Bill Patton: Brain Sport Bill
0:00:09.9 Jack broudy: Good day and welcome to livin at the 45. I'm your host, Jack Broudy, and today I'm with Bill patent, not a long time friend, but I'd say it five or six years... Bill known each other. Yeah.
0:00:22.9 Bill Patton: We've known each other Well, I've known of you since 90 and since the
0:00:29.3 Jack broudy: 90s, but we met about five years ago. We also spent some time at that US PTA conference down in Alabama. That was fun. Anyway, say, I know what everybody... Bill, we'll get started.
0:00:42.3 Bill Patton: Hi everybody. You
0:00:44.5 Jack broudy: Know, I guess my first question was... The very first thing that pops to mind. Why change your name? I always like visual bill, and it's gonna be... I just have to tell you, that was my first question I had for you, why change it from such a great title of visual bill? I think it's called Brain sport bill now, right?
0:01:06.1 Bill Patton: That's... Yeah, so you're referring to my Facebook Monica? Yeah, now I'm Preston because I had not received your calm... Your feedback early enough, had I known that you were enamored with the name Visa-bill, I may have retained it, but
0:01:26.4 Jack broudy: I thought it was a good name, I thought it was a good... That was catching and you sort of got a feeling of what you did, right.
0:01:35.4 Bill Patton: But then here's the funny thing, maybe I need to re-cook that and make it catchy again, but I came to the realization that I was putting the cart before the horse, so I've been very fascinated with visual training for tennis much of my career, because some of my most influential coaches in my life that Don Hansen, the Kandahar, and I was getting these bits and pieces about the visual aspects of training Tennis, and then I realized, Well, I've collected a lot of different little pieces through my career and read The Inner Game of Tennis and this and that, that I think I can collect all of that in one place, so that's when I wrote visual training for tennis. But then I came to the realization that I don't actually start on the tennis court with visual stuff, what I actually do is I address good best practices for people using their brain on the tennis court, and I'll give you an example. People come through the gate and they're coming to meet you for the first time, and they're anxious, so that anxiety creates something called the affective filter. Right, so this is a very long explanation about why I changed my name to brain sport, bill.
0:03:11.4 Bill Patton: Anyway, so I realized, job one is to get them to calm down. Because the affect of filter theory is that the more anxious you are, the less likely you are to receive new information, and I don't know how often this happens to you, but happens to me regularly, is that somebody's coming for a first lesson, they didn't plan enough time to get there, or they didn't know where they were going, so they end up late for their first lesson, they're having feelings of shame, they feel like they look like a flake, and they come in with all this baggage. So what I do is I call them them down, I go, look, Okay, you blew it for 10 minutes, but we're gonna have a great 50 minutes, so just slow down, and then I tell them a little joke, I say, well, you know, attendance is optional, but payment is mandatory. And they think that's funny, 'cause that's appropriate, you still have to pay me the full on, but I don't care if you're not there in... So it's reassuring. So I start with creating a learning environment that is brain first, and then what that does, it opens up the ability to get into the visual stuff, so that's why...
0:04:43.3 Jack broudy: Okay, so you thought visual Bill was the second part of the name?
0:04:49.1 Bill Patton: Yeah, yes, and so I've been studying neuroscience quite a bit lately, so I'm reading every possible thing I can about neuroscience that would be applicable to teaching and learning in sports, and so I came to the... So here's the interesting thing, one day that I was thinking about it, and they say 60% of what your brain does is related to your vision, so if you just stop and close your eyes for a moment, you can almost feel your brain relax because like, okay, well, I'm not getting any input from my eyes right now, so I thought about, Wait a minute, 60%, the 60% is the visual... There's another 40%. So it made me realize I was working in the 60% instead of the 100%.
0:05:47.4 Jack broudy: I wonder if that's why some guys, I just remember board used to do it, and I was told to do it during the changeover, I was always told, Put a towel over your head and close your eyes for a minute, and that's how you should use your minute of course, I was also told meditate or visualize that type of thing, but the key was to close your eyes, I wonder if that was what that was all about.
0:06:11.2 Bill Patton: Well, I think what you see among top players as they go into the soft vision mode, so in between points, they're full on their... Fully engaged with their vision, and then you'll see them in between points as part of the 16-second cure, if you will, the relaxation phase, they'll just kinda go and they're not really looking specifically at anything. One thing I was always taught was, your eyes should rest on your rocket or the ball, or the ground, you might take a quick look over your opponent to see what's going on over there, to check on their mental state, but in between points, yeah. You wanna go into that sort of that rested state where you're not really focusing on anything that can really help with being able to concentrate for longer periods of time.
0:07:05.7 Jack broudy: So then the only other one... The only other one I had ever heard... Remember, I was growing up in the 70s, so a long time ago, was to look at your strings and to make little squares out of the strings and try and fix your strings because that would bring your focus into a very small, small area and... Yeah, other than that, I really didn't have to tell you back in the 70s, we didn't talk much about visual training. I remember our coach at Carolina once had us all star at a tennis ball or a pencil, I can't even remember anymore, we're all... So the whole team sat there and stared at it for 10-15 minutes, seemed rejects to me, but maybe... Maybe I didn't take it on can... I don't know.
0:07:55.5 Bill Patton: Well, and if you reflect back on that time. What's the book? When it's Tim galas book, Why might not think to interamerican Game of Tennis came out. It was pooped by the establishment. Right, So Inner Game of Tennis came out and large teaching organizations said, That's garbage, and now almost all the science is pointing to yet... It's pretty true, it's very true, that you want to leave your mind and come to your senses... So one thing that I find among people, and this is this... I wanna get into your Brody stuff too. I'm gonna connect that here in a second, is that one thing that I see is too many people operating in the upper part of their brain with higher level thinking, they're trying to analyze, they're trying to make checklists, they're trying to... They're subjectively judging their performance and whatnot, but really the learning of a physical skill is more of a lower to mid-brain skill, it's more of a reptilian skill of seeing... What does it look like? Imitating and knowing where it is.
0:09:28.4 Jack broudy: The phrase done, Jack.
0:09:31.4 Bill Patton: Well, maybe it is interesting. I think it is a fascinating study that maybe people who aren't quite as brilliant intellectually are more in touch with the lower levels of their brain and what it's capable of, and... Yeah, I don't wanna go too far off on the dumb jock idea, but people do need to kinda get in touch with their cave person... See, ball hit ball. And the other interesting thing is that the question where when you're answering the question Where in your mind, the flow chart of decision-making is very simple, there are just some very slight little variables in there, but when you have to answer the question, What... Then you get five outputs to five different inputs, and it could Crist cross and you get all this multi-variant analysis, and by the time you do that, the ball is gone, so when you have players who are building a checklist, Okay, oh, you gotta start with racket up-turn racket back in the slalom through, before you got to step to, that ball has come and gone, the not enough time for that procedural learning could take place, and then you get people who...
0:11:05.1 Bill Patton: They hit a shot and they wanna know, Well, what went wrong? The first they go, How did I do? And then what went wrong, how did I do? What went wrong? How did I do what went wrong, but that takes them away from actually seeing and feeling what's really happening, and then you get people who are like, Oh, that was a bad shot, so I have a bad forehand, so I'm a bad player, so I must be a bad person. And there are people who take it that far, you really think there's that much in also, so definitely some players do that much more than others, so now part of what I really love about the 45-degree contact point especially, is there aware there. And it's not only aware, but a win and aware... So this, this is my thing that I teach in lesson one, when I get players on the court, if your strategy for seeing the ball has a win and were to it, then it's gonna be magic, but if it's just keep your eye on the ball, watch the ball, then that's very vague or non-specific or... To dial it.
0:12:23.3 Bill Patton: So bringing people's attention to, you wanna make contact here, and contact is the win, when the ball and racket meat is a time and the approximate 45-degree angle is the place so... Perfect. And then where I start is, see the ball come out of my hand, because that's a win and aware because the win is what at the moment I'm tossing it to you and in the... Where is my hand? And it's really amazing. So I say this is, I go see the ball come out of my hand and then follow it into your 45, and it's amazing how a beginner can do that, and then they're immediately satisfied because they're hitting the ball at the 45-degree angle and they see all the efficiency of that. And then every once in a while, probably about every other lesson, they kinda get this shocked look on their face like, Did I do that... 'cause they'd never heard it before. They'd been taught something different, they were in a procedural learning mode, and now they came to a much more simple place and they're executing and they're like, Oh, this is easy.
0:13:44.1 Jack broudy: Well, you know what, I studied a Rudolf Steiner and his big thing with the 45 was when you're poised at that position, just like an archer or a rifleman, a with a weapon shooting at a target, he said that that was the best visual... Best dept perception you can get because one focal length is closer to the target than the other, so then they kind of... I think the word to use was triangulate and peers at that ball, so you're like This peering at a ball as opposed to both eyes being equal distance from the target, and that's where the deer gets hit in the head, lights, you know...
0:14:27.7 Bill Patton: And I have a yes. And for you on that one, so I have a video on YouTube you might wanna look at. And it explains the difference between pure extra and cross-dextrose.
0:14:41.1 Jack broudy: We'll make sure we link that when we get... Finish it. Thank you.
0:14:45.4 Bill Patton: Yes, there too, in a nutshell, pure dextrose extra have to do with how your eye dominance matches up with your hand dominance, so if it's on the same side, it's pure, and if Chris crosses, it's cross. So I'm left eye dominant and right hand it, so that's a cross, so I am cross-Textron, believe Federer is a cross extra, if you are right eye dominant and right, and then you're a pure extra, and I believe in the doll and Serena Williams are pure extra... And so here's what you'll see, so this is something that perplexed me for a while, so I saw this time right now... Well, okay, so here's a funny thing, a magazine that covers tennis, but I don't wanna use its proper name, a magazine that coverage tennis had an instructional little vignette, and so they show better eyes right at contact and he gets the green circle, and then they show another player looking slightly ahead of contact with the ball on their strengths, Red X, and I'm like, Wait a minute, that's a grand slam champion who's getting a red X. So maybe it's not all that maladaptive, and what I've discovered...
0:16:19.9 Bill Patton: And if you do this, I challenge you to do this, go look at still pictures of Nadal with the ball and his strings, and see how many of them are his eyes right there. And I bet you find it very difficult to find a picture of him with his eyes write contact, but what you will see are his eyes ahead of contact, and that's a pure extra strategy. Serena Williams does the same thing. And so the idea is somebody who's crossed extra, will focus on the ball from the bounce into the 45 and then keep their head relatively still, but a pure extra player is going to look at a place half-way between the bounce of the ball and contact and they're gonna use their peripheral vision to track across to contact, and they're gonna hit just as cleanly and... So you can find many, many, many pictures of Grand Slam champions who do not look directly at contact, so you can't call that maladaptive. I have another video of a kid I met for the first time in Alabama, and so I like to do this, I like to fly without... I like to do the traps without a net, right here, 'cause you know when a lot of speakers come out, they bring somebody they've trained for years with them, and then they show you just how easy it is to do their thing, but years went into that, so I like to get somebody who's never heard my stuff ever before, and then you find out if it's really that quick of the uptake.
0:18:08.6 Bill Patton: So I had this kid and he was trying to do like fed, he was trying to do like fed, and all it did was make him tense, and so I tested him, he turned out to be per Dexter Al, I had him look slightly ahead of contact and then it's like bolts from the sky, it was like the angels were singing, and all of a sudden now he's relaxed and he's got a really nice contact and follow through every fluidity to his motion. So that's where the visual interacts with the whole body brain experience.
0:18:49.1 Jack broudy: I guess my first thing that pops in my head, it's easy to decide what someone's right in your left. How do you decide which I is dominant? Oh.
0:18:59.0 Bill Patton: That's good, that's a great question. So here's an exercise you can do in the comfort of your own home, alright, first thing, the first rule is no cheating, 'cause people... I catch people trying to cheat, they start sweating and stuff, so no suiting, Keep your eyes perfectly wide opened and then make a little tiny circle with you your hands like say...
0:19:23.9 Jack broudy: So do you see how... I've put a little flower right in the middle.
0:19:30.8 Bill Patton: Right? So what you'll do is you with your arms fully extended, you'll cite an object in the distance, then you close one eye, if you still see the object, the eye that's open is your dominant eye, then test it, you open that eye and close the other one, and if you can't see it, then you've just confirmed if you're seeing it with both eyes, you didn't do it right, it was too big, or are you quitting and am in your editing?
0:20:06.5 Jack broudy: You'll definitely see an... Absolutely, I'll give you... I'll give that to...
0:20:12.6 Bill Patton: And your dominant eye does approximately 80% of your seeing... So if we multiply that out, if we multiply it out, if we said right now, your brain, 60% of what your brain does is visual, and 80% approximately of your vision comes through your dominant eye, then about 50% of what your brain does is coming through one I...
0:20:40.1 Jack broudy: Well, I just did it, and it looks like I'm a left eye dominant. I would have guessed. Everything I do is right. Dominant, but I'm wrong. So on the left, I'm left, I dominant 'cause I could see it. Clearest bell with left. When I close my right eye, I couldn't see it at all. Isn't that fascinating?
0:20:57.9 Bill Patton: Yeah, I've never been... It's about 50-50. So the other fun thing is, I've taken this on the road, so I've done some clinics, different places, traveled with it in LA, Arizona, Atlanta area, Birmingham, Alabama, and proven it. So I don't have any formal research, but my social data of having tried it out on people is that the vast majority of people close to 100% or help when they're using the right strategy for further eye dominant, so if they're... So cross extra people, again, are gonna focus on the ball from the bounce into their strengths, and pure extra people will direct their eyes at a place between the bounce and their racket and use their peripheral to track the ball in there and have great results.
0:22:01.8 Jack broudy: Would that be why... I'm just throwing out a wild guess here, is that why maybe Nadal and Serena seemed to be a little more open when they hit the ball, 'cause those two are both very open, especially Serena, to the point where she does miss hit quite a bit, and fetter is always that beautiful kicking his foot back and always at that 45 beautifully. And you've seen a doll and Serena, they're reaching out just like everyone else with the 45, but their bodies or jolted a little bit more facing the net.
0:22:40.2 Bill Patton: I put this to Mark Cove and Mark... Mark, brilliant, obviously. And so I was at the PR symposium and he was doing... He was working with a player, and I asked this question of him because it played into what he was talking about in terms of body positioning and delivering maximum amount of velocity to the ball and whatnot, so yes, he absolutely affirmed that you're going to slightly change the attitude of your body. Based on that. So here's interesting thing, it was no mystery that I was gonna struggling with my back hand ground stroke and my back and valli, because here's my left eye blocked by my nose, so I'm citing the ball with my non-dominant eye...
0:23:37.7 Jack broudy: I see.
0:23:38.7 Bill Patton: So, of course, I have timing issues and not seeing the ball, so learning to turn my head forward to cite the ball with my dominant Y was a game changer. So one thing I do instruct people to do is make sure that you are intentionally pointing your dominant eye in the direction that it needs to point, because if it's blocked by your nose, then you're relying on your non-dominant eye to see, and that's just not... That's not gonna work as well.
0:24:17.7 Jack broudy: Plus you got two eyes for a reason, right? You got at least have some kind of vision. With both eyes, I would imagine seeing, just looking through one eye, you're not gonna get the debt perception, you will it to... Yes, yes.
0:24:33.2 Bill Patton: And if your eyes work equally the same in every way than I'm guessing there'd be more confusion, but I think people walk around with the assumption that both of their eyes do about equal things, but not really... So the non-dominant eye fills in the depth perception and color and some detail and some other things that way, but if they work equally as well, then you would have double vision
0:25:08.3 Jack broudy: As I see. I see. Okay, I was funny, yeah. One of the things I do notice with some beginners is when they turn to run, they turn to run, and then they're facing the fence, so they're running Silas and they're facing defense. And that never works out well. So I always tell them, Keep your head in the court, keep your eyes in the court, that your lower body at it move underneath you, right? Just because you move your lower body doesn't mean you have to move everything to the side, you can know, you can almost do a full turn and still keep your head forward. You see that. Yeah, absolutely, and I never knew why I was saying it, but it's to keep both eyes and I guess... Yeah.
0:25:52.2 Bill Patton: Well, and unfortunately, sometimes I think words make a difference too, and I'm very picky about certain words, and so when somebody says Keep, then that kind of connotes like management, like make it stay in a certain place holder there, so instead of keep... I like to say a lot 'cause it's more relaxing, I just allow your eyes to stay relatively forward and... But then you don't get this right. I'm doing it, Jack, I'm keeping my eyes. For now, I'm keeping them there. I'm exact rating, but I see this a lot with people who think they're imitating fed, they do this, they go here and then here. I have to consciously make myself have my eyes here, but if you watch fed, his head's not perfectly still, it's relatively still, but you gotta have... You've gotta have some play then you're limiting how much potential there is for the energy in the shot, so I think tension is the enemy, so maybe a good word, the word I've always used with fed, it was quiet and keep head quiet. I think, I think that's good. Quiet is nice because it doesn't come with a tense connotation to it, soft, he softly allows his eyes to remain at contact.
0:27:35.5 Jack broudy: Very interesting, I had no idea that the eyes would play so much of a role, I use fed as my example because he just looks like a much easier example for people to follow than someone like the doll or Serena who are both anomalies as far as physical specimens better. It just seems like a guy who just jumped out of his car and radiate some tennis balls with the other two, that they seem almost unattainable as far as they're physique and all that stuff.
0:28:05.3 Bill Patton: Well, I think AACS also a good example, and he seems to me to be also pure extra... It's also hard to find a picture of AAC looking at contact. He's almost always looking out of contact.
0:28:20.6 Jack broudy: Do you think that's why they tend towards the full western grip, 'cause now you're talking about Dolan Gacy with full, full, full western grips. And I've always thought that the reason they faced the net was because they have a Western grip, right, when you have a Western grip, but 45 doesn't work quite as perfectly is when you have a semi-Western or even an Eastern repents.
0:28:44.8 Bill Patton: Could open up a can of worms, but here's my blanket statement on that video, secrets in the player, I believe mostly have to do with things like this, the later reality of the player, so their I dominance, their hand dominant, their hip dominance, their spin, preference, lobby, blows all the weird stuff where you go, Okay, it's idiosyncratic, but it works. We're leaving it alone. That's why his coaching... So I remember Greg patent telling the story about working with Egan and Sampras when they were all junior national team members, and the coaches were all sitting, talking about changing Pete weird for him, so they're having this late night discussion about changing pets weird forehand, but they all agreed that as long as peak was winning, they're gonna leave it alone.
0:29:54.3 Jack broudy: That's always... People, if you don't touch anything on, but that
0:30:01.0 Bill Patton: He was really one of the first to start hitting the reverse for him, and I think it's also interesting to hear Robert land start tell that story. So landor was working with Pete When pet started hitting that. And so all of a sudden, one day, he shows up to land storm hit in the reverse forehand and no typical Robert Land starts that. Right. What the hell are you doing it? So he's like, Well, I just figured this thing out, I'm doing it like this, and he's like, Hey, do that again, do that again. And he's like, Keep doing it. So to lands dorms credit, he didn't coach things out of people, he learned from them when they started doing these things, these idiosyncratic things. And then up a and behold, Lindsay Davenport joined a couple of years later. So then Robert learned that it was okay. And then is more of his players started doing that as a natural course of things. Hey, here's an option, try this. Now, in the doll, Nadal is the poster child for the verse
0:31:18.3 Jack broudy: For a... Sure as I used to call gouge with, I guess, but...
0:31:22.3 Bill Patton: Well, I think buggy whips down here, buggy whips down there, it's that little flip when you can just barely get to the ball out why, but I think we call it the reverse, the one that comes up this way on the hi ball.
0:31:36.4 Jack broudy: She and I only use that on the High Ball, because if you wanna put top spin on a higher Bob, which my philosophy is, stay off of 45, if you touch the 45, it's going flat. If you come off the 45, it's gonna have top spin, so I say Don't touch the 45. So the only way to do it on a high ball is to come up looking underneath your arm as opposed to over your own, so I sort of equate that to the 45 again. Very interesting. So that that whole that... Well, I never would have dreamed I'd be left eye dominant, I wouldn't have to enable that anything dominant, because I'm really a writing all the way, I can't do my right foot... I do, I do better with my right hand, even though I've trained myself in the last few years, and I think it's helped my side, I've learned to serve lefty, I've learned to play the whole game left-handed from the baseline and actually short court, I'll take my left hand, it strokes over my right hand and strokes any day of the week, I think they're a much cleaner baseline, not so much, but certainly a short court, I think my form, I've seen it on video, I perform is much better, 'cause I have no idiosyncrasies with my left side, I just try to do testing maybe
0:33:00.1 Bill Patton: Your whole life you've been growth mode or left-handed and find mode or right, and you didn't know it. So that's another thing, that's another one of those weird things about lateral, it is you get people who are fine motor right-handed and gross motor left-handed in baseball. It's fairly common for people to bathe and throw apathet, then the switch-header thing comes in, and... So it's really interesting, the late reality, and so lateral Ty is a term that means the dominance that goes through your body. Also, I am left foot dominant with a clockwise spin preference, so a lot of people are right foot dominant with a counter-clockwise spin preference, and that's why they like their forehand so much. And then one thing in the training of players, and see, this is always kind of a brain thing too, because then what is... Is to train the counter tendency, because you're gonna have to get comfortable, like you said, learning to it with your left, and if you're comfortable with your spin preference going counterclockwise, you're gonna have to learn how to go clock-wise too, because you need a four and an abacus training, the one that doesn't come naturally is a really important consideration.
0:34:37.8 Jack broudy: Well, let me ask you, so I always have every student and myself as well, when we went up and won two hands on both sides, would that be optimal in your opinion...
0:34:47.9 Bill Patton: Oh, absolutely, and yeah, David Smith is a really big proponent of the tattoo it, we talk about it all the other... Yeah, no, and it's funny because now I'm realizing that I have forgotten to do that, so I'm gonna start getting back to that, but I have the phone balls that I train with that... The heavy phone balls, and that is a great way to initiate that because then you're also putting them under some duress as they're hitting with two hands on both sides, so... Yeah, it's a great exercise because then... Yeah, you're bringing things together, you're integrating both sides of the brain together. One thing Don Henson used to say, and I think people would argue with it, is that at the very beginning, especially with kids, you want them to be in a neutral stance to hit, and that there's a connection to how well does the information transfer from one side to the other... And that kids who train with open stances too early are not getting that brain development, but that's not something... That's not a hill I'm gonna die on. But Don Hansen said that. So I've always tried to teach people in the very early going to have a very neutral stance where their side of the net for that reason, and then it becomes more natural to play open.
0:36:24.6 Jack broudy: I had always heard in a rumor, is it true that dogs actually writing...
0:36:31.9 Bill Patton: Well, that's what people say, He's... No one's ever dismissed the idea that he's truly right-handed, but digging into the details of that... Who gets to do that? I mean, is he fine mutter right-handed and grows models? I don't know, we don't know, right? So that's a tricky one. I can't, I can't answer that, but it sounds like Tony wanted to... Uncle Tony wanted him to gain the advantage of playing from the left side because it's not as common.
0:37:06.5 Jack broudy: I've been working with this little boy four and a half years old over in the whole... We do a virtual lessons, they bring me right on the court, we've decided to do the same because he seemed pretty equal post both sides, so we've decided when he is a left for Ford, that's his forehand, not a backhand, and we've gotta hit a one-handed on both sides and two hand and on both sides, but we're letting him know he's a lefty, of course, when he did his little tennis camp this week at the Beach and Tennis Club, everyone else in the camp was variety, so they just tried to tell... No, no, you're writing, but he's sticking with his left hand and we've decided to keep it that way, is it something you think at that young of an age before they've really decided which Dom... Which side dominance? They are... You can, I think a really smart...
0:37:57.2 Bill Patton: And I'll give you a counter example. So I had a 12-year-old girl that I was training and shit, some idiosyncrasies that I couldn't really understand, and I was kinda going through this phase where I was testing everybody for handedness by having them throw to throw balls and you do different things. So I could see the difference between fine motor and gross motor. Well, so it turns out, and she's been playing right-handed her whole life, and she was like almost 13 years old, she's been playing for six years, but then it turns out she's actually fine motor... Right and gross motor left. So I tried or out playing left-handed for a little bit, and while the potential for being better when she's 15 existed, probably there's an equal chance of a core injury this year, so I think once the musculature has been developed to a certain point and they're starting to get into puberty, I wouldn't change it after puberty, if they've been a player and they've developed... 'cause once your musculature is used to driving your forehand that way and pull in your back in that way, I don't think it's wise to change after a certain age, and I couldn't tell you what that age is, but I think it has more to do with how much time has been spent developing those strokes, those patterns that musculature, 'cause in that first attempt and having her start to play left-handed, she was already having some soreness.
0:39:46.8 Bill Patton: Yeah.
0:39:47.3 Jack broudy: According to the stuff I study, the Rudolf Steiner stuff, the scientist I studied, he says that you don't really recognize which side dominance you are until you're about five or six years old, he said you're basically in the extras... Till you're four or five years old, and then almost like overnight, you would discover, Oh, I'm better at throwing with my left or right hand, and then you become one side dominant. He said that that was always in the beginning of the end. Onto become one side dominant, you actually lose your bit of athleticism when you lose this embittered, which is why so many great athletes start when they're two and three pushy parents, golf or tennis or whatever it might be, there is some rationale to the pushy parent who starts their kid very young, because they're still ambidextrous and they can be molded a little bit more equally as a player, so that's what I was always told right around five years old is when may become one side dominant.
0:40:49.6 Bill Patton: Interesting, interesting. Yeah, I can't really speak to that except to say, if I haven't met a kid over the age of seven who it isn't determined, but I meet some five-year-olds who pick up the rack one day, one way one day, when the next day they're doing something else... And then we test them out and it's indeterminate, so we're just, Okay, play left-handed today, 'cause that's what it looks like you wanna do. So yeah, it does, it settles out, but I don't have a lot of data on that, but I am reading a book and I think everybody should read if they're involved in the teaching or learning of tennis, and that's atomic habits. And so in that, he affirms that early starter thing, but now are starting early, doesn't have to look like three hours on the core today, it could just be Here, let's roll some tennis balls on the court, you take your racket, let's play some hockey on the court, with the racket, 'cause that's a tennis-like activity that will support some technique and some in-flow. So I don't use the phrase hand-eye coordination, I say I hand flow.
0:42:18.3 Bill Patton: Gotcha. Because the eye comes first, the eye comes first, the processing through the brain, and then what you want... You want your hand to flow, you want low performance, as soon as you say coordination, then people think that they have to somehow manage that. Right. Have you ever hired people say, I'm uncoordinated. Sure. I'm like, So what? You fall down. Walking down the street for no good reason. I, I like what vibrato used to say, if you can get the water fountain thing to go in your mouth, you can play tennis.
0:43:01.3 Jack broudy: That's funny, I don't remember that, but I do remember a
0:43:04.3 Bill Patton: You, the water on and the water goes in your mouth, you can play tennis, so I think it's an interesting thing because I think what happens is people use that word coordination, and then that means that they think that they're supposed to think their way through how all this stuff happens, and that's another thing I really like about Brody tennis, is the whole concept of the sign wave and the different shapes that people can hit the ball. And one thing I often say is, obey the 45, 'cause sometimes you get this, you get people and they go like this, and then they go... And I'm like, Oh, well, you didn't obey the 45... The 45 wants to go there. ENSO did my ball go in the dead. Well, it's because of your broken figure
0:44:03.1 Jack broudy: At it. I like that. Yeah, no. Well, it's nice to her, it's always nice to hear other people's take on the three fundamentals that I like to espouse... Let's put it that way.
0:44:15.0 Bill Patton: Yeah, no, yeah, I'm a huge fan, as you know, of your work, and I don't pretend to be a source of technique per se, I pretty much send everybody to you because in my mind, your system encapsulates everything, everybody needs to start with, for sure. And then there's the opportunity to keep learning are infinite after that.
0:44:48.3 Jack broudy: Well, it's nice just say, I appreciate that and I feel pretty much the same way. You can be agate or you can be better, and to me, I still see the same fundamentals, even though some of the nuance is different between the two guys say when the dog... But you see it there. You see it all there, but Bill, I really appreciate it. I know you got lots of things do here these days, so I will let you go, but I appreciate that was a lot of fun and very informative.
0:45:17.0 Bill Patton: Awesome, and I just wanna do the shameless plug of visual training for tennis, which is the book that covers the visual aspects, and later this year, I'm doing a lot of research to get a book out about neuro-science as it comes to learning sports, so that's taking a lot of work because
0:45:38.9 Jack broudy: I saw that on Facebook, I think just yesterday, actually, or they go some... Well, yeah, please, any links you can send us or pictures you'd like to include in this... I will definitely do so. And if people wanna find you, they'll be able to find you. Perfect.
0:45:56.9 Bill Patton: Thank you, Jack. Thank brainwashing. Thanks for watching people
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