Days roll into weeks and weeks into months. I am certain i have a great memory for names its just short term. On the main coaching courses i can see upto 300 new coaches a year, how the hell am i supposed to remember all the names! The odd phone call maybe ''hey Andy, i spoke to you on the phone about two months ago''. Ha Ha reminds me when people realise i have served in the army and they ask for Smithy who also served!
Which reminds me, chatting about times of past and generally being nicknamed 'Uncle Albert' due to my vast repertoire of stories from the war, who should ring but the army captain about coaching the army team for Wimbledon. 6 Days work, 4 days coaching the mens and ladies team and 2 days watching them play at Wimbledon. Shall i shall i not, an offer not to be missed and dare i say more work for the PTR with course bookings in the near future.
I have also decided that to work with tour players can be difficult if you are a total unknown as a player and coach. But sometimes it is who you know not what you know and not impossible if you have a reputation in the right place.
Next week takes me to Milton Keynes for a one day kids tennis course, Sutton for day 4 of the pathway course and two days in the office for an onslaught of courses that are up and coming.
As always my web has more added to it and this will continue for you all, but feel free to email if you dont understand anything or want advice.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Gadgets!
Okay i have just found possibly the best gadget for blogging to you all. Fits on the sidebar of my puter and allows to me to blog without mucking about. Now i will commit to a more consistent blog of what really happens with a life of a tennis coach and player. Right now everything is up in the air but....damn my game is good and is going from strength to strength. Lets hope this weather is to stay. Thats all for now
Friday, 9 April 2010
Tennis Teaching Essentials Course
I am always asked when do you rest?
Well my roles within the Professional Tennis Registry are as follows:-
Full time tutor
International Tester
Plan the whole calender year of courses
Write the education course programmes
Book all the courts for these courses at a bargain price
Lecturer
Bit part office worker
Funny enough most court bookings for these are completed through the medium of no other than Facebook! so much more easier than fighting through receptions and leaving messages.
When i get into the office its busy, but generally my work ensures a huge amount of road mileage and this tax year is no let up with 22,000 racked up.
For my umpteenth course this year already the PTR Tennis Teaching Essentials course gives potential coaches the ability to organise well, communicate well and demonstrate well. In 4 days you get to work on teaching lessons, running drills, detecting and fixing errors in core strokes, working on 21 demonstration strokes along with simple progressions on how to teach these and finally gaining knowledge to ensure you can excel in the written assessment.
David Lloyd Enfield, always a great venue, bar the road works on the road to hell was a mix of nationalities. Sweden, Croatia, New Zealand, Ghana, Ireland, Czechoslovakia and of course England sent candidates from each country. Including the once WTA Number 17!
Early starts is always key to beat the traffic although you can guarantee an accident at 05.30 in the morning doesn't help matters and it turns out 4 diversions in 4 days had to be taken into account.
Bristol was the week after and yet another David Lloyd Centre. At least the accomodation was only 10 minutes away from the centre and slap in the middle of town! The good thing about stay away is i can get on with writing more courses or working on projects, as well as catching up with some good friends from that side of the world. Good Friday was a good test day and i managed to leave the centre at 2pm for the long journey back to Essex. All was good until reaching the damn M25 whereby another car fight in the roadworks led to a two hour delay. Still could have been worse i guess!
To book onto a TTE course and gain a world of knowledge visit the link and i look forward to seeing you.
Well my roles within the Professional Tennis Registry are as follows:-
Full time tutor
International Tester
Plan the whole calender year of courses
Write the education course programmes
Book all the courts for these courses at a bargain price
Lecturer
Bit part office worker
Funny enough most court bookings for these are completed through the medium of no other than Facebook! so much more easier than fighting through receptions and leaving messages.
When i get into the office its busy, but generally my work ensures a huge amount of road mileage and this tax year is no let up with 22,000 racked up.
For my umpteenth course this year already the PTR Tennis Teaching Essentials course gives potential coaches the ability to organise well, communicate well and demonstrate well. In 4 days you get to work on teaching lessons, running drills, detecting and fixing errors in core strokes, working on 21 demonstration strokes along with simple progressions on how to teach these and finally gaining knowledge to ensure you can excel in the written assessment.
David Lloyd Enfield, always a great venue, bar the road works on the road to hell was a mix of nationalities. Sweden, Croatia, New Zealand, Ghana, Ireland, Czechoslovakia and of course England sent candidates from each country. Including the once WTA Number 17!
Early starts is always key to beat the traffic although you can guarantee an accident at 05.30 in the morning doesn't help matters and it turns out 4 diversions in 4 days had to be taken into account.
Bristol was the week after and yet another David Lloyd Centre. At least the accomodation was only 10 minutes away from the centre and slap in the middle of town! The good thing about stay away is i can get on with writing more courses or working on projects, as well as catching up with some good friends from that side of the world. Good Friday was a good test day and i managed to leave the centre at 2pm for the long journey back to Essex. All was good until reaching the damn M25 whereby another car fight in the roadworks led to a two hour delay. Still could have been worse i guess!
To book onto a TTE course and gain a world of knowledge visit the link and i look forward to seeing you.
Playing Catchup....
A great one day course followed on Effective Junior Coaching at Bannatynes Health Club, Essex.
Amazingly i had an influx of attendees for this course and had to squeeze 27 coaches onto one court. I would show you a photo of the excitement of it all, but i am never one to take photos and am equally just as bad remembering to when i bring a camera.
Here we worked on swing patterns in relation to grips on forehands and backhands and how they change accordingly. What makes a stellar groundstroke, serve or volley and how to make this the most effective stroke for our students to continue up the ladder of success. After all there is nothing worse than having worked hard throughout your career, possess great amounts of talent and your current technique lets you down only allowing you to reach a certain level in tennis. Generally in England we find this to be inside the top 1000 in the world. Perhaps the wild cards to Wimbledon help with these ranking points however, this takes hard work and time, sweat and tears. What's is required to attain better levels are the approach of a better technical foundation involving the whole body (using the Kinetic Wave Theory - as seen in my power tennis course). From here don't forget about a subject close to my heart, tennis psychology, add this all powerful aspect to your game and top 200 here we come.
Give or take the ability to get funding and sponsorship to help you along!
For a better understanding of what i applied and taught in this course visit my main website and download the manual. I will be adding pictures to this at a later date for you all.
On a personal note at this stage i have decided to cut down my coffee drinking intake from 14 cups per day to around 6. I have no clue why i drink so much caffeine but all the same i will keep you updated.
My game has gone from strength to strength, my backhand is more a weapon than before, racket head speed has increased thanks the the 'Etch Swing' workouts and all i need know is to get back to playing matches other than club doubles. Don't get me wrong this is a high standard but not quite singles play. A total different mentality as dammit i have others to think about.
Amazingly i had an influx of attendees for this course and had to squeeze 27 coaches onto one court. I would show you a photo of the excitement of it all, but i am never one to take photos and am equally just as bad remembering to when i bring a camera.
Here we worked on swing patterns in relation to grips on forehands and backhands and how they change accordingly. What makes a stellar groundstroke, serve or volley and how to make this the most effective stroke for our students to continue up the ladder of success. After all there is nothing worse than having worked hard throughout your career, possess great amounts of talent and your current technique lets you down only allowing you to reach a certain level in tennis. Generally in England we find this to be inside the top 1000 in the world. Perhaps the wild cards to Wimbledon help with these ranking points however, this takes hard work and time, sweat and tears. What's is required to attain better levels are the approach of a better technical foundation involving the whole body (using the Kinetic Wave Theory - as seen in my power tennis course). From here don't forget about a subject close to my heart, tennis psychology, add this all powerful aspect to your game and top 200 here we come.
Give or take the ability to get funding and sponsorship to help you along!
For a better understanding of what i applied and taught in this course visit my main website and download the manual. I will be adding pictures to this at a later date for you all.
On a personal note at this stage i have decided to cut down my coffee drinking intake from 14 cups per day to around 6. I have no clue why i drink so much caffeine but all the same i will keep you updated.
My game has gone from strength to strength, my backhand is more a weapon than before, racket head speed has increased thanks the the 'Etch Swing' workouts and all i need know is to get back to playing matches other than club doubles. Don't get me wrong this is a high standard but not quite singles play. A total different mentality as dammit i have others to think about.
The Coaching Process - Pathway Day 1 and 2
Welcome to another edition of whatever i wish to write about, and yes i know i have still to answer some of you, but many i have and have just not written anything publicly .
Once as a student you have your head around these terms then you can will need to grasp the art of understanding the following terms...
Trading
Building
Finishing
Neutralising
Staying
Turning Around
Day two utilised the ability to coach using the above information and of course practice, practice, practice if only to use the seemingly impossible terms that really mean when looked into mean simply rallying, winning etc... maybe someone decided that to make themselves feel important and look like they were earning some their worth, by changing a few names it would all make sense. Eureka!
Recent times have seen me travelling to the far depths of Sutton, junction 8 of M25. For me anything in London can be accessed by a junction rather than pile-driving straight through the middle. Here i was tutoring on the PTR/LTA Pathway course which leads to the british tennis licence or LTA licence or now known as a coaching licence. I think for those interested in this course i will give you a day to day run down of what goes on ish....give or take a few jokes and pieces of information that may be of no real relevance to you right now.
The course is based around a coaching process formula and this forms the basic theme for the entire 3 modules along with the ability to understand the 6 tactical intentions, 5 game situations and not forgetting a main teaching point to run throughout your sessions. Then you need to understand the PAS theory in relation to the 5 ball characterstics,
To give you an idea of what is really involved you can download the manual from my main site of which i am sure you are all used to by now.
You can see that the first stage is Observation, a skill underused with many coaches!
Let me explain when was the last time you actually see your students play? Everyone knows that your best hitting and strokes at the lower level are left on the practice court! In order to get a true idea of what your student can/can't do you have to watch them play points in a matchplay situation and better in a tournament of some kind rather than a friendly match with Bob Bryan down the street.
You need to seem them in all the game situations available:-
- Serve
- Return of Serve
- When both players are at the back of the court
- When you manage to approach or get to the net
- When your opponent approaches or gets to the net
From here you can make an analysis of what is required in their game and set to the goal setting to move along the road to a better game.
Once as a student you have your head around these terms then you can will need to grasp the art of understanding the following terms...
Trading
Building
Finishing
Neutralising
Staying
Turning Around
Day two utilised the ability to coach using the above information and of course practice, practice, practice if only to use the seemingly impossible terms that really mean when looked into mean simply rallying, winning etc... maybe someone decided that to make themselves feel important and look like they were earning some their worth, by changing a few names it would all make sense. Eureka!
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