Why We’re Teaching Tennis Backwards
|
The Trap We Fall Into Without Realising A few years ago, I was asked a simple question: “If you want to turn left on a bike at full speed, which way do you move first?” Easy, right? You turn the handlebars left. Except that’s wrong. At speed, you actually turn right first. The initial movement to go left… is to go right. It’s called “countersteering.” And unless you’ve ridden a bike fast enough to feel it, you’d never know. You can know about cycling — the parts, the physics, the rules. But until you ride, wobble, adjust, and feel it through movement — you don’t truly know how to ride. This is James Gibson’s famous distinction: “Knowledge about” vs “Knowledge of.” One is conceptual. The other is embodied. And it’s the same in coaching. We’ve built entire coach education systems around talking about sport, not experiencing it. But movement isn’t something we understand before we do it. It’s something we understand through doing. So if you’ve ever felt that despite all your courses, drills, and frameworks — your players still can’t transfer learning into matches… You’re not alone. Here’s how we shift. 3 IDEAS from Rob Gray’s chapter on becoming an ecological coach1️⃣ Knowledge of comes through interaction, not instruction. We learn by exploring the environment, not by memorising movement templates. It’s perception-action, not prescription-action. 2️⃣ Coach education has a path-dependency problem. We’re taught “the way it’s always been done.” That locks us into old assumptions, outdated metaphors (like “muscle memory”), and technical checklists. 3️⃣ Knowing the parts ≠ knowing the action. Understanding how a serve should look doesn’t mean a player can perform it. Skill isn’t stored. It’s emergent — a solution found in the moment, shaped by constraints, intentions, and interactions. 2 QUESTIONS to ask yourself this week:
1 INVITE to go deeper:🧠 Join us for the Modern Coaching Conference 2026 — where we’re diving into ecological coaching, constraints-led design, and real-world skill development with leading minds in the field. 📧 Just reply to this email to ask about group bookings or book a team call. Let’s stop coaching for performance that looks good in drills… And start building players who thrive in the chaos of competition. Talk soon, My Tennis Coach Academy Follow Me |
