The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s updated release: How to Attract a College Athletic Scholarship. College standout Steve Johnson provides his view on college tennis. Pre-order e-Book price is $1.99 To Order Click Here
NAVIGATING THE ATHLETE’S PATHWAYS
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
NAVIGATING THE ATHLETE’S PATHWAYS
Regardless of the stage of development, parents should seek coaches and trainers with high tennis IQ’s and optimistic attitudes- which will stimulate growth and happiness. Hire great educators to join your elite team and they will take your child beyond your wildest dreams.
SIGNS OF A HIGH IQ TENNIS COACH
Here are a few insights to remember when seeking a new coach. Great tennis coaches offer the necessary hands-on involvement with as little coddling as possible.
“Great coaches don’t need you or your athlete…you need them.”
They deeply understand the depth of the science behind the strokes while considering the athlete’s personal flair. A great coach offers structure with the freedom to explore. Lastly, a great coach is a team player who always puts their students’ needs above their own.
Characteristics of an Elite Tennis Coach:
- Optimistic.
- Encourages observation of his/her lessons.
- Listens to you and your child.
- Combines fun and laughter with serious learning.
- Doesn’t use a one size fits all approach to development.
- Understands personality profiling, brain typing & body typing.
- Organizes a deliberate customize blueprint for your child’s development.
- Eager to view your match charts and match video analysis (during scheduled lesson times.)
- Help define parental roles and responsibilities.
- Knowledgeable of the essential components of a high-performance tennis player.
- Understands the importance of positive parental behaviors.
- Assist in organizing an entourage of mental/emotional trainers, off-court fitness experts, and physical therapists- as needed.
- Assist in the logistics of raising athletic royalty.
- Available for monthly entourage team meetings.
- Welcomes parent’s emails and progressive dialogue.
- Helps organize the player’s weekly developmental schedule.
- Assist in organizing the player’s tournament schedule.
- Encourage parents to use tools such as Reading Raising Athletic Royalty.
- Conducts parental workshops.
- Recommend that the parents educate themselves through seminars, workshops, and educational materials.
- Teach life lessons through the sport of tennis.
- Willing and able to be a mediator between the child and the parent.
Parents, world-class coaches are very hard to find. Finding one with free time in their busy schedule is even tougher.
“Plan on compensating your elite coach for their time on-court and off-court. If you find one with the above characteristics, hold onto them for dear life.”
The Tennis Parents and Frank Giampaolo- Part 4
The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
INDUSTRY TESTIMONIAL QUOTES
Frank Giampaolo’s original Tennis Parent’s Bible is nearing 10 years with a second edition published in 2016 and it is still considered a must-read for all parents of tennis players. Read a few more testimonials!
“If you’re a parent who thinks you already know all there is to know…hold on because you’re in for a bumpy ride. This book is like turning a light on in a darkened room. I highly recommend it to any parent or coach serious about maximizing player potential.”
Angel Lopez, USPTA Master Professional, PTR Certified, Angel Lopez Tennis Academy
“I have been involved with tennis for 60 years and I have witnessed the development of the modern game. Frank has put together the most complete manual for Parents, coaches and players. I learned a lot from this book. It’s a must for every Parent and Coach who want to make the least amount of mistakes.”
Carlos A. Kirmayr, Centro De Treinamento Kirmayr, Brazil
“My favorite thing about Frank Giampaolo is his willingness to tell it like it is, no sugar-coating. We parents are sometimes treated too delicately by our child’s tennis coach for fear of upsetting the status quo. I know I can always rely on Frank to be brutally honest in our interviews and conversations which helps ParentingAces readers do a much better job of navigating the Junior Tennis Journey.”
Lisa Stone, ParentingAces.com
“Frank is a skilled lecturer & a top teacher. Now as an author, Frank has written one of the most important developmental books I’ve seen in my 60 years of teaching. This should be required reading for every inspiring parent, player or coach!”
The Late Vic Braden’s Review of the First Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible
Tennis Emotional Toughness- Part 3
The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
The Real Talent Is Emotional Toughness
11. Apply Positive Visualization
Winners use positive visualization by imagining themselves executing their best patterns and plays without hesitation. Less successful athletes are overcome with negative visualization, which of course overwhelms their thought processes with visions of failure.
12. Train Under Game Day Stress
Athletes need to train much more than just their physical techniques and athleticism in practice. They have to get comfortable… being uncomfortable.
13.Rehearse Tolerance
Overcome hardships and pain in practice. Simulating stress in practice provides you with the opportunity to conquer your emotional demons. By doing so, reoccurring game day negative thoughts are replaced by positive thoughts such as: “I’ve done this before, I’ve conquered this several times and I know I can overcome this again because I have done it often.”
14. Learn to Compartmentalize Emotions
Great athletes stay in their optimal performance frame of mind during discomfort by staying on script (pre-set protocol). This entails choosing to mentally focus on the job at hand by overriding the emotional contaminants, thus not letting emotions control the show.
15. Stop Feeding Negative. Emotions
Flip constantly feeding the problems, worries, and fears with customizing protocols which feeds optimism, courage, resiliency, and fortitude. Athletes should have pre-set triggers (words and actions) that help them focus on positive plays and patterns.
Sports and Optimism- Part 1
The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
With the world in disarray over the COVID-19 outbreak, there is no better time to re-focus your efforts and mindset. The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude in Sports. All the Best, Frank
Optimism, Mindsets and Life Skills
There is no other way to start this book than with a glance into one of the most important topics of my life: Choosing optimism versus pessimism. Optimism is an attitude of being hopeful about the future and choosing to seek the positive versus the negative in each situation. Whereas pessimism is an attitude of doom and gloom towards the future and choosing see and/or anticipate only undesirable outcomes, results, conditions, and problems.
Choosing optimism isn’t just a philosophy, it’s a life strategy.
This book identifies emotional problems in high-performance sports, but most importantly it will focus its energy on the solutions. Now, before you get all skeptical, let me say, I get it, being negative is far easier than being positive. Why? Since birth, we’re all nurtured to be on the lookout for the bad. From relatives to teachers to the media, we’re bombarded by the negative. The doom and gloom subject matters seem to be the reoccurring themes. Ironically, no one was born with a negative mindset. The world put that toxic poison inside us.
Sure, bad things occasionally happen, but so do good things. Studies clearly show that obsessing about “what’s wrong” has very little solution-based value. I find it a bit wacky that most people seem content to vent about their problems, yet are afraid to be grateful for their blessings. It’s almost as if we’re superstitious. If I talk about the “good stuff,” someone will take it away.
In my experience, optimism is the quickest path to greater achievements. It’s the booster of the rocket ship.
The beauty of sports is that we “get” to participate…we don’t “have” to participate.
The advantages of optimism is a popular college research topic. Findings prove that optimistic athletes enjoy benefits that their negative counterparts miss out on. Examples include:
- Happiness and Gratefulness
- Physical and Mental Health
- Inner Peace and Calmness
- Confidence and Trust
- Popularity (Sunny dispositions attract others…)
- Complain and Worry Less
- Hopefulness and Openness
Why Mental Imagery Works- Neuro Priming Part 2
The following post is an excerpt from Neuro Priming for Peak Performance NOW available!
Click Here to Order
The Sports Science of Neuro Priming
Neuroscientists report that mental rehearsal activates a network of neural coded motor programs in the brain that when primed activate the athlete’s correct physiological responses. By creating customized audio recordings and then routinely listening to the recordings, the athlete strengthens the neural pathways required for competition.
Why Neuro Priming Works
Mental rehearsal is a form of preventative medicine. It identifies the causes of an athlete’s anxiety. Neuro priming pin-points the possible problems and pre-sets their solutions. Performing at peak performance level requires the athlete to be confident and able to adapt when things go astray. In competitive matches, the athlete who has their pre-set contingency plans has superior confidence in their problem-solving ability.
Neuro priming is one of an athlete’s greatest defenses against performance anxieties. It assists the athlete in trading in pessimism for optimism. (Note: Neuro priming maybe a 3 -second between-point visualization routine or up to a 20-minute complete pre-competition review.)
ATP and WTA touring professionals are often quoted as saying the game is 90% mental and 10% physical. Neuro priming is a cutting-edge method to improve the mental and emotional components of a competitive athlete’s tennis game. As I stated at the beginning, an athlete’s routines and rituals ultimately define their success. I hope you find Neuro Priming for Peak Performance the key to maximizing your athlete’s potential.
Tennis Training- Listening Part 3
The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book,
The Soft Science of Tennis. Click Here to Order through Amazon
Verbal Communication in the Digital World
It’s no secret that modern adolescents are obsessed with social media, tweeting, and texting. Kids are nurtured from the cradle to communicate through screens instead of interpersonal communication. They prefer texting over talking. It’s the world in which they live.
Research in the field of communication found that a third of American teenagers send more than one-hundred texts a day. They want to feel a personal connection, engaged, inspired and understood…they just don’t know-how. The combination of their ineffective speaking skills combined with our weak listening skills is hurting the development process.
Listening “Between” the Words
Exceptional listeners filter through conversations to identify the true meaning behind their athlete’s words. The ability to “listen” between words helps the listener discern if the student seeks constructive criticism or only a sympathetic ear. Attentive listeners recognize anomalies that enable them to identify the beliefs, attitudes, and feelings behind words. This allows them to interpret the athlete’s spoken truth, fiction, optimism, pessimism, expectation, intentions, trust, past mental habits, and belief systems.
“An athlete’s belief system crafts their future. Every syllable they speak engages energy towards them or against them.”
As novice parents and intermediate coaches gain wisdom, they become more in-tune listeners. They discover hidden belief systems behind their athlete’s dialog. Great listeners know there is “subconscious” energy behind words. Pessimistic behaviors are not difficult to spot because all too often, those very same negative thoughts, tones, words, and actions stem from those nurturing the athlete. As the athlete’s thoughts become their words, those words determine their beliefs and play a deciding role in their performance, especially during stressful match conditions.
When effective listening is applied, the athlete’s sequence of thought-speech-action becomes very clear to the “in-tuned” entourage. Please pay attention to the belief systems habitually used by your athletes. An athlete’s affirmations and inner dialog can be categorized as optimistic or pessimistic. It should be painfully obvious that their self-coaching either builds them up or tears them down at crunch time.
Some athletes affirm positive results while others affirm catastrophe. Researchers continue to acknowledge the power thoughts have on one’s actions. Studies show how thoughts, beliefs, and emotions affect human behavior. Following, I have listed a handful of tennis-specific phrases from the mouths of our athletes and you can bet your life these habitual beliefs affect their match performance.
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