Had Enough of Tennis Coach's, I'll train my son myself - Advice please

TrapperChamonix

My son is 9 years old and has being going to various (parks and club) group coaching lessons for 3 years. All they seem to do is queue up to hit maybe 10 or 15 balls lobbed from the coach and then practice with some other kid, neither of whom can hit the ball well enough to sustain any rally. After every coaching session, I specifically ask what they were learning and time after time there seems to be very little. As as good example the latest coaching has had 3 sessions where they have been told to finish wiht a high follow through over the left shoulder but he's not even been told how to grip the racquet properly. The result is that ball goes a mile in the air and he just thinks he'll never be any good. They're not even told to stand sideways when hitting the ball.
I contrast this with the really great coaching he has got with Soccer, Rugby, Swimming and Golf. With these other sports, he always knows what is supposed be learning and can oftan be found practicing in the garden (not the swimming:D). As a result he has progressed with all of the other sports.
The only improvement he has ever had was Summer 2008 when we had access to a tennis court on holidays and spent about 5 or 6 hours over 2 weeks playing a little.
Rant Over.


So now both he and I are thourghly fed up, I've decided the only way is for me to teach him. DOn't get me wrong, I don't want him to be the next Rafa Nadal. I just want him to be good enough to enter the kids competitions in our club.
So between now and next spring I am going to send 1 hour a week teaching him. I am a reasonable (or at least was) player but have no experience of coaching the mechanics of tennis. So here's my ack

1) What good instructional sites are out there? The best I've found is YellowFurryBalls.Com on Youtube. Anyone have any other recomendations? I'd especially like one geared to kids.
2) Is there a sequence I should be teaching him in? IE Forehand flat (contentinal grip) then topspin (semi western grip) and then slice? followed by backhand (flat, topspin or slice) double handed or single handed backhand?
3) Other than demand my money back from the coaches, is there any other advice?


As an aside, my friend had a similar experience a few years back. He was so frustrated with the appalling level of coaching beginnners he taught himself tennis (previously played squash) and got basic coaching qualifications all within 2 years---while working a demanding long hours job.

califano

Ive watched a few vids on this site and if you look around theres some good 'how to' for coaching tips too. There are some members like this one who have some very relevant and understandable videos and others less so, look around for the best posters seems to be a good site overall.
From the very little ive seen and heard of ive suspected junior coaching in Ireland was poor and i agree that theres nothing you cant swat up on online to teach your son yourself instead of hiring a coach and like you say the hour you spend is going to be a lot more intensive than the distractions of several lads being coached and so few shots hit.
Id say your likely to get the poorer quality coaches from the parks tennis and id say for top quality coaching you'd have to pay through the nose in a good private club. But the economy is as good a reason to do it yourself!. Just remember to try to be sure what techniques your showing him is good advice.
So get some coaching books and google some training video sites and bring it to the court!. Remember to be very encouraging and give praise throughout the session about his shots(good or bad) and keep the sessions upbeat.

mjg

Take a look at "The Inner Game Of Tennis" by Tim Gallwey. I came back to tennis after years of not playing, found some brilliant tips in there.

He also talks at some length about where a lot of the common coaching techniques go wrong and suggests better approaches, a great book imo.

Good luck with the coaching.

TrapperChamonix

Guys, thanks for the response.

Rounders, I like the site. The Yellowfuzzyballs guy is on there (who I recommend) but also someother good ones. Any particular ones that you'd recommend?
The 2nd site I found a little too condesending, reminds me of coaches I've had in the past............but its always subjective.

Mjg, He's only 9:D. I think I need to teach him to hit the ball 1st. I may have a look at it for myself, as I too am coming back after an absence.

again thanks for the responses

califano

TrapperChamonix wrote: »

Guys, thanks for the response.

Rounders, I like the site. The Yellowfuzzyballs guy is on there (who I recommend) but also someother good ones. Any particular ones that you'd recommend?
The 2nd site I found a little too condesending, reminds me of coaches I've had in the past............but its always subjective.

Mjg, He's only 9:D. I think I need to teach him to hit the ball 1st. I may have a look at it for myself, as I too am coming back after an absence.

again thanks for the responses

No problem, the second site is the same site just another poster. I agree he has an annoying voice but what he says often makes sense. I dont really be on it enough to know who are the best its just a mish mash and i click around and click into various peoples vids.
I like the tips on approaching the net and not to blast it, i always used try to buty it at the net and could never understand why it went long,wide or into the net!.

redzerredzer

I am a tennis coach and believe me, you are making a massive mistake trying to teach your son. It doesnt matter if you can play well yourself, you are not a tennis coach.

I see parents telling their children wrong information all the time. Even good players who play in the DLTC leagues. Parents come to me all the time and try to impress me with their knowledge of the game. It is usually outdated or just wrong.

You may also strain your realationship with him by taking a too active position in his sporting life. Again, I have see this happen a couple of times.

I do agree there are some terrible coaches out there and some good ones who dont always try too hard. The solution is to get him into a group with interested players and a motivated coach. School classes and parks tennis (kit kat, shreddies) do not count as tennis coaching!

Like anything in life you get what you pay for. If you send him to group coaching he wont get too much attention. Its hard to perfect everyones technique in a one hour a week class of 8 or more people. How many were in the group? Its actually your fault if you sent him to a class with lots of other kids.

Tennis is a highly technical sport. If you want your son to be good he must take individual calsses. In other sports the biggest, strongest or fastest kids can dominate but not in tennis. Its all about technique.

So before you knock all tennis coaches, take some responsibility for being stupid enough to send your child to the wrong coach. And remember you will get nowhere teaching him yourself.

Wear sunscreen!

TrapperChamonix

redzerredzer, thanks for your response. You are entitled to your opinion just as I have my own. But I'll let other readers judge from your post what a credit you are to your profession.

Jobs

My son is 10. He had tennis lessons for full 6 years now (South Dublin). The result of all that coaching is that he could not hit the ball really. Some occasional forehands – the exceptions. I am rubbish at tennis. Seriously. And heavily overweight. Have quit smoking,... you know what happens.

I spent 10 sessions of about an hour and a half – just playing with my son. It was boring to start with but the progress was amazing. He makes me run now. OK, I cannot hit the ball hard, and cannot place it far in corners (he is just too short to get all those), but it already looks like tennis. The ball rarely crosses the net higher than a meter above the net.

The result is – I was shocked with the speed of progress.

The funniest thing is that the whole thing was his idea. He was actually bored and had enough lollypops from the coaches.

So my advice is – just go for it! You will both enjoy it – the more as the time goes on – and he starts sending you from a corner to the other...

TrapperChamonix

Great result Jobs, sounds like both you and your son are getting a lot out of it.

As for my experience
It's been about 5 weeks now. We said that we would play once a week. The reality has been that its been almost been one and a half times a week, because he pesters (hurrah) me to bring him to play.

The level of progress, similar to Jobs son, has been remarkable. Not only has he been promoted from his class, but he has leap frogged the next level. Even at 2 steps up, he has been told his serve is better than most of the class. His forehand is pretty good but we still need to work on his backhand.

So from a position of not learning anything, complaining about going to tennis and wanting to give it up, he is now capable of going to the club and playing with his pal on their own, hughly enthusastic about all things tennis (including TV and WII) and now at a level where he might actually learn something from his lessons.

His lessons are a bit better now in as much as they do at least give one or 2 pieces of instruction per week, which we then work on. However remarkably he still has not been told how to grip the racquet.

There are 2 things that I hadn't expected during this process
1. How much fun we've had.
I had expected there to be a lot of grumbling after the initial excitment wore off. But its the opposite, he's genuinely interested how the stroke works, training and getting a kick out of improvement he's making. We generally play for 40 mins to 1hr. We split the time between 10 min warm up, 20 to 30min on a particular stroke and the rest of the time playing a game. For me it's the one sport that we actually play together. He plays football and rugby and I'm involved to a minor extent (helping training and sometime standing in for his football manager) but you're not playing with your kids in the same way.
2. It has reinvigorated my interest in playing tennis. I'd played about 10 games of tennis in the last 20 years. Now I'm back to playing twice a week in addition to the time spent with my son. Don't know how long this will last, but I'm enjoying it anyway.

So here's my conclusion
A. Get out there and play with your child. Don't wait as long as I did. The 1st thing they need is practice. At lessons they'll be lucky to have a chance to hit 10 or 15 shots before being paired up with another kid who can't hit the ball either.
B. Ask the coaches what your kid should be learning in the next the 8 weeks you've signed up for. You may not get any sensible answer (I didn't), but ideally you may get things that they are working on and you can work on too.
C. Use instruction books, and online aides to help with the technique. As you can see from redzerredzer earlier response, coaches may be concerned that you are shownig incorrect technique, but I don't buy that argument. Why should tennis be an exception to every other sport where learning technique is not the sole peserve of professionals. I have no doubt that I have less that 5% of the teaching skills / knowledge of a proper coach. But if after 4 years of coaching, the professionals are not teaching anything to your child then shouldn't someone.
D. If you can, keep them in the class. With the rapid improvement shown they'll get moved to another class that will challange and interest them more.
E. Find a friend for them to practice with. As much as they like playing with mom or pop, its much more interesting in being alllowed a little independence in the tennis club, even if you're watching them from inside.
D. Have fun. If the experience myself and Jobs have had is anything to go by, there's no reason not to enjoy.


My original comittment was to teach my son throughout the winter. Given his rate of progress, I would say I'll have reached the limit of what I can do for him by the spring. I don't think he'll ever be the best player in his age group (there's some very very good players) but he'll be good enough to enjoy the game and keep it up and progress for as long as he wants. Hopefully he'll still want to play with his old man after that.

JB001

I have come across this posting and have got sucked into giving a reponse. I am a Tennis Coach myself and have 8 years experience coaching in many different countries. 4 of which was within a National Centre Programme with 800 kids per week coming through our system.

This is my honest opinion firstly in defence of coaching etc in this country i would always check to see what caoching qualifcation the coach has and is the coach qualified with Tennis Ireland, if so what level of expertise i.e. badge/level is the coach.

In regards to coaching yourself i agree it is possible but not ideal. here are some of the factors which are most important in considering a childs progression int he game of tennis:

ABILITY : all sports are connected and it is unusual to see a child exceptional only at one sport.

LEVEL OF ABILITY : that is even at 9 do you see your child been a performace or development standard player. Development been a child at that age not willing to focus primarily on tennis from usually 12 years old..Performance been a child that you could see spending 10000 hours over a ideally 6-16 at a guide cost from the LTA at around £250000 sterling. Peak years been 25-30 hrs week

All in all you can see that you child is development in that he does not play enough ...when considering tennis in performance elite kids it can be very select even if the kids have the talent.

In regards to teaching your child i think the easiest thing to do is to see some of the sites like fuzzyyellow balls teaching manuals etc they will alll give you information that you can implement and help with but deciding on the most important is what good coaches do. Usually these sites show alot of cosmetics i.e. technique and do not show you how to coach them

When i look at top kids my coaching comes from what is called Game Based Approach which is teaching kids how to improve there OVERALL GAME not exactly the cosmetics of technique......... I am trying to keep this simple but finding it difficult........ there ar 4 areas for you need to think about .....set up a GAME SITUATION ...say for example...Slice serve out wide to deuce box and play return to a weakness i.e usually backhand.......
With this analyse your kids ability in 4 areas
1.Technical Cosmetics of the stroke/how it looks grip shape etc
2.Tactical Ability to hit the target are and produce slice
3.Physical Posture/Balance etc
4.Mental Does this kid look interested will to do this correctly etc

Evaluate ...All on the FIRST SHOT the SERVE do not prolong rally wasting time for improvment of this game situation.
All of the above should be implemented at the coaches choice with the most apparant or important in their view being worked on first. All of this evaluation would be in relation to the serve (1st shot) and the second shot being more about decision making.

From this you can take the Open SITUATION AND CLOSE it i.e Work on say technique specifically etc and follow in order of importance 1,2,3,4

After all this you should be around 50 mins into the 1hr lesson and ready to see has you kid improved ...... Play more points against him in an open situation ..... take a view on the improvment.......Ask your kid dont tell them.....





OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS IN COACHING
Ball Types
Personally i like to follow LTA system and im sure its supposed to be the same here..
Red Ball
Orange Ball
Green Ball
Yellow Ball

Progression of Court Sizes
Progression of Racket Sizes

BEST OF LUCK DO ME A FAVOUR DONT BRING DOWN A BASKET AND HIT 200 BALLS WOKING ON TECHNIQUE PLAY THE GAME AND TEACH WITHIN IT.

MY BEST KID AT 7 ON ORANGE COULD ACTUALLY PLAY AND THINK TENNIS AND I HE HAS ALL HIS LIFE TO KEEP IMPROVING ALL AREAS



THIS IS A PRO IN BRIEF SCRATCHING THE SURFACE OF TEACHING METHODS ETC I HOPE IT HEPLS YOU ALL........:)

P.S. ANALYSE IS TO PARALYSE KEEP IT SIMPLE

brightsmark

TrapperChamonix seems very sensible and realistic in his approach. By bringing the kid out to practice himself and giving him a gentle push in the right direction technique wise he has seen huge improvement. This is purely the practice that has done this and not TrapperChamonix's basic coaching skills (no offense!) but the fact that
he has created an evironment where his son is actually enjoying himself is something that will make a huge difference for a kid at that level.

It reads to me redzerredzer normally deals with high level kids when coaching. (I hope!!) His lack of understanding for a beginners position is clear,and it's laughable that he could suggest TrapperChamonix could strain his relationship with his kid by taking him down to play once or twice a week!!

I don't think whats needed here is advice on how to coach as to be honest in my opinion serious coaching is best left to those trained to do so. (not a coach btw) However as your kid gets better through practice he will probably get more attention in a group coaching situation and this is where he can pick up the correct technique.

Anyway congrats on taking an interest in your son's tennis and on becoming a positive influence on his game despite redzerredzer 's "expert" advice.

ps. great post by JB001.