A topic that is often overlooked and not given the attention it deserves, education can play an incredibly powerful role in players and/or athletes development if given the right guidance and pathways. This can come in varying forms — ‘whatever’ works for the player/athlete and draws a positive response. In order to help the player/athlete leverage their education it begins with the right guidance to allows this ‘balancing act’ to flow through to their performance. At the same time, this corresponds with The Pathway and what’s in place specifically for that player/athlete.
Whether a two year plan to ten year pathway, education allows the player to offset their performance in a way that draws on their ‘education’ — from problem solving skills (mathematical to science subjects) to creative skills (humanities to artistic subjects). Although these correlations are scarcely leveraged, it is absolutely fundamental to note that these are tools at your disposal — for the player/athlete, coaches and parents. From using education and the present learning framework that is being adopted (i.e. specific to that player/athlete and their year/grade of study) and to tap into these areas, where possible, not only has the capacity to inadvertently help the player/athlete in their subject area…
…but through highlighting similarities to applicabilities can encourage a player/athlete to ‘think outside the box’ whilst using their sport of choice and adding another dimension to their player capacity.
This interrelationship can also bridge the gap often seen between students in their later formative years from primary/elementary school through high/senior school and a level of disengagement. Although this is not the case for all, more often that not there is always a subject or three that aren’t as compelling as one or two that really peak the players/athletes interest. It is fair to say that by using the ‘favourite’ subjects has more to gain and a higher rate of engagement, the coach and/or parent can also use these less favourable subject/s to assimilate and use their passion/enjoyment for tennis to reframe how they see this subject and its potential to aid in their performance.
By building a level of engagement from an educational perspective whilst including tennis (and/or sport of choice) to tighten this level of interest, at the same time you’re adding that ‘next level‘ to the players/athletes overall player capacity to leverage now and throughout the duration of the set pathway. This affords the player to think more openly to complexly in a way, if conditioned in conjunction to and/or with, their point structure to conditioning that in turn can be used to empower both ends of the players/athletes performance that will set them up for further success in the years to come. And of course, the same runs true for players/athletes post-school and can be captured and leveraged in additional education settings (i.e. tertiary).
Tune in to Beyond Top 10 Tennis for this week’s episode to learn more. And if you enjoy the episode, be sure to like, follow to subscribe or even a few stars or five! In the interim, catch up on the episode notes for all of our social links (or simply scroll to the bottom of this page).