Tennis for Children: Balance the Ball. Don’t Let it Fall!
A wonderful way to teach a young tennis player the relationship between the racquet and a tennis ball is to have them balance the ball on the racquet strings. This builds strength, coordination and understanding of the “ball and stick” relationship. Many young children can grasp this concept quickly but others will need significant assistance. […]
You can be a hero too.
If you don’t read then listen to the article instead. In the archetypal hero stories, we often revere the protagonists as extremely brave and impossibly strong warriors battling the evil of their time. In the fourth Die Hard movie, when the hacker is unwillingly forced into the service of the unlikely hero, he asks “..why are you […]
TennisForChildren Article Series:
If 10,000 hours is the assumed amount of practice it takes to master a skill, then how many hours will it take to acquire competence? In my opinion, I believe it can take less than ¼ of that number to acquire competence. Listen to the audio article on the Atlanta Tennis Podcast in your favorite […]
TennisForChildren Article Series: Strength is the key
Kids need confidence and here’s how to give it to them: give them strength! I don’t mean just physical strength. I also mean emotional, spiritual, and intellectual strength as well. All of it. Strength is an important part of all of existence as well as success in sports. Every day, we see parents putting their […]
Teach kids to use a calendar to help them become more independent
If you don’t read, then listen. My wife remembers when the kids would ask (every day) “What are we doing today?” and there are plenty of reasons why a child wouldn’t know what the plan is for today. As their parents, we plan the daily, weekly, and monthly schedules but we are also cognitively able to […]
Tennis for Children: Smash
One of the ways we are able to be more efficient in our ability to help children learn the sport of tennis is to create entertaining games that are really single tasks which have multiple purposes. In the case of the game Smash, this game allows children to develop the difficult and often awkward ability […]
Tennis for Children: Tornado!
We have a game we play first and foremost before we ever get started with our lesson plans in the preschool tennis programs. This game is called “Tornado!” All we had to do was, one time, video the children playing the game and play it back for them in a ‘time lapse’ scenario and they […]
Tennis for Children: Point Your Toes
One of the easier concepts for a young tennis player to learn (however difficult to remember) is to stand facing perpendicular to their target. A good phrase to help the child remember how to stand in preparation for “bounce-hit” is “Point Your Toes.” This is a simple transition from the initial preparation for “bounce-catch” which […]
Tennis for Children: Driveway Mini-Tennis
Have you ever heard of Four-Square? No, not the social networking concept, but the children’s game where four players bat a large ball back and fourth and each player covers ¼ of the gaming area. Very similar to the competitive idea of tennis, Four-Square expects a player to guard his part of the court, only […]
Tennis for Children: Don’t Stop; Get it, Get it!
For all the hockey fans out there, here is a wonderful tennis game for kids. We, as tennis professionals are always searching for that perfect game which allows a young child to compete but also makes the game easy. One of the best games to introduce your child to tennis can be played anywhere, however […]