Last November I wrote an article on the parallels between tennis (my chosen sport) and trading. Of course, I don’t make money playing tennis, but both activities have a very important place in my life. And curiously, almost every time I take a lesson with my coach, I see more parallels between proper tennis technique and proper trading. Today was a case in point.
My coach, appropriately named Victor, was instructing me on the one-handed backhand. The key to a one-handed backhand is early preparation (shoulder turn and full backswing) and a very smooth and consistent stroke that meets the ball out in front without turning the shoulders much.
Victor says, “Trust your preparation and trust your stroke and don’t pay much attention to what one’s opponent might be doing. If the ball comes back, just do the same thing again.”
My default backhand is nothing like that and neither is my attitude about the result of the shot.
After hitting literally thousands of badly conceived backhands, I developed an improvised technique, now burned into muscle memory, that tries to get the job done in a much more awkward, inefficient and ineffective way.
Instead of early preparation I wait until the last minute to bring the racquet back. This makes for a hurried backswing and a lurching forward thrust that cannot be properly timed.
Instead of hitting through the ball, which imparts direction, pace and topspin to the shot, my racquet slides across the ball from left to right as I rotate my shoulders and torso like a spinning top. In other words, the shot has lots of angular momentum but little forward momentum. Therefore, it rarely goes where I intend.
Why am I telling you all this? Because the same thing happens to traders.
Early preparation means not improvising one’s trades. It means knowing your setups clearly so that you can predict in advance where you will get in if the market gets there.
Trusting your stroke means perfect execution without waiting for “confirmation, and not worrying about whether the trade will work this time or not. If it doesn’t work out, then take the next setup.
Now I know another reason why I love tennis so much. It truly makes me a better trader.
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