Competition = Life skills

I have recently posted several blog posts about getting started in Competitions. It is sometimes hard to get across the little positive steps that players can make on the competition journey. They happen at every event and can range from learning how to cope with emotions during the match to finding out how to apply your skills to win the point. They can also be small life lessons that come with the experience of being away from home and I usually found that most of the learning opportunities would come about when the players got to the stage where they could join the annual touring trips.

Each year, in order to provide an opportunity for the players on my Performance programme to attend Competitions further afield, at different points in the year I would take a group of players to various tournaments around the country - one of these was the Easter competition in Nottingham. The event always had full draws and the standard and atmosphere was excellent. I can remember the third year that the trip ran and some of the learning opportunities that came up with one of the players.

I tried to create a routine/system that we would follow with each trip - the players would share a room with another player and we tried to maintain a daily schedule (or as close as possible!) while on the trip that all the players and parent helpers would be informed of at the beginning of the trip. This put some responsibility on the players to get up, attend breakfast at the right time, be ready to leave the hotel at the right time etc and they would work together to make a little team.

One of the players came along on the trip as an 11 year old boy who was obviously a little inexperienced generally. Over the course of the event their attitude to training, competing and possibly some of the way they dealt with life situations gradually changed. It was obvious on the first day that they had not had the situation of having to get themselves up and dressed and sorted for Breakfast etc. The group all came down for breakfast and started eating - all except one! Obviously I knew they hadn’t come down and their roommate informed me that they were still in bed but I wanted to see if they could get themselves sorted before intervening. They came running into the breakfast hall over 30mins late! Unfortunately to get the transport to the event we had to leave on time so we encouraged them to get food on the go and off we went to the event. This was the first of the experiences that day that took this young person out of their comfort zone.

When we got to the event the daily schedule we had was that we would book practise courts for a certain time which we would use in order to warm up before their matches started. The players also had to sign in with the referee to tell them they were there and ready to play. My role was to get everybody to understand that they had to go through a list of things once we got to the venue including signing in, getting to the practise court and focusing on a great physical warm up. This was where the next challenge of the day came. The player in question went to sign in and let me know that they have completed the task. We finish our warm-up and the players start to get called to go to play their matches on the different courts. The one player that didn’t get called was our 11year old. Their start time was the same as everyone else but no call from the referee. I went in to ask on their behalf to find that the only player not to sign in was our competitor. I explain to the referee that they are ready to play, apologise that it's late and the match goes on. Our player obviously at this point looks worried and anxious but luckily the match was relatively easy for him and over quickly. The debrief I had with him 90mins later was incredible.

The first thing our little person comes out with is that they were very worried as they did not know what to do despite being at many 11&u events in the past. We again spoke about areas of personal accountability reinforcing that if you do not know what to do that it is perfectly fine to just ask and I would always be happy to help. The way this young person was so receptive to just having some support and reassurance that he wasn’t expected to know everything was incredible and the response was a complete change in the way they looked after themselves. I can’t document all the discussions but what was obvious was this trip was enough to take them out of their comfort zone and with just a little support it was easy for them to rise to the challenge. The rest of the week was completely different at breakfast on time, signing in happily and getting themselves organised.

The main reason for writing this blog story is to let parents know that the players can easily step up to take control of many areas of their Tennis and in taking responsibility for their own development and personal needs. Sometimes all it takes is stepping out of their (and your!) comfort zone to really boost their confidence and make them see that they are capable of more than perhaps they realised - they just need to be given the opportunity and the space to do it.