Burnt out ..

[kmoranon]

This past season,a boy I teach has a bit of a burn out... with high school tennis and the week-end tennis tournaments that we do,it was too much..... the high school tennis matches,high school league matches,individuals play-offs , team play-offs, sectional and National tournaments it all turned up around May ,he was toast...
I made him not touch the racket for a week and had him swim and run to stay fit... That helped for a while but I feel that this is still hanging over for a long time... Playing so much tennis during that period has put him into what I call 'cruise control mode' .. He will get into this defensive playing and stop playing aggressively. He had a match in a level 2 Nat'l where he was up 6-3 ,and 3-0 then he got into the CCM and lost 12 of the next 13 games...It looks like he's lost his passion to win..( I saw a bit of this in the Federer/Nadal match ,R-Fed was up 4-1 the 2nd set and went on vacation..,)
He still has not recovered from it yet . At times his tennis is just so bad losing to people he has beaten very easily before ... and other times, he's flying high looking like the next superstar ..

How do you handle this burnout? I see it as mental fatigue rather than physical..

We've been talking about limiting his court time with his high school tennis.. all those school matches and unproductive practices were taking it's toll.. I know we have to be more selective with the tournaments he enters,but sometimes there's no getting around that.. here,in SoCal, the Jr. section says that you have to play so many designated tournaments in order to get endorsed to play the level 1 Nat'ls ..and we have to keep those rankings up..
any suggestions?

[oliensis]

re: burnout

I'm not a high-level tennis coach, so take my advice for what its worth...which is what you're paying for it...but I have been a tennis player, a martial artist, and a professional actor for a long long time...so I may have something to offer you on the subject of being PRESENT while playing tennis.

Theatre and martial arts have some roots in religious practice.

As a professional actor the challenge is to "show up" for "8 shows a week." It's the easiest thing in the world to put it on automatic pilot and give a performance that you know how to give by wrote. But "filling" that performance with need, intention, objectives, connection...finding the will to be as generous with oneself as possible in giving everything that you can...that's the difference between mediocre and really "worth it" acting. It's a test of character and of spirit.

Same is true in practicing martial arts, many of which are tied to religious practice. Can you be PRESENT for practice. Can you fulfill the ritual with spirit? Can you sanctify your practice with a worshipful spirit? Can you offer yourself fully to the moment, to the practice, to the "game?"

Same thing in tennis, don't you think?

So the challenge is to find a REASON that you need to play your level best, the reasons that you need to win TODAY. In a way it's a spiritual question, (dare I say, an existential one)...one that Kipling addresses in the poem, "If."

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance run
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and which is more, you'll be a man, my son."

(if Kipling were writing now, he'd find a way to apply the stanza to both genders.)

On a practical level, my experience in acting, martial arts, and tennis shows me that the more reasons I spend time finding for engaging in any of those arts, the more often I will be fully motivated to do it and fully engaged in doing it.

In a show that runs a long time, sometimes its necessary to do work off stage to re-find the motivations one has for doing that show in order to keep the work fulfilled.

As your student grows, matures, evolves, he may need to spend off-court time finding out if he truly has the reasons to want to do it (maybe learning to meditate on the subject, if he's so inclined)...and do it with as full a spirit and need as will so many other students against whom he's competing.

Without finding HIS reasons for really wanting to do it...needing to do it, he'll always be shorter on desire than those who have and know their reasons.

Food for thought, anyway.

[kmoranon]

re: burnt

oliensis and a super thank you ... everything is all inter-related.. I know Tiger Woods meditates and has been doing so since he was a young boy... that's why his focus is so strong... actually I had this student ,study how to meditate... last year when he was a young 14,he used to go into a meditation exercise each time he switched sides... he surprised a lot of people last year with all his wins... with this I have the feeling the answer has always been there but as many of us ,we neglect to see what's in front of our noses... ... I'll remind him to start it up again because we have big tourney coming up next week... thank you again for a deep reminder...

[uspta146749877]

high school

This past season,a boy I teach has a bit of a burn out... with high school tennis and the week-end tennis tournaments that we do,it was too much..... the high school tennis matches,high school league matches,individuals play-offs , team play-offs, sectional and National tournaments it all turned up around May ,he was toast...
I made him not touch the racket for a week and had him swim and run to stay fit... That helped for a while but I feel that this is still hanging over for a long time... Playing so much tennis during that period has put him into what I call 'cruise control mode' .. He will get into this defensive playing and stop playing aggressively. He had a match in a level 2 Nat'l where he was up 6-3 ,and 3-0 then he got into the CCM and lost 12 of the next 13 games...It looks like he's lost his passion to win..( I saw a bit of this in the Federer/Nadal match ,R-Fed was up 4-1 the 2nd set and went on vacation..,)
He still has not recovered from it yet . At times his tennis is just so bad losing to people he has beaten very easily before ... and other times, he's flying high looking like the next superstar ..

How do you handle this burnout? I see it as mental fatigue rather than physical..

We've been talking about limiting his court time with his high school tennis.. all those school matches and unproductive practices were taking it's toll.. I know we have to be more selective with the tournaments he enters,but sometimes there's no getting around that.. here,in SoCal, the Jr. section says that you have to play so many designated tournaments in order to get endorsed to play the level 1 Nat'ls ..and we have to keep those rankings up..
any suggestions?

You have to answer the following question:
"Are you able to take him out of a high school tennis team?"

[kmoranon]

burnt out

You have to answer the following question:
"Are you able to take him out of a high school tennis team?"

well I can tell you,of it was solely up to me,I would not have him play high school tennis... with all the BS that went on there,the whole year ended in a big farce... when he aged out of the 14s he's ranking was #14 Nat'l ranking and #3 in SoCal... so I really doubt if playing high school tennis is gonna be any big factor for him getting into a D1 tennis college... we're just trying to keep focus on the rankings and improving the skills needed for the future.. but the high school coach is a friend and the small city he lives in has a long tennis history.. so it goes on.. we still need to make some provisions in his high school tennis season but that is still some time away.. as you see,no real answers...

[uspta146749877]

rules

well I can tell you,of it was solely up to me,I would not have him play high school tennis... with all the BS that went on there,the whole year ended in a big farce... when he aged out of the 14s he's ranking was #14 Nat'l ranking and #3 in SoCal... so I really doubt if playing high school tennis is gonna be any big factor for him getting into a D1 tennis college... we're just trying to keep focus on the rankings and improving the skills needed for the future.. but the high school coach is a friend and the small city he lives in has a long tennis history.. so it goes on.. we still need to make some provisions in his high school tennis season but that is still some time away.. as you see,no real answers...

So a next question is:
how much could u limit his high school tennis?
Keep me posted-to make a conversation a bit more interesting
I coach a high school tennis team.
If u prefer a direct E-mail
my E-mail address is juliantennis@comcast.net
julian

[kmoranon]

So a next question is:
how much could u limit his high school tennis?
Keep me posted-to make a conversation a bit more interesting
I coach a high school tennis team.
If u prefer a direct E-mail
my E-mail address is juliantennis@comcast.net
julian

Hi Julian: well I had a simillar conversation with an experienced tennis dad who also is the asst. coach at his son's high school tennis.. his son's team has 2 Nat'l ranked players and they do not practice with the rest of the team... the 2 switch off playing school matches where the team know they would win an easy match and both must show up to important play-off matches.. he does not schedule any additional hard non-conferce practice matches because they are meaningless because his 2 prime players are already meeting top players in the Jr.tournaments they play in on the week-ends.. he focuses on the team play-offs so the TEAM will be ready to have a good finish.. he says that he drills the other players in their weaknesses instead of having them play matches where they feel pressure to win..

at our high school we will have 3 Nat'l ranked players and then the level really drops from there.. our coach has them playing all of the top schools to prove a point(I don't know what the point is). he has a full schedule meeting head to head with the top SoCal schools.. this is where I feel the burn out really starts... the older kids know how to handle the schedule and pace of hard tennis and school work but my player was a freshman and juggling trying to keep good grades and other tennis was really hard for him.. the other Nat;l ranked player on our team said 'he had to miss 18 out of 24 days of one class but somehow still manage to get a good grade... it's all those additional practice matches that really has to be curbed.. plus the coach had the 2 boys play a practice match before a school match to tuned them up for the next day.... that's the coach's position on his practice(which I feel is absurd).you can contact me at 2bkalm@gmail.com