Kirk-O-Rama

Kirk Anderson
USTA's Director of
Recreational Coaches
and Programs

This activity is from USTA's QuickStart Tennis guide. I am not sure who 'Kirk' is, but I am guessing it is Kirk Anderson. Kirk is a big wheel at USTA and is listed as one of the contributors to that booklet. Thanks, Kirk, for this great concept. I hope you don't mind if I tweak it a little.

Kirk-O-Rama is a list of ball handling activities. Originally it was suggested to add some music and change activities every 30 seconds or so. Adding music is sometimes problematic for me, so I am planning on printing out these 20 activities and putting them in a container to be drawn one at a time by one or more students. Whichever one is drawn is the one we will do.

1 - bounce ball down
2 - bounce ball up, let bounce, catch
3 - bounce ball down on edge of racquet
4 - bounce ball up, keeping ball in air, no bounces
5 - bounce ball up, alternating sides of racquet
6 - bounce ball up, alternating sides of racquet, add an 'edgie' to the rotation
7 - bounce ball high
8 - bounce ball low
9 - bounce ball while on one knee
10 - bounce ball while sitting on court
11 - bounce ball while lying on the court
12 - bounce ball on a circle around the body
13 - bounce ball in a Figure 8 around the legs
14 - bounce ball down while hopping on one foot
15 - bounce ball up while hopping on other foot
16 - bounce ball up, with the racquet between the legs
17 - bounce ball up with racquet behind back
18 - toss ball up and catch it on the racquet without it bouncing on the strings
19 - balance the ball on the strings and turn the racquet 180 degrees without the ball falling off
20 - spin quickly in a circle while balancing ball on strings