Bobsled - Going The Way Of The Dinosaur?

A variation of tag team/relay tennis, but if you miss, you sit on the court at the T and dodge any oncoming balls. If you get hit, other team wins. If you play a ball successfully from your seated position, you can get back in line. It is possible that multiple players will be sitting on the court, bobsled style.

I have seen this activity done exactly one time and that was during a workshop demonstration. I got the impression it is popular with the boys high school team set - those who relish horseplay and don't mind getting beaned with a yellow ball from close range. Or if they mind, they don't dare admit it. I have never seen it done live during an actual teaching clinic or camp. My concerns about using it are of course safety-related. Having large solid obstacles (seated players) smack in the middle of the court - hmmmm. Also being in the south, I am concerned the court would be too hot to sit on comfortably. I think the kids might enjoy it, but I would only use foam balls.

Seems to me another safe variation of bobsled would be to motivate teams NOT to hit the seated players by changing the rule so that if a seated player is hit, they get back in line, as opposed to giving a win to the other team. This is already set up somewhat with the rule about allowing players to return to the line if they are able to play any ball from their seated position. But let's face reality - playing a ball from a seated position would be extremely difficult to do for younger players or beginning players of any age.

Am I being too granny about this? Do you use this game? Discuss.

The Three T's: Tag Team Tennis

Extra points if you
know where this sign is from

Tag Team Tennis (TTT) aka Relay Tennis is enshrined as one of the Top 10 Games Every Tennis Coach Better Know Or Else. And with good reason! It is road-tested. I use it all the time and find it very effective for all ages and abilities. It's a good warm-up, simple to explain and execute, needs no props, is good for large groups, requires focus, and best of all, rewards consistency.

Divide your players into two groups. Send them to opposite sides of the court. Someone bounce feeds the first ball and a singles point is played out. Here's the trick: each player hits only ONE ball in the point. Hit ball, run to end of your group's line, hope next player is paying attention and runs in behind you to hit the next ball. Whoever misses feeds the next ball. You can play this without points for a set time period as a warm-up, or play it for points until one side wins.

Because this activity emphasizes consistency, no winners are allowed to be hit. Winners result in point for other team.

Variations

• For players who have trouble rallying, they can play TTT by tossing the ball rather than using their racquets. 
• Increase difficulty by stipulating particular shots to be hit - all forehands, all backhands, all cross-court, two bounces, etc. 
• Racquet drop: once your players understand TTT, add this fun component. Whoever makes an error must set their racquet down and share remaining racquets. Game ends when one team runs out of racquets. Coach may call a racquet drop for any number of infractions such as not paying attention, feeding ball improperly, etc. 

Rock-Paper-Scissors

Get the t-shirt here

Here's another conversion of a popular game to a tennis application. Many players will be familiar with the traditional game, which makes this one easy to learn. Great for any size group and all but the beginner-iest of beginners.

Players pair up facing each other a safe distance apart, racquets in hand. Rather than the gestures for rock, paper and scissors, they will be shadow-swinging a forehand, a backhand, or a volley.

Backhand - beats forehand
Forehand - beats volley
Volley - beats backhand

Players begin in the Ready position. On the count of 3, player makes their shadow swing. Play a little Uptown-Downtown here, with winners moving 'up' the line and losers moving 'down'. In lieu of the beautiful logic that helps us remember who wins the original game, try this: it goes in alphabetical order. Backhand (B) beats Forehand (F) and Forehand (F) beats Volley (V), leaving Volley (V) to cycle through the end of the alphabet and come back to beat Backhand (B).

Wipeout

Wipeout is another tennis oldie-but-goodie, an exercise in consistency cleverly designed as a lighthearted romp. It is easily adapted for all ages and abilities. Best for large groups but even with smaller groups you can get your point across.

Divide players into two groups and send to opposite ends of the court. One player from each group plays out a singles point. Teams alternate feeding first ball. First ball is a bounce feed and must bounce before played. The loser goes to the back of his/her line; the winner gets to add one player to the court to help play out the next point. So the second point will be 2 vs 1. If the side with 2 players wins the next point, they add a third player. However if the side with 1 player wins, the other 2 players are 'wiped out', sent to the end of their line, and a new player comes in to play singly against the 2 players on the winning side. If one side wins several points in a row, you could have 3, 4, 5 or more players vs. a single player on the other side.  Game is over when one team has all their players on court and defeats the last remaining player on the other team.

To simplify: the team losing the point is 'wiped out' and goes to the end of the line; winning team players stay on court and add a player.

Naturally you play singles lines on the side with one player; doubles lines on side with 2 or more players.

Yesterday I attended a Recreational Coaches Workshop and learned a fun new variation on this game. Instead of slowly adding players based on winning points, to begin play, all players take the court. Point is played out. Whichever player makes the error leaves the court. So the players are wiped out one by one until there is one victor. Some different rules apply to this version.

• Players at service line or closer to net cannot play the first ball. 
• As players are eliminated, remaining players are repositioned on court making sure rear positions are filled, then mid-court, and finally net.

Singles Shootout

As a native Texan, I have a soft spot in my heart for any activity that smacks of Wild West. I first read about Singles Shootout in a funky little handout containing loads of tennis 'carnival' games.It is a great activity if you have an uber competitive and fairly large group of players, regardless of their age.  Last time I used it was at an adult tennis social and it was a big hit. (Ha. Ha.)

Plus, it's simple - we love simple! Divide the group in half as randomly as possible. See this blog post for some ideas on random group formation. Send one group to each side of the court. Designate one side the Winners side - doesn't matter which. One at a time, they play out a singles point. Winners go to end of Winner line. Losers are out, done, gone, bye-bye, finito. After everyone has played once, take the group of winners, divide them in half again, and repeat. Eventually you will have the last two remaining players playing out their final point, and one will be declared the winner of the Shootout.

This is a very popular spectator sport - even when players are eliminated, they tend to stick around to see who will be the eventual champ. Make sure this moves quickly, especially if you have a large group to begin with.

No serving. Coach may feed first ball or players may bounce feed. If players are self-feeding, alternate sides for feeding.

I like this activity because there is no mercy, no second chance. Bring your A game or go home. It is a refreshing change from the vast number of kinder, gentler 10 and Under activities. Sometimes even my youngest students need a little reality check.

Tennis Bowling

There are some tennis instructors out there who turn up their noses at using formats from other sports. Tennis is a great sport on its own, they say. No need to stray from net-service line-baseline. What they really fear is that by borrowing from these other sports, players may be seduced to the other sport entirely. I have two things to say about that. 1) Coaches who disdain playing a little Tennis Baseball or Tennis Bowling have never coached anyone under 8 years old; and 2) I have enough confidence in tennis that I don't worry too much about the inevitable competition from other sports.

I first saw Tennis Bowling when I volunteered at a Kids Day at Family Circle Cup a few years ago. Imagine one full size court converted to six QuickStart courts thanks to numerous rolls of caution tape and 3M blue painters tape (this was before permanent 36 foot courts were all the rage). Now imagine hundreds of kids funneled through the various stations at the six courts, most of whom have never held a racquet in their hands. Chaos? You betcha. Fun? Absolutely. I lucked out and was placed at the Tennis Bowling station which turned out to be the most popular station because there was CANDY.

You will need twelve empty tennis ball cans, so start saving them now. Set up the cans in a triangle array as if they were bowling pins. Make sure there is some space between the cans - don't want to make it TOO easy. Player is some distance away. Object is to hit one or more of the cans with the ball. You may find it handy to have a throw down stripe or spot to mark where the player should be standing.

For your youngest players, have them fairly close to the target, maybe 6-10 feet. Use foam balls and have them toss ball to target underhand.

Something like this is easily available
at Wally World and inexpensive. 

Some variations for when a ball hits a can: award a point and make it into a tennis scoring exercise (first to 4), or remove each can as it is hit, making it more difficult as you go along. In the second example this could be played as individuals or teams with first to eliminate all cans or last can as winner.

If tossing foam balls is too easy, here are some progressions.

• move player farther from target
• move player across net from target
• use different balls - red, orange, green, yellow (in order from easiest to hardest)
• use racquet to hit ball to target rather than tossing underhand. Ball can be drop-fed by coach or self-fed.

If you are like me and hesitate to introduce candy into your instruction, that's fine. This is plenty fun without the candy. But if you want to use candy occasionally, it makes this activity extra special. Load the empty tennis cans with penny candy. Wide variety is best. If a can is hit, player gets to go over and select ONE piece of candy from that can. Let me tell you folks, that candy creates a level of focus unseen since the Hubble telescope went into space.

Hint: if you use candy, marking the spot where the player stands is extra important as you will tend to get some Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eaters trying to move a little closer to their target.

Get Your Silly On

Recently read a great blog post about the importance of 'silly' when working with young children. Couldn't agree more! Silly does not come naturally to me. I have to work at it. But being around young children provides lots of opportunities to get my 'silly' on. Here's a few silly interludes that are popular with my students. And a few that are not.

Let's start with the Nots.
Silly Jumping Jacks - this is, or used to be anyway, a recommended activity at USTA QuickStart workshops. It is a sort of, for lack of a better word, punishment for any activity where someone may come in last. For example after explaining various parts of the court I usually call out the part and everyone must race there - Baseline! Service Line! Net! etc. The last one there is called out of the group and asked to perform something silly in front of the group. Silly Jumping Jacks is just regular jumping jacks with some silly movements and facial expressions tossed in - waggly head or arms, stick out tongue, whatever they want to do. Sounds good on paper but more often than not the student is so embarrassed not only to be slowest, but to add insult to injury, they are now called out to perform something ridiculous in front of the others. FAIL. I don't do this anymore. Every now and then the kid was class clown and was thrilled at the attention. But it isn't worth it to me for that one out of ten kids who actually enjoys this.
Donkey Kicks - see above. To perform a donkey kick, bend from the waist and place your hands flat on the ground, similar to Downward Dog if you are a yoga fan. Then kick your feet into the air. That's it.

Basically the Nots consist of any activity where a child is singled out, usually unwillingly. But the really fun stuff is either something everyone is eager to do, or something silly the coach does.

Word of the Day - a little R&D (ripoff and duplicate) from the old Pee-Wee's Playhouse children's television show. I usually do this at summer camps where I am going to be seeing the same group of children several days in a row, because I like it better with a little continuity rather than one off. Works best for 8 and under. Each day I select a Word of the Day, tennis-related natch, and whenever I say that word, everyone must scream/yell. Play fair and choose words you know you are likely to use frequently: Ball, Net, Racquet, Shot, Forehand, etc.
Polar Bear Plunge - keep in mind I live and work in South Carolina, so any relief from the summer heat is most welcome. Again this is something I usually do once during a camp week, not regularly. Helps keep things fresh. I bring a large plastic tub down near the courts (not on) and have it about 1/4 full of ice and then filled about halfway full with water. We have a Polar Bear Plunge competition to see who can keep their hand in the ice water the longest. Completely voluntary -  no one is forced to participate. Sometimes they ask to put their bare feet in instead but I can tell you from sad experience this is nasty -  not recommended. Also some have asked to dunk their heads in after the activity is completed, and I am fine with that. Much fun is had by all.

Water Balloons - one of technology's greatest gifts to tennis instructors. Who doesn't love a water balloon, especially during a summer camp? Rather than have your garden variety water balloon fight, I use them for this serve activity. I modify it by eliminating the point system and just have them try to hit the balloon into the correct service box from increasing distances across the net. Just make sure all the little bits of balloon are cleaned up and the courts are dry enough to play safely when you are finished.
Woo-Hoos - this one I discovered purely by accident. Our courts are US Open Blue which makes it easy for the kids to see when their ball is in or out. So of course most of my instruction includes something about keeping the ball 'in the blue'. We were working on forehands one day with my very young beginners and one of them hit over the net and into the blue playable area. I was so excited for this player, I threw my hands in the air and shouted 'Woo-Hoo!' which startled the kids at first but since they copy just about everything I do, they soon joined me in the 'Woo-Hoo'-ing whenever they made a nice shot. So now our motto is, "In the blue - Woo-Hoo!".
Celebrate! - I blogged previously about appropriate on-court celebrations. Be careful with this one - too much of a good thing and all that. I had a student recently who celebrated every well-hit ball. Before the point was over. We had to have a discussion about that.
Human Target - when my students are struggling with getting the ball over the net and into playable area, I don't hesitate to encourage them to try to hit me with their ball. If they do I make a big deal about it in a silly way and we all have a laugh. Like I tell my students - it only hurts for a minute!

As I said, I really need to work on my silly skills. Any tips greatly appreciated.