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Finding the Right Teaching Professional

Posted on December 21, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

FINDING THE RIGHT TEACHING PROFESSIONAL

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“When selecting a pro, you’re not just paying for the hour on court…but hopefully, you’re paying for the thousands of hours of experience the coach has acquired solving similar issues.”

 

Initial instructors are usually chosen by proximity, cost, and availability. Once your youngster moves into the competitive stage, it’s time to identify the styles and personalities of coaches that fit your child’s needs. Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to have more than one coach. In this day and age, top players have an entourage of technical teachers, hitters, mental and emotional experts, off-court athleticism experts and physical therapists.  The key to success is unity among the entourage.

 

A great example is ATP star Sam Querrey. When I worked with Sam in his early teens we focused on the mental/emotional side of his development. His parents Chris and Mike always employed a terrific team of hitters, coaches, and clinics to provide world-class instruction for their son.

 

Profiling a coach before a relationship begins is recommended. Most confident coaches will welcome you to simply sit and observe their lessons before committing to lessons. There are many factors to consider when seeking a new coach. The first is what personality and style best suites your athlete?  Listed below are eight types of coaches that you may be employing along your journey.

Coaching Styles:

The Detailed, Analyzer

The Off Court Fitness Expert

The Kind and Fun Loving Coach

The Hitter

The Emotional, Psychological Coach

The Strategizer

The Academy Recruiter

The Drill Sergeant

Keys to Accelerating Learning

Posted on December 18, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

KEYS TO ACCELERATING LEARNING

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How do you take a kid with potential and develop them into a proven champion? What predetermines their success? How do you convince them that they’re special? What factors build passion? How do a parent and coach develop a consistent winner?

 

Let’s use my stepdaughter Sarah Fansler as a quantifiable example of gauging the development of a kid’s potential. Most would agree that Sarah had a flair for the game. She was ranked top in the nation. Sarah won multiple gold, silver and bronze balls. She won a total of 10 U.S. National titles.  She’s played the junior U.S. Open twice and the adult U.S. Open once before the age of 16. She was honored as the NCAA College Freshman of the year while at USC.

Now, let’s uncover her underlying story and take a deeper look at Sarah’s training regimen. As a junior player, Sarah had spent six years training full time. That’s about 20 hours a week or a thousand hours a year practicing in the manner in which she was expected to perform. Sarah only followed a deliberate, customized developmental plan.

Sarah did a private lesson with me from 6:30 am -7:30 am before getting ready for school. Sarah’s after-school regimen included playing full matches against paid college players and/or off-court training at a specialized gym called “Get Fit”, a Vert system off-court training center. After dinner, Sarah and I drilled for an additional hour and a half. On weekends, Sarah played tournaments.

Sarah followed my Customized Player Evaluation (Found in section VII) – a formula for deep accelerated learning. Her training regimen was more intense than the typical training program of an average high-performance player. The hidden factor to her tennis success was her hard work on and off the court each week. The accelerated learning process catapulted Sarah above her rivals.

 

“You can’t simply place your athlete in with the group… if you actually want them to get ahead of the group!”

 

So, was Sarah’s success due to her natural gifts or was it earned through a planned process? My answer is that approximately 20 percent of Sarah’s junior success was due to her natural talents, 80 percent was due to her learned behaviors. The development of life lessons was a major factor.

So talent is actually measured by the preparation before the performance. Often professionals say “I didn’t just win this event today…I won it through the last three months of customized preparation.”

So, my question to the parents and coaches is: What’s your deliberate, customized developmental plan for your athlete?

Navigating the Athlete’s Pathways – Part 2

Posted on December 16, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

Navigating the Athlete’s Pathways – Part 2

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Talent is a kid with potential. No, it’s even more than that. It’s a kid with potential with parents who were deeply involved in the development of skills and the stimulation of passion. So, what does this new definition of talent mean for the rest of us mere mortals? It means that if a child has parents who are determined and passionate about the game and extremely patient and persistent, they’ve got a real shot at greatness!

In every field talent is a learned behavior. What do Wayne Gretsky, Yo-Yo Ma, Bill Gates, Bobby Fischer, Tiger Woods, Mozart, Miley Cyrus, Bruno Mars, and Michelangelo have in common with tennis greats? They were all children who developed a remarkable talent from an early age. A spark became a flame as they persistently developed their talent. What seems now like a god-given natural gift is actually a deliberate, customized learned behavior.

In my opinion, most of the ATP and WTA professionals you watch on television did not demonstrate early phenomenal promise.  You can YouTube most of today’s stars playing tennis at the earliest stages. Guess what you’ll see? A bunch of average-looking kids enjoying the process of learning. They simply were solid athletes, with potential who were nurtured the love for the game.

 

“Talent is determination, passion and persistence.”

 

A question often asked during my tennis parent workshops is, “How do we motivate our athlete?” When it comes to instigating the hunger, it may prove wise to understand what “buttons” to push as you encourage your special athlete. There are two very powerful psychological forces, extrinsic and intrinsic that parents and coaches should identify when motivating their athletes.

Extrinsic Motivation: Implies being motivated by outside forces. Examples include praise- and lots of it!  Belief in their abilities by the entourage, trophies, awards, playing for a D-1 NCAA squad, ensuring a better future, money, and/or fame.

Intrinsic Motivation: Implies being motivated by inner forces. Examples include a love for the mastery of the game, the need to win or the hatred of losing, keeping up with successful siblings, seeing someone just like them succeed so they believe they can also succeed, finding the journey challenging and enjoyable.

 

Navigating the Athlete’s Pathways

Posted on December 14, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!  Click Here to Order

 

NAVIGATING THE ATHLETE’S PATHWAYS

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Regardless of the stage of development, parents should seek coaches and trainers with high tennis IQ’s and optimistic attitudes- which will stimulate growth and happiness. Hire great educators to join your elite team and they will take your child beyond your wildest dreams.

 

Identifying and Motivating Talent

So, you’ve got a promising young talent, that’s a great start. Now how do you manage that talent, their entourage of coaches, academies, and teams?

Let’s look deeper into the facts and myths of talent. There are a lot of myths surrounding the word “Talent.” If sheer natural talent was gifted to an individual, then the naturally talented would drift to the top without effort. Unfortunately, by the time a junior reaches the competitive stages of the game; their sheer physical talent isn’t enough. Why? Because at the high-performance level, most of their competitors are also solid athletes, but with great work ethic, deep desire and a deliberate, customized developmental plan.

I know… many of you reading this may be thinking:

 

“Yeah but…My kid was endowed by my superior gene pool; they inherited my awesomeness …so they are obviously destined for greatness.”

 

While that may be true, success at the higher level demands a bit more than genes. It takes years and years of applying a customized deliberate developmental plan.

Talent is considered by most to be a genetic predisposition, a sense of natural ability handed down through the family gene pool. Expert educators in various fields agree that every decade one truly gifted individual walks through their doors. Does this mean that most truly successful people aren’t genuinely talented or does it mean that talent is more than merely good genes?

“Junior talent is only a foreshadowing of  future greatness.”

 

“It’s not my strokes that fail me; it’s my mental toughness. I just freak out!”

Posted on November 14, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
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“It’s not my strokes that fail me; it’s my mental toughness.
I just freak out!”

 

“Mental toughness is often confused with
emotional toughness.”

My definition of mental toughness in the tennis world is the understanding of strategies, tactics, and patterns. It also includes opponent profiling and problem-solving skills. My definition of emotional toughness is the ability to overcome the onslaught of performance anxieties and outcome-oriented emotional thoughts.

Solutions to match issues begin with understanding the actual cause of the problem. Is the athlete’s above statement: “I just freak-out!” A mental issue or an emotional issue? I would say it is an emotional issue. Because the correct solution is customized to the cause of the problem.  I recommend digging deeper into why this particular athlete “freaks out.”  Does it involve the above mental categories, emotional categories, or a combination of the two?

It’s important to note that a seemingly unrelated component may be the root of the athletes break down. For example, if an athlete is physically unfit for serious competition, that lack of fitness can cause stroke mechanics to break down, reckless choices in shot selection, and manifest negative emotional outbursts.

 

Preparing for pressure involves knowing the difference between the mental and emotional components.

“Everyone says, ‘JUST PLAY YOUR GAME,’ but I don’t know what my game is?”

Posted on November 12, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order

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“Everyone says, ‘JUST PLAY YOUR GAME,’ but I don’t know what my game is?”

 

“Top contenders have defined their global style & most proficient patterns of play.”

Upon arrival at a coaching gig in Spain, I noticed the coaches on all the red clay courts running the same drill. Player A hits a high & heavy ball deep to player B’s backhand. Player B retreats, contacting the ball above his/her shoulders and produces a short reply. Player A moves into no-man’s land and screeches “AHH …HEEE” and drives a winner into the open court. I asked the famous director, “What’s the drill they’re all working on?” He laughed and said, we call it, “How to beat the Americans.”

Athletes should start each match with their global style of play. Whether they’re in Miami or Moscow, in the first round or finals, on hard or clay courts, starting matches by doing what they do best is an intelligent formula. Their global system is their most proficient style of play (not necessarily their favorite style). Styles include hard-hitting baseliners, counterpunchers, retrievers, and net rushers.

The athlete’s global system also includes their repeatable strategic plan – which is their most proficient patterns of play. These patterns need to be designed and developed. They include: serving and return patterns, rally patterns (like the above Spanish group), short ball options, and net rushing plays.

 

 

In competition, each athlete has to know what they do best and must routinely apply their global plan and hitting the same old, boring winners over and over.

 

Every player should know and have had rehearsed their strongest, repeatable patterns of play. Then, choose to play those patterns in matches.

 

“Sectionals ARE next week. My coach wants me to change my forehand?”

Posted on November 9, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order

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“Sectionals ARE next week. My coach wants me to change my forehand?”

 

“Before competition gain confidence in your existing skills.”

Proper preparation begins weeks leading into the event. During this prep phase, avoid significant mechanical changes or adding brand new concepts. Why? It takes approximately 4-6 weeks for a new motor program to override an old one. If a stroke is dismantled at the wrong time (right before competition) the athlete’s old motor program is shattered, and their new one isn’t developed yet.

Remember when getting grooved used to be called muscle memory?  Be careful using that term “Muscle Memory” because nowadays even the 10 & under crowd know that memory isn’t stored in their muscles.

The bottom line is that the days leading into an event are not the correct time to introduce a new skill.  Starting a new routine may cause the athlete to become confused, sore, or injured, and the required recovery time is not available. Many coaches and parents are unknowingly guilty of poor periodization.

 

Five customized phases of development are recovery, analysis, general training, competitive training, and competition.

“I hit for 10 minutes … I’m ready!”

Posted on November 5, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order

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“I hit for 10 minutes … I’m ready!”

 

“Prepare both hardware & software components
for battle!”

Preparing for pressure demands more than merely warming up one’s fundamental strokes. The week leading up to the event is a terrific time for the athlete to organize their clothes, equipment, and nutrition and hydration requirements. For example, early preparation allows leeway if the athlete unknowingly is out of his favorite strings or their lucky shorts are in the wash.

Come game day, I recommend athletes prepare their mental and emotional components by reviewing their pre-recorded audio tapes the morning of the match. Complete a dynamic stretch and warm-up their primary and secondary strokes with multitasking movement. (Hitting on the move instead of just standing still.) Prior to checking in, hydrate and go for a short run to reduce anxiety and warm-up the body.

 

Preparing for pressure requires the confidence that comes from complete preparation.

“I don’t want to play, what if I lose?”

Posted on November 2, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order

Preparing final cover 3D

“I don’t want to play, what if I lose?”

 

“Devalue the event to deflate the anxiety.”

A common outcome-oriented mindset is that each tournament is a life or death crisis. This negative frame of mind is counterproductive and incredibly stressful. It would be wise to educate the athlete and their entourage that tournament play is only an information-gathering mission. Each match should be analyzed to determine why they won points or lost points as a result of their competitive decisions. The objective is simple, quantify the data and learn from it.

Competition should be seen as a fun challenge, not intensely difficult or dangerous.

 

Destress the situation by decompressing the athlete.

The Culture of Belief

Posted on October 19, 2019 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, Preparing for Pressure

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s NEW Amazon #1 New Tennis Book Release, Preparing for Pressure.
Click Here to Order

Preparing final cover 3D

 

The Culture of Belief

 

“If you keep working this hard, you’ll be playing at the US Open!”

This was my actual weekly battle cry to my stepdaughter. By the age of 15, Sarah was competing at the US Open. The typical parental pre-match pep talk sounds like this: “Today’s so important! Don’t blow it again! You have to win!”

Belief stems from habitually using life skill terms such as effort, fight, resiliency, courage, persistence, and focus. Parents should routinely apply these lure words to subliminally planting the seeds needed to be clutch under pressure.

Molding belief is similar to molding memories. Do you remember hearing a childhood story throughout your youth that actually never really happened the way it’s told? These embellished accounts spun by family members eventually become real memories. Similarly, parents can apply a form of positive brainwashing to motivate athletes to believe in themselves in the heat of the battle. Children are impressionable. It’s within the tennis parent’s job description to convince their athletes that they can and will succeed.

 

Nurturing life skills and positive character traits should be every parent’s daily battle cry.