Freeze Tag

One of the many reasons I live in the south
photo source

Recall we discussed recycling playground games for tennis use. Here's another one: Freeze Tag. Check out this video to see it in action.

Players are free to move around anywhere on the court, dribbling "downs" with a tennis ball (bouncing ball on ground using racquet). In the video, the coach is 'It'. Anyone the coach touches must freeze. Frozen players may be unfrozen if touched by any other player still roaming around. Game ends when all players are frozen.

In the video you will notice there was a major snag in the game; namely, the players were getting frozen very quickly and were not remembering or able to un-freeze other frozen players. The coaches realized this and made a quick adjustment. They changed the rules so that players could freeze coaches as well as other players. And if all coaches were frozen before all players, players win. The players loved that idea as you will hear from the cheer in the video.

Note this video was submitted in 2007. All youngsters but not a low compression ball in sight. :)

One change I suggest is to have a player as "It" rather than a coach. Last one frozen gets to be "It" in the next round.

Progressions

• To make this game easier, use low compression balls.
• If dribbling is too difficult, have them balance the ball on the racquet strings instead.
• For your youngest beginners, eliminate the racquet and have them moving about doing Bounce, Catch! instead of dribbling with the racquets. 

Thanks ipodtennispros via hi10spro.blogspot.com for submitting this fun warm-up.