Pursue Not Avoid - On Court Drills that Improve Mental and Physical Skills

Key Points

• Baseline pursue drill: Play points with the coach hitting everything crosscourt, while the player can hit anywhere
• Before each point say “play freely”
• Smart aggressive drill: Play points with a smart aggressive intent for each shot
• Before each point say: “Smart aggressive”. After each point: “yes, good job” or “next point!”
• Baseline Lockdown drill: Play points where you aim for big targets and play higher percentage tennis
• Before each point say: “Lockdown”. After each point: “Yes, good job” if you played a high percentage point or “next point” if you didn’t
• The monkey mind wants to avoid missing and losing so thoughts like ‘don't miss’ will pop into your head and produce feelings of tightening up on your shots
• We want the monkey mind to pursue things that are always available to us such as playing freely, being present, being fair and respectful, improving, and giving full effort
• Before you walk on the court you should tell your monkey mind: It’s ok to lose; I will play freely; I will give my best and compete hard and I will strive to improve
• If you can swing freely without a guarantee, you can access the skills you’ve learned in training
• Young players tend to want to avoid unwanted outcomes and can resist playing aggressively causing them to tighten up and become very passive in their play
• Players yell and scream and get angry because they don’t want to have difficult “red” feelings
• Try not to fall into the trap of wanting to avoid unwanted outcomes by resisting
• When the monkey mind thinks it’s probably going to lose, it will then go to avoid the pain of losing
• “Tanking” or giving up in a match is used to avoid the pain of an imminent loss
• Pursue things that are always available like playing freely, being present and being fair and respectful