Teaching tennis to young children can be a real challenge; not least because they very often come only once or twice a week.
So every opportunity needs to be maximized. The quality of delivery and coaching needs to be of the highest order, and every practice needs to fit some quality principles. This is especially true as many coaches of young children are happy to just play any game as long as the children enjoy it.
If you are a parent you understand the principles of a balanced diet for your child. Consider then a practice that has no value but kids think is fun is like feeding them chocolate all day. They’ll love that too but it won’t make them grow. This article will consider principles to help you to “stay off the chocolate” when delivering your coaching!
Fun, Fun, Fun
A common comment from coaches is that children love an activity because it’s Fun. So before we look at quality principles maybe we should think about FUN! What exactly is Fun? Can you touch it or put it in a box or even describe exactly what it is? Fun for you may not be the same as fun for me and may not be the same as fun for a child!
I am not saying don’t have Fun, in fact quite the opposite. Just think about 3 things that you think are fun or you enjoy! Then ask yourself why you enjoy them. The chances are that they fit into one of the following
- You are good at it or at least competent
- You can challenge yourself
- You can see the progress that you are making
- You have a goal that you are trying to reach
For children the following are also relevant
- Being Active
- Learning something that they are interested in
- Being with friends
- Being with people that care and interact with them
- Being able to create something
- Being fully involved and included
- Belonging and being recognized
Many of these are surely part of good coaching anyway so the first message is that Fun and Learning are not opposites, in fact they are part of the same thing.
So if we are to “stay off the chocolate” we need to know what the principles of good activity are!
Here are the 10 commandments of Quality activity. You’ll find it challenging to always do them all and some are easier than others but as long as you try to do as many as possible you’ll be moving forward with quality.
1) Observation, Teaching or Learning
First consider how easy it is to observe the performance of the player, teach something in a direct way or create an activity that just through doing it players will learn. Some activities are played at such a pace that observation and teaching become almost impossible. So consider if a more suitable activity might give you a chance to create a focus and make progress more easily.
An example would be catching in an upturned cone. If a child is asked to catch a ball after the bounce they can catch it in a number of ways, however catching with an upturned cone will require the player to catch the ball whilst falling and will also create a focus as they seek to control the cone creating greater focus on receiving the ball.
2) Context and the Game of Tennis
Young players need to know why they are doing an activity. By ensuring that all elements of the activity fit together and make sense you can greatly enhance the motivation and therefore speed of learning. This means making sure that the court, ball, equipment and skill level work in such a way that the best way to do the task is to perform the skill that you want to teach. I call this, “creating a need” but you might be more familiar with it as a logical part of “form follows function”.
In programmes for young children we need to be careful that we encourage technique that fits the situation. The game can be played at a very young age but often the concept of the game gets lost when coaches try to apply a “pro strokes model”. The strokes just like the game are learnt over a period of time, they develop, refine and improve. The game of tennis can be played by rolling, throwing and catching, using a big ball, tapping upwards, on a small court, over a line or barrier, with short strokes and a whole multitude of other ways.
The context of what is being taught is also important as ultimately players need to make their own decisions on the court and they will only be able to do this if they have some understanding of what to do, why and when and then have the ability to choose for themselves. A lack of understanding of why they are performing a skill or doing a practice can result in players who don’t develop independence on the court, by the end of the tennis kids age.
Finally context is also key to retaining players, with young players feeling that they get to play and understand the game rather than just do drills or practice strokes.
3) Define the Court
Setting a court area should be done on every activity. It is simple to do and performs so many functions. It helps children to understand essential game based concepts like in and out and controlling the ball within an area. Without a defined court it would be impossible to introduce more tactical ideas like using spaces and recovery.
With physical activities like warm ups, using a small space can make players balance when they reach the edge of the court, encourage multiple changes of direction and develop good spatial awareness.
4) Rules
Although some activities have limited rules the best activities have a simple set that children need to learn and understand. Knowing the rules helps to create an understanding, and also belonging and ownership of the game. Spending time on the rules helps players to start to think tactically and competitively. In tennis we need to teach
- In and Out
- How to win and lose a point
- Where to stand to serve and receive, and special rules like the let serve
- How to score
So building these simple concepts into practices will help players to quickly grasp the key rules that they need to know in order to play the game.
5) Challenge & Progression
Doing activities that players can already do does not develop skill it merely maintains it. Equally activities that are too easy or too difficult are no fun, at least not for any length of time. For them to be exciting and encourage learning they need to be at a level where players feel that they are accomplishing something.
Equally one of the problems is that there are so many practices out there in tennis, that it is easy to jump from one game to another from lesson to lesson. The problem with using too many activities is that young players and their parents do not see their progression. In fact players enjoy doing the same activities, particularly at the younger age group, so the key is to find the right level of challenge and then progress it through a number of levels as players improve.
Consider also that with a very outcome based game like tennis it is not so easy to see how a player’s skill level is developing, it’s just not like swimming or golf where the outcome always reflects the performance.
So instead of changing to a different activity or practice progress the one that you are already using; use fewer activities not more!
To help you here are some simple ways to create progressions
- Increasing distance, playing over the net
- Increasing the level of consistency required, rallying for longer
- Adding accuracy through the use of targets, changing court shapes or areas
- Progressing the skill required, moving from throwing and catching to hitting or adding stroke combinations
6) Cooperation and Opposition – 2 is the magic number
Opposition is a key part of tennis. It is a sending and receiving game. Someone once described it as a “fight at a distance”. The best activities reflect these simple ideas and the activities are performed in pairs.
At a young age to build skills, activities may be best presented as cooperative so that players can work together to try to focus on skills and the task before the outcome. Equally all good activities should have a cooperative and competitive version so that once players have built a skill they can see how it will be used in a game.
Working in twos builds so many other skills. Players can be asked to react, respond or cooperate with their partner. Sometimes doing the same and sometimes doing the opposite. Of course it also develops sending and receiving skills; not forgetting that poor receiving skills are one of the major reasons that young children find tennis difficult.
With young children being quite self obsessed (egocentric) it is also a good way of making them understand that there is another player on the other side of the net and the aim of the game is to do better than them.
Finally by encouraging players to work with each other you are in a position to go and deliver some quality coaching or even pull players to the side to work with them each individually whilst the other continue with the task.
7) Scoring or Measurable Tasks
Keeping score and dealing with the outcome is part of the game. Despite what some people think winning and losing is not a big issue for children if they have the chance to play again, are not judged by the outcome, and are used to small competitive challenges in lessons. The environment that the coach creates can highlight the result or make it of little consequence; remember that the child gets much of their understanding of competition from the coach and parents.
Try to ensure that activities give everyone the chance to compete at an appropriate level or consider setting measurable tasks that players can gradually improve their score over a number of weeks.
Scoring and measuring tasks can progress through the following
- Solo tasks – How many can you do? Can you beat your last score?
- Cooperative and skill based tasks – Can you work together to do more than other pairs?
- Competitive tasks – Can you beat your opponent?
And measuring can be done through simple tasks including longest rally, how many block of a set number in a certain time, how many shots out of 10 etc.
8) The Big Picture
So you may have a grasp by now of the principles of activities that I am suggesting. They are obvious and create incidental learning for so many other things, but before we dress them up we need to consider the big picture.
How does the activity that you are doing fit into your scheme of work. There are many different drills and activities that you could be doing but does it help to move your player in the direction that you want to go?
9) Fun Wrapper
You’ll notice that we left fun almost to the end, and this is on purpose. Fun is an essential ingredient to children’s activity but it should not be the driving force behind the creation of the activity.
The other factors should be considered first, then once you know what you want to teach and deliver then you need to add some imagination. If you’ve lost yours and you need to work with children aged 4 – 7 then try sitting watching children’s TV for a few hours, it’ll soon come back! Call it essential research when your family asks you why you are watching children’s TV.
Consider also that fun may come from aspiring to be like a role model at 8-10 so at this age instead of calling the activity a cartoon name consider relating it to a top pro player, the Federer drill, or Henin drill for example. This will encourage young players to think about pro players as their role models and get more interested in the game.
It’s good to think of Fun as a wrapper for the quality that you want to deliver! And don’t forget that Fun doesn’t exist on its own. Something is fun, but fun isn’t something in itself.
10) You
Of course nothing happens without knowledgeable, motivated and enthusiastic coaches with this age group. And a big part of players coming to lessons is that they like the coach! They are motivated from the outside; you, parents and friends.
Maximum progress is also a result of your attention to detail, your genuine interest in helping every young player achieve their potential. Ultimately these principles will help you to think about better more focused practices, but, practices do not teach, you do!
So there are no short cuts! So do you want to help your players grow or just feed them chocolate!!
