PTR December 2011 Newsletter - Professional Tennis Registry

Are we selling ourselves enough on individual lessons?
Andy Dowsett
As coaches many of us are indoctrinated to give one hour lessons, however, should this be the case?
Courses and workshops are great but over the years I have found conversations with like minded coaches have
yielded much more information and ideas to act upon.
This article is a culmination of one such conversation and I hope you can learn much from it!
Week in week out we have our one hour (generally technical or tactical) lesson with our students; our goal is to have
them start a journey where there really is no end. I have found once the bug has taken and the student is improving
weekly then the doors to many lessons open up.
People come to lessons for all number of reasons of which I have added below...
They truly wish to become the best player they can
For fitness and to work out
To work on tennis psychology
To improve their match play in tournaments and leagues
To fit in socially with the group they are also attending
Purely to hit with ‘you’ or play matches against ‘you’
Workout why your student really comes to lessons and see ‘what else’ you can give them! This means getting to
know them a little more than just turning up week in week out for a lesson, what motivates them and where do they
wish to end up?
How can you give your student more in a 90 minute lesson?
For the player who wants to work out as they find gym work laborious then there are a number of on court practices
that you can utilise from medicine ball work to fit ball work to band work. Many courses will educate you in this way
like the well established Etcheberry Experience workshop.
Perhaps many of your students require that little more match play so an extra 30 minutes after the main lesson will
be perfect. This could be general match play to pressure point tennis scenarios.
Perhaps movement maybe a big issue and that extra 30 minutes practice in footwork training will be the key to
taking your student to the next level.
One of the best sessions that worked were the U3 and me lessons. Whilst one student trained individually for 30
minutes the remaining two committed to training on the next court. This three way rotation ended in 90 minutes of
great work. From here you get to work on great doubles drills or 3 way drills.
Sometimes you have to think outside the realms of what you have been taught or already know!
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