Setting Goals for 2011 2 of 7

So to week 2...

Having taken stock i want you now to make a list of everything that you want or need, desire or wish for in your life, environment and career that will enhance it this year. Anything that will enhance your current situation or take you to new heights in your career..

Write these down (as that is important for the following days to continue on) or type if you feel the need, all that you want to be, do or have. If you have a family, be sure to include your better half and children when you set your goals. This entire goal-setting process helps channel your logical left brain and frees your creative right brain for more effective use of your imagination. Note: you gotta 'be' before you can 'do' and you gotta 'do' before you can have.

Take action TNT – Today not Tomorrow

Goalsetting 1 of 7

Setting goals for 2011 Part 1 of 7

So once again we have approached the time of year to set the goals for yourself in all areas of your life and i am going to take you through this once again in the next 7 days.

Many have asked how I go about this and to save you looking back in the archives I will update and put up again for you all. This should roughly equate to about 2 hours worth of work.

First things first is think back to whether or not you have accomplished any of this years goals (if you set any that is!)

Your job for this session is to take stock of your life right now.

Answer the following questions...are you generally happy? How about your health? Are you respectively healthy? Are you reasonably prosperous? Do you feel secure in life? Do you have a good bunch of friends that you can rely and turn to? Have you peace of mind? Have you good family relationships? Have you hope in your life?

If you answer no to any of these questions then you need to set goals in the impending area. Take stock of the following areas in your life for today's task...

Personal Position

Financial Position

Career

Physical

Spiritual

Family

Social

Environmental

This is very similar to reviewing your past year in regards to everything you learnt, attained and achieved. Jot down everything that you have in these areas, paint a great image in your minds and we will move this onto the following stage tomorrow.

Good Luck and see you tomorrow

Andy

Tennis Psychology and the Ten Year Plan

World class start

For many kids this may be their first time in a sporting environment so it is vital in order for them to keep coming back week in week out that they feelsupported and challenged in an enjoyable way. It’s the role of the coach and the support of the parents that help attain the goals below. The main aim through tennis and related activities here would be:

• To focus on having a positive experience
• To be able to deal with challenges of taking part in team and partner
• To development of brain functions, social skills, emotions,attitudes, and imagination
• Here it is important that the focus of games is for participation and team related.

FUNdamentals

During this stage we introduce aspects of mental training. This should be dispersed throughout the final 2 years of the 3 year cycle the kids spend in this area. Here we look at…

• Confidence
• Concentration
• Motivation
• Relaxation
• Thought awareness/positive self-talk

Learning to Train

Here we can become a little more in depth with

• Imagery/Visualization
• Relaxation
• Goal Setting
• Continuation of thought awareness and self talk

Training to Train

The aim of this stage is to introduce athletes to more advanced forms of sport psychology/mental training. The new skills are:

• Profiling and understanding their game
• Continual Goal Setting and Reviewing adding long term aspects
• Enhancement of Imagery for Training and Competition
• Concentration Skills
• On and off court Performance Routines
• Match Preparation

Learning to Compete/Training to Compete

This stage is important as school life needs to be balanced a little more with exams at the forefront of life. This stage is important that our athletes understand themselves and can become self aware of their own particular needs in this area.

• Performance tracking and Match preparation
• Evaluation of Performance through a journal
• Consistency and Persistence in matchplay

Learning to Win

Part time jobs may come to the forefront here and again require balancing with the whole scheme of things. Our athletes have a great deal of knowledge but will need the following attributes…

• How to maintain Confidence, motivation and stay highly competitive
• Maintain a high level of knowledge of themselves
• Deal with the pressure of success or failure from themselves, coaches and peers
• Consistently fine tune their performance to raise their levels
• Be able to prepare and implement game plans
• Be able to scout potential opponents and keep notes on matches played
• Begin to teach life balance and financial skills

Training to Win

Athletes now must maintain a strong work ethic and understand they must train more effectively and regularly than those in the top 200 in the World!

My Ten Year Long Term Athletic Development Plan

Welcome the TENNIS2020 programme

Capitalising on the Ten year plan and the rule of thumb that it takes 8-12 years of training or 10,000 hours of training to produce a top class athlete. Here is the programme i have just instilled at my club.
Send me your thoughts and if you are interested i will send you the completed version (when finalised) so you can run something similar!

Stage 1 - World Class Start
Here the key is to get kids out of primary school in the early years and onto the court. Our aim and mission is to get them to turn up for tennis habitually and fall in love with the sport! We start the key areas of fundamental movement and having fun while exploring.
Stage 2 - FUNdamentals 
Concentrating on a high class mini red programme (of which i have a few courses for you next year to understand this more) our first goal here is to teach everything needed to build the fundamentals to consistently rally co-operatively on a micro court (shorter than a mini red).
Goal Two - to develop an all round basic play  incorporating groundstroke and net development drills and play along with serve, return drills and tactical decision making skills.
Goal Three - is to work on consistent precision over the mini red court and to understand more about tactical decision making of what shot when!
Psychology training also starts here.
All the above will be used by the excellent and proven methods from 'Modern Tennis'
Stage 3 - Learning to Train
This encompasses the Orange ball and Green ball at appropriate times.
The goal here is to complete the training and understanding of growing performance factors movement skills and evolve into the full court with green ball.
Stage 4 - Training to Train
This is a key area whereby students are reaching the critical age of 12 whereby i believe there should be no underlying technical flaws and by now our students can think and problem solve for themselves on the full court from green to yellow ball. Speed, strength, continuing flexibility and consolidation of skills are our goal here.
Stage 5 - Learning to Compete
In this mini stage our students are taught to know how to enforce their game onto their opponents, where to look, how to look and how to start competing and evolving as players. They are taught to evaluate and feedback performances to coaches and peers.
Stage 6 - Training to Compete
Here our goal is to put the above into practice more automatically.
Stage 7 - Learning to Win
We aim to hit home the psychological aspects here and gain a wealth of experience in matchplay. They will feel what it is like to win close matches, easy matches, from in front and behind, any aspect that will present itself in the next stage will be experienced and taught here with key warrior mentality skills. One of the key areas here is how to lose correctly and develop to become a more formidable opponent.
Stage 8 - Training to Win
With this particular plan our students will be 15/16 years of age and literally training to see if this would be the life for them! Its decision time and the results here will speak for themselves. This is a time for evaluating and fine tuning.
Final Stage - Competing to Win
Here lies the ultimate goal of continuous improvement to enhance this! Constant and never ending improvement is key.

Although this is how i see it and what i will go with personally, feedback would be great. Although you will not see the actual year to year planning you get the gist of the programme. Feel free to steal away and utilise for yourself and if you want a more detailed programme, i will send this to you for those enquiring.
enquiries@andytennis.co.uk
00447850237342

For those interested in the programme for their youngsters then again email me on the above, this is based in the Essex area, UK. (Forgive me rest of the world but i can liaise with you if you want to set up such a programme in your area!)

Enjoy and see you on court

Andy
www.andytennis.co.uk

I Quote...

Success is never ending, Failing is never final!

Pre-Court Rituals and Routines

Whilst sporadically playing the vets tennis tour, it is interesting to talk to many players about what they consider their pre-match rituals. They range from the most strange (warming up in the toilet cubicle) to the having no idea at all. But the question is where do you fall into this equation? Are you a player that just rushes on to the court a few minutes prior to the match and just cuff it?

Remember the match starts way before you step onto the court and by becoming aware of a great set of pre-match rituals you give yourself an even better chance in the battle arena. I am going to cover your routine at the venue itself.

Everyone has there own idea of a pre-court routine but below are 4 key areas that should be apart of any routine.

·         Scouting of opponent for his/her strengths or weaknesses

·         Taken in the right nutrition and hydration prior to playing

·         The appropriate amount of your time for relaxation or energising yourself and to work on strategy

·         The ability to take note of the conditions to ensure you try to plan what end to start from if possible

During the warm up

Look to get your feet moving and get a rhythm and looseness about your strokes. This doesn’t mean going full out to hit at 100% of your all out speed. Start slow and then gradually pick up the speed to your match rally pace. Aim to go out and warm up without missing a ball! That will warn your opponent he is in for a match with a very consistent player!

Remember your aim is to look at what your opponent likes to hit and then look between the lines, what shots has he/she not hit? Why not?

Now go work out your personalised at venue pre-match plan and again help yourself to winning ways.

Andy

The life of a tennis coach final week

Did i write this last week?
Ah no matter. Well the years has come to an end and now to relax for a few weeks.
Next year has brought in a great opportunity to jump back into coach education with a Worldwide growing organisation. Having been in the wilderness for 6 months now is the time to jump back in and give back to coaches of the UK and world. Certainly a project i am looking forward to and having missed such a role in the last half a year i cant wait to get up and running again come February.

I am expecting to produce at least 5 coaching DVD's with a great pal of mine next year and the upgrading of my qualifications to the top level in the next few years will see me okay i believe!

Well we have now hit 33 Countries around the world reading this blog. Let me know if there is anything you want covered and i will cover it or get someone to write an article on this if not my area of expertise!

Have a great rest of the year and may 2011 be healthy and prosperous for you all.

Thankyou for following and i will continue to post interesting and groundbreaking articles

Andy

Playing Tennis to Reach the Top

Having researched and spoken to many top class athletes and tennis players,  the common denominator between them and the average player is their ability to concentrate on working hard to improve daily! These players think more in terms of what they can gain than what they have to lose.

Think of this as climbing a mount everest, to reach base camp is a great feat. Consider you would have endured easy aspects and difficulties to get there. In tennis to reach a high world ranking will have also endured its own loses and wins on the way but to reach this level you would have gained immensely! You will have learned and improved along the way and whats more gained valuable experience. To reach the next level to camp 1 and 2 through to the summit (ultimate goal) takes a lot of training, hard work, sweat and guts. Not forgetting persistence, perseverance and the ability to take knocks on the way.

In terms of playing tennis look at starting out to reach base camp then travel through the next 4 camps before eventually reaching the summit. Every time you win and learn you raise another stage in the mountain range, every time you lose and learn you stay the same but are armed with information to work on in order to win and reach the next stage.  

Imagine a player who in there first year on tour reaches top 250. Great work to get there and for sure has reached maybe camp 3 on the Mountain of Everest. Then comes the time to work on defending points! To get to the original camp was a fun journey but then you look down and then you start to wobble and become pressured. All sorts of thoughts come into your head, can I do it again, what if I don’t manage to attain the level I acquired? Will I be able to reach the next camp (level) am I strong enough?

Wow take a look at your thoughts at this stage, what were you thinking on your way up? What are you thinking now? What has changed?

Remember where you thoughts go so goes your energy! Change your thinking and you change the way you play. From here you will be back on the track to the summit. Remember to always evaluate, learn and evolve regardless and you cant go wrong!

It is far to easy to become insecure and have a million and one reasons to stop climbing. Find a great group of people who will help you climb (sherpas) and help you with your work, you are the leader and these are your guides, you have to commit to the work but your guides will help you when you fall off or need to rest. Your surrounding team for sure have to be on your wave length and will need to help you push to the summit. When you reach the summit you can rest for a while but there is only room for one at the top and you have people climbing up to knock you off so work even harder to stay there.

Good luck and if you need a Sherpa I am just an email away!

Andy

The Art of Anticipation - The Groundstrokes

Hi and welcome back!


To continue our journey from the serve lesson i now progress onto groundstrokes.
Dont forget our aim is to get you looking around for less cues but equally important at the right cues to gain more anticipation! Also remember this is how we view our opponent hitting the ball!


Again i am going to split this up into 4 phases


Phase 1 - The Look
Here our aim is to pick up everything before the start of the upper body movement and this carries on until the player makes their first foot movement.


What do we look for?
Here we determine the possible grip to be used and keep a focus on our opponents hips for a hint of direction they will move to. I understand that they will move to where you have hit the ball but this doesnt tell you that they may be a little more defensive or aggressive in their shot making, nor whether it will be an inside in or inside out shot!


How does this help me?
This tells you about player direction and possible spin of the shot




Phase 2 - The Setup
Here we are looking for anything that will tell us about ball direction. By studying our opponents we can tell what type of leading footwork patterns they use to hit certain directional shots! A closed stance for instance on a backhand topspin will not likely see the ball  go crosscourt!


What do we look for?
Having a focus on the hips this moves swiftly to the torso and upper body. We continue to focus here until the upper body has completed its unit turn fully. Our peripheral focus checks out the placement of the leading foot to help determine possible direction!


How does this help me?
This tells you of the likely direction the ball maybe hit.




Phase 3 - Hit to Contact
This phase gets us looking at the swing path to contact to bring us further along the anticipation path.


What we look for?
From the upper body our focus moves to the arm and racket and finishes at contact point


How does this help me?
At this stage we should know spin and possible depth of shot.




Phase 4 - The Hit
This phase confirms everything we think we now know about the shot. When we get to know our opponent more we can read more and advance to a more anticipated game and winning outcome!


What we look for?
From the contact point we watch the racket just past here then pick the ball up to focus whilst our peripheral vision stays with the player to pick up on balance and movement.


Great exercises for tracking the ball i have given on the serve anticipation lessons however....
On the opponents hit say CON on the bounce CEN on your hit TRATE.
Alternately count between contact point hits from racket to racket


Take a Phase at a time and practice away
Again this will be apart of my up and coming anticipation course that you can book in early January. Only 12 places available.


Have fun with it and i anticipate more wins coming your way!


Andy

Interested in what racket head speed you need to play top class tennis?

British Tennis Latest News Dec 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/15/lta-elite-mass-participation-tennis

Click the link above and read all about it!
Is it about time?

The Art of Anticipation - The Serve

Have you ever wondered why the very best of players of any level can anticipate that little bit quicker than most?
The answer lies in where to look effectively and efficiently! While most lower level players and those untrained in this area look at too many cues the best of the best narrow this down to a mere few!

By looking at a cued chain of events, i can guarantee you will be able to read direction, spin and pace that extra few percent quicker than most. An extra few percent at the highest echelons of the game is absolutely huge!

Lets take the serve

I am going to split this up into several phases....

Phase 1 - The Look
This is where our opponent is getting ready to serve. They have made their decision and stepped up to the plate ready to deliver a respectable serve.

What do we look for?
Here we can check out possible grips. But also look from the shoulders position to the hips to the feet. Here we are commiting to a general body search to see if the set up will give us any clues as to the type of serve they will deliver. Remember some players change a body part to some degree or other without realising to achieve certain spins, placements or to create more power.

What do i do?
Get into your athletic position and mentally prepare yourself to return the ball

Phase 2 - The Set Up
At the start of the arm motion to place the ball on its journey to its apex is where we begin our next set of cues and clues.

What do we look for?
Check out the arc of the ball arm, at what stage is the ball released? On its journey up where is the ball in relation to the players body?

What do i do?
Take a step forward or move your feet in the way you have for your return of serve routine

Phase 3 - Hit to Contact
This phase is all about the co-ordination chain on the extension part up towards the ball.

What do i look for?
Here we are focused on the racket arm and rackets journey towards the ball. Our focus starts at the journey and ends at the contact point

What do i do?
The split spring step differs with timing for different players. However, i advise to split spring as the racket is at the lowest part of the take back prior to being thrown at the ball.

Phase 4 - The Hit
This phase is purely about tracking the ball from the contact point to our hit

What do i look for?
We should now be tracking the racket just slightly past the contact point and then pick up the ball to focus on as it is on its journey towards us.

What do i do?
Use a Y formation return, move forwards and towards the ball to cut off the return.

There are many ways to 'watch the ball'.....
Try watching the bottom of the ball
Pick out the shadow on the ball
I am sure there are many others that you know however the above work to a higher level!

In order for theses phases to work, you need to practice them one at a time. From then on you too will automatically be looking in less areas and responding more towards a winning game!

This will be one of the many courses i will be running in 2011. Keep an eye out and until next time, happy tennis.

Andy

The life of a tennis coach week 49-2010

Erm........
Where did the week go?
I have been busy with not much coaching but planning, i am about to produce a 6 month coaching programme for continuing education that will be to the highest level with some top names coming over from abroad to come and share their knowledge with you all. Of course this wouldn't be for free but lets face it quality comes at a price!

I have been busy writing a mental toughness training programme for Ani Mijacika alongside this that is progressive and fulfilling. Here my goal is to get her playing effectively and efficiently on court from match to match until she reaches the top. Something that she is totally capable of!

Not forgetting the ability to try and get Tennis Mind up and running alongside this and a final project called Tennis 2020 - will give you more details on this when i have this up and running. Fantastic idea and some great funding behind it as well!

Great to see a good pal of mine on the CCA to Senior Upgrade Course, i think with myself and Phil Vivian on the course alongside the brain that is Les Mellor we will have a great time.

Will get some of these articles to you soon

Have fun all and have a great week

Andy

What it takes to be a winner - Roger Federer

The life of a tennis coach week 47/48

Wow a whole two weeks without reporting in and being snowed in too!
Absolutely no excuse except that the schools were closed and i had a fun packed snow week with my two wee girls! So two weeks in one of my personal coaching life and i promise lots of articles to come this month.

I have to ask is coaching a dying trade here in the UK, are organisations that train coaches getting enough coaches coming through the doors? or are there too many providers out there giving coach education?

Well starting next year i will also throw my hat into the ring and having gained clearance to run coach education courses with licence points, we are all steam ahead! Took a bit of doing but we are for sure there!

I have enlisted the help of some ex tour players to help out and give you a great insight into what is really needed to coach players. Most organisations are busy educating in how to become better coaches, in a different edge i am going to work from the view of the players and have coaches learn from this.

At the same time i have hopefully gained the likes of Izo Zunic to blog about his time currently on the tour with  Ani Mijacika who reached 224 in her first year of turning pro. I am currently working on a personalised psychology programme for them both and look forward to working with them next year to reach the top 10 at least!

The site Tennis Mind is coming along and i am flying through the articles to get this up and running although for your membership i have decided to give these for free.......

·         Psychology Articles Library

·         Free psychology e-books

·         Psychology Tools to improve your game

·         Psychology games and drills

·         Off and on court activities

·         Editable forms for you to utilise

·         Video clips

·         Regular Tennis Mind Newsletter

·         Free access to a 12-week Basic Tennis Psyche Course

·         Free Visualisation Course

·         Free Goal Setting Course

·         Discounts on products and courses
AND thats just for starters. I will add more as the weeks and months go on!

The site is currently under construction and should be ready early next year. If you are interested i am giving the first 10 memberships for free (priced at £49.99).

I have a coach ed course in Cambridge tomorrow with Developing Physical Fundamentals in Mini Tennis - I will post the handout on my website when i have finished.

In the coaching department i have picked up some part time work at my old club which will always produce more hours during the day. Schools programme is big next year and i have also tapped into more funding for the year that should see great fruition, wonder if i can persuade them to pay me enough to set up the coaching academy i have planned! It seems as though it wont be that difficult talking to the person in charge!

I managed to play 8 sets the week prior and started playing well, the following week started well 2 sets and 2 hours training with 4 hours coaching on the Monday before the down pour of snow from hell!

As it stands we had 3 foot of snow but that should be gone by Wednesday.

Right back to work and back to tennis before Christmas sets in! 

Busy week ahead coaching or not and some coaching dvd's to view from America that i had sent to feedback on. Looking forward to the remainder of the year and the final kids christmas party of which i will present my half hour magic show at!

Have fun and more articles on the way starting tomorrow!

The Mindset of a Winner!

As a player this is something that you would love to have as a coach something that you would love to be able to teach.

For many it is tough to be able to win when only a few games away from the certain victory. Sure you  may have been playing well up until the score of perhaps 4-2 serving but we have no idea how the rest of the match will pan out. Perhaps you have the mindset that having worked so hard that you can sit back and take it easy as you should now go on to win this encounter! Maybe you think it is time to change tactics and try and finish your opponent off or worse still try and protect your lead with different variables in your tactical play?

How about coming back from behind to take the match literally from behind?

Tennis has many momentum swings, many rides on the roundabout of scoreline, things can change in an instance, your thoughts could get in the way of your play – literally! Points arent linked together, one is a friend to another, they now nothing of the previous or the future point. Except our mind may make it so!

How can we even begin to understand this? When does these switches occur and how can we prevent them? Why do they happen, are they on a conscious or non-conscious level?

For all players its about evaluating your beliefs and expectations when in a specific situations during the match. What do you believe you will accomplish when having worked your way to a comfortable lead in the penultimate set? What is your expectation when on the brink of losing the match?

The key is to check out your belief system when in key situations, tough matches, easy matches, tie breaks, write down your beliefs, your expectations, your thoughts and let them go! That’s right forget about them all they are of no use to you at anytime in your sport if you are to achieve peak performance.

Let your thoughts enter and be gone just as quick with out any personal or emotional attachment to them. Easier said than done but alas nothing that cannot be trained!

Psychology isn’t for players when there are difficulties, the best utilise these strategies in their game throughout their careers, from an early age!

In your following matches write down the problem areas and check to see if you have any attachments to these. Any beliefs surrounding these situations and learn to just let them go so that you can play in purely the present and the now!

The life of a tennis coach week 46-2010

Coaching Hours - 38
Sets played - 8

Training undertaken - 8 hours

Books read - 5 chapters

Rained off sessions - 1 (not bad!)

What a great week and my most productive since starting work at the club. Certainly my busiest yet!

Cold, wet, worn out but most busy and most enjoyable. I have set a goal to play at least 6 sets per week to get in match mode for next year and the vets tour. Any more is a bonus.

This blog in the midst of reading now reaches out to 24 Countries around the world, i hope you enjoy the articles, chats and extra bits i put in. Comment when you want and lets start some more interesting threads about coaching or playing.

I have managed to nail down another £900s funding for the club and working in schools which all helps to spread the word to the masses! Christmas tennis camp all set and sorted along with the kids club christmas party with my good self partaking in a half hour magic show slot. A sideline from my childhood days now spanning nearly 35 years lol, must join the magic circle at some stage!

I have started work on a Tennis Mind concept that will see fruition early 2011 based on psychology work for players, coaches and parents of players! I will bring you more news on this as soon as i can and it looks as though the start of a new lecturing career is due to start next year outside of what i used to do! Exciting times and as i said in an earlier addition the Winter is for taking stock and getting ready to reap in the Spring!

A great two weeks of around christmas planned of family time and then to hit 2011 with a bang! Seems a bit early but cant wait for the break to recharge the body and batteries!

One more week and my Mental Coaching Course i have been attending will have finished and that's another string to my bow! Amazing that at the age of 39 my learning has never stopped, i will be happy once i get my head around the Russian language again and get to speaking this again!

Will be back with more articles later

Enjoy

Andy

You got to love this......

The Psychological make up of Elite Athletes

Have you ever wondered what is the difference between a top class athlete and one that just doesn't manage to break through that final barrier?

Elite Athletes have....
More Confidence
Great Arousal Self-Regulation
Better Communication Abilities
More Positive Thoughts
More Determination or Commitment

They find the following concepts most useful in making their way to the top.
In no particular order...
Great Arousal Regulation
Use the abilities of Visualisation
Understand Confidence Building Mechanisms
Know how to Increase Motivation
Have a great knowlegde of Attention or Concentration exercises
Can control Self Talk to great benefit
and
They understand the importance of Mental Plans to full effect

My twelve week course covers alot of the above for on and off court scenarios and i am currently in the midst of producing a more advanced version.

I have many players of all abilities apply for mental skills training, if you want or need a consultation then feel free to contact me. enquiries@andytennis.co.uk

Andy

I Quote....

It wasn't till i got my mental skills together could i use my physical skills
Roger Federer