Word: bradenism
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Psychology is the softest of the sciences Braden uses in coaching. Physics and physiology also play important roles. His lectures are sprinkled with such terms as force vectors and parabolas, as he explains why he recommends certain strokes and movements. "The ball doesn't know if you are hitting forehand or backhand," he says, "or if you're wearing your lucky shorts. It only knows how the racquet meets it. You can't violate the physical laws because Mother Nature will get you every time...
Working with Gideon Ariel, an Israeli ex-Olympic athlete and computer expert, Braden has wired people and fitted out his tennis courts with high- speed cameras, sensors and other gadgets that feed data into computers. His goal is to discover what really happens while an athlete is in action, and to use that knowledge to improve performance. An example: although Braden is a foremost advocate of top spin in tennis, he has proved, contrary to conventional wisdom, that tennis players who roll their racquets "over" the ball to impart top spin not only waste energy but also unnecessarily risk "tennis...
...third of seven children of an impoverished Appalachian coal miner who moved north to seek work, Braden was born and raised in the industrial town of Monroe, Mich. On his way to play football one day, Vic, then 11, passed the local tennis courts just as someone opened a can of balls. "You could hear the fizz," he recalls. "I could smell the rubber. It was an amazing kind of olfactory thing. I made up my mind I wanted one of those things...
Next day he returned to the courts and was caught pilfering balls that sailed over the fence by Lawrence Alto, Monroe's recreation-tennis director. "You're going to jail," said Alto menacingly, "or you're going to learn this game." Braden opted for lessons...
Even then, Braden had the temerity to question his coaches' instructions. As a local newspaper columnist wrote, "Vic Braden is the best tennis player ever to come out of Monroe, but he was pretty hard to handle." His penchant for analysis surfaced early. He made pinholes in 3-by-5 cards, then peered through them at athletes in action. "I was isolating segments of their bodies," he explains, "the hips, the thighs, to see how they moved during play...