10sKidz Fall Update

Fall is always one of my favorite times of year. I love seeing the yellow and red leaves of the trees lining Central. I also love the gratitude that is in the air during this time of year.  There is nothing like wearing your warm-ups on those chilly mornings.

It seems that even though the year is coming to an end, it is still a time for new beginnings. The new school year, new sports seasons, and new fall classes. This fall definitely exceeded my expectations. We had a group of girls form a Junior Team Tennis Team, Team Svadhyaya Sport (Svasport). We also had two students take their practice to new levels by playing in  the NET (non-elimination tournaments).  We helped three of our students transition to other coaches who specialize in high performance training. We saw one of our former students perform very well in USTA sanctioned events. She always gets compliments on her serve. One of our mantras is,"Always make it look good because you never know who is watching."

We have had a very successful turnout in our Red Ball Learn to Rally Classes at Encanto Park. This program is the foundation of what we do. Teaching students from simple to complex and allowing them to master the skills that will last a lifetime. 

I could not be more grateful for the opportunity to connect with so many and be their first contact on the road to mastery in the game of tennis.

Serving: Never Miss into the Net Again

When we teach the serve we teach students they have five things they need for it to be successful. The first is technique, the second is get the ball up and over the net, the third is get the ball in the right box, fourth is to move the ball around the service box, and fifth is spin and pace.  After technique getting the ball over the net is critical or you will have a hard time starting a point. To get the ball over the net one must hit UP on the ball, not down.  When you practice, pretend you are serving over a 12 foot wall. This will help you keep your chin up and guarantee you are getting the net clearance you need.

Better Backboard Practice

Hitting against a backboard or a wall is always a fun way to practice on your own. Practicing against a backboard or wall should be done so that it mimics a real rally. Instead of letting the ball bounce once, allow the ball to bounce TWICE. This will give you time to set up and not rush your swing.

Team Svasport

Watching our students grow over the years is one of the biggest gifts. This year we have four of our students join the Junior Team Tennis with the USTA. Junior team tennis is an opportunity for kids to play singles and doubles against other teams for a six week season. It is a great starter or complement to entering tennis tournaments.   The girls have really come together in four short weeks. The amount of playing time gives them confidence in playing tennis. If you are looking for a great way for your child to get valuable playing experience, to learn from their peers, and apply their skills, junior team tennis is very valuable.  The junior team tennis experience is also very cost effective. Players get to play for six weeks for the cost of two tournaments. Check out https://www.ustaphoenix.com/ for more information if you are interested.

Successful Rallies

It is not uncommon for kids, and adults for the matter, to struggle to keep the ball in a rally when they first start. Whether you are playing points or just trying to hit the ball back and forth, here are some ways you can have success. Keep in mind, these strategies require you to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. We want to remember that tennis is sending and receiving. We also want to modify the game so you can develop a particular skill. 

Ways to keep the ball in a rally

1. Instead of a net, use a rope or caution tape. If the ball goes under, that is fine, use a rolling rally or dribbling.

2. Play two bounce tennis.

3. A person can trap or catch the ball and drop hit back

4. A person can trap or catch the ball and toss the ball back

5. A person can perform a two hit rally, where they tap the ball to themselves and then lift the ball over. 

Tennis Tip to get topspin

Tennis is  a game of sending and receiving. Here are several games your child can play anywhere that will help them develop the skills to be a better player.
The Rolling Rally
The rolling rally is a great way to develop the skill of being friends with the ball and getting the ball to roll forward. When a ball rolls forward, that is called topspin and when applied to ball in the air, the topspin will pull the ball into the court. The rolling rally will also help your child drop the racket head low and roll the racket head (forearm). 

If you continue to practice this one day you will be stroking the ball like the top players in the world and it will look like this.

Choosing the right tennis racket

How do you select a tennis racket? Will any tennis racket work? The answer to the second question is easy, it depends on how you answer the first question.

When selecting a tennis racket, the first thing to do is consider the grip size. That is how big the handle is in proportion to your hand. If the grip handle is too big you may have a hard time keeping your serve grip when serving. You may also have to squeeze the handle tighter causing your arm to get tired (Woods, 2018).  If your handle is too small, you can end up with a sore arm because you can not grip the racket tight enough. 

The grip sizes for rackets are 4, 4 1/8, 4 1/4, 4 3/8, 4 1/2, 4 5/8, or 4 3/4 inches. To find the grip that will work best for you, wrap your dominant hand around the grip. Then slide your other hand index finger into the space. If you can only fit one finger, it is the perfect size. If you can fit more than one finger, it's too big. If you cannot fit a finger in, you need to go up in size. 

When selecting the length of the racket, you will be choosing from 19,21,23,25,26,27 or 29 in.

For most kids we are going to use a 19-25 inch racket. You can determine this by seeing if they can rest their palm on the end cap of the racket like they are holding a cane (Tennis companion, 2016). If they have a straight arm comfortably, then it is fine. If their arm is bent or they cannot reach the end cap, well you can figure that one out. 

These two tips should empower you to help your child as they grow as a tennis player when it is time to find their new racket.

tenniscompanion.org/kids-tennis-racquet-sizing. "Selecting the Right Size Kids Tennis Racquet for Your Child."  Date accessed: July 6, 2018

Woods, Ron and Kathy. www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/choose-the-right-tennis-racket. "Choose the right tennis racket." Date accessed: July 6, 2018.

The Power of Obscurity

Over the course of my tennis career there have been times when I was so focused on getting to that top place, the place where I had the attention, I had arrived. I think everyone in some form or another wants the end without the middle. I can remember when I started teaching tennis and wanting it to be a world renowned tennis academy and I did what I could to push for that. What I didn't realize is while the vision is good to have, there is a process. We always tried to act like we were great, but never seemed to get the recognition. The more I pushed, the more I wanted out. The more we became less. 

Over the past five years I discovered something that is not new, but it became a reality to me. The power of obscurity. It is okay to have a small beginning, it is okay to not be known by everyone. Sometimes, if you were known by everyone you wouldn't be ready to handle what that responsibility brings. The key is not to despise the small beginning. Quietly go about your business, being your best and like a magnet people will notice you. 

It is the way we teach our kids to play tennis. They quietly learn how to look good, be friends with the ball, enjoy the feel of the ball on the strings. Over time they develop their skills. When they are ready they may want to play in some junior team tennis or a beginner tournament, not to win, but for the opportunity to play with other kids. 

The key is not to rush your gifts. Stay in obscurity until one day someone notices it. It is okay to be behind the scenes. It is okay to grow your learning. One day when you least expect it you will be the center of attention. People will want what you have. In the mean time, enjoy the secret place of obscurity. Develop the skills, the mindset, the love. Enjoy obscurity.

Be the Connector

One of my most favorite things to do is to be the connector for a supernatural connection.  I am always on the look out for helping others who may have been where I was when I was starting out. If I can connect them with that one person that might push them years ahead, man that is so cool to watch. I love trying to pay it forward. That to me is the greatest feeling. If I can make someone's life easier or better, than we have lived our purpose for the day. Ten and Under Tennis lessons is all about giving. We give instruction, yes. We also teach our students how to teach their friends, their parents, or maybe for a project at school. We believe the best way to learn a concept is to teach it to someone else. When you do that you are more focused and often times you work through the concept together. A great example of this is our Parent and Me class. What is so amazing is, after I have modeled, the parents and child end up teaching or cuing each other. They are in the moment together. After every lesson they are asked what they like most about the lesson. I know they love the learning, the immediate success, but what most of the kids and parents reply is,"I got to spend time with my mom, my child, or be around my friends."  They were actively engaged, in the moment, and succeeding. What happened? Learning took place and it was fun. Learning can be fun.Giving can be fun. That is one of our favorite things to do, give. Another way we give is by giving  free private lessons for any referral. That is our thank you to the parents who provide for their kids and families. That is our thank you for helping to support our mission. So go make connections, you never know the impact that you could have.

Coopetition

One of the elements I have noticed over the years from observing tennis to children is the incorporation of competition through elimination. There is a winner and a loser. If you miss, you sit out. If you lose than you pick up balls, you do push-ups, you run a suicide. What are we teaching our kids? We are teaching them failure is bad. We are teaching them a mindset of duality. This or that. We are teaching them that picking up balls is a punishment and fitness is a punishment. I always thought picking up balls was something everyone did as a part of the group? It was a way for everyone to work together. It is a form of group work. Exercise is not punishment. It is a means to keep us healthy, pliable, and sane.  One of the ways I have used fitness movements to help kids who are off task, have a bad attitude, or disrespectful is to word it in such a way as,"It looks as if you need to burn off some energy to get a little more focused? Why don't you step out and work on your explosiveness by performing burpees for two minutes. Do as many as you can, take a 30 sec break and see what you can do again?"I saw this word "Coopetition" and I want to learn more about what the authors have to say because this defines everything we teach at Ten and Under Tennis Lessons. What I am trying to do is to get the student to focus on their performance. Usually this step out will get them back on track. The key was in my wording. I wanted to focus on what his performance can do for him, not whether or not his performance is causing him to be bad.

The biggest thing I see with competition is that really it is not about winning and losing. How many great sports stars have never won a professional championship? Too many. What they did have was they were able to excel in an area that gave them a platform. They were able to excel in an area that provided for their family and maybe many others as well.  It seems to me, that is a winning situation. When we teach our students to compete, we are teaching them to be friends with the ball. We teach our students to focus on how many times they can get the ball back before they have to start over. We teach our students how they can give each other a great challenge to try to keep the ball in play. The truth of the matter is, winning is about oneness. Are you at one with your activity? Are you calm and peaceful and dedicating to doing what you can that day? If you do, you are winning. I really see a shift coming in sports in the near future. The day is coming when we will start emphasizing total points won instead of who won the match. We will emphasize a tie more than the win or loss.  The focus should not be on the duality, but the oneness. The moment. How can your being out their give you a platform for a cause or provide for your family? For kids, the moment should be not on I won or lost, but look how many times we hit the ball in a row? Look how many times I served the ball in? Look how many times it did my loop forehand or backhand and it went in? Did you see all that topspin on the ball? Awareness to the little things. This is same attitude applies to the high performance player as the recreational player. If I would have been able to adopt this attitude as a college player, I would have enjoyed myself so much more. I would have played better, instead of playing tight like I was in a win/lose situation. Today, I am fighting that battle and working on the process of understanding how to change that duality thinking into understanding that I am really working with the person by trying to make each of us better. It is not the result that matters, but the growth that comes from it.

It's in the Process

Should tennis coaches stress results or the process? Often times I watch tennis classes and I see a results oriented program. One that focuses on winning, competition, and elimination. I went through this very style of tennis when I first started learning. As a matter of fact this formula is how I learned much of any sport or activity in school or extra curricular activity. According to recent research, teaching children using a results based approach where they have to focus on winning and elimination games is really teaching students about failure.  Now, I know failure is an important life event, it is something that we must all learn to overcome. But how many of us quit a sport or activity after a while because we just couldn't do it?

We use a different approach at ten and under tennis lessons. We focus on the process and setting learning goals. For example, we take our students through a process or progression of steps for a particular stroke or skill. We always like to offer feedback of what the student is doing well and remind them to make their finish look good. We always focus on the finish of the stroke because that gives our students an ending point, a target of where they want their racket and body position to be. Through the process we can often see certain students excel at different levels. If some students are excelling at a particular progression, sometimes we have them add in another movement to challenge them more. We are always looking for ways to challenge their learning goals. It is very important that our students are enjoying the process of learning because this will lead to them playing more tennis outside of the tennis lesson. 

Fun does not exist?

What is FUN?  Does FUN really exist? Can you hold FUN? Now let me be clear, I am not saying tennis or any activity we do should not be fun. The key is understanding what fun is. According to Mike Barrell (2006) "Fun is always made up of other things."  Fun is not something you can hold, wear, or even see. Rather, fun is really a mindset that occurs when one is truly in the moment. Think about the last time you went some place or participated in an event that was FUN. Why was it fun? 

Think about that special family vacation you go on every summer. You know, the week long trip where you go to a special campsite or destination. You always like to look and see what is new, but deep down one reason you keep going back is because you will be doing the same things you did last year. Then you think about all the smells that come to mind when you step out. Your mind takes you back to a simpler time. The sites, the sounds, the smells, and maybe even some of the same people you have been seeing for a long time are always there. 

Identifying what makes things fun is so important because it keeps our attention (Barrell,2006). For children, fun is being active, learning something that interests them, being with friends, being creative, seeing their progress, and belonging. In this list I notice three key words. They are BEING, INTEREST, and SEEING.  All three of these have to do with active engagement, being in the present moment, allowing for time to just fly by.  You want to feel as if one hour has been ten minutes. This is the BEING, be present. When kids are present in something that INTERESTS them they get into the flow or the zone. The last key word is SEEING.  To be present in something that is interesting we have to pay attention. Pay attention to the task at hand, watching, taking in what is in the environment. Focus on the most important parts and leave the details out. When you start to recognized this I believe your child will be more instinctive, more aware, and have a greater enjoyment in their daily life. 

Summer is coming!

Summer vacation is less than a week away.  We have some exciting programs planned for this summer. I just want to take a chance and reflect on what we accomplished over this past year. We have been in the process over the past year of redesigning our curriculum. We also discovered some key elements that will allow our classes at Encanto to flow better when we are transitioning classes. One discovery I was really excited about is that Encanto Park is one of only a handful of facilities that has actual 36 foot tennis courts for kids to play on. The courts are lined with nets and also are marked for pickleball.  My hope is to be using these courts for our Learn to Rally Classes this summer and for the future.

Open Stance forehand progression (ITUSA Phx,AZ)

Take the Time

I have heard of tennis coaches and their students who put in 10 or more hours a day practicing and training. While I believe in putting in time to master your craft, I have wonder what these coaches and students are doing that they feel they need to put in ten hours a day.  This game is not that hard, keep the ball deep, attack the short ball. It is more important to be consistent and intentional than to be putting in the long hours. Now, there are times when we need to put in more time. I remember Andre Agassi had fallen to 138 in the world back in 1998.  For one year he recommitted himself to better fitness, mental skills, and training to get back to being one of the elite players in the world. That is fine, when ever we have a particular goal we want to meet, there is nothing wrong with going intense and putting in all of our time into something in the short term. When we meet that goal though, we need to set a schedule and a routine that will allow us to be efficient.  Practicing your skills in practice matches or with a hitting partner for an hour or two every day or every other day can be just as beneficial if there is intention to what you are doing. Remember to take the time to regenerate the body and focus on the mental skills to create the image of success in your mind.

You must keep the ball deep

Slam! Bang! Hope it goes in Sam! 

That is how a lot of recreation players like to play tennis. They try to hit the ball as hard as they can to end the point as fast as they can. Most of the time the ball sails out.  This strategy will never help someone grow as a tennis player.  While you need to be able to hit the ball harder, the better players you play, you must also keep the ball in.  It is very important to develop shots that you will never miss on and work those  shots into a way to get a short ball. Tennis strategy really is not that hard. We like to tell our students keep the ball deep, wait for a short ball, make the winning shot.  When you are first learning to play tennis, that is your number one tactic. You must keep the ball deep. You should aim at least six to ten feet over the net. Most players do not like to play high balls. These high balls will give you time to recover, margin over the net, and in most cases a short ball to come in on. So for today's take home assignment, go out and practice keeping the ball deep by aiming six to eight feet over the net.

Ten and Under Observations: Feelmage

"See it, Feel it, Learn it."

In today's world it is so easy to watch a youtube video or send pictures by social media. We can see the image of a particular way a stroke it done. This is so powerful. The use of slow motion video for before and after is priceless. I want my students to take these tools one step further and  FEEL their strokes. Can they describe what it felt like when they hit that ball just right? Can the recognize or are they aware when they are off or the ball continues to sail long? What corrections can their autonomic nervous system make. By getting our players to feel, really love the feel, of that perfect stroke, we are setting them up to be instinctive players. Our methodology focuses on showing a whole concept and then working backwards in chunks. We want the students to be able to experience the end in mind as they feel their way through each concept we teach.  This idea of feeling the stroke has been influential in our students over the past five years. The biggest impact is in retention. Where I noticed students have retained is when they take two weeks or more off of tennis if they have a holiday vacation or go on a summer vacation.  They usually come back playing better than when they left. I remember how that was the opposite for me when I first was learning tennis, actually, it was the opposite for me in school to. I would come back after summer vacation or time off and I would have to relearn everything as I was a bit rusty.  I feel that the time off allows the students to absorb everything even more. Our system focuses on chunking of information and visualization in short increments over a period of time. That consistency is key because it is developing in them a ritual for success. That ritual is the instinctive movement where they can feel and be aware of their strokes and adjust when they need to.

The Diligent Prosper

I used to think to master a task you needed to focus all of your energy on that one thing by cramming the information into your brain. For example, if I wanted to master a specific area of math, I needed to  cram the night before an exam, or cram for several hours one or two nights per week. What happened though was other areas in my academic career began to suffer. Why was this?  I didn't have balance, an efficient plan, or the best way to focus on a goal.

Over time I have learned the key to learning is applying those skills in small increments over time. Think about doing a math study session for two hours on a Wednesday and then not reviewing it until the next week. You may have a math lesson in school, but often the lessons are different each day. By the time you came back to review the previous study session, most of the learning will have been forgotten. Cramming never works. Football coaches who leave the office at 2:00 am after studying film, baseball players, and even tennis players who feel they need to practice their serve for three to four hours per day can end up with over use injuries, burnout, or volatile performance peaks and valleys.

A better way to describe what is going on is, the diligent prosper. For one to develop mastery they should be applying a certain skill in small increments over time. A person who does this is allowing their mind body connection to absorb the learning into their neurological pathways (unconscious mind) to become more instinctual.  Practicing a particular skill for 15 to 20 minutes a day with focused intensity will allow the mind and body to absorb what is developing. After practice, one should find opportunities to put that skill into practice whether that be practice sets or modified tennis games. There has to be the release of a restricted environment where the student is able to see how instinctual they are becoming.

Develop Rituals

"Rituals are important to tennis because the repetition of enacting each ritual provides a focal point from distraction; a level of comfort and familiarity; and an opportunity to demonstrate reverence for being in the moment, moment to moment."

Mental Benefits of Tennis on Kids

I struggled with self esteem as a teenager because I was always comparing myself to others. When you compare yourself to what others can do and you can't you set yourself up for disappointment. A few years ago I started focusing on trying to win the battle with myself. Winning the battle with yourself is very simply finding those points about an activity or yourself that you do well.  Tennis is a sport that can really help children learn to win the battle with themselves.  Our research conducted is over five years of observed research teaching a few hundred students. Is it exact by a scientific standard, no. However, it still makes a difference because we have observed the changes in students self confidence and desire to play.

One of the first things we teach is for students to love the feel of the ball on the strings. If after every practice or match, regardless of the outcomes, if they loved the feel of the ball on the strings, then they were a success.

We also teach our students to know why they are playing tennis.  When they have a strong why, a reason to want to be out playing with a racket and a ball, they can associate that to their performance instead of the outcome. For example, some students love to come because they get to be in an environment with their friends. If they were able to perform the skills with their friends, then their self-confidence goes up and like a magnet they are attracted to do more tennis.

Another key to winning the battle with yourself is regardless of whether you make or miss a shot, make the finish look good. This occurs mostly in direct instruction, but carries over to independent practice and match play. We always have our students hold the follow through on the forehand, backhand or serve for about two seconds. One, they are learning to play on balance and training their brain and muscle memory.  If they can make the follow through look good, they start developing a positive self image because people will want to play like them.

We have seen how these two keys help students to increase their mental alertness because they are aware of their personal feelings, the environment, and their muscle control. They also end up feeling great overall, one of the ways we know that is they want to return, they go out and teach their parents to play, they invite friends, and they make friends in our classes.

http://www.itftennis.com/scienceandmedicine/health/psychological.aspx (accessed April, 13 2018)