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