The “flow” step is commonly used as a means of defending wide balls that have caused you to be on the run and over stretched.  The “flow” step allows you to hit the ball on the move and implement a braking method allowing quick and efficient recovery back into the court.  I am going to provide 3 variations of the drill and alongside each provide some coaching tips and analysis.

Flow Step Drill 1:

In this drill there are simply two spots.

1. positioned as a recovery point.

2. positioned where the outside foot is placed in order to execute the flow step.

The drill is a repetitive exercise that puts the execution of the flow step and the recovery under pressure.  There are two ways to do this.  Firstly repeat for a period of time, say 20 seconds or secondly to perform a set number of repetitions, (using the hotspot will provide both methods and give times and scores as feedback).   Obviously the repetitive nature is not tennis specific but the point of this is to isolate a “skill” and train it to be efficient and robust so it can be relied on in game play.   Also during a drill of this nature players will stress their concentration and their technique whilst putting it under time and fatigue pressure.

"Flow" step drill - basic

For the drill the player is asked to move from the centre of the court, perform the flow step and recover back to the recovery spot and repeat.  The timing of this will be affected by a number of variables.  Clearly the ability to execute an efficient flow step will aid in allowing the player to go quickly, apply the brakes and recover.

Flow Step Drill 2:

This drill uses the same configuration as above.  This time however, the system is put into it’s “zero” start mode which means that the first hit of a spot starts the timing.  We are also going to use a count of 1 which means that the player will perform a single flow step (which will start the timer) and then recover as quickly as possible to the recovery spot (which will stop the timer).

This drill is aimed at measuring the effectiveness of the flow step and the recovery speed.  Clearly improved times will reflect flow step braking and recover speed.

Flow Step Drill 3:

Flow steps can be executed in a variety of court positions.  We can position spots in alternative areas as to apply more movement pressure and execution stress to the player.

I have set up the drill as in the picture below.

Flow Step Adaptive Drill

There are numerous options in which order things are done, for example top, middle, bottom repeat or bottom, middle, top, middle, bottom etc.  Once again repetitions can be set or the drill can be done for time.  The key point to this drill is that players must adapt to different movement patterns needed to move and recover to each of the 3 areas. This adds additional pressures to the drill and improves complexity.  If players can perform the necessary skills in this environment there is a good chance they will be executed in game play.

These drills are not only useful for the “flow” step but by moving up the court and replacing with the appropriate footwork pattern you create a tactically, technically, physically, and mentally competent practice.

Finally, the hotspot system  provides for precision and repeatability of the drills and most importantly provides accurate feedback on the players performance that coupled with subjective, observations from the coach can be extremely powerful.  Players will gain a more complete understanding of where they are at and the level at which they perform.  In addition there is no better motivation once players start to own their development.

Hope you enjoy this post and can make use of it!

MAKE IT COUNT!

www.gameseducation.co.uk

The obvious answer is that it is at the discretion of the coach when he/she feels it is appropriate and that the child is demonstrating the relevant skill set.  Of course this differs from coach to coach so is there an answer?

It is observed that some children transition better than others from one stage to the other and that some struggle at certain stages.  Also those who achieve a high rating are allowed to transition by the rules but again depending on how they got their rating (by playing advanced tennis or by “fluke”) will depict whether they are able to transition effectively.  I personally have done both things.  I moved players up when they display what I thought was good play, when they reach the rating and also organically.

Recently I have kept my mini red players back on red and attempted to teach advanced footwork/physical attributes and advanced tactics and patterns of play and in all honesty they are starting to look like competent tennis players just smaller!  In addition we  experimented with bringing Orange players back to red and observed similar errors being made but also they learnt a lot about the game of tennis.  In hindsight they were moved to early..potentially?

Other countries have only recently adopted the 3 stages of development and there is an argument that you learn what you are exposed to and that development is a long road and everything doesn’t have to be done so early.  Countering that is that players could be more skilled at earlier ages and that training methods alter as they get older i.e. becomes more physical/mental based.

Finally, talent ID systems are very difficult to run since players will develop at differing rates and will transition differently as they move through.  That means a very fluid system needs to be in place to allow players who take up the sport late/find a love for it later on or simply just grow into it over time to access.

Again, my thought process is a bit scatty and I welcome all comments!

Stay strong,

Mike

Very young players are very much learning the game and in fact learning to play the game in a way that their coach wants them to.  What I mean is that if a coach is teaching hitting for depth then the coach would like to see this within matchplay at the expense of winning, right?  This past week my focus in training (mini red) has been using the forehand as a weapon in particular the run around or inside out forehand.  To my great pleasure my players tried to do this in their matches but with varying degrees of success sometimes resulting in losing.  Is this bad?

Interestingly there was a match where a highly skilled technical player came up against a much lesser player technically but got the ball back (due to the slower pace of mini red) in weird and wonderful ways.  Due to the size and strength of the age group there was few winners hit and more points were won by “fluking” the ball just over the net.  This is seen a lot at both red and orange mini tennis.

Now the question is….who is the better player with the better foundations and potential?  I would say it is still difficult to say as who knows what will happen to both players over the next few years but..an obvious answer is that the more technically developed will have greater success down the road.

I can see the point of competition from a learning the game and finding your game style perspective and in fact learning to compete and wanting to win etc.  What I am not quite understanding yet is the importance of the result?  Competition should be about winning and trying to win at least but in the big scheme of things what does the result matter?  Which leads me on to the final question….if it does not matter at red/orange or even green at what age does it matter?  Are the best players the ones that win a lot at a young age or not?

My thoughts have hit a wall so please if you have an opinion on this get in touch either by comment or email!

cheers

Mike