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ADVERSITY

Posted on August 5, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

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ADVERSITY QUOTES

 

“The parental role should be one of gratitude and optimism versus stress and pessimism.”

 

“RECOGNIZE THAT ATHLETIC DEVELOPMENT IS OFTEN THREE STEPS FORWARD & TWO STEPS BACK.”

 

“Under game day adversity, champions choose to stay on script. This is performing in the manner in which they have been trained.”

 

“YOU AND YOUR CHILD MAY NOT REALIZE IT AT THE TIME, BUT ADVERSITY MOTIVATES IMPROVEMENT.”

 

“The ability to handle adversity is a learned behavior. Simulate times of controversy in practice and rehearse how your child should handle it.”

 

College Athletics

Posted on July 28, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

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

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College Athletics

If college athletics is your child’s goal, it is in your best interest to begin preparing early. Putting off serious training until your child is in high school is most often too late.

“The ultimate goal for a high school age athlete is to be in the “Buyer’s Market.”

 

The Buyers’ Market versus the Sellers’ Market:

The buyers’ market means your child has focused on developing their skills and achieving athletic royalty (Top National or ITF ranking) and the top college coaches are not only aware of them, they are heavily recruiting them in a bidding war.

It is important to understand that if you and your child have waited to get serious about their sport until high school age, you will most likely be in the “Seller’s Market.” In essence, as a parent, your job will be to “sell” your child’s possible value to the coach. Your child is now one of the thousands of talented but unproven athletes vying for the leftover scraps of scholarship funds. If you think the task of “selling” your child’s skills is tough, wait until you have to write those dreaded big checks for their education. If you build a champion the coaches will come to you!

“Get ahead of the crowd early by applying a deliberate, customized development plan. Successful college athletic careers are preceded by years and years of successful preparation.”

 

Preparing for college early will not only bring the college scholarship offers to you, it may even help you open a door that may have otherwise been closed. For example, Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships but your child’s tennis may give them the admittance edge over other students with similar or even higher academic profiles.

For more details regarding the college search process, please visit my dedicated eBook: How to Attract a College Athletic Scholarship.  It has everything you didn’t even know…you needed to know! www.maximizingtennispotential.com

Pre-Match Visualization and Imagery

Posted on July 23, 2017 by in Emotional Tennis, Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most on-line retailers! Click Here to Order

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PRE-MATCH VISUALIZATION AND IMAGERY

Warming up doesn’t stop at the physical. Players need to build up their “wall of defenses” in preparation for the continuous onslaught of mental and emotional challenges that competitive tennis encompasses. What we think about often dictates what we create.

A mental, emotional no-no is to obsess about the next opponent’s past success, ranking or seeding. Winning tough matches begins with a winning mind set.

“A winning mind set is a performance based plan.”

In the nights leading up to a big event, a great way to preset a positive mindset is to re-live a past peak performance experiences. Set aside 15 minutes a night for three nights in a row to allow your athlete to re-experience the feelings of coming through under pressure. This is known to calm nervousness and quiet fears. It also has been linked to motor programming the skills of applying the appropriate responses with little or no cognitive processing. It has been proven to improve the player’s physical, mental and emotional performance on game day.

Positive visualization includes the athlete imagining their strokes working to perfection, their tactics and strategies working like clockwork and their emotional state of mind calm and relaxed.

Pre-match visualization topics are unlimited, but some of the best visualization exercises include the following:

1) Perfectly executed primary and secondary strokes.

2) Top seven favorite perfectly executed patterns.

3) The three pillars of between-point rituals.

4) Successful patterns of play against the three main styles of opponents.

5) Preset protocols for common emotional issues. (Gamesmanship)

 

Ask your athlete to begin their pre-match visualization by arriving on site early enough to set aside 20 minutes to mentally rehearse the performance goals they’ve been rehearsing on the practice court.

Start this self-hypnosis by seeking out a quiet area away from other competitors and distractions- with closed eyes, ask them to take several deep relaxing breaths. Then create a vivid mental image of numerous tasks being performed successfully. Let’s call this your positive movie.

To build confidence and reduce pre-match stress, ask them to mentally re-run the “movie” several times to reinforce the positive thoughts.

 

“Positive constructive visualization actually trains a player to perform the skills imagined calmly, without hesitation.”

Proper Preparation Rewards Emotional Aptitude

Posted on July 6, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from Emotional Aptitude In Sports NOW available through most on-line retailers!  Click Here to Order

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SOLUTION # 7: Prepare Properly

If you want to make your own good luck, look towards your future athletic competitions as opportunities and bring to these opportunities exquisite preparation. When proper preparation and opportunity meet, the athlete will shine. The solution to developing one’s emotional muscle stems from copying one of the twins. I bet you already know which one it is. In case you are still unclear, let’s review a typical match day- starring our friend, Jarrod.

Spectacular Preparation Preceded Spectacular Performance

Jarrod, Evans younger brother by 9 minutes, is a very gifted athlete but a bit unevenly developed.  Emotional aptitude is his most unnatural component and so far he’s not interested in improving it. Jarrod would sabotage his tournament performances before they even began. Of course, Jarrod believed that his poor starts weren’t his fault. They were just plain bad luck.

The night before an away event in Indianapolis, I called Jarrod to discuss the incoming storm and the news reports of the morning flood-like conditions. “Jarrod, let’s plan on leaving earlier tomorrow.” He replied “Nah… I want to sleep in…We’re good”. Fast-forward to the next morning. The plan was to meet in the hotel lobby for breakfast at 8:00 am.  It is now 8:15 … 8:30 … and still no Jarrod. It turned out he decided to skip breakfast before his day packed full of 6 hours of intense National competition.

So, we began the hour drive to the site. Visibility through the windshield was about 20 yards due to the pelting storm. All we saw for an hour and forty-five minutes were break lights. This, along with him deciding not to put fuel in his gas tank caused unnecessary unspoken anxiety. An hour into the drive Jarrod said, “I’m so hungry”.

Thirty minutes away from the event I gently reminded him to begin his visualization routine. Leaving the “normal” teenage headspace behind and morphing into the character of a warrior. As I began to remind him again about the emotional benefits of pre-game visualization Jarrod talked over me saying, “I’m fine,” as he decided he didn’t need it and reached over from the passenger seat and turned up the rap station on the SUV’s stereo. Memorizing rap lyrics and tweeting friends were more important to him than the mental imagery of ensuring a peak performance in his upcoming match.

Arriving on site late meant that instead of casually enjoying a relaxed 45 minute warm up. Jarrod now had only 15 minutes to rush through his fundamentals. This brought about feelings of being under prepared which is a confidence killer. As the tournament director blew the whistle for the players to gather, I asked him if he remembered to prepare his equipment, drinks, ice, towels, etc.  Jarrod said, “Oh, can you get me a water… And find me a towel?”

Preparing properly for battle doesn’t guarantee victories, but choosing to neglect proper preparation sabotages one’s chance of performing at peak potential.

Jarrod’s athleticism didn’t cause another loss. The loss was caused by his lack of emotional aptitude, as seen in his distorted thinking and behavioral patterns in preparing for his event. Needless to say, Jarrod’s game was off from the beginning. He never recovered and went down in flames.

 

One Set Wonders?

Posted on June 17, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most on-line retailers!  Click Here to Order

Frank Giampaolo

Encouraging “One Set Wonders”

First of all, I congratulate any juniors that actually play full practice matches. Across the country, most juniors hit for 20 minutes, maybe finish a set and then leave. They become accustomed to being “one set wonders!” This is especially true in the intermediate levels of junior tennis.

Winning those tough three set tournament matches require practicing whole matches. Rehearsing the art of closing out full matches versus a single set will improve their mental toughness.  If time is of the essence, I recommend that players play 3-sets, starting at 2-2 instead of the typical one set routine. Handling the stress of closing out the set is a big advantage.

 

“There is a huge difference between mechanical confidence and competitive confidence.”

Maximizing Tennis Potential Summit: Sunday June 18, 2017

Posted on June 13, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

OHIO Seminar 2017 Revision2

Frank Giampaolo: Single Day Showdown Tennis Tournament

Posted on June 13, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

Frank Giampaolo

Frank Giampaolo  

Single Day Showdown Tennis Tournament

Saturday, June 17, 2017, 9:00 a.m., Mount Vernon Ohio

Mount Vernon Nazarene University’s Ramser Tennis Courts

and

City of Mount Vernon’s Memorial Park Tennis Courts

 

The Kokosing Valley Community Tennis Association, a member organization of the USTA, is hosting a Single Day Showdown tennis tournament in honor of former Mount Vernon, Ohio resident Frank Giampaolo, an award winning coach, popular international speaker, and sports researcher.

The event will consist of singles competition for boys and girls in the following age categories:

  • 8s red ball
  • 10s orange ball
  • 4s
  • 16s
  • 18s

There is a limit of 8 players per age division, and players may only play in one division. It will be a one-hour timed compass draw. If entries are full, each participant will get three rounds of a one-hour timed match. This is a USTA sanctioned event and registration can be completed on Tennislink (Tournament ID#: 850157917). The registration deadline is June 14th, 2017.  The entry fee for the event is $33. You do not have to be a USTA member to enter to tournament. The tournament link will prompt you to create a login account if you are not a USTA member.

Participation fee includes competition, t-shirt, 2 tennis eBooks by Frank, and dinner at the awards banquet. Frank will speak on topics that interests players, parents, and coaches.  Family members and coaches are welcome to attend the banquet at the cost of $15 per person, payable at the door.

The 18s, 16s and 14s age divisions will be played at Mount Vernon Nazarene University’s Ramser Tennis Courts, which are located on Newark Road.  All other age divisions will play at the Memorial Park Tennis Courts, which are located on Mount Vernon Avenue.

The awards banquet will be a buffet at Pierce Hall on the campus of Kenyon College.  This site is in Gambier, which is a 5 minute drive from Mount Vernon.  The address is 201 College Park Street.

Please see the other side of this flyer for more information about Frank.

 

Frank Giampaolo

Frank is an instructional writer for ITF (International Tennis Federation) Coaching & Sports Science Review, UK Tennis magazine, the USPTA, Tennis Magazine and Tennis View Magazine.

Frank is the bestselling author of Championship Tennis (Human Kinetics Publishing), Raising Athletic Royalty, The Tennis Parent’s Bible (volume I & II) and The Mental Emotional Workbook Series (How to Attract a College Scholarship, International Player Evaluation, Match Chart Collection, Match Day Preparation and Blunders and Cures). His television appearances include The NBC Today Show, OCN-World Team Tennis, Fox Sports, Tennis Canada and Tennis Australia.

Frank founded The Tennis Parents Workshops in 1998, conducting workshops across the United States, Mexico, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Spain. Frank’s commitment to coaching excellence helped develop approximately 100 National Champions, hundreds of NCAA athletes, numerous NCAA All-Americans and several professional athletes. His innovative approach has made him a worldwide leader in athletic-parental education. Frank is currently the Vice Chair of the USTA/SCTA Coaches Commission.

This July, Frank will be the featured speaker at the Professional Tennis Registry’s Great Britain Wimbledon Conference in London, England.

Training Blunder

Posted on June 9, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential, The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent's Bible

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most on-line retailers!  Click Here to Order

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Believing Weekly Lessons are Enough

I teach two families from Los Angeles. Both families come for 2 hours of private lessons each week. That’s where the similarities end.

The parents hold opposing views on how to raise a tennis champion. The Johnsons believe that they need to make their 12 year old Kelli 100 percent self-sufficient. Mrs. Johnson says “It’s up to her to do it, I can’t force her.” As a result, Kelly hits about two hours a week.

Mr. Asari believes that no one gets famous all by themselves. He and his son spend approximately 15 hours on the ball machine, playing practice sets, serving baskets, going for runs, hitting the gym and watching tennis on TV.  They both get the same 2 hours’ worth of weekly lesson. The critical factor in the formula is not the lesson, but what the parents choose to do weekly around that lesson.

 

The parents who see it as their responsibility to actively stay engaged consistently have higher ranked children, all the trophies and all the college scholarship offers.

Competitive Focus

Posted on May 22, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most on-line retailers!  Click Here to Order black_ebook_design2

 QUESTION: My child’s mind wanders off in matches, how can we fix that?

Frank: Lapses in concentration are so very common.

Focus is a key mental/emotional skill set. Without it, even the most gifted ball strikers are usually early round losers. Focus requires the athlete to understand that their mind is like a muscle that needs to be continually tightened and toned. Remember from the previous section, an un-toned brain can easily slip back and forth between its under-arousal state of mind, to its optimal emotional conduct state of mind to it’s over arousal state of mind.

Let’s look once again into the thought process of these three different “head spaces.”

  • In the under-arousal state, the athlete often begins to detach and slip into past or future thought scenarios. After the mind wanders off, athletes often report that they choked.
  • In the ideal performance state, the athlete stays deeply entrenched in their calm, happy, confident script of patterns. This mental, emotional state of readiness lasts throughout the match. The athlete often reports that they’re in the zone.
  • In the over-arousal state of mind, the athlete slips into the over hitting, rushing, and reckless style of play. The athlete often reports that they were trying to play better than they actually needed and simply panicked.

The initial key to solving this issue is to ask the athlete to begin to notice where their thoughts are at certain stages of the match. (This is best done through match play video analysis.)

Remember, triggers are used to get an athlete back into their script of patterns. Triggers are both verbal and physical.  Triggers serve the athlete in two very positive ways: it inflates their energy while deflating their opponent’s energy and by sending the message that they’re in it … to win it.

 

PTR GB Wimbledon Conference 2017

Posted on May 19, 2017 by in Maximizing Tennis Potential

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Keynote Speaker Frank Giampaolo