Coaching Within the Technical Mindset

Technology has captured the attention of this generation. Education, and even businesses, has realized the need to adopt technology into its systems if they are to get their messages across.

There has been a shift in communication because of the generation to whom we are communicating. They are technologically savvy. They multitask and are trained to gather information quickly. Coaches who do not recognize and adapt to this change will find themselves coaching players who appear uninterested in what they are saying, lose focus quicker, and, in their words, get bored. The information they receive and the way it is disseminated is more visual, which is then translated and accompanied by audio effects to drive the message home. They are seldom away from their gadgets and may even be mindful of them while they are being coached instead of concentrating on what is being said. The systems of the past, before the invasion of technology, were more linear in the way they were communicated. In short, linear would be a straight line, whereas today’s nonlinear communications travel on multiple lines—working in concert with one another while going in the same direction.

One-Shot Tennis is a very visual, nonlinear approach to tennis development. It teaches the player how to see beyond the lesson at hand and how to focus on another train of thought that may initially seem irrelevant to the current thought. Eventually, the two lines will connect in the days to come and make more sense. This is based on understanding the roles of both the conscious and subconscious. Players in training are given experience and insight way beyond their ability to execute or comprehend. This information will speak directly to what is needed to know in the days to come, which is when the skill set and knowledge base are interconnected in the player’s mind. It will one day make perfect sense. Players are given visual examples and realistic, highly achievable short-term goals, accompanied by audio (in the form of speech and instructions) that will lead to solid play in a more accurate way to effectively measure and assess their progress during development. In a tournament play or competition, within the window of time of development, results-oriented (RO) coaching measures success by wins and losses. Process-oriented (PO) measures success during this same time period by the limited amount of unforced errors in competition. This small shift in focus capitalizes on lessons learned along the way, similar to a GPS. It places a great deal of emphasis on observing the performance of the subconscious mind (the true tennis player that plays according to the way it was consciously prepared).

By using a process-oriented (PO) system One Shot Tennis places a conscious emphasis on the fundamentals that are developed step by step—a one-shot-at-a-time approach. The process walks through point situations beginning in the area where the ball is most likely to bounce on the court, the appropriate response to that bounce, and the placement of it in reference to a real point. This nonlinear form of coaching bypasses what the student knows and has experienced while placing a greater emphasis on the knowledge and experience of the instructor using the system.

Today’s player can now benefit from the many years of trial and error, no matter what level of play they start in One-Shot Tennis (OST). There is a notable level of success in almost everything but, of course, only after there has been a mastery of its core fundamentals, similar to how a great engineer or an inventor has to first master the fundamentals of math and science. While players may experience positive results in a few wins, a champion learns the process of knowing how to win. For example, knowing the directions to the bakery is much more efficient than driving around town hoping to stumble upon it. In the same sense, the OST approach teaches the same concept of knowing how to compete rather than only focusing on the outcomes of competition.

For the parents of a novice player who is starting out at a very young age, OST will condition their youngsters to understand the fundamentals of the game. It will also teach them how to play without having a full understanding of what it is that they are actually doing, which comes as a great bonus. For high school players who have aspirations, the skill sets needed to play in college, and the ability to compete for a tennis scholarship on a D1 roster, the OST premeditation approach will prepare them to be able to complete with “no think,” which is a skill needed as the speed of the game increases to the next level. Young professional coaches and players will find this to be a system that will assist them in simplifying their game, which gives way to more growth and further development. One-Shot Tennis also has a way of filling in development gaps that have caused young tennis professionals to fall short.

Regardless of the developmental system of choice, what cannot be ignored is the mental aspect of the game. Mental toughness in tennis is a quest that is often seen as the result of competing and staying in the match. There is limited time for developing toughness and focus of the mind. Coaches, aside from their own personal experience, do not teach the pathway to achieving mental toughness. There are far too many coaches that leave it up to their players to figure out this aspect of the game for themselves. A big flaw in the results-oriented (RO) system is that all the negative thoughts that bombard the mind in the competition are magnified when the emphasis is placed on the results. This is especially the case when players are behind in a match, and the results appear to be unfavorable. A loss seems to be drawing closer and closer with each point, causing the player to feel the pressure of the game, ultimately resulting in a loss of mental focus.

Remember, yeast is made of bacteria. Weird, I know. But in comparison to tennis development, the internal struggles of every player, such as the fear of failure, anxiety, low self-esteem, short attention spans, a lack of mental focus, emotions of anger, and the lack of self-control, grow and increase based on the temperatures that are reached within match play. Just like yeast has temperature points that produce better results, so does the player, if he or she uses the pressure of the moment to positively impact the game rather than negatively succumbing to the tensions that currently exist.

If tennis development were like baking a cake from scratch, the results- oriented (RO) system would place the dough in the oven of competition without spending the time to teach players how to cope with the yeast that will arise within them. Some parents of players in a RO system have convinced themselves that the cake tastes great mainly because of the price that was paid for it. This is an American mind-set that works pretty much the same way for almost everything, especially our coffee: “Hey, it costs more, so it must be good.” In reality, what we are actually producing are underdeveloped players with a limited ability to stay mentally and physically in the game. Therefore, American players are currently losing tennis scholarships to foreign players who are better prepared. Although it may sound like one, this is by no means a criticism or complaint. The current results of American tennis development, however you may feel about it, is what it is and has great need for improvement.

What remains the same are the core basics. This is important to any approach because it is needed to accomplish the three primary objectives of play and competition. The three primary objectives of the game of tennis are:

1. get the ball over the net,

2. make the ball land deep on the other side on the court, and

3. cause the ball to land within the boundary lines.

One-Shot Tennis uses a process-oriented (PO) approach that can be duplicated but at the same time encourages individuality. The OST system does not require that coaches change what they know or what has been proven. It offers a way to connect the various elements that lead to positive, steady growth that assists both the coach and the player in bypassing the negatives that often trip them up, causing them to be limited or stymied in the developmental process.

There will be many more comparisons between the results-oriented (RO) and process-oriented (PO) developmental systems in an attempt to illustrate what most coaches and players are currently using, their current mindset, and the paradigm shift needed to grasp the concepts in One-Shot Tennis (OST). A nonlinear approach will have the greatest impact on today’s players, who live in a nonlinear, global technological world. American players, like no other generation of players before them, are placed inside of a global network. They must be marketed within an economy that has players of other nations competing against them for their own country’s resources and college scholarship opportunities. Because the stakes are high, the demand for results will be even higher. This reinforces the results-oriented (RO) system of coaching. Unfortunately, it will continue to give us what we currently have if we don’t make a change. Tennis is a game that evolves, and One-Shot Tennis offers a fresh and all-new approach to tennis development. As you will soon discover in the chapters to come, One-Shot Tennis is conscious prep for subconscious play.

One Shot Tennis