Patrick Mouratoglou is a tennis coach who helped Serena Williams win Grand Slam titles. He now runs tennis camps and publishes videos on Instagram where he shares a moment in a lesson he gave, usually with a teenager.
One lesson I saw stuck with me.
He was teaching a boy with a big forehand how to be consistent and his advice was as soon as you decide you are going to hit a forehand, “turn your shoulders.”
That was the most important thing you could do, Mouratoglou said, because if you don’t, and you first move laterally, the actual swing will be rushed. The sequence should be: decide – turn – move – swing.
In everything we want to do well there is essentially a “first turn your shoulders” moment. It’s the thing we need to do first once we decide to do something well.
For example, if we’re going on a morning run or walk it’s putting our shoes by the door so we don’t need to find them in the dark. If we’re making dinner it’s placing a cookbook on a stand where we can see it easily in the kitchen. When we’re going to sleep, it’s saying a prayer, listing what we are grateful for, or reading a favorite poet, that makes our brain slowly relax.
“Turn your shoulders” is what we must execute first that makes everything that follows go smoothly and in its proper sequence.
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