The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.
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Overriding Negative Past Belief Systems
It was September 1986, after my second stint teaching tennis at the Wooster College Summer Tennis Camps. I decided that I wanted to give full-time tennis teaching a real shot. I’d been trapped in Ohio‘s nonstop rain watching a PBS television series called Future Sports. There on my TV, I watched a young Vic Braden combine standup comedy with the most intriguing sports science I’d ever heard. This short, pudgy tennis teacher with a contagious smile was light years ahead of any tennis instruction I’d ever seen. If I were to impact my clients, I’d first have to be a student of the game and improve my tennis IQ, and for that, I would need a real mentor.
I arrived in Southern California, drove past Cooks Corner, a Harley biker bar that’s still going strong today, and continued driving up El Toro, for what seemed to be a never-ending road, straight to Coto De Caza. I knocked on the office door of the famous Vic Braden Tennis College. “Hi, I’m Frank. I want to learn how to coach this game. I’m a decent player and have a knack for people.” Mary Lay, The Tennis College Director, said, in the sweetest voice, “Well, we have a full staff, and we get about a dozen great resumes a week but if you want to take notes and observe Vic and the staff you’re welcome here!”
So, every day for the next two weeks I arrived at the tennis college at 8:00 a.m. and left the gates around 6:00 p.m. all the while intently observing and taking six legal pads full of notes. Fourteen days later, I was offered a job coaching at this prestigious tennis school called The Vic Braden Tennis College (VBTC). I guess they saw that the new 23-year-old kid was persistent and hungry for knowledge.
I couldn’t have been happier being paid to continue to learn while I taught. It was at this time when I discovered how emotionally inept I was… A VBTC seasoned coach placed a handheld cassette tape recorder under my teaching basket. He said it would be meaningful for me to tape a session and to listen to the recording and count how many positive to negative comments I had made. In a one-hour recording, I was horrified and humiliated to admit that I said “Don’t do this, don’t do that” 49 times! …And I thought I was helping! If I could find that poor couple today, I’d gladly refund them their money. I wanted to be so positive and helpful, but my past belief systems came out in all their negative glory. It was a life-changing, soul-crushing lesson I needed to learn. My pessimistic past was influencing my coaching.
Ironically, as I had observed Vic coaching, I felt a kindred spirit (We were both ENFP’s), and I knew I was in the right place. My genetic predisposition had always been to be kind and personable. Observing Vic validated my intuition that his positive view of the world was a better fit for me personally.
During my first year of teaching at the VBTC, I worked continuously to override my negative past beliefs and exposed my true positive genetic predisposition. My childhood experiences molded my inner beliefs, and these subconscious, pessimistic character traits didn’t sit well with me. Vic, and his wife Melody, and the kind tennis college staff encouraged me daily with the power of choice. They helped me turn my scars into praiseworthy character. Interestingly, they did so much more than teach me how to teach the game. They taught me how to change from a pessimist to an optimist, and I owe the world to them. Fortunately for me, I was able to open and direct Vic Braden Tennis Colleges, represent Vic as his agent, and most importantly, become lifelong friends.
