Right. So remember if I say what you were thinking give me a thumbs up. If you've forgotten about it give me a thumbs down. So the first thing we learned was the name of a new shot. Last week it was the forehand and this week it was the backhand. Well done. Give me a thumbs up if you remember that. Great stuff. So how many hands do we use for a backhand? Backhand's the shot we did today. We use two hands for the backhand, okay? The forehand we use one hand, the backhand we use two hands. Amazing. The third thing that we learned is how do we swing the backhand? Just like the forehand we swing from low to high and we finish with our elbow pointing in front of our nose like a big nose finish. Amazing. And there was one last thing that we learned today in that last game and in tennis if you want to hit the ball far you need a big swing and if you want to hit the ball small distance you need a very small swing for that control. So hopefully they were just some of the things you learned today and I'm sure you learned more like toe taps. We did around the world. We did some amazing tough coordination skills. We learned a new word called rally which we're gonna go into a bit more depth next time. So great session everybody. I hope you had fun. Next week we're gonna be learning all about the most important shot in tennis called the serve. Okay, another challenge for you to try at home. Kids, parents, have a go. Another one with a tennis ball and a football. This time you're going to see if you can play basketball with both balls at the same time. 10, can you beat it? So we had loads of video submissions from my plank challenge so I thought we'd set up another one. All you need is a ball, a football and a tennis ball. As long as you've got one ball big and one ball small then you'll be able to do this one. Have a look, see if you can do it at home. How many can you do? Good luck. Take care and I'll see you all in the next video.