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Tips
Weaving Techniques
The hardest part of stringing is the weaving of the cross strings. This is also where most of the
mistakes are made with beginners. Everyone has to find their own style and decide which
techniique they want to use.
There are four main ways to weave with many variations. These are pushing, pulling, flicking and
Japanese or what I call the Sewing Machine weaving.
The way I learned in the USA was to
push. This is the easiest methode with
nylon and natural gut strings for most
stringers. With all the polyester strings
today, it is difficult for beginners to do.
You take 1 hand under and 1 hand over
the strings and push away from your body.
In Europe most of the active stringers
started with polys and learned it was easier
to pull a loop towards your body. We teach
total beginners this method first. You use
your fingertips above and below the
stringbed. There are many variations of
this method. The fastest stringers use
2 fingers on each hand.
I have seen a lot of Asian stringers flicking
the tail of the string up and down
stringiing polys. I think they started
with badminton pushing and
found this too hard with thicker strings.
The fourth method is the Japanese style
that takes a small loop and passes it
from one hand to the other. As there are
more movements it is very difficult to
string quickly with this method. The advantage
is that you need little strength and do
not get sore fingers like you do pushing
polys all day.
I will place videos on the website of these techniques to look at regular speed and in slow motion.
If you only string tennis I would recommend to most beginners pulling the loop. Badminton is much
easier pushing the strings. Some Japanese push badminton strings and use the Japanese method
for tennis. Remember, your biggest enemy is friction. Make sure you weave where their is little fric-
tion, best diagonally in the middle of the unstrung stringbed.