How (and Why) Traditional Tennis Instruction is Broken For Players Who Want to Break Through the 4.0 Ceiling
and why it chronically leaves players stuck at the 3.5/4.0 levels
There’s a cold, hard truth behind why I quit coaching tennis in 2011. By most standards for tennis pros, I was set…

I had a fancy job teaching tennis to government bigwigs at a private club in Washington DC… constantly booked, never struggling for new clients, and playing tennis 8 hours per day for a living.

And as a tennis pro, I quickly realized that there are two types of players...

The first player is Feel Good Freddy...

Feel Good Freddy is looking to feel good when he goes to tennis lessons. He's interested in getting his heart rate up, getting some quick tips for improving his existing strokes, and having a better chance of beating his opponent tomorrow.

The vast majority of players I was spending my time with were Feel Good Freddy. 

But then there's Excellent Eddy.

To Excellent Eddy, tennis is more than just a 60-minute lesson once a week... it's all about the pursuit of excellence. It's about fundamentally fixing your game from the ground-up... not about making small changes to old habits. It's about building new habits.

The problem? I got into coaching to help Excellent Eddy... and then realized that the traditional lesson format was broken for this type of player.
So… I had to quit… because I found myself sucked into the black hole and exposed to the hidden truth of traditional tennis coaching.
I quickly grew frustrated when I learned the hidden truth that traditional tennis coaching isn’t meant to give you long-term improvement… it’s meant to get you to come back.

Tennis pros are amazing at what they do. They know exactly how to pack 60 minutes of entertainment, exercise, encouragement, and quick tips into a tennis lesson.

And because they’re good at that, they leave you feeling great.

And when you feel great, you go back next week. And the week after that. For years and years. That's why traditional lessons are perfect for Feel Good Freddy.

...but you never crack past the 4.0 level that plagues most recreational tennis players.

And if you are in tennis to just have fun, not experience short-term pain for long-term gain, and aren’t obsessed with the journey of mastery that comes with becoming a highly competitive tennis player, then traditional coaching is perfect for you.

But if you’re one of the crazy players who eats, sleeps, and breathes tennis and wants to become THE best player at your local courts, traditional tennis instruction is broken when it comes to your long-term growth and mastery.

You see… tennis pros always want you to leave feeling better than you did when you arrived.

And real tennis improvement hurts, because just like mastering anything in life, it comes with a dip.
The dip is where most players quit. It’s where it takes twice as much effort only to get half the results. But when it comes to mastering tennis, all of the best results are on the other side of the dip.

Your local tennis pro knows exactly how to push you enough to get some results, but not enough to get you to – or through – the dip… because that’s where it hurts.

That’s where you go from a 3.5 to a 4.0... or a 4.0 to a 4.5... or a 4.5 to a 5.0.

That’s where the real improvement happens.

Want to know what gets you there?

PS. Your local pro is afraid of your dip… and for good reason. When most players hit the dip, they quit. And for most players, it’s best to stay in their comfort zone. But if you’re not like “most” players and you want to take your game to the next level, it’s time to get real about what it takes to improve...
SUBTEXT
CUSTOM JAVASCRIPT / HTML
Copyright © 2019 Essential Tennis