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Coaching Brain Type Performance- Part 6

Posted on June 17, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

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ENFP: Extrovert Intuitive Feeler Perceiver

 

Challenge: ENFP’s are creative, outside-the-box thinkers. For them, stepping outside of their comfort zone is easy. Instead of rigidly adhering to mundane rules and regulations, ENFP’s simply work around them.

Solution: Avoid micromanaging this type. A trick to coaching the ENFP is to keep drills fresh. Rallying to 100 is not only non-practical but will bore them to tears. Instead, customize 2-3 ball patterns based on the athlete’s offense, neutral and defensive situations. Challenge them to stay focused until they complete the exercise 10 times. Add negative scoring (deduct one from their score for each error) to improve their focus ability and their emotional component along with their hardware.

 

Challenge: The downfall of being extroverted is that ENFP’s are often in high demand. They repeatedly have trouble saying no when friends, family, acquaintances or even strangers ask for their help. Their empathetic nature is their blessing and their curse. This occasionally overwhelms the EF type, and they need to shut down and IT (Introvert/Think) for a bit.

Solution: Coaches should be on the lookout for signs of extrovert burnout. Symptoms include a noticeable shift in character. Such as when their natural optimism is turning pessimistic or when this popular, friendly type begins to act less approachable, sharp-tongued, and uncaring. At this time, motivate them to take some time off to recharge their batteries.

 

Challenge: ENFP’s are social and energetic tennis players. Their EF traits make them infectious partners and tennis teammates. They are natural investigators and explorers who get quickly bored with routine. Multitasking, communication, and people skills are their strong suit, but their problem solving and focus skills on-court may need your attention.

Solution: ENFP’s are future-minded, big-picture athletes. On-court they can struggle with keeping their mind focused “In the game.” Disinterested with the past and even the present, these types have to be reminded to stay focused on this stroke, this tactical play, and only this point. Coaches would be wise to develop their match closure skills.

 

Challenge: ENFP’s prefer to rely on their intuition and flow subconsciously through competition. Coaches can spot the moment when these NFP types stop playing in the moment and begin to think about the outcome. Examples include: “Man, I’m up 4-1 versus the top seed. I can win this…then boom!” They just traded in their intuitive, performance state of mind for a sensate overwhelming outcome mindset. Or “I’m down 2-5, I’m gonna lose anyway so I might as well relax and go for my shots…Boom!” They win three straight games to 5-5 only to flip the switch back to over-thinking about the outcome and drop the set 5-7.

Solution: Designing their strategic script of customized top patterns and ingrain them through pattern repetition, dress rehearsal, and practice match play. Teaching an ENFP to close out points, games, sets, and matches while staying on script is the key to developing their competitive focus.

 

Coaching Brain Type Performance- Part 5

Posted on June 14, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

Frank Giampaolo

CHAPTER 9: Assisting the 4 NF Typographies

INFP, ENFP, INFJ, ENFJ

 

INFP: Introvert Intuitive Feeler Perceiver

 

Challenge: INFP’s aren’t wired to enjoy analyzing match data. Their P brain design makes them “big picture” athletes versus “students of the game” who enjoy number crunching and quantifying data.

Solution: Trade in detailed date match charts like the typical errors to winners chart and replace it with a court positioning chart. The court positioning chart provides the big picture INFP’s can sink their teeth into and understand. Chart points won/lost when playing behind the court versus points won/lost when played inside the court.

 

Challenge: INFP’s are athletes who are often a bit overly sensitive to criticism. Detailed lists of “Here’s what you’re doing wrong…” stress out this profile more than most.

Solution: Apply authenticity while offering up their strengths versus weaknesses. They see tennis as an expressive game. If they feel their creativity stifled, they shut down, and effort is lost. Feelers are sensitive. Apply extra doses of optimism to their training regimen.

 

Challenge: This rare brain design is warm and kind but at the same time challenging to satisfy. After matches, they are typically their own toughest critics. These students try desperately to please friends, teammates, parents, and coaches which often leaves them drained.

Solution: Motivate the INFP to shoot for daily excellence in their training and match play versus perfection. Athletes in need of perfection in order to be happy suffer foolishly. Assist them in organizing their weekly developmental plan and making themselves the priority during those times.

 

Challenge: These friendly, quiet introverts don’t have the natural spatial design to take in large doses of auditory information. Like a few other cerebral designs, talking at them isn’t in the parent, coach, or student’s best interest.

Solution: Getting into their work requires identifying their preferred learning system. INFP’s are visual learners that prefer to imitate a coach’s actions. When working with this type, demonstrate the skill you are seeking, and they will effortlessly copy the movements. Encourage them to attend college or professional tennis matches and visualize themselves performing in that environment.

Coaching Brain Type Performance- Part 3

Posted on June 7, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

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ISFP: Introvert Sensate Feeler Perceiver

 

Challenge: ISFP athletes tend to have their own agendas and schedules. They “beat to their own drum.” The structure and rules of others are often difficult for them to follow.

Solution: When too many demands and obligations fall upon them, these introverted individuals need alone time to recharge their batteries. Their SF function makes them want to do everything correctly to make others proud. Provide information and instruction at a rate that is comfortable for them to digest so that they can better assimilate. Excessive details tend to bog down ISFP’s.

 

Challenge: Pay particular attention to the amount of criticism offered to the ISFP. Lack of appreciation is a sure fire way for them to pull away from the sport.

Solution: Apply the five-compliments to one-criticism approach when working with this cerebral design. Use video analysis to point out their incredible strengths and improvements instead of only their weaknesses and failures. Instead of offering advice in the heat of the moment, offer to be available to chat when they’re ready to talk through their feelings.

 

Challenge: Under stress, this type can become excessively critical of themselves and others trying to assist them. These athletes tend to be harsh as they obsess over their mistakes and imagined problems.

 

Solution: Validate that you understand their feelings but reassure them that feelings are simply emotions and emotions are often speculations, not absolute facts. Have some fun as you remind them that their catastrophic thoughts are just thoughts and often not reality.

 

Challenge: Due to their FP design, these individuals are likely to mentally drift into future thoughts after a lead is established. These outcome thoughts include: “what’s my ranking going to be?”, “Who do I play next?”, “What are my friends going to say when I beat this top seed?”

Solution: Assist the ISFP’s in remaining on script, within their performance state of mind after they’ve built a lead. Drifting into outcome-oriented scenarios while still in the match is a receipt for disaster.

Coaching Brain Type Performance- Part 2

Posted on June 5, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

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ISTP- Introvert Sensate Thinker Perceivers

 

Challenge: ISTP’s are bold, courageous competitors-fighting until the bitter end. Often young ISTP’s believe they have little use for boring fundamentals. “Open the can… serve’em up” is their battle cry.

Solution: Make fundamental stroke building into a competitive game, not a chore. Mundane, repetitive drills bore them to tears. Add negative scoring to each basic drill to keep the competitor interested. Rallying for hours on end is a surefire way to lose this great athlete to another sport.

 

Challenge: On the stress-free practice court, ISTP’s will digest detail. They’re not content with simple instructions on how to hit a ball; ISTP’s want to know where, when, and why.  But, in live-ball sparing scenarios, this type dials in their competitive focus and doesn’t want a ton of instruction.

Solution: In private tennis lessons, explain who, what, where, why, when. This information ties into their sensing typography. In live ball sessions, allow them time to process themselves. Instead of talking, shadow swing the stroke or pattern so they can visualize and perceive the proper sequence.

 

Challenge: ISTP’s aren’t initially comfortable with coaches or teammates with opposing brain designs. Due to their thinking design, they can be sensitive to their feelings yet cold and impersonal when it comes to the feelings of others. Accepting other’s points of view can be difficult.

Solution: Educate emotional intelligence along with logic. Remind ISTP’s that their cerebral design is merely one of the 16 different personality profile categories and each profile has varying preferred learning processes. Reinforce the fact that everyone is not wired like them and it is possible they aren’t always right.

 

Challenge: The ISTP’s distinctive patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving have made them favorites in the field of sports psychology type based assessments. While high-performance ISTP athletes prosper in the hardware department, they often languish in the development of their software.

Solution: Early in their development, put forth great effort into building their life skills, especially relationship skills. ISTP’s often struggle with finding the right words to nurture their alliances optimistically. Out-going people often aggravate strong ISTP’s. They may find an extroverted, feeler coach or teammate suffocating so they prefer to reject the much-needed affiliation.

Coaching Brain Type Performance- Part 1

Posted on June 2, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

Soft Science of Tennis_3D_Cover_version5

Assisting the 4 SP Typographies

ESTP, ISTP, ISFP, ESFP

 

ESTP- Extrovert Sensate Thinker Perceiver

 

Challenge: ESTP’s are natural born entertainers and love to play on center court. To their detriment, they often choose to play to the spectators applying crowd-pleasing, low percentage, shot selections.

Solution: It’s important to allow ESTP’s the freedom to express themselves while keeping them in the match play modes of proper offense, neutral and defensive shot options. A critical game plan for thrill-seeking ESTP’s is only to hit the shot the moment demands.

 

Challenge: Focusing on the moment at hand is a task ESTP’s often struggle to sustain. These adaptable, outgoing individuals are usually physically gifted but are impulsive and get distracted from routinely sticking to high percentage plays.

Solution: Teach them to design and rehearse their script of customized percentage patterns of play. Educate them on the fact that if those patterns are winning 2 out of 3 points, there’s no need to interject change. Victories will pile up if you can get ESTP’s to hit the same old boring winners set after set.

 

Challenge: ESTP’s are not designed to stand in line and conform to the masses. They do not see the value in rigidly enforced nonessential rules. Lighten your sessions with laughter. This brain design doesn’t work well with excessively inflexible mentors. Due to their EP design, you can spot these unique individuals because they often choose flashy attire and beat to their drum.

Solution: Forget about extinguishing their unique flame. Focus on soft guidance versus ridged control. ESTP’s are flashy players who enjoy going for bold winners. Forcing them to stand 15 feet behind the baseline and grind week in- week out doesn’t fit their genetic design.

 

Challenge: ESTP’s often apply unnecessary risk in competition. They typically get bored without a challenge and occasionally go “off the boil” as our friends down under like to say.

Solution: Ask these athletes to apply a personal challenge when boredom creeps in. The mission is for the student to focus on routinely winning 3 points in a row. This mental drill forces them to eliminate their wandering mind as they zero in to win. Remind them of the WIN acronym: What’s Important Now!

 

 

Personality Based Training – Part 3

Posted on May 26, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

soft science

In my experience, personality profiling is a soft science, meaning other factors such as nurturing and environments skew the data. With that said, I believe that athletes have specific preferences in the way they experience the world and these choices affect their actions, values, and motivational needs on and off the tennis court.

Universal Truths

  • Gaining an understanding of this soft science takes time. Be patient as you learn to apply this newfound skill. I encourage you to apply personality profiling as a means to understand how students tick versus stereotyping or grouping athletes by mere age or general ability.

 

  • Coaches can’t change an athlete’s primary brain design, but they can nurture both the individual’s weaker, opposing profile and strengthen their dominant profile.

 

  • Interestingly, on rare occasions, a student’s on-court persona opposes their off-court persona.

 

  • Everyone exhibits both dominant and auxiliary traits. For example, introverts can be quite sociable for short stints of time.

 

  • There isn’t a right, wrong, superior, or inferior type, but rather preferred approaches to the game and life. Although there are only 16 unique brain design categories, everyone is unique. For example, there is a broad spectrum of each preference ranging from moderate to extreme.

 

  • All brain designs need to devote time and energy to nurturing their non-dominant functions.

 

 

  • It is not unlikely for athletes young and old to inaccurately self-profile their brain design to fit into a more popular, cool version of themselves.

 

  • Pay attention to other’s brain designs because this is why opposite types make you crazy and similar types make you comfortable.

 

  • An athlete will benefit significantly from understanding the advantages and disadvantages of their unique design.

 

  • Customized development through personality profiling increases self-esteem and breeds confidence, which is seen in the athlete’s peaceful performance.

 

  • Profiling your athlete’s personalities won’t provide you with the final answers, but it will assist in organizing their unique developmental pathways, which will maximize enjoyment, as well as help them to reach their potential at a quicker rate.

 

  • It’s our job as educators and parents to de-code each athlete, so we are better equipped to assist them in maximizing their potential.

 

  • Due to the combination of nature and nurture, exceptions shadow every rule in the soft science of personality profiling.

 

 

In chapters 8-11, challenges and dominant solutions are presented to help understand the specific cerebral designs. It is important to note that many of the given solutions may also be used with other cognitive types.

The following chapters uncover the valuable benefits that result from revealing the mental typographies of our athletes.

 

Benefits of Personality Profiling- Part 1

Posted on May 21, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

soft science

Benefits of Personality Profiling

 

Caroline Sanchez was a top 50 ITF junior in her day. She played D-2 college ball in Florida and competed on the challenger circuit for three years earning her a world ranking of #676 on the WTA Tour. Caroline sounds like an experienced competitor, but is she the right fit for your player’s coaching needs?

Let’s take a more in-depth look at Caroline’s background. Caroline grew up on the slow red clay in Barcelona where her coaches demanded she train and play the “Spanish Way” – steady, retriever style. Caroline possesses solid groundstrokes, great lateral movement, and a 20 ball shot tolerance level.  She loves to camp 15 feet behind the baseline and extend points in a retriever fashion. Like her past coaches, she’s been nurtured to be an old-school drill sergeant style of coach and demands every student train and play in the style that she found to be most successful.

Coaches, is she a good fit for your program? Parents, is she a good fit for your child? The answer: No, not likely, unless all your athletes are wired with the same exact cognitive brain design, body type, and temperament which would be extremely rare. Coaches who only teach the system that they found to be successful regardless of the student’s needs are doing a disservice to the athlete. Tennis playing styles are an extension of the athlete’s brain design and body type. An athlete’s most successful style of play incorporates their inherent strengths versus their coach’s past strengths.

Devising an athlete’s developmental plan is the ideal time to incorporate their personality profile. Training and nurturing athletes to play the style that flows with their genetic predispositions and not against it will maximize their potential at a much faster rate.

 

As I travel around the globe, I notice that coaches and parents religiously focus on the development of the athlete’s hardware (strokes and athleticism) yet tend to neglect the critical development of their student’s software (mental and emotional). Personality profiling falls into the software or soft science of teaching tennis.

 

“Coaches and parents who understand the athlete’s personality in greater depth utilize a more comprehensive foundation from which to maximize performance.”

 

A simple analogy is a comparison between the four main tennis components (strokes, athleticism, mental and emotional) with a conventional four-legged table. A table with four-legs is not stable under stress without all four legs intact. The same holds true for your tennis athletes.

So, how does the understanding of the software development relate to you as parents, coaches, tennis directors or club managers? It develops a greater understanding of how others tick and that sets you and your players above the competition. Software assessment helps us to understand how individuals perform as tennis players. It assists coaches and parents in developing much more than strokes. It helps shape positive character traits, life skills, and a moral compass.

 

Personality Based Training – Part 2

Posted on May 18, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

frank

 

Getting to know the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The MBTI is the most popular psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. It’s my intention to bring to light the usefulness of brain preference identification in the tennis industry. Each student has a preferred way of seeing the world. The basic MBTI theory categorizes preferences into four groups from which individuals identify their dominant cerebral preference.

The Typographies Include:

  • Extraversion (“E”)- People/Places
  • Introversion (“I”)- Theories/ Information
  • Sensing (“S”)- Facts/Reality
  • Intuition (“N”) Possibilities/Potential
  • Thinking (“T”)- Logic/Truthfulness
  • Feeling (“F”)- Harmony/Relationships
  • Judgment (“J”)- Orderly/Structured
  • Perception (“P”)- Flexible/Adaptable

 

For each of the above pairings, your athletes typically have a preference for one system above the other. The combination of their four preferences gives them their initial assessment in a four-letter acronym. An example is personality profile: ISTP (Introvert Sensate Thinker Perceiver)

 

“View your athlete’s brain design (dominant and auxiliary) the same way you would view right-handed versus left-handed body type functions.
Each athlete has an inborn preferred system.”

 

Personality Based Training- Part 1

Posted on May 16, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

soft science

 

Personality Based Training

 

“Personality profiling assists coaches, athletes, and parents in understanding how individuals gather information and make decisions. It’s how we are wired. It’s what makes us tick.”

 

Personality Based Training (PBT) is a training method that focuses the attention on the athlete’s unique brain design as opposed to the educator. When applying PBT, tennis pros and parents welcome and respect the athlete’s unique preferred styles of learning, behaving, and playing the game.  The athletes feel empowered because their views and needs are recognized. And once understood, students are more motivated and inspired to learn and improve. An inspired student is more likely to take the leadership role in achieving their goals.

 

“Athletes would benefit from understanding the advantages and disadvantages of their unique brain design. It’s why they are naturally good at some things and uncomfortable with others.”

 

It’s important to note that while I’ve studied sports psychology for the past 30 years, I am a veteran, “In the Trenches” practical application tennis coach, not an “Academia” psychologist. But neither were Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers, authors of the famous Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI- A psychological questionnaire used to understand individual mental preferences.) published in the United States in 1943. Together Myers-Briggs noticed that individuals have different temperaments and unique ways of seeing the world.

While some scientists say the MBTI doesn’t stand up to scientific reliability, I can say with all honesty that it has helped me coach over 100 National Champions and several Pro tour athletes. More importantly, personality profiling benefits my athletes and their entourage of parents, coaches, and trainers at a much deeper level. A study conducted by Psychology Today, reports that approximately 80% of Fortune 500 companies use various personality tests to hire future employees, assess progress, and maximize efficiency and harmony through team-building events. The time has come to broaden the role of personality profiling into the athletic realm, as I have outlined in The Soft Science of Tennis.

 

 

Non-verbal Communication- Part 3

Posted on May 11, 2021 by in The Soft Science of Tennis

The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.

Click Here to Order through Amazon

soft science

Effective Communication is dependent on tone. The same word said with a different tone can often imply the opposite meaning to the listener. I find this true when assisting parents and their athletes. The parent’s words frequently say one thing and their tone says the polar opposite. Athletes listen to their parent’s tone and tune out their parent’s words because their tone reflects their true feelings, tension and attitude.

Throughout your sessions, pay attention as the athletes expose flashes of their inborn personality. An introvert’s theoretic response, an intuitive gut-action, a feelers empathetic reaction or a perceiver’s future speculation speaks volumes. Once dialed into the inner world of your athlete’s brain designs you’ll be able to connect with each athlete’s overall persona and customize your training to their unique needs. As high-performance tennis coaches or parents, it’s our job to get into each student’s world, instead of demanding that they get into ours.

 

Utilizing Written Communication

The human brain is divided into several regions. Each region processes different forms of incoming information. Listening to verbal instruction engages the auditory region of the brain, while physically writing notes engages the spatial awareness region of the brain. Athletes who collect data in two regions of the brain have a greater chance of retaining a higher proportion of key facts and recalling the information later in competition.

 

Post Lesson Written Reviews

I have been applying post-lesson written reviews for decades. My athletes are encouraged to take the last few minutes of their training session to write down their top lesson topics and future action plans. Some of my current students still prefer the old school paper and pen journaling while others use their cell phone notepad and to-do apps. Either way, written reminders are an important version of nonverbal communication.

Benefits Include:

  • Writing lesson reviews work to preview the athlete’s developmental plan via time management.
  • Documenting helps to de-stress and relax the athlete as it unloads cognitive baggage. Athletes can read and re-read their notes to review the lesson.
  • It’s estimated that within 24 hours, up to 80% of what our students learn they soon forget. Writing it down helps athletes to digest more information.
  • Writing down important solutions helps re-enforce recall. It enables the athlete to memorize more efficiently and recall as needed.
  • Documenting assists in organizing and assimilating the new information received.
  • Writing down solutions act as the first visualization rehearsal further solidifying the memorization of the data.

 

The Soft Science of Tennis aims to improve the learning curve. Applying these methods maximizes athletic potential at a quicker rate.