JOIN US
TODAY- THURSDAY
OCTOBER 15, 2015 at 5:30 P.M. Eastern Time
John L. Danise,
Executive Director of the Florida High School
Tennis Coaches Association
Interviews
Bestselling Author Frank Giampaolo
Discussing the process of
Raising Athletic Royalty.
To Listen Live Call: 714-583-6853 or
Connected to:
www.BlogTalkRadio/UR10Snetwork
(Or log on later to hear the recorded pod cast.)
Frank will be available to answer questions after the show!
JOIN US
THIS THURSDAY!
OCTOBER 15, 2015 at 5:30 P.M. Eastern Time
John L. Danise,
Executive Director of the Florida High School
Tennis Coaches Association
Interviews
Bestselling Author Frank Giampaolo
Discussing the process of
Raising Athletic Royalty.
To Listen Live Call: 714-583-6853 or
Connected to:
www.BlogTalkRadio/UR10Snetwork
(Or log on later to hear the recorded pod cast.)
Frank will be available to answer questions after the show!
PRESENTS
The Tennis Parent/ Player/ Coaches Maximizing Tennis Potential Seminar
Join Us Live December 13, 2015 in Daytona Beach, Florida for a
Very Special One Day Workshop
Topics Will Include:
Important Note from the FHSTCA Conference:
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
The Formula for Achieving Results
All too often, competitive parents and athletes have dreams they mistake for goals. The disconnect starts with confusing dreams with goals. A dream is only a goal if it has an organized plan. For example, when I ask naturally talented athletes about their goals, they most often answer with uncontrollable outcome dreams. Such as: being ranked top in the nation, winning the state championship, receiving a NCAA D-1 athletic scholarship or playing pro ball.
These are nice dreams but remember:
“A goal without a deliberate customized developmental plan is actually a dream in disguise.”
Although elite athletes may also have the above dreams, the difference is that they realize their success is a result of quantifiable performance orientated process goals. It isn’t always the most naturally gifted athletes that are successful, it is the athletes with strong work ethics and a plan.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
The Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible is coming soon! The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Question: My daughter is easily intimidated out of competing. Is this fair?
Frank: Yes, intimidation is fair. At the higher levels, tennis is a game of intimidation. If your daughter has terrific strokes but is an inexperienced emotional competitor, it is your child’s coach’s responsibility to assist them in developing a “thick skin.”
Dealing with gamesmanship should be part of your child’s basic training. The first step in handling gamesmanship is devising customized solutions (protocols) for each form of gamesmanship. The second step is rehearsing those solutions on the practice court to gain confidence in applying pre-set counter gamesmanship solutions in a real match.
To progress into the higher levels of the game, mental and emotional skill set development is crucial. Parents, if you’re not taking an active role in helping to develop these critical components in your child, please don’t blame your child when tournament after tournament they lose as a result of gamesmanship.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
The following post is an excerpt from Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible- coming soon! Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Parent Player Harmony
“Extraordinarily successful athletes have parents that have mastered their managerial role.”
One of the most important duties of a parent is to instill harmony along the journey. Through a parent’s unconditional love and support, the ultimate outcome of the athletic journey should be to create a well-balanced, world class adult and family harmony.
Behaviors that Foster Parent-Player Harmony:
“A parent should hold the athlete accountable for poor behavior. Instilling manors and good sportsmanship is part of the balanced approach.”
Parent Entourage Synergy
The player, parent and coach synergy is the foundation of raising athletic royalty. Just as the player-parent relationship lasts a life time, so do the positive life lessons taught by a quality tennis coach.
“Choose wisely as you assemble your child’s team. Your cast of coaches and trainers will shape and define your child.”
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Question: Why is it hard for some athletes to make changes?
Frank: Let’s take another look into personality profiles. People with a sensate judging (SJ) dominate brain type are actually wired to be safe. In their mind, being safe provides a sense of security. For them conformity is comfortable. Standardization is key. To these SJ personalities, change is uncertain and therefore feared.
Others personality types, especially intuitive perceivers (NP), are wired to trust their natural inquisitive instincts and be more risk takers. These NP personalities are future oriented and boldly see the world as something to conquer. It’s in their DNA (nature.) These inborn characteristics are called genetic predisposition.
A person’s ultimate belief system is a result of both their genetic predisposition (nature) and their life experiences (nurture) -such as upbringing, surroundings and parental views. Humans naturally protect their beliefs, some way more than others.
When confronted by different ideas or opinions a chemical reaction triggers a response. To the SJ personalities, this new idea may be viewed as a threat because it hasn’t been analyzed yet, so avoiding it is often normal.
When new techniques are presented to these folks they are often uncomfortable simply because the information is different. The new method clashes with the old comfortable method so the new method is disregarded as wrong.
“Sometimes the new way is actually the right way…but it feels wrong to the SJ athlete coach and/or parent.”
In seeking change, consider your athlete’s brain type and body type. For example, asking a fine motor skilled dominant body type player to change their foot work, core balance and stability is going to be much more difficult than asking a gross motor skilled dominant player to do the same task.
“Motivate your athlete to accept change. Although change can be difficult, by refusing to change and grow … you will likely be left behind.”
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
The following post is an excerpt from the NEW Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible- Coming Soon! Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Opponent Profiling
At the advanced levels, every player has efficient strokes. In tournament competition what often separates the champion from the field is their mental and emotional skill sets. This includes paying attention to why points are won and lost. They manage the score, their strategies and their performance anxieties as well as their focus control. Winners enjoy adapting to the ever changing challenges of closing out sets and matches. Winners maintain their poise under stress because they are one step ahead of the opponent by opponent profiling. I encourage both the parents and the coaches to begin to develop each athlete’s mental and emotional “muscles” at an early stage.
“In any sport, experts don’t simply see where the action is… they can see where the action is going to be in the very near future.”
Opponent profiling is essentially paying attention to the opponent’s patterns and tactics and applying the appropriate counter tactics.
Benefits of Opponent Profiling:
Just as I urged players earlier in this mental chapter to design and rehearse their “Top 7” patterns (2 ball shot sequence), I also have high hopes that your athletes will progress one step further and apply the art of spotting the opponents favorite shot sequences.
Identifying the Opponent’s “Top 7” Categories:
“Forcing talented opponents out of their comfort zone requires your athlete to identify and systematically shut down the opponent’s favorite strategies and tactics.”
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Question: Should parents be discouraged or encouraged to watch practice?
Frank: I encourage the parents to be involved in the learning process. There’s so much “GOOD” that comes from positive entourage synergy. However, there are two situations in which I will speak privately with the parents and explain to them that their presence during the practice session may be stunting the growth they seek.
The first situation is if the child has told me that their efforts are constantly being overly criticized by their parents or if the parents are so outcome driven, the athlete feels immense added pressure to perform perfectly or else. Athletes and their parents should seek excellence …not perfection.
“Stress and fear are not optimal learning environments. Maximizing potential comes with the freedom of making mistakes.”
Players need to experiment and try things “their own way.” Junior athletes have often confided in me that when their primary tennis parent is in attendance, they’re later bombarded for hours with a laundry list of additional failures that need to be fixed. The player begins to feel hopeless – believing that they will never be good enough.
The second situation in which a parental discussion is in order involves overly protective, mildly obsessed parents. In today’s world, they are commonly called “Helicopter” parents. The nickname comes from their neurotic hovering on and around the court every session as they attempt to dominate the coach-athlete relationship. (If you suspect that you or your spouse may be a bit of a helicopter parent, the next question is for you.)
Parents, if your child feels additional stress from your presents, it’s in everyone’s best interest to take the time to get educated in the process of raising athletic royalty. If you’re interested, I have a detailed book on the topic actually called: Raising Athletic Royalty: Insights to Inspire for a Lifetime. It’s everything you didn’t even know…you needed to know.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
The following post is an excerpt from the NEW The Tennis Parent’s Bible coming soon!
Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
Due to the over-whelming response to the 2010, bestselling first edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible, I’ve been traveling the world with coaching seminars, tennis parent workshops and working with private families of passionate athletes. Throughout my travels, I continued my quest to go deeper into the process of raising athletic royalty. In the past five years, I’ve increased my knowledge tenfold and I want to share these discoveries with you.
I was compelled to write the first edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible for two very important reasons:
First and foremost, I found that the old system of raising elite athletes lacked player, parent and coach synergy. And secondly, a successful organized guide to support parents in developing athletic royalty had not been established.
After years of coaching and working with players, parents, coaches and researchers, I had developed a more efficient way of organizing the tennis player’s team. I am obviously an “outside the box” style of thinker… I always have been. It’s my genetic predisposition. I found that by educating the tennis parent about the nuances of tennis development, the developmental process was more successful and the journey was appreciated.
“The modern epidemic of mediocrity, stemming all the way back from 1950’s and the assembly line mentality, is ineffective in athletic development.”
Educating the athlete’s parents is a revolutionary way to achieve greater family harmony while maximizing player potential at a quicker rate.
To illustrate my philosophy, here is an example of why your children shouldn’t be placed in groups based solely on their age. Customization is essential. I know 6 year olds that are more coordinated and athletically mature than 12 year olds and 17 year olds more emotionally immature than 10 year olds. Some athletes thrive in shorter sessions, some in longer sessions. Some enjoy training in groups of peers, some prefer private sessions. Growth development schedules are diverse. Different personality profiles require different approaches to their development. This book’s intent is to break the old fashion standardizations beginning with the role of the tennis parent in the developmental process.
Invested selfless parents deeply want to be involved in their children’s lives and be a part of the team. Telling the primary care givers to “butt out”, which is sadly the industry norm, isn’t in anyone’s best interest. Tennis parent education has been the most ignored and mysterious topic in the industry and I intend to continue my quest in changing this direction.
Regardless of the stage of development, The Tennis Parent’s Bible will assist you, the tennis parent, in maximizing your child’s tennis potential at the quickest rate. The evolutionary state of tennis demands parents be more involved and informed, due to the ever increasing demands of the game. The competition is bigger, faster and stronger. Around the globe, the competition is training more efficiently. The days of raising a talented athlete while being a passive parent are long gone. The Tennis Parent’s Bible is essential reading for those interested in developing confident, self-reliant and accomplished children.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
The following post is an excerpt from The Tennis Parent’s Bible. Thanks for visiting, Frank Giampaolo
Question: My child’s mind wanders off in matches, how can we fix that?
Frank: Lapses in concentration are so very common. Eliminating them begins by looking into the athlete’s personality. This dictates their patience, shot tolerance level and wandering mind. Secondly, fixing the issue begins with educating the player to actually recognize when their mind is wandering. Third, the solutions include establishing adrenaline pumping cue words and mental recovery routines called triggers used to pull the athlete back into their optimal emotional conduct.
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 chapter, 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 motivate the athlete to get back into their peak performance level of play.
Triggers serve the athlete in two very positive ways: it inflates their energy while deflating their opponent’s energy by sending the message that they’re in it … to win it.
Contact: Frank Giampaolo
FGSA@earthlink.net
MaximizingTennisPotential.com
Affiliate
