How many players over the years have had success with unorthodox techniques?

It would be easier to list those who have been top players and been totally orthodox! That's because the human body is tremendously variable between people. We move differently. We think differently.

On top of this variation is the opinions of the different coaches you will experience as you play. Everyone likes to have a say from club and school coach to parent and even higher levels. There are many coaches at different levels of skill with many ideas on how to help you.

The only way to unpick all that is to be your own coaching manual.

That means listening to advice from everywhere, soaking up ideas and then seeing if it can work for you. Something that works for Kevin Pietersen might be perfect for you too. Or, it could be totally wrong.

The trick is to be mindful, to test and retest things and use what works for you, even if it doesn't work for someone else.

The bad news is that this is a long, tough journey. Nobody can give you tips that will help with that. It comes from experience, it comes from failure and ultimately it comes from repeated success. So by all means build on the experience and ideas of others, but when it boils down to it, the only person who can write your manual is you.

That's why, if you look hard enough, you will see plenty of conflicting advice here on PitchVision Academy. We are not being inconsistent, we just know that different things work for different people. All our advice is valid. It's up to you to work out if the advice is valid for you personally.

Let us know how you go.