How to find a good coach

  Coaching tennis is a funny gig. I could be a good player & have absolutely no coaching experience, get some business cards made up, walk into a club and Bang! I'm coaching 35 hrs a week making good money. Other professionals like accountants,  dental hygienists or even golf pros all pay mandatory fees to some kind of association and they must attend certain professional development opportunities each year to maintain their status. For tennis pros, some clubs make it mandatory to take a weekend course to get certified, some don't. 

  When looking for a good tennis pro, try asking the students of the pro you're interested in some questions like:

1. do you have fun ?

2.  do you hit lots of balls? 

3. are you physically active?

4. does the coach listen to your needs?

5. is there good feedback?

 Look for a coach who asks you questions like, "What level are you?" and " What can I help you with?" You want a pro who listens to your response and asks some follow up questions like: "when you say you're having trouble with your BH do you mean when you rally or when you return serve?" Beware of the coach who thinks they know what you need without asking anything after only "rallying" with you for a minute.

The USTA did some stats a while back on why people stop taking tennis lessons. The #1 reason was the coach tried to change them. If you're doing "major surgery" in your first lesson and you haven't agreed to it.. you're with the wrong coach. 

You want a coach who gives you specific targeted feedback on one thing at a time. Beware the coach who barfs out 7 different things you're doing wrong in your first three shots. Great coaches will highlight your correct performance rather than continually harp on what you're doing wrong.

Ask lots of questions of your coach. Good coaches will gladly answer how what they are teaching you connects to the "big picture" of how your game is developing.

25 years of coaching experience doesn't always mean you've got a great coach. It might mean 25 years of doing the same old thing. Tennis is constantly evolving and so are coaching methodologies. 

Ideally, you want to find a coach who respects coaching education and is curious about finding new ways to improve player performance. But most of all you want to learn the game from someone who makes it fun!

Using Video to Improve Player Performance

Improvements in technology are making video analysis more and more popular. I've been using video for a while and recently I've begun to upload video to individual player websites for charting and measuring technical/tactical goals.

 I'm using an extendable pole with a tripod head and some hooks welded to the side. This makes it easier to get a much higher view of the court to record tactics. 

 Anyone can be very effective using video analysis without Dartfish. I've heard pros say they are reluctant to use video because they don't have it. Dartfish is expensive, has a steep learning curve, only PC based, has too many versions (only the most expensive version has decent features) & doesn't accept Quicktime files (like those from TennisOne).  Bottom line, Dartfish has a lot of bells & whistles but if you know how to breakdown video, that's most import skill that players appreciate, not just fancy graphics.

Instant on-court video feedback is a great way for players to see how well they're implementing tactics. So get out there and use that camera!

Cheers! 

Neil

If interested, the ITF recently reviewed a DVD I produced with Wayne Elderton on developing young players. here's the link:

 http://www.tennisplayandstay.com/newsletter.html

The promo video:

Some pics of the set-up. Coming soon.. mini laser projector hooked up to laptop to better show video. Can be projected on floor or curtain up to 60 inches.. Also looking to customize a laptop platform that can be hooked up to ball cart..

Tennis is an open skill?

Tennis is not diving. Diving involves performing precise movements at the perfect time. There is no decision making, perception or reaction in diving. Much like tennis is not the "forehand" or the "backhand". Model based coaching teaches players the stroke as if it were like performing a dive. The problem with model based coaching is tennis is an open skill and diving is a closed skill. Open skill meaning players have to constantly react to changing situations.

Some believe the game based approach is just about playing games and ignores technique. The (GBA) uses technique as a way to improve tactics. There is no one size fits all stroke in tennis. Technique and tactics are never separated in modern coaching.

Thanks for reading

Holistic-Global Approach?

Tennis involves much more than technique. The game based approach also incorporates mental, physical & tactical elements. These elements are not trained separately but instead are all interconnected. For example, a player may be struggling with a certain forehand groundstroke. That player may look to a coach for help and traditionally that coach may bring out the basket, feed a few balls to the players forehand and look for technical issues. The players problem may be completly unrelated to technique. What if the player had been repeatedly told they were a choker on the big forehand put-a-way? That mental conditioning could lead to a physical "tightening up" during the shot. What if the player was just using the wrong tactic? The player may be trying the wrong forehand in the wrong situation. The point being, without observing the player in the situation, the coach can't determine which is the weak link in the chain. Tactics, Technique, Mental or Physical.

Upcoming,

Tennis is an open skill..

Learner-Centered?

A learner-centered approach does not assume that all people learn the same way. Some people are more visual, some are more auditory, and some are more kinesthetic learners. Just because a coach may have a vast pool of tennis knowledge may not make them great coaches. Without an understanding of how people learn the student won't receive the information. Learner centered also means to be systematic. There needs to be a plan for learning. It is not just to rally with a student and give "tennis tips." A learner centered coach always looks for "buy in" from the player when teaching. To explain why they are learning things as opposed to a teacher-centered coach who tells the student, and the student just accepts, no questions asked and if the player is having problems, it must be the players problem, not the coach...

Coming up next..

#3. The Global or Holistic Approach

Thanks for reading.

Neil Parker - GBA Tennis

Game Based?

The GBA contains four components :

1. Tennis is Game Based

2. GBA uses a learner centered or learner "first" philosophy

3. There are four elements that players need to train - Tactics, Technique, Physical & Mental. This is sometimes referred to as a Global or Holistic/Performance Approach

4. Tennis is a open skill

Let's start with #1 - Tennis is Game Based.

Tennis is a game, therefore it has strategies and tactics. For a beginner a tactic could be to get the ball higher over the net to keep it deep and to make less errors. For a pro it could be mixing up speed, spin, height to compete against a player with a higher tempo and better groundstrokes.

Think of tennis as a cross between olympic diving and chess. Tennis involves a great deal of thinking and players have to perform complex physical tasks. With the GBA, players learn how to solve tactical problems using their technique. Rather than learning a series of "strokes" and having no clue how, when & where to use them. Teaching strokes only, is like teaching your students to be divers. They will be able to perform one specific task in one specific situation but won't know it's relationship to the entire game of tennis.

The GBA modifies the court, balls and equipment using progressions rather than basket feeding real balls to beginners at the baseline.

In my next post I'll describe #2 - A learner centered philosophy.

Look for more videos soon!

What is the game based approach?

I started coaching as a teenager while I was playing and after finishing a college tennis scholarship in Oklahoma I got into coaching more full time. After 10 years of coaching I started to get bored. My students were improving OK I guess but I got tired of saying the same thing with the same old results. I started to wonder if this was the right career for me. I thought about taking higher levels of certification but, I was busy, I was making good money, I was popular. Yet still, I was starting lose my passion for what I was doing. I decided to take a level 1  Tennis Canada certification course. The course is based on a methodology developed by Louis Cayer, (who is now the coach of Jamie Murray and part time with Andy Murray at the LTA-more on Louis later). anyway the course completely changed my views on coaching tennis. The paradigm shift was incredible. My players began to improve faster and with greater depth. The logic of the methodology brought back my passion for coaching and gave me a new sense of confidence in what I was teaching.

 I later developed an interest video production and am now combining the two. I have been producing videos for Tennis Canada for a few years now and I'm now starting my own series of videos on the game based approach. I'll go into greater detail about the GBA in this blog and perhaps more importantly through the use of video..Check out my web site preditor.ca or watch my videos on youtube and facebook. Also using Twitter for some GBA tips.
More coming soon!

Cheers
Neil

First Post

Hey Welcome to my blog about the game based approach