COACHING BEYOND THE OBVIOUS
Coaching Beyond the Obvious By Paul Dale – 3AM Master Series Every coach has been there: watching a player make the same mistake repeatedly, offering correction after correction, trying drills, gimmicks, analogies—only to see the problem stubbornly remain. It’s tempting to think the player just isn’t “getting it.” But what if we’re the ones not seeing it clearly? Years ago, my colleague and mentor, Bernard Gusman, introduced me to a concept that transformed my coaching approach. He called it “Coaching beyond the obvious.” It’s a phrase that sounds simple, but it holds a profound truth. In tennis coaching, the real issue is often hidden beneath the surface. What we first see as the problem is rarely its root cause. If we settle for addressing only what’s obvious, we risk misdiagnosing the issue entirely and wasting a significant amount of time. A Serve Problem That Wouldn’t Go Away I once worked with a young girl whose serve was falling apart at the most crucial m...