The two-handed backhand is a reliable, steady eddy stroke that you got to have if you're a two-handed backhand player. In this video, we're going to go over the key components of making sure you're tuning a backhand is steady and consistent, and then you have the ability to take it and make it a weapon. 

The first big misconception, I think that a lot of players have when it comes to the two-handed backhand is that a lot of the stroke is just done with the arm and because of that, they don't have power and consistency. In this video, we're going to go over the first main concept to really help you understand this, which is learning how to use your body. Your body is the engine of your stroke. 

And if you don't know how to use your body on your two-handed backhand, what's going to happen is you're going to always have a weak two-handed backhand. Maybe you'll be able to get the ball in, but you won't be able to get anything on it. And that's not what you want. You want a backhand that's going to have both power and consistency. 

Like I said, the number one concept is learning how to use your body, and you might be asking, How do I use my body on my two-handed backhand? It's really simple. What I want you to think of is your body like a spring. And as I coil the spring, I'm going to uncoil the spring.

And even in this motion here, just watch how I took the racquet back without moving my hands. I just took the racquet back, and then I pulled the racquet forward by just turning my shoulders. So you can really see how the separation of turning my shoulders to take the racquet back and then uncoiling and turning my shoulders will take the racquet almost all the way through.

So there's not a big swing needed on the two- handed backhand. So this now is really important because it gives you the ability to now take the racquet back just by turning your shoulders and then swinging through the ball. Now that's the first core element that I need you to understand to have a great two-handed backhand. 

The next thing is how do I hold the racquet? The most widely used combination for the two-handed backhand is having a continental grip on the bottom hand and an eastern or semi western, on the top hand. So let me show you how to find that pretty much with your bottom hand. You want to grab the racquet as if you're chopping with a hammer or nailing a nail with the hammer.

 And this will put this pad right here on not the top flap, but if you go over to the right because I'm a right handed player on the second flat, which will put you in that nice chopping position with the left hand, we want to take this pad and put it slightly behind or under the racquet.

But let me show you how, because you don't want to go too far under. If I'm counting the flats of the racket, you have the top flat and I'm going around to the left side now you have flat number one, flat two, flat three. That would be great for Eastern. And then you have this flat right here, which is great for semi western. 

And that's the combination you want to have with your two-handed backhand. The thing about having an eastern grip, on the top hand, allows you to really drive through the ball a little bit more. Having a semi western allows you to brush up a little bit more. 

Now, this doesn't mean you can't drive with a semi western grip, and you can't hit spin with an eastern grip, on the top hand, but it does lend to driving through the ball if you have a little bit more of an eastern grip. On the top hand, now that you understand the grip and you understand the take back of how we'll have this grip and we'll take the racket back. 

The next thing is what's going to happen at contact and how do we get to contact? The biggest concept that I want you to understand for tennis is the racket face is going to send it and the racket path is going to bend the ball, meaning adding spin.

So wherever the ball goes on, the court is going to come from what angle the racket faces at contact. If you're hitting balls in the net, it's because when you're swinging your racket faces to close if you're hitting balls too long is because your racket faces too open. 

Now with that, the path is now how we come up on the ball or drive straight through the ball. Now what I mean by this is the path of my swing is going to dictate the bend of the ball, meaning that the more my path comes up as I'm swinging, the more spin that's going to be applied to the ball. If my path is pretty straight as they come through, more drive is going to be coming through the ball and there's different variations in different levels of spin versus drive. 

You may be in a defensive situation and guess what? You need a lot more spin to send the ball higher and buy yourself time. Maybe an offensive situation where you might take the ball early. You might want to drive through the ball to make sure your opponent doesn't have time to get to the ball. And that's why it's important that you realize that there's a ton of different swing paths to have a great backhand. 

There's no one single swing path that's going to make you have a great backhand. Really, what it comes down to is recognizing the situation and then creating the path that you need for that situation, and that's how you become a much better player.

So now we put everything together, one we use our body to take the racquet back.Two we're going to create the path depending on the ball, meaning I'm going to get under the ball if I want to get more spin and then,three, I'm going to uncoil making sure contact that my strings are facing where I want the ball to go and then I'll have the racquet come all the way around to the finish here. This is the key to having a reliable, solid two-handed backhand. If you go out and practice it using the action steps, I'm about to show you, you're going to be able to go out on the court and reliably count on your backhand to get the ball back and play. And not only that, if you can drive through the ball, you can now have a weapon on your backhand side as well. 

Now it's time to take some action on your two-handed backhand. The thing we're going to focus on mainly is how to use your body, because that generates the most power and consistency when you're using your two-handed backhand. 

So the very first thing I want you to do is start up in a ready position just like this and then take your racquet back. Now, think about it from here. How would we get our racquet to move to the contact without moving our arms? Remember when the biggest mistakes players are making is that they're moving their arms to get to the ball instead of? Using their body.

So from here, if you just put your racquet on your hip, just like this again, think about how would I get my racket to the contact point? What I would do is turn my hips. You see, by turning my hips, I don't even have to move the racquet, and this is the action I want to get it used to. 

So I want you to go ahead and do this rep as if you're turning your hip to get the bracket to the ball at least five to eight times. We feel really comfortable just turning your hip and realizing how and what has to happen. Meaning that my back heel has to come up on my leg and I'm turning my hips from here. 

After you do those repetitions, you can take your racquet and pull it off your body and then now do the exact same thing. But now let your arm go with your hip. And now you can see how the rack is moving even faster, and I'm just focusing on turning my hip now with this last progression that we're doing right now, I want you to get in the habit of turning your hip and then once you're past contact, letting the arms relax and go all the way around. And this is the sequence that we're going to start really working on to making sure that we have a solid two-handed backhand.

Again, starting from here. Turning my hips and letting the racket go through. Now we're getting to hitting the ball. I want you to do the exact same thing, but now you're going to take the ball and have it in your opposite hand. 

You're going to drop it and then just focus on turning the hips and letting the arm go around. At first, this may seem awkward that you have to drop it and then focus on turning your hips because you'll notice how it doesn't take as much power once you feel more comfortable.

 But you can start doing is really accelerating your hips, not your arms. It's really important to you. Understand that you want to accelerate your hips through the ball, not your arms, by just swinging just with your arms.

By doing this and understanding your hips generate the power. Now you have this huge weapon on your backhand side as your hips move faster. 

Your racquet is going to move faster. And the only thing you need to do to adjust how high or low the ball goes is adjust the racquet face.

 So in summary, number one, the key to having a great two-handed backhand is remembering that you have to use your body. It's not an arm stroke where you're just going to use your arm to hit the ball. You're going to turn your body back to coil and then you're going to turn your body all the way around to uncoil using your hips to pull the racket all the way around.

And this is how it makes it so much easier to get power and consistency because your arms aren't having to do a lot of the work so you can relax and control the racquet face, which leads me to number two, having the right grip combination.

 If you have the incorrect grip combination, it makes it harder to control the racket facing. You can see how these two things work together. Not only that, if you have a really poor grip combination, it may also be hard for you to get the racket under the ball and control the racket face by having a great grip combination. 

You'll be able to now swing on multiple paths depending on the situation you need, but also make sure that the racket face is looking where you want it to be looking at contact. And that's why it's so important. If you understand the racket face and the racket path at contact, then guess what? You'll be able to make corrections. If you feel like that you're not getting the ball you want. 

And this is the key by understanding the core fundamentals of why the ball is going, where it goes and how to create power and consistency, you'll always be able to make adjustments to make sure you're solid and consistent when you're on the court with your two-handed backhand.