Tag Archives: emotional tennis strength

Competitive Tennis Dramas

Posted on January 14, 2021 by in 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 online retailers!

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COMPETITIVE DRAMAS: INTERNAL STRUGGLESfrank

Personal Promise

Performance goal setting often starts with an athlete’s personal promise. This is done before the match in the “morphing into an athletic warrior” phase of the pre-match preparation.

An example of an athlete’s personal promise sounds like this:

“Today I will remain in my peak performance frame of mind. I will stay on script and trust my training. My best chance of success is doing what I’ve been trained to do. Today, I’m going to hit the shot the moment demands. Today is my day. I’m going to enjoy the battle!”

Often, top warriors have an optimistic phrase called a mantra that represents their personal belief system. They memorize it and repeat it several times before each match as a form of self-hypnosis. So, what is your child’s personal promise to themselves?

NOTE: This emotional component is so important and so popular in my workshops that I will be tackling this topic twice from different perspectives in this section- emotional intelligence and emotional readiness.

 

QUESTION: What’s the difference between emotional and intellectual ability?

 

Frank: In the junior levels of tournament competition, I see two very different character traits: natural born Warriors and natural-born Worriers.

Natural born warriors compete with superior emotional ability and are constantly ready for a threat. They have a high pain threshold and they can switch tasks quickly as they enjoy thinking “on their feet.”

Natural born worriers often come to the party with superior intellectual abilities but inferior emotional abilities. Their fear of making a mistake results in over-processing game situations which ultimately leads to a more timid competitor.  Worriers are less comfortable with new situations and frequently stress about speculated issues that aren’t truly present. They seem to shut down more often under stress. This makes them unable to adapt to the ever-changing match scenarios.

Interestingly, many worriers, who have parents and coaches wise enough to focus on the mental and emotional components of the game, actually progress nicely into the higher levels of the sport. They learn to handle the chaos of competition extremely well after years of deliberate, customized emotional training.

 

 

Building “Coachable” Athletes- Part 3

Posted on June 20, 2020 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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Eliminating Internal Judgment

 

My neighbor, Pete, owns Pete’s Home Repair Specialist. He’s a super friendly independent contractor. Due to his excellent soft science personal skills, Pete’s always in high demand.  His decades of experience have taught him that detailed preparation prevents poor performance. Pete’s truck is like an encyclopedia of tools organized by alphabet and ready for action. Though Pete doesn’t need all of his tools at every job, he brings every tool, just in case he needs it.

This analogy is very similar to a high-performance tennis player’s tool belt. In matches, they may not need to employ every skill set developed in their tool belt, but they do need to have primary and secondary strokes ready for competition, as well as multiple patterns and plays developed and prepared to be accessed if needed. Life skills, such as preparation improve the athlete’s confidence, inner dialogue, and of course, solution-based self-coaching skills.

 

“In the heat of battle, the voice inside each athlete is their driving force.”

 

In match play, an athlete’s internal dialog is their self-coaching. Internal dialog is the conversation their ego is having with themselves. Athletes have a habitual way they choose to navigate their matches. When they see competition in a negative light, their internal dialog is dark. Conversely, when they “see pressure as a privilege,” to quote Billy Jean King, their self-coaching is more positive, uplifting, and optimistic. The question is: Where did the athlete learn their internal dialog mantras?

An athlete’s negative, problem-oriented inner dialog sabotages their performance by interfering with their quiet mind. To some athletes, negative inner dialog spirals them into a self-defeating, under-arousal state. To others, it pushes them into a panicked, over-arousal state. Both are detrimental to performance. As I mentioned earlier, an athlete’s non-stop inner dialogue is either helping or hurting their performance. Intermediate athletes are known to sabotage their play by criticizing themselves, worrying about losing, and inventing post-match catastrophic conclusions during competition.