Forward Weight Transfer and Swing

The second step of the serve progressions is to learn how to transfer your weight properly and rotate your body over the course of your upward swing. In the previous video we worked on swing up at the tennis ball, but we’re going to initially table that motion while we practice the weight transfer and body turn. So just leave the tennis racket resting on your shoulder.

At 25 seconds in the video we look at my starting body position. I’m in the Party Stance. My front foot is angled diagonally into the court, my back foot is behind my front foot and parallel with the baseline. My body is sideways to the net. Also, all the weight is on my back foot and the toes of my front foot are up.

From this position, I have to do two things. I simultaneously transfer my weight to my front foot and rotate my upper body toward the net. I perform this motion at about 45 seconds in the video. When I transfer my weight to my front foot, the heel of my back foot comes up.

Once you master the weight transfer and body turn, you can add the swing back into the motion. From the original starting position – the party stance with all the weight on my back foot – I transfer my weight to my front foot, rotate my body toward the net, swing up on edge and then pronate.

The reason we separated these two motions – the weight and body turn from the swing – is that you don’t want one motion negatively impacting the other as you learn.