I spend a great deal of time trying to prove the worth of Red, Orange and Green to others. But recently I decided to stop trying so hard. You see the fact is that it makes sense. It’s the other side of the coin that doesn’t!

When JP McEnroe stepped out with the Max 200G a few said … “Hey that’s crazy .. get your wooden MaxPlys out!!”  So where are we now! When they changed tennis balls from white to yellow because it helped players see them better no one batted an eyelid.

When new acrylic surfaces were introduced, and hawkeye, and sports orthotics, and polyester strings the same reaction, and yet after a few sniggers people had to eat their words. We must grasp the fact that the world does keep spinning every day and it spins forwards, not backwards and what was in the past gets replaced by what will come, a better and more considered option!

The fact is we make changes.. or as we prefer to say “evolve” all the time. So I am throwing the ball back and saying … this ROG system makes perfect sense to me and most every coach that has tried it so you “Yellow Ball Purists” .. show me why kids tennis should not evolve!!

Finally let me leave you with this quick (slightly altered) statement

“The greatest limit to mans potential is not fear or lack of opportunity, but the illusion of knowledge!”

#1 Right Stuff – Courts and Equipment are scaled to the appropriate size of the child. When children are just starting out we want to make it easier for them to play, not more difficult. Using the yellow ball on the full sized court makes it much tougher for them, especially as they are smaller. In no other sport is a six or seven year old child expected to play on an adult sized field or court!

#2 More Skills – Balls bounce lower and some (red) fly slower also, allowing players to develop technical skills faster. Using these balls means that children can learn more not less. As they develop they transfer these skills, as they move
from court to court, adding more coordination and complexity.

#3 No Extremes – As balls are hit in the appropriate strike zones more often players are less likely to
develop extreme grips and techniques that might limit their future development both tactically and technically.

#4 Play Quicker – Players can serve, rally and score faster. This means that children feel like they can really play the game and have more fun. They are also much more likely to practice as they can play without the coach, can play with you, and with their friends.

#5 Play and Stay – Players Stay in the game because they can actually play it (not a bunch of random other games). They learn the real skills required to play, and the coaches don’t have to makeup games that involve a ball and racquet but don’t actually resemble tennis at all.

#6 More Balls Please – As they can rally they will hit over 100% more balls than a player standing in line, being fed balls by the coach. No longer do children have to spend more time picking up than they do hitting. As a result they will improve much faster and also develop the essential tracking and receiving skills required for tennis.

#7 Tactical Mastery – Players develop a greater tactical awareness of the court and opponent sooner as they have the time to integrate the position of the opponent into a decision making process rather than just “winning the collision” with the ball. In short they get to “make the ball do what they want it to” and not just “cope” with the oncoming ball.

#8 Ticking all the Boxes – Red, Orange and Green tennis provides a systematic approach to developing different skills as ball trajectories change and court dimensions requires new or more advanced levels of technical and tactical skills. Players learn skills in an order meaning that they develop fewer gaps in their technical and tactical skills, or game styles.

#9 Move it – Players movement patterns are more realistic. For example 85% of shots on the tour are hit within 4 steps of the starting position. On appropriate sized courts this is very similar. Players can learn to be “on balance” and use realistic footwork and movement patterns. Also as more balls come back and rallies are longer they learn that recovery and being ready for the next shot are essential.

#10 No Robots – Players can develop a variety of game styles and skills that better suit their personality. The slower balls and smaller courts mean that players can play in all areas of the court, coming to net more often and learning to attack and defend more appropriately.

OK.. the standing joke in my house is how I watched High School Musical 52 times.. No it’s not a strange obsession with Vanessa Hudgens or even Zac Effron… its because it arrive just as my daughter reached that age where singing and dancing American high school kids seemed like the most important thing in the world…

But its what it taught me as a parent and a coach that I want to share … So to do this I must share the nature of my High School Musical torture… so here goes

“Daddy can we watch High School Musical (later abbreviated to HSM)?”

“Yes you can!”

“No Daddy i want to watch it with you!”

“Oh, OK!”

So the DVD is off and running and after 10 minutes i realise that I am sat in my lounge watching the all signing, all dancing Disney cast (including Zac) but she (my daughter) that had created this living room trauma was gone… now playing in another room in the house!

Rule #1 – Attention span is limited

So before I became too familiar with the words of “Get Your Head in the Game!”.. I changed channels… watching a far more adult program on another channel (bye Zac!)

10 minutes pass and andshe returns…

“Daddy what is happening, we are watching HSM!”

“Hey you left the room!”

“No, no Daddy we are watching it!”

At which point the channel is changed and the DVD reset to the start and Zac is off and running again, or rather bouncing!

Rule #2 Kids dont mind watching or doing something again! Sometimes even if they just did it!

So as the singing, dancing and innocent teenage infatuation continues I am trapped! Trapped with an eight year old, Zac, Vanessa and various other caricatures of teenage American life! So I now have a mission … What else can I learn from the legend that is Zac?

OK I’ll admit it …

Rule #3 – Speak the language of your kids……Zac and his crew taught me the vocabulary that my then 8 year old daughter used.. in fact all TV is expert at this … no program appears without knowing the exact range of vocabulary that its audience uses and which age range it is aimed at …

Of course at this point I am deciding that, like any revelation, I should keep you in suspense before I share all the secret messages that have been skillfully and implicitly weaved into HSM… so you’ll just have to come back in a few days and find out why it’s essential viewing for all of us who are interested in learning more about effective wasy to teach kids…  after all Disney does know its’ stuff!

Today I am in Warsaw, Poland, as I was presenting I was reminded on an experience I had with my daughter when she was just 5.
While out shopping, there was one shop that she hated… infact she always complained when we went in there. It was a womens shop with a series of circular rails packed tighly together, but her complaints were not because she didn’t like shopping for mums clothes. But I still couldn’t work out why!

So I did something strange. I sat on the floor so my eyes were at the same height as hers. Ok maybe its an odd thing to do but I soon got the reason. At her level she could not see where she was going, she was being dragged around blind corners the whole time. She felt like she was stuck in a maze!

So what has this to do with tennis. Simple the only way I could even get close to understanding this emotion was to really look at the world as she was seeing it.

It’s so easy for us to forget what it is to be a kid.Why not spend a few hours thinking about the world through the child’s eyes, for sure it will make you a more effective coach!!

Ok you may be thinking! Well of course having kids stand in lines means that they wont make as much progress!

A child who actively rallies diuring a lesson will hit 100% more balls than a child that stands in line waiting to be fed by the coach. But actually its the other aspects of learning that I am referring to.

A child who rallies will understanding the tactical context of what he is trying to achieve. He will not only hit the ball but also know where he is trying to get it there and why! Technical skill rather than just technique will be developed.

A child who rallies and plays points will develop a need to develop the technical skills so that they can execute the tactics. NEED is an important issue it drive much of what we learn. I have 9 Spanish CDs in the car and on my ipod. I have been trying to learn Spanish for 4 years, but actually I never go to Spain or South America. Although I would love to speak the language I have no need. So other things take priority!

A child who rallies also thinks that they are a tennis player and this is massively motivational. The rally lights the spark and adds importance to the need that was created.

You see prioritising simple rallying over refined technique as a first step is not just physically better (more repetitions and better group management) it is mentally better (creates context, need, and importance)…

Dont forget that its not about how we can teach but how we can help kids learn!!

Its a challenge .. for sure. What to teach, how to teach, when in priority order? But sometimes I despair! To be human is a quite amazing thing! The most complex animals on the planet with a huge variation in us all.

So what about “Tennis in a Box” .. I use this phrase to discuss the need for some coaches to but what is an amazingly fluid skill development process into a regimented structure that they can measure with absolute clarity and precision.

This week I discussed a young player who I havent seen for a while with another coach. He was one of the most able (I dont use the word talented) children that I have seen and yet after 12 months of tennis in a box he plays with less flair, less invention and less skill based competence than he did before. Sure he is bigger,stronger and has better match craft but the simple fact is that some of his ability has been coaches out of him. All for the sake of the coach who wants a stroke to look like this or like that.

Human nature says that we want to make things orderly, and yet why. Maybe it’s because we are by our very nature craving the very thing that we are not? While I like tennis slo motion websites as much as the next coach I can’t help but wonder if they send a message that things should be imitated rather than created. Things should be imposed rather than grown.

I remember that this young player could do almost anything with the ball, make it go anywhere but I am not sure that tennis in a box has really helped him. And I know that it hasn’t helped many others.

Let me know what you think is the balance between technical conformity and tactical effectiveness… It’s a great discussion for us to have!

Ok.. I want to be a bit controversial.. I have long felt this but the last week has made me sure of it more than ever.. I invite you to debate it as much as you wish but it is something i believe..

One of the biggest problems in tennis development ( and i use this phrase to talk about developing players .. so please don’t think that this is not about performance .. because it absolutely is!!).. is that too many systems take players and separate them from the environment rather than try to use the environment and ensure it is supportive.. In past posts i did use the phrase “It you want them to survive the frost then don’t grow them in the greenhouse!”.. not i am adding something.. “if you want you child to be successful don’t grow them in a pot either!”

Your job as a teaching pro / coach is to create a team of players that all push along together.. one players on their own will not succeed in most cases .. they will fall away or seek another team.. you see when we develop young players it is so easy to get excited about the superstar but even the #1 in the world needs the #2…

Add to this the fundamental human need to belong and the path to successful programs is to run teams, behave like a team and compete like a team.. even the best teams have their superstars so don’t think that this excludes the individual . .. just as Wayne Rooney is the star of the Man Utd team .. so some children will shine within the team… you see a team supports individuals basic fundamental human needs…

So lets look at the two models out there for children’s sport.. individual competition and team competition.. and ask the big question.. Why is there a need to get young kids to compete as individuals under 10? What would be different about the matches if they were team based? Would the players compete with less intensity or less drive? Or perhaps when the going gets tough would they knuckle down and try their best not just for themselves but also for their team mates?

This takes us back to growing the garden (environment) where children can all flourish.. my plea to you all is don’t idolise the one superstar in your program.. parents will do this anyway .. instead build a team or players who all push each other .. In days gone by the nations that we truly consider to be successful are not those that produce just one player but have a crop of players all coming through together..  Thoughts please?

  Millie, smacked a forehand with such class and power for an 8 year old that both the squad coach and I turned to each other with mouths wide open! Then she did it again, and again, and again! She had cracked it! It was so good it was scary! A big smile came across my face! Another child had blossumed due to the garden that was created! Quite unpredicted and quite suddenly, but then that is what children do! They surprise you every day! She was not a “predicted superstar” and may not be but she sure is good!

This is what happens if you create a great environment where children can develop and flourish and dont spend all you time focussing on just one or two players. Two many systems write kids off too early and focus too much on the elite player and not enough on the environment. Children develop at different rates and in spurts but key to their development is providing the motivation to keep going. You can never tell who is going to be a star, predicting is like gambling on a horse race.. sometimes the favourite wins and sometimes its an outsider. For sure we want to find good players from our programs but we also want to look after those players that might yet find that spark that ignites their passion and commitment for the game and propels them upwards.

So before you segregate the plant from the garden.. place it in a pot and try to control it…..ask yourself what made it grow in the first place! I’m willing to bet that it had a lot to do with the garden!!