[tennisbiz] Re: Dealing with bad attitudes

<x-flowed>Hey Guys,

Brad has brought up some good stuff, and I feel like adding some stuff from
my own player/coach experience. Here it goes...

I think we coaches are frequently forgetting about something that is as
influential as it is. From my own tennis experience, I can tell you that you
can't isolate your tennis life from your other life activities: your family,
school, work, friendships, romantic relationships etc. Your attitude
translates from one area of life to the other.

As a player, you, say, have just got an "A" result on your exam at your
college, you go to the tennis courts to play a match, and you "rock and
roll" all over the place, beating the guy you've never beaten before...
everything have worked.
On the other side, on the day, you have just told your best mate something
you regret, and suddenly you have difficulties with seeing the ball on the
court... You add all the typical tennis "pressure" on top of that, and you
are cooked, frustrated, getting disinterested. The attitude reaches the
lowest areas...

Just regular life up-and-downs.

We coaches need to remember that success builds up on success. We need to be
friends with our tennis students, see their ups to quickly utilize them in
training and the matches. See their downs to step in with a joke, or some
funny relaxation exercise that takes the stress off, bringing fun, a new
hope, or whatsoever that helps them rebound up. We need to build a bound of
trust with our students to be successful in bringing them through many, many
tennis and life matches.

We set the standards, we need to be the authority, the gurus, sometimes even
"substituting" their always busy parents... and it is our job to be there
for them. Then you don't have to guess what is wrong with their attitude...
because they themselves come to you to talk and ask questions.
As simple as it is...

Remember: We get successful when they are successful so sometimes you need
to do something with you, and your part of work in the process to get your
students have fun and success from working with you...

Randal, you have got your homework to do to meet the challenge. It is a long
process but you'll see how happy you are when you get them back "rock and
roll" on the court...

Alek Wrzeszcz
USPTA
Austin, Texas and Zywiec, Poland
"We develope ourselves by developing others"



 
</x-flowed>
Received on Fri Apr 20 2001 - 15:15:07 CDT