LEARNING TO BAKE – CHILD LEARNING IS MESSY
Today is my birthday so I am not sure what I am more excited about, the 5000 presents that will no doubt arrive from my facebook friends (feeling sorry for the mailman) or my giant birthday cake? It’s weird how my brain works! Everything becomes a metaphor for child learning, programs or some form of development. So let’s
LANDED IT… THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPLORING
Looking like a strange cross between a scifi landscape and a warehouse a skateboard park takes a whole lot of thought. They don't scribble a sketch and build some random hills. The curves are calculated and connected from the angles to the run off! There is something deliberate about this very expressive and creative place! Kids roll,
THE GANG’S ON BOARD!
Why did you become a coach? Why do you coach now? Why did you pick up a tennis racket in the first place? (Ok mine had to do with a girl but that is a whole other story!) We talk a lot here about the WHY for kids but one of the keys in evolving your program
THE GREAT SKILLS DEBATE
Most of us have heard of the concept of Long term athlete (player) development. As part of this there has been a big discussion around the ideas of early specialisation. Should a player choose one sport and stick with it or play multiple sports to develop an multi-dimensional skill base. Most experts agree that from a
IS LEARNING A GOOD THING?
Woke this morning to a thread on another group. Where someone described a Kids Tennis Program as a LEARNING program! Innocent enough comment that made my heart sink. Really interested in your marketing headlines following the comments yesterday from the dynamic duo of Lara Suarez-Neves and Christina Mihaela Carare. It occurred to me that while we
I’M SPECIAL … RIGHT?
Did you know that the average child in your program creates a spend of around 150 x what they pay for a group lesson? Do the math, if a child pays $10 for a group lesson chances are if you keep them that they will spend $1500 on average per year! Ok so flip this round. You
Surviving the Disengaged
One of my coaching leaders sent me a dejected email yesterday. “Monday and Tuesday were pretty tough days given the lack of response from a lot of my kids.” Andrew is an intense coach, committed to learning and giving his absolute best on the court. He is constantly searching for ways to be a better coach with players
Maximising Engagement
Some thoughts on Gamifying Your Lessons Kids can focus on iPad and video games endlessly (take my word for it!). If only we could get our kids to focus that hard, and learn this fast on the tennis court (or classroom or anywhere for that matter.) Using some of the principles of Gamification we can achieve a
Xbox Tennis
How the curse of gaming actually helped my coaching Christian was a handy 11 year old lefty. Previously he had pretty much kept to the baseline and played pretty conservatively. Today he surprised me by slicing his first serve out wide to the backhand, charging straight to the net and angling away my return with a crisp
The Imitation Game – Watch what you do and say
My 5 year old son has reached a deep and wonderful obsession with tennis this UK summer. Fuelled by the blanket coverage of Wimbledon he is enthralled by an environment where interest in tennis is at an all-time high. He will watch 2 points (3 at most) and then bound out into the garden to commence play.