The Absurdity Of Most Online Tennis Coaching Courses Part 2
Read Part 1 here:
Part 2
Frank Giampaolo took a lot of flack recently for writing an article arguing that tennis video analysis is often ineffective. He based his argument on research from the late Vic Braden and his team at his Tennis College.
The gist of the article was essentially that video analysis is often ineffective because it takes at least six weeks of focused repetitions to build a new motor program successfully—and most people fail in this journey, even if they understand the video analysis and what they need to fix.
Basically Frank was saying that learning new technique is hard work and that video study alone is not a panacea.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I would make a similar argument about online courses: They can provide good information to folks but usually fail in their central mission to make transformational technical change.
Most online tennis courses are generic and asynchronous, without any specific support and feedback from the course creator. By asynchronous, I mean that the courses can be taken at any time by the student and are not held live, which allows for a real-time give and take between the professor and the student. This is one inherent disadvantage of an asynchronous online course environment.
Therefore, it is essential—for the success of any asynchronous course—that the teacher provides support and feedback to the student, by email, text, phone, video exchange, etc, so that the student can ask questions and also receive specific guidance on how to customize the generic content in the course to his or her specific need. Without this support, any generic, asynchronous course will fail to achieve real and indelible results for the students—except in rare occasions. The course will fail in its purpose and will not live up to its promise.
It is preposterous that any asynchronous online course will generate dramatic technical improvements for students without followup and ongoing support by the coach professor. That support and feedback MUST be there for the students to succeed. If the class does not have this support, it can be fairly described as an informational course—but not a transformational course.
The problem in the industry is that most online tennis courses are heavily marketed—sometimes with high pressure sales tactics worthy of a late night infomercial—and sold as transformational courses. Online gurus are selling transformation, but providing only information.
The irony now is that most online gurus are realizing the aforementioned paradigm and moving to offer more support options for their students with online mentoring packages and premium feedback programs. In addition, online coaches are offering more offline workshops and opportunities to take real-world lessons. Why? Because their followers need followup! They are realizing that even the most compelling online course alone is often not enough to transform their students.
As Giampaolo astutely noted in his piece: it’s one thing to know the correct technique and what you are doing wrong; but it’s another thing entirely to actually build a new motor program to the point where the stroke will function correctly under the pressures of a competitive match. That kind of transformation is very difficult to achieve, even with personal specific guidance and feedback from an expert coach.
It is absurd to believe that a typical weekend warrior—with a job, kids, and limited time—could successfully do it on their own.
More to come…
Chris Lewit
Join Chris’s online school and study directly with his support!