Less = More

slice of motivation May 11, 2020
 

Hi again, and welcome to The Tennis Menu. Today's topic is an important tennis coaching and parenting topic. I feel it's something that I've learned over the journey. I used to think that when I first became a coach I needed to give every bit of information that I knew, everything that was in my mind. I needed to give my athletes everything, and I would talk and talk and talk, and then stop the session to talk and give more information.

Then someone brought up a quote that I thought was really important. In teaching environments, they talk about...

"The person who is doing the talking is doing the learning."

I had it brought to my attention that I continually gave too much information, and then one day I started to experiment and allowed the player to give more and to say more. To have more input.

I asked more open-ended questions and what came back was the player able was able to sustain the learning because they were the ones doing the talking. So basically I would ask a question and the player would respond. It's no different to when you teach somebody something, in which you actually ingrain that in your system more.

I do a lot of coach education. Why? Because it's my development tool. The more I'm teaching something, the more I'm learning and the more I sink it into my natural habits every single day. So when you're out there tennis coaching or parenting and you feel like you're the one giving all the information, try to change that and give your player or your child the ability to speak up, to express themselves. Ask them questions to get to the answer that you're expecting, as opposed to keep talking to get to the answer that you want.

"It's not about giving, it's about letting the player experiment and letting the player express themselves as much as possible."

Let them talk. Let them respond. Let them have the buy-in about what you're about to do, because the people that have the buy-in will actually perform better. It's about them wanting to do the tennis drill or activity you're about to give them, so allow your players to communicate and talk. And catch yourself out if you feel like you're talking too much and saying too much. Stop yourself and ask an open-ended question instead.