Ten and Under Tennis Lessons

Thursday, December 4, 2014

"Nice fall son! That's the way. You look so good!"

It is not a secret that parents love to cheer for their children. Just go to any youth football, baseball, or soccer game and you will see the crazy ones dressed out in their child's team colors and cheering for the child just because he fell down. "Nice fall son! That's the way. You look so good!" That is one of the best things about parents and children's activities. Many parents never see anything bad, they see the good moves in everything. Whether the child falls down or makes a great play.

The same is true in tennis. Over the next few days you will get some keys that will help you be stronger parents and your child be a stronger, more focused, and more excited tennis player. Taken from the latest tennis teaching journal by the Professional Tennis Registry, these are proven lessons that will work.

During a match, be a spectator, not a participant. It is easy to try to play every point with your child through body language, emotions, or worse yet coach the child. This can add stress to the child as they are still learning how to focus on the task at hand and may often be looking to you for comfort, recognition, and praise. Even though parents may think they might be able to diffuse a situation, it is best to let the coaches, referees, or the child handle it the best they know how. Each person here has special training or is learning how to handle conflict. In addition, the parent who acts as coach and tries to solve a conflict on the court may intimidate the other player, thus manipulating the match. You will never know how much your child learned from their practice sessions.

*Tennis Pro Magazine Nov-Dec 2014. Professional Tennis Registry.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Blind Ambition

When I was in college I took a course called Therapeutic Recreation. The foundation of this class was to help us learn how to teach different subcultures of people how to recreate. A few examples of these subculture would be those in rehabilitation, stroke victims, prisoners, autism, and the blind. The last subculture is what I want to focus on today. The blind. I bet you did not know the blind can play baseball and tennis. They can. They use something called a "beep" ball.The blind tennis game consists of a foam ball that beeps as it goes through the air. A blind person will play on a shortened tennis court with raised lines.

How is all of this possible? Most of us have always heard keep your "eye on the ball" when learning tennis. You need to be able to track the ball with your eyes to see the pace, spin, and contact point. What allows blind people to play tennis through these adaptations, and now those of us with healthy vision, is the visual cortex of the brain can also process tactile and auditory information. In other words, you can use other senses to determine objects in space. I wonder how much better we would be if we would start training some of our other senses to help us play tennis? Interesting thought.

Lin, Thomas. Tennis Magazine. "Blind Ambition: Organizers working to grow the remarkable sport of blind tennis." Dec. 2014

Saturday, November 29, 2014

How to Correct The Waiter's Serve In Tennis

This is awesome! I rarely see anyone teaching the serve the way we teach, but this video lesson does. I have been searching for corrective videos to help you and for personal professional development. This teaching pro talks about hitting the ball with the edge of the racket, using the correct grip, and turning the left edge or in our terms "Karate Punch."

I love how the teaching pro talks about how the serve is a learned movement, not something that comes naturally. You have to train your forearm to turn or do the "Karate Punch."

I hope this continues to help you grow. I am so excited I found this video!!!!!

Serve steps (WE DO)

1) Heel of hand goes on number one

2)Bounce ball on edge as if pounding a nail into a board. Choke up on racket using serve grip on Number one.

3) Touch net with racket, toes pointing straight ahead.

4) Reach racket up high on edge, toss ball above head and touch with side of racket.

These four basic steps will help you learn to use the correct serve grip.