Albany Tennis Park

🌧️RAIN UPDATE🌧️

All group lessons are STILL ON and will move indoors today.

We are looking for coaches and assistant coaches to join our exciting, busy and evolving tennis programme at the Northern Regional Centre on the North Shore.

Exciting opportunities for coaches who are ambitious to work at an indoor and outdoor centre with around 700 student attendances per week!!

If you are interested to learn more please email Nick Jacques at [email protected].

Thanks BOUNX for the awesome academy uniforms :)

Last weeks holiday camp had over 80 kids over 6 indoor courts which was a combination of lessons/social play/competition/music/magic tricks and rewards here is glimpse of the action. We had sessions for all levels of motivation and skill level starting at 8:30-1pm and the Academy level from 1:30-5:30pm. Many of the coaches delivered both sessions, which is an impressive level of both commitment and energy! Big thank you to all parents/kids and of course coaches who took part ;)

Be in to win 1 of 2 prizes for your kids from Albany Tennis Park!

The first prize is a tennis racquet (21 inch) for kids 3-6 years and the second prize is a trial Court Kidz session (30 minutes)!

The Albany Tennis Park in Auckland is the No. 1 tennis facility in NZ and our Court Kidz tennis sessions are designed especially for toddlers and preschoolers, introducing young children to the basics of tennis through games and fun activities. Enter here https://bit.ly/2PvciAM

Are you having focus?.......I mean fun?

I am now moving into my 27th year of coaching and still evolving.

My early understanding of the concept of “fun” was for kids to be excited by any given exercise and allow them to laugh and burn off loads of energy playing games that resembled tennis as much as possible 🙂

It has become blindingly obvious over time and especially the last 10 years that the secret to sustaining “fun” in an exercise is focus.

They are many components of fun but I would to touch on 3 in this article which are challenging competence, removing self-consciousness and creating clear goals. These 3 components I feel directly link to focus aligned with my own philosophy the Thinking CAP (competence/autonomy/purpose)

Challenge current level of competence

Often if the challenge presented is too easy the child will lose focus very quickly. Equally if the challenge is too hard kids will give up never given the chance to focus. Both of these scenarios the child won’t have fun as focus is not present.

So the key is to match challenges with the player’s ability. Create exercises that you can regress or progress to suit all kids in the class. Many years ago I remember Mike Barrell speaking at a conference mentioning the idea of the number 7 when finding an exercise have start at 4 where you can adapt the exercise by regressing to 3-2-1 or progress to 5-6-7. This concept has worked very well for me over the years.

Removing Self Consciousness

I find the most common hindrance in developing a new skill is emotion not a lack of ability. Nobody wants to look stupid. So if you create an environment where mistakes are normal kids will feel less self-conscious and will be able to focus once again leading to fun. If a coach can support kids through the mistakes and avoid intervening too often it can allow kids to focus on the task and build confidence through achieving process goals.

Creating clear goals

Kids need context to learn and make sure the goals are clear before starting any given exercise. There are potentially loads of tennis goals to be achieved other than out scoring an opponent in a match, especially in the 10 and under space where I spend most of my time coaching. These goals include developing competence, creativity, expressing yourself and understanding the game. Goals don’t need to be just within the session but continued after the session including home practice or achieving certain tasks in practice matches.

So in conclusion by challenging competence, removing self-consciousness and creating clear goals will allow kids to focus which leads to fun! Fun is a major motivational factor for continued participation in sport so if you can create an environment where you can have kids focused they are more likely to have fun

Nick Jacques

https://evolve9.com/product/club-competitions/ Wouldn't it be great if your club competitions created the kind of excitement that you have for the game. If the on and off court environments were so good that every child wanted to play again. Listen to what Nick Jacques has to say .. Use code VIPWeek1 for a $5 discount on this presentation this week in our video library.