I am from New Zealand and am a native English speaker. Yet I live in Austria, speak passable but pretty poor German and have been more successful teaching tennis here than in all the English speaking countries I used to work in combined.
I will say that some of the talent I work with here is a little higher but it's not a tremendous difference. For me, the biggest difference is that my lack of verbal skills in my students language has improved my coaching. There isn't the chance for them to get confused by my words. And as we know, the body doesn't remember words or store words, what the body stores is feel.
And this is what I have focused on - feel.
I can tell you to have a more of a turn at the start of your forehand or a looser arm on your serve, but it is much more powerful for the student if you can experience this feeling through an exercise. You feel it, your body remembers it. Of course you still need a lot of repetition, but your body will remember it.
And when you are playing a match and it's 4-4 in the third, you definitely don't want to be operating by the way of, "do this and then that before I do ... what the heck was I supposed to do again". No, you want to be operating on an instinctive level.
I firmly believe in not trying to sound too clever as a coach and that just giving my students simple exercises to do that helps them feel various things they need to improve has helped their games tremendously.
How do I know this?
Well not once has a player come to me after a tournament match and said they were confused about this shot or that shot or thinking about this or that.
I'm hoping this is the start of getting them to play in the zone.
I will say that some of the talent I work with here is a little higher but it's not a tremendous difference. For me, the biggest difference is that my lack of verbal skills in my students language has improved my coaching. There isn't the chance for them to get confused by my words. And as we know, the body doesn't remember words or store words, what the body stores is feel.
And this is what I have focused on - feel.
I can tell you to have a more of a turn at the start of your forehand or a looser arm on your serve, but it is much more powerful for the student if you can experience this feeling through an exercise. You feel it, your body remembers it. Of course you still need a lot of repetition, but your body will remember it.
And when you are playing a match and it's 4-4 in the third, you definitely don't want to be operating by the way of, "do this and then that before I do ... what the heck was I supposed to do again". No, you want to be operating on an instinctive level.
I firmly believe in not trying to sound too clever as a coach and that just giving my students simple exercises to do that helps them feel various things they need to improve has helped their games tremendously.
How do I know this?
Well not once has a player come to me after a tournament match and said they were confused about this shot or that shot or thinking about this or that.
I'm hoping this is the start of getting them to play in the zone.
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