Can I improve my hand-eye co-ordination in my 50s?

Q I want to learn how to play tennis but have absolutely no hand-eye co-ordination and was told persistently by my PE teacher at school that I was not co-ordinated, so I never played any sports. Watching Wimbledon each year I long to learn how to play tennis, but have been put off because of this so far.

I read your book when it came out and I started running. I was amazed I could do it and get so fit in the process, especially because I am in my 50s. Can I apply the same grit to tennis or should I just stick with the running?

A Here's the thing: at this stage of your adult life, even with the hand eye co-ordination of Andy Murray, you are never going to play at Wimbledon. Neither am I, but that doesn't stop me pretending in my most intensely competitive tennis playing moments that I just might.

Before you spend a fortune investing in expensive coaching, there are some lessons in hand-eye co-ordination which I suggest you take on board. The first is to disregard everything that your mean games teacher ever said to you.

Teachers who use phrases like, “You have no hand-eye co-ordination” or “You are malco-ordinated” should be fired. What a terrible thing to be labelled with as a little girl and to have spent your whole life believing. It’s time to prove her wrong. Hand-eye co-ordination may be partly genetic but can be immeasurably improved upon with practice.

Hand-eye drills

The only thing required for this hand-eye drill is a tennis ball. All you need to do is play a simple game of catch. If the prospect is making you panic because you can’t throw and catch a tennis ball – and I blame your games teacher if you are – start with the following exercise, which also happens to be great training in grit.

Take the tennis ball in one hand and throw it against a wall and catch it with the other hand and keep doing this over and over again. You can let it bounce on the ground too if you like, which will give you more time to catch it. Start really close to the wall and gradually move farther away as you improve.

Imagine Don Bradman – the great Australian cricket batsman – in his back yard as a kid with a golf ball and a cricket stump hitting it over and over and over again against a water tank. He may have been born with superior hand-eye skills, but that gritty practice drill he did daily for hours on end catapulted his talent into another stratosphere. So channel Don when you are outside throwing a tennis ball against a wall for 10 minutes . . . an hour . . . and visualise yourself winning Wimbledon!

You’ve got the stomach for this because you have already mastered the art of running, which means you have a high tolerance for repetitive and boring activities. And can do things on your own.

Once you are confident throwing the ball against the wall, it’s time to graduate to playing catch with one of your kids, grandkids, your partner or the whole family. Start standing relatively close together and make the gaps between you grow as your catching improves.

Use the tennis ball and relish the company of others in this infinitely less lonely drill! If you must, start with a bigger ball and catching with two hands, but you want to aim to be able to play catch with a tennis ball. Each hand catching. Each hand throwing. Once you can do this comfortably in the hand you use to write with, you are ready to learn tennis.

Completing the thing

The thing with grit – using Angela Duckworth’s definition of grit as meaning passion and perseverance for long-term goals – is that when you persevere with something, it will get you so much farther than you imagine no matter what level of base talent you started with. So much further. Especially when that perseverance sees you through to completing the thing.

I think it was Woody Allen who said that the key to success with writing a script or a play or a book, is that if you can distinguish yourself from the crowd simply by being one of the rare few who persevere with it till it's finished, you will probably end up getting published. Maybe not the first time, but keep at it long enough – writing full length plays/scripts/novels – and you are going to get there.

To persevere means to keep going even when it’s really tough, especially when it’s really tough, which for aspiring writers is persevering through the never-ending middle.

For you, it’s throwing that ball against that wall until you can catch it, despite feeling silly and tired and lonely – and that it’s all impossible and pointless. Perseverance is not giving up no matter what until we get there, in your case to a position where you can play a game of tennis. When perseverance meets passion you get a Wimbledon champion like Murray.

The fact that you are into running is awesome because the fitness and stamina you have built up, and being more nimble from carrying around less weight, will make tennis all the more enjoyable.

Who knows how far your tennis passion will lead? But once you have got over this hand-eye co-ordination hurdle, how far you take it, and how much you get out of it, will depend on how much grit you are willing to unleash.

The Grit Doctor says

One other thing: Get your eyes tested. You’d be amazed how poor eyesight makes clumsy clots of us all.