Hi everyone,
A good friend/hitting partner of mine wants me to coach his 10year old son. So his son has been playing for a few years and has been getting coaching but the coach had disagreements with the club and left and my friend didn't like the other coaches techniques/coaching etc. He suggested I coach his son for some time now but I usually just smile but never agreed because we are good friends and I don't wanna have issues down the road in case I don't meet his expectations etc. This time he called me and asked me directly as he really wants his son to get coaching again so I accepted.
He really liked that I helped him change from a more robotic motion to a more relaxed, fluid motion and he wants me to apply that to his son. My friend also really likes Macci's videos and says a lot of what I taught him are similar to what Macci says. I haven't really seen much of his sons tennis but the one time I saw his kid get coaching, to me it seems as though his son already is quite relaxed when he hits, but he just throws his arm at the ball with not much control so I do want to start with all the basics, get him to hit with better timing, hit the ball cleaner etc. My friend wants his son to have efficient, federer-like strokes.
Abit about my coaching experience: I've done some part time coaching coaching groups of kids as a teen but never done one on one with them and it was mostly just giving them a place to have fun like babysitting because not much of the basics was really covered. Same with his last coach, it was mostly just getting him running around hitting some balls. I've mostly coached adults, uni students since then so I'm not really sure how to approach a one on one coaching for a 10year old kid.
We will be using green dot balls and I think I ll mostly throw him the balls. In the first lesson I think I will just try cover abit of everything and then go from there. Definitely want to introduce him to better footwork like split step. A lot of coaches ignore this and I myself wish someone had taught me footwork when I was a kid.
Anyways would appreciate your thoughts, tips, how you would coach a 10 year old etc. Thanks
Also for coaches, how do you guys balance making it fun but still being somewhat strict to push kids to improve? I know that Lansdorp was quite strict and I think that only works for kids that are quite motivated. I definitely don't want his son to lose interest.
A good friend/hitting partner of mine wants me to coach his 10year old son. So his son has been playing for a few years and has been getting coaching but the coach had disagreements with the club and left and my friend didn't like the other coaches techniques/coaching etc. He suggested I coach his son for some time now but I usually just smile but never agreed because we are good friends and I don't wanna have issues down the road in case I don't meet his expectations etc. This time he called me and asked me directly as he really wants his son to get coaching again so I accepted.
He really liked that I helped him change from a more robotic motion to a more relaxed, fluid motion and he wants me to apply that to his son. My friend also really likes Macci's videos and says a lot of what I taught him are similar to what Macci says. I haven't really seen much of his sons tennis but the one time I saw his kid get coaching, to me it seems as though his son already is quite relaxed when he hits, but he just throws his arm at the ball with not much control so I do want to start with all the basics, get him to hit with better timing, hit the ball cleaner etc. My friend wants his son to have efficient, federer-like strokes.
Abit about my coaching experience: I've done some part time coaching coaching groups of kids as a teen but never done one on one with them and it was mostly just giving them a place to have fun like babysitting because not much of the basics was really covered. Same with his last coach, it was mostly just getting him running around hitting some balls. I've mostly coached adults, uni students since then so I'm not really sure how to approach a one on one coaching for a 10year old kid.
We will be using green dot balls and I think I ll mostly throw him the balls. In the first lesson I think I will just try cover abit of everything and then go from there. Definitely want to introduce him to better footwork like split step. A lot of coaches ignore this and I myself wish someone had taught me footwork when I was a kid.
Anyways would appreciate your thoughts, tips, how you would coach a 10 year old etc. Thanks
Also for coaches, how do you guys balance making it fun but still being somewhat strict to push kids to improve? I know that Lansdorp was quite strict and I think that only works for kids that are quite motivated. I definitely don't want his son to lose interest.
