The Lesson Lounge - Tennis Warrior

Your Link to Professional Thinking!

The lost art of learning

This lesson is going to be on the lost art of learning. With the advent of the quick fix, feel good, learn to be an A player in a weekend mentality true learning is slowly losing out. By the way there actually is a book titled "Learn to be an A player in a weekend".... I can hear the wheels turning, I know what you're thinking....where can I buy that book?

There are two aspects of learning I would like to focus on. Number one, learning takes time, it's long term. Number two, learning is doing simple things consistently. It's amazing how many of us can not get the first one right, learning takes time, it's long term. Most of us will say, yes I know that, then proceed to take a lesson and become frustrated because you can not do what you are learning immediately. You say, I've been practicing for 10 minutes, isn't that long enough!

When learning you must develop a long term focus. Here's a great tip. When you are learning a new stroke you're really not trying to make the shot, instead you're trying to simply start the process in the right direction, so eventually it will happen by itself. I'm constantly telling my lessons to take themselves out of the equation, follow the correct principles, and let the correct principles work for them. This is difficult because we want to make it happen NOW! Here's some cold hearted truth...whether you like it or not, no matter what you do it's going to take time, so you might as well relax and enjoy the process.

Number two, while learning is taking time, during that time you must do simple things consistently. Find simple things to work on then do them consistently. This concept of doing something consistently is mind boggling to people. They think because they have been working on a shot for 3 weeks they have been consistent. It's a beginning, but you have to work on it week after week for months before you can claim some kind of consistency.

Consistency is not dong something 100 times. It's doing something 100 times 100 times. I tell you what if you can get these two concepts clear in your mind. Learning takes time and do simple things consistently. You'll actually find yourself learning faster! Isn't that what you wanted in the first place?