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.