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ORGANIZATION
LESSON: Israel Tennis Centers
While consulting in Israel, I had the opportunity to train sports psychologist, tennis coaches, players and parents at several beautiful Israel Tennis Centers.
I had the privilege of meeting one extremely insightful individual heading the programs in Kiryat Shemona, Israel, named Shaul Zohar. Shaul is an excellent coach and mentor. His teachings go beyond tennis and nurture life skills like organization, time management, scheduling, perseverance, work ethic, punctuality, and optimism, to list a few.
I sat down with his 10-13-year-old high-performance group. I threw out typical questions and surprisingly they had all the answers and then some. I asked about their weekly components:
Q: “How many hours a week do you spend on off-court tennis specific training?”
A: “2.5 hours in the gym and 3 hours doing speed and agility work,” replied Moses.
Q: “How many hours do you spend developing your primary and secondary strokes?”
A: “Four hours on the primary, 3 hours on our secondary,” said Paul.
Match play versus pushers? Pattern repetition? Designing and rehearsing your between point rituals? Handling gamesmanship? …Whatever I threw at Shaul’s group, accurate and precise answers flowed from the mouths of these young players.
Typically, when I ask these very same questions to parents, players, and coaches at my workshops, seminars, and summits the answer is… “Aaahh …What’s that?”
Customizing your child’s developmental plan and systematically organizing it is the parent’s initial job. Dropping them off at a clinic or team practice isn’t going to produce Athletic Royalty. Parents, you should plan on making the time to manage your child’s career unless you are paying a top coach like Shaul to manage it for you.
“A CUSTOMIZED ORGANIZATIONAL BLUE-PRINT IS YOUR CHILD’S NAVIGATIONAL SYSTEM. IT MAXIMIZES POTENTIAL AT THE QUICKEST RATE.”
