ATTENTION COACHES! YOU CAN'T STAY IN THE MOMENT!

 

You can't worry too much about the present... because yesterday took care of that already.

'Stay in the moment', you hear it all the time whenever someone is trying to tell you why you're not succeeding at something. While it might be great advice for someone facing immediate danger, it's lousy advice for tennis coaches to develop future champions. 

I can honestly say that I have spent my whole coaching career living in the future, days, weeks, and sometimes months ahead.

Here's why...

1. DURING PRACTICES

Tennis Coaches should be constantly projecting themselves mentally into the future, that's why aspiring tennis champions are coming to us! What all young players are wanting from us is a road map showing them how to reach their tennis dreams, which can include how to win tournaments, be the best they can be, and how to continually improve their game. 

As coaches, we need to help them by designing a pathway for them to reach those goals by setting out daily lesson plans that take them there.

Getting too caught up in what you are seeing the morning of practice will sidetrack you and confuse your important long-term vision each day.

I like to start at the end... I mentally project forward to what I want to see my player doing in the future and then design my daily lesson plans around what goals I need to accomplish for them to reach that vision. 

Every player is different, what one player needs for their game to succeed will differ from some of the other players in your squad so you'll need to stay open-minded and flexible in your thinking.

I had a player come to me recently who played really well. His offensive ability in points was incredible. However, knowing the level of the players he would be competing against within the next twelve months. I knew he would need to start developing his defensive game as well because he would be facing much older, stronger, and more experienced players soon, and that they would most certainly test his defensive capabilities. 

He would also need to be able to continue winning at that higher level because failure to keep winning and improving his ranking could lead to a loss of his self-confidence.

It was the opposite problem with another player I also trained for several years. This time the issue was to develop more offensive strike power because she tended to allow opponents to dictate the point, and preferred to counter-punch her way out of trouble throughout a match. Again, by projecting mentally into the future and analyzing the level of her opponents in the months and years ahead I was keen to address this imbalance in her playing style.

Every practice session you undertake should be a reflection of your long-term goals.

2. DURING MATCHES

If things are not going well for your student there's not much you can do at that moment. Ultimately once the player has entered the court they are on their own. 

If the match starts and your student is not handling the pressure very well, getting upset by poor form, or annoyed about a few bad line calls, there's no point in you stressing at that moment. It's too late for that now.

I learned a long time ago that what you are watching at any particular moment of a match is a reflection of the practice sessions that took place before that moment. What you are watching is the culmination of your coaching up to the point they stepped on the court.

If I look in the mirror today and see an unfit person looking back at me with a large tummy, why should on blame that on the breakfast I had that same morning? 

As a young coach trying to make a name for himself, I was guilty of getting too involved in the matches. During that time I used to try and help my players throughout matches by coaching from outside the court (illegal) and generally getting far too emotional about each and every point. 

I eventually realized that what I was doing was more a reflection of my insecurities and needs. But even more importantly, I realized that if I eliminated that emotion from my brain during matches, I was much clearer mentally and therefore better able to analyze the matches (particularly what my own player was doing). By calming myself down and clearly analyzing what I was seeing, I could plan in my head what had to happen at practice sessions in the days and weeks ahead after the match was finished.

That process of calmly analyzing proceedings on-court also created a life-long habit of me carrying around a notebook and constantly taking notes on everything a saw.

3. INTERACTING WITH PLAYERS

Anything you say to a player just after a match will be magnified 6 times in the players' head. It doesn't matter if they were the one to ask "so coach, what went wrong", you'll be in dangerous waters if you comment too soon or too much on what took place a few short moments ago. 

I mention this here because being able to talk with your players and have them listen and trust what you say at all times is the most valuable tool you have as a coach. Lose that ability to communicate effectively and your relationship with the player is doomed.

In any communication you have with a player, adopt a mindset whereby you are always aware of the future. Ask yourself the question "By saying this, how will it impact me tomorrow?"

If you tend to be long-winded with your instructions, the players' will learn to switch off when you start to speak. Your goal is to deliver a message that is trusted and adopted by the player, not to prove you know everything or sound important.

Likewise, if you tend to display anger or frustration sometimes when talking to players you are sending a message that the player will read as 'giving up' and not having enough empathy for them.

The bottom line is that the way you interact with your students today will be reflected in their behavior later. 

Communicate today, while being mindful of the future

4. SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Just as a player will benefit from your projections of where they need to focus to progress swiftly on their tennis journey, you yourself should also adopt a "future mindset" so that you are constantly improving yourself as a coach.

I have a habit of writing anything helpful to my work or personal development down in notebooks. I will take notes from the books and articles I read that I feel are relevant to my work or that can be developed into an article in my coaching blog.

I was watching a boxing match many years ago and one of the announcers made a comment about one of the fighters. The comment caught my attention back then because it had similarities to what we experience on the tennis court. I immediately wrote the comment down (my notebook is never far away from me and I take it everywhere I go), and over the next few weeks, began developing the comment into a tennis theory that I still use today for my coaching. 

As tennis coaches, we all have to "stay ahead of the curve". Most importantly, our coaching must continue to develop and stay relevant. Continually developing your coaching craft also helps you to stay stimulated. It helps keep you motivated. 

If you are experiencing a lack of motivation on the court you may not be utilizing the power of planning your lessons, and of creating new and improved methods of teaching your lessons

It should be clear now that we as tennis coaches need to be constantly projecting ourselves into the future for the benefit of our students and ourselves. Failure to do so will result in our own personal stagnation and will certainly lead to limited progress with our players.