Hi all. I (Fraser Harban) Just returned form a quality convention and trade show – the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in Baltimore. Really impressed with many things – not least – boy do they know how to put on a great event and I now have a rather large selection of NSCAA branded goods!

So what really struck me the most was the knowledge, dedication and passion of the coaches on the ground. Every single one who visited the stand (quite a few I can tell you) really wanted to see what the HotSpot had to offer and how it could help their sessions and ultimately their teams.

The Hotspot PRO system is the latest addition to the Hotspot PRO family and is the most complete training system available.  Coming in at just £350 + VAT the system offers a complete training system for developing movement abilities.

VIDEO OF PRO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiew5hIjri4

It builds on the Hotspot concept of providing a system that is affordable yet versatile enough to fit into any training program for any sport.  The wireless “hotspots” offer  a simple way to create movement patterns and drills for your training program whilst offering an easy way to be flexible adhering to the needs of your athletes.

Welcome to the first “drill” post on the Hotspot blog.   In this post I have created a drill to train/coach/test elements of the “flow” step used in variety of situations within tennis.

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.

Hello again,  this will be a short post (maybe) about yet again a difficult question.  Just to give some background there are stages of tennis development (red/orange/green) and age groups associated with them.  Also in the mix is mini ratings that are competition based that suggest how a player is developing within the stage.  Just to really complicate things take the varying degrees that children develop and you are now in a pickle! Now to the question…when should children move up to the next stage?

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?

Hi all.  This is a very interesting question about the importance of winning and it extends further into the relevance and purpose of competition at a young age.

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?

In the past people (including me) have been critical of mini tennis as it hasn’t been adopted across the rest of the world (until recently) and that other countries have managed to produce world class tennis players the “good old fashioned way”.

Well firstly, the UK is not the rest of the world and let’s face we have to do stuff differently due to the culture of the country.  With that said perhaps mini tennis is the way forward.

Mini Tennis Videos

WARM UP

PAIR DRILLING

POINT PLAY AGAINST THE COACH

MATCHPLAY

In the past people (including me) have been critical of mini tennis as it hasn’t been adopted across the rest of the world (until recently) and that other countries have managed to produce world class tennis players the “good old fashioned way”.

Well firstly, the UK is not the rest of the world and let’s face we have to do stuff differently due to the culture of the country.  With that said perhaps mini tennis is the way forward.