Being realistic about improving your squash

One thing I have learned is there is no overnight success in squash. There is only one way to reach the top level and that is hard work. There are no quick wins or shortcuts! Also to really improve you have to accept that there is always a better way to do whatever you are doing. Even world top 10 players continue to change and improve their games. Read these words by World # 7 (as of 2003) Ong Beng Hee:

... Beng Hee has not been performing well in the professional circuit recently. He crashed out in the first round of the US and British Open.

“I am in the midst of changing my technique. I could have reached the quarter-finals with the old technique,” said Beng Hee, who is now ranked seventh in the world.
“But what's the use of that. I don't want to be in the top eight in the world anymore. I want to be in the top four.
“There are weaknesses in my old technique and the top four players are exploiting on them to beat me. It's going to take about six months to fully adapt to the changes.

This means you are constantly changing old ways and learning new techniques and strategies. Any pro has spent thousands of hours in the squash court to get where they are.

I asked Sarah Fitzgerald (former world #1) from her webpage what it takes to become an A player? Her answer was that the most important thing is "quality" over the "quantity" of training. She agreed that with focused training of two hours per day , one should be able to move up one level, such as from C to B in one year. So based on that it would roughly take 500 hours a year to move between levels, so 2500 hours of time on the court to get to A level squash.

Now you can begin to see why it takes the average club player who only plays 2 hours a week, almost 25 years to reach A level squash!

It is possible to achieve rapid progress in the game initially. One can go from D to C player fairly quickly as long as one has basic fundmentals and understands the concept of hitting the ball to the back corners. But to go from C and beyond takes a lot of hard work as the competition becomes much tougher and more experienced. In the D level the competition is mostly players who hardly know anything about the game yet have been playing it for a long time. So simple knowledge about the game and basic strategy is enough to get you above the D level into C. Beyond that takes hard work and tons of practice!

It is also common for your game to hit a plateau where you are not improving despite practising hard. To break the plateau you need to have a Pro analyze your game to tell you how to get into the next level. My game hit a plataeu after 6 months of training. I went to Chicago to get a lesson with Pro Nathan Dugan (former world top 50). He pointed out that I was hitting the ball too hard and low. I needed to aim higher and softer. Also my backhand stroke was too complicated and needed to be shorter and simpler. So I went back to the drawing board. As a result, my game suffered for around a month. But soon Nathan's advice slowly creeped into my game and I broke into the next level of squash.