034 - Elliott Pettit - Become Financially Literate
The PTM Podcast
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033 - Mike Barrell - Evolve9 - Your Value Isn't Your Resume
The PTM Podcast
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032 - Oscar Wegner and His Preferred Coaching Style
The PTM Podcast
Oscar’s Success As a Coach When the coach can communicate through easy words and willing to permit the student to experiment and fail, learning will create a independent and lasting result. People learn when they experiment what does and does not have the correct result. We need to get creative when working with players to get them to understand concepts. They need to practice using a self-discovery model because this is what hey will do during a match. They need to figure out how to handle adversity for themselves. Oscar used this method with Bjorn Borg and Gustavo Kuerten. To learn...
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031 - Dr. Mark Kovacs - Become a Specialist In an Area You Are Passionate About
The PTM Podcast
In today’s episode, I had another chance to interview Dr. Mark Kovacs, one of the nations leaders in sport science. In this episode, Mark talks about the importance of trying to specialize in one of your passionate areas. You want to develop a skillset in any area that may make you known in: Your Local Area Your District Your Section Or eventually even nationally Some examples may include: The way you design drills How you teach Club management High performance All payers can be trained with a HP mindset, be at different levels. You may adjust the drills, the language…..etc You...
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030 - Sid Newcomb - USPTA National Tester - The Importance of Diagnosis
The PTM Podcast
Today we welcome Sid Newcomb, USPTA National Tester to the PTM Podcast. Sid is going to discuss the importance of the diagnosis in a lesson. Diagnosis is such an important part of what we do as teaching pros. A lot of inexperienced pros tend to diagnose based on the last ball they just fed. Way to much info instead of one thing they can work on. In a private: Start by removing yourself (or don’t teach the way you necessarily play) Be observant of the student Ask questions These are all super important in the diagnosis. A good pro has the confidence to ask questions to find out what...
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029 - Motivating Your Students To Learn
The PTM Podcast
Today’s Quick Tip Is: Tell Your Students What They Are Going To Learn – Teach Them – Tell Them What They Learned And using my online marketing method, may just get those stubborn players eager to learn. A Quick story: I had a group of students recently come to the campus for a week and it was an amazing experience for me s well as for them (I hope anyway) And by the way, if you are interested in bringing a group here, talk to me and I will set you up with an experience that you will not forget. Each day this group worked with an expert on campus: Monday: On-Court With Player...
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028 - Jorge Capestany - The 5 Types of People
The PTM Podcast
Today I interview USPTA/PTR Master Professional Jorge Capestany. Jorge is a highly regarded tennis professional all around the world and has arguably the best tennis drills site on the internet. So Jorge , through his own experience has put people/coaches into one of 5 different levels 1. The Encourager - They look for the good in others and take the extra steps to tell them 2. They look for the good, but don’t tell them 3. Generally wired to look for the bad in others 4. Look for the bad in others and then DO tell THEM. These people are kind of mean. 5. The Gossiper - Look for the...
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027 - Successful Progressions - My Foolproof Plan For Beginners
The PTM Podcast
027 – Successful Progressions – My Foolproof Plan for Beginners So today’s quick tip is: Start with contact and progress backwards when working with a NEW player, So why do people say that tennis is HARD? I’m going to tell you how I achieved 100%, yes I said 100% success, with getting every new player I have ever worked with to hit a 20 ball rally over the net on their 1st day with me. There are two secrets here and one of them is you So come on, make it easy for them. This way you can increase the chances of them being successful and coming back for more! Now you...
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026 - The Ocean Liner Coach
The PTM Podcast
Today’s Quick Tip Is: Become the Ocean Liner Coach if you are in the business in taking a player from one point to another. I have been on one cruise. I thought I would never like them, but I really do. The cool part, other than the free drinks and ice cream, it that even though there is a final destination, we make a lot of successful stops along the way. For example: My in-laws come to Florida every year to hang out with us for a few months. Now when I make the drive, it takes me about 21 hours to get here from Michigan. When they drive it takes about 4 days, because...
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025 - The Ambulance Coach
The PTM Podcast
Today’s Quick Tip Is: Stop commenting on every shot and PICK ONE THING. Don’t try to correct each shot. There are NO REDOS anyway, just opportunities. Instead, Try to look for the primary issue and go from there, BEFORE THE FACT. Now you have presented an opportunity to the student. As a tester, the student was supposed to match the primary problem we saw, but the key for me was even if the primary problem didn’t match mine, that was OK as long as long as he progressed properly and the student LEARNED and improved. Let’s start with the positive: Now, depending on...
info_outlineBack when I was doing basic research after I would finish teaching on court, I started reading about LTAD.
What intrigued me were the “Windows” of development and how we had to get this important stuff in before it became much more of a challenge to develop particular skills.
The first was the window for agility, balance and coordination. The second was puberty.
What I didn’t know that with A,B and C, the window started to shut somewhere around age 10-12. Which meant it was important to have these skills developed as much as possible by then.
Now when I was a kid, it was easy, we climbed trees, played army and had P.E, every day in school., not anymore………
P.E. in a lot of schools is twice/week where I was and kids are on their devices all day, so the best way to develop these skills was to play multiple sports.
I will talk about this in more detail in a future episode, but I got 8 leaders of different sports in town and turned my 10 and under tennis camp into a tennis and sports academy, which was basically tennis every day plus and alternate sport, led by the leader of that sport in the community.
It was extremely successful, plus I got to introduce tennis to a bunch of kids who I probably would not have, because they were coming to play all the sports.
Parents loved it because they did not have to sign up their child for 12 weeks of a sport only to find out the child hated it. They could try a sport for one day and report back with no risk.
The point is, through my drive to want to learn as much as I could, this concept developed into an amazing summer experience and I retained a lot of these kids in the fall, winter and spring.
It was an easy sell to the leaders of the other sports, because they understood the science behind it, plus we promoted their programs to all of the kids at the same time. Win-win for all.
This basic concept of sport science leads us into my interview, with Dr. Mark Kovacs who will simplify “Tennis Science” as he calls it and tells you where you can get started.
Sport Science is basically all of the scientific areas that allow you to teach tennis better.
In it’s complex form, it is a combination of:
1. The physiology of the body
2. The biomechanics of the body
3, The anatomy of how our muscles and movements work
4. Sports Psychology
5. Nutrition
6. Motor Learning
7. How the brain functions
8. How we develop skillets
9. How we teach the
10. How this all integrate with how to hit a ball under stressful situations
But this IS NOT for just the top players
The goal is how we can make teaching and learning more efficient and more fun.
Skill develop is VERY IMPORTANT at all levels of play and makes you a better coach and makes you more versatile.
Where you can start:
1. USTA Sport Science Course
2. Get involved in the international tennis performance association. helps educate you on how to understand sport science and how it relates to make you a better coach and teacher.
1st Step:
The Tennis Performance Training Program
- Not heavy on the science
- Not a lot of big words
- Tries to get coaches to understand the basics in video and written form
- Lots of resources provided if you want to dig deeper in a particular area
You can get there by going to: http://itpa-tennis.org
Bottom Line: Skill development is very important at all levels, especially when players are young, so coming up with a basic plan will not only help you develop these kids but your parents will know that you get it, which makes you MORE attractive to them.
Getting both you and your platers started as early as posit;e will be an advantage for the both of you.
Links
To get a hold of Dr. Kovacs go to:
1. mkovacsphd (Twitter. Facebook, Instagram)
2. http://kovacsinstitute.com and send an email
Good Luck,
Coach Mick, USPTA