Written by Tomas Patino (Ki Serve Fellow) and the Ki Team
Don’t leave the serve for the last part of practice
There are a few issues when we do this. One is that kids may be starting to get tired by the end of practice. They may also feel like the “fun” part of practice is over and now they’re just going to be hitting a whole basket of serves. This can get monotonous very quickly. If this is the case and they end up hitting serve after serve, each time being told “bend your knees more”, “don’t let the ball drop”, etc they will quickly lose interest and get distracted or bored. When this happens, their body mechanics suffer and they’re not very receptive to our inputs.
One last issue here is the lack of specificity. Ideally, we want our training to have some similarity to what we’re going to be doing in matches. In a match we will never hit all of our serves in one block. Hitting 30, 40, 50 serves in a row is not ideal in most cases, especially with younger players.
Instead, think about:
• Have kids practice their serve at the earlier parts of practice so that they’re more fresh. They will also know that they will still go back to running around hitting balls after hitting serves.
• Split up the serving practice in smaller blocks. Rather than 15 minutes of basket serving at the end of practice, you can do 3 5-minute serving blocks throughout the lesson. Keeping it short will make it less likely for kids to get distracted or bored. So do 5 minutes of serving, then go into a forehand drill. Then do another 5 minutes of serving before moving on to the next drill. It will be easier to keep them engaged this way.
Don’t have them “just hit serves”
Hitting a basket of serves can be useful sometimes, but not always. Getting the reps is definitely important, but we should avoid letting players just go through the motions. It can be easy to get into that mindset when they feel like it doesn’t matter whether they hit a good serve or not, because either way they’ll just grab the next ball and hit another serve. There isn’t any pressure on making the serve, and most of the time they’re not paying full attention to the task.
We can change this by:
• Giving them a challenge: “try to make __ serves out of 10”. For example, if they can only make 3/10, have them try to beat their best score the next time.
• Having them compete against themselves: “If you make the serve, you win the point, if you miss the serve, you lose the point”. Play to 7 or 10. Depending on the level of the player, you can make it more challenging by marking half or a third of the service box and only counting as “good” the serves that land in the designated area.
• Setting up targets, but attaching some meaning to the targets: you can get very creative with this one but here are a few ideas to get you started:
• Put a small prize under each target. If they knock down the target, they get the price
• If you have a group of kids, have them compete and see who can hit the most targets by the end of practice (keep a cumulative score if you break up the serving practice into smaller blocks as discussed above). Set a positive incentive to the winner, rather than a punishment for the loser(s) (don’t make the losers run suicides for example).
• Also when working with a group: have them compete together rather than against each other. For example, if they can collectively hit X number of cones by the end of practice they get to pick a drill/game they like for the last 5 minutes of practice
There are many different variations, and you can come up with your own. The main goal is for them to feel like there is always something on the line. Each serve matters and they get to practice their serve under some pressure. There is no “going through the motions”.
Avoid confusion
I recently took a golf lesson that taught me an important coaching principle. Before the lesson I was hitting the ball ok – not amazing every time, but relatively consistent for my level. Then the lesson started. After hitting the first ball, the golf pro told me to slightly adjust my grip. I hit the next ball and he adjusted my stance. One more ball and he told me something about how I should be taking the club back. After each ball I hit, he tried to fix a different part of my swing. By the end of the lesson I was so overwhelmed with trying to make all the different changes that I could no longer hit a single ball straight. I got frustrated and felt like I got worse, but after a while I realized that the guy had taught me a great lesson of what not to do as a coach. I’m sure he had the best intentions, and I’m also sure that my swing probably needed all those improvements. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t keep up with all the info he was throwing at me.
I may be preaching to the choir here, but I think it is an important reminder for all of us to simplify things as much as possible for our players. We should try to give them 1-2 cues at a time, even if we see that there are other things that they could be doing better. We need to be very selective about what those 1-2 cues are going to be, and always make sure we are focusing on a fundamental aspect of the serve rather than a stylistic aspect. Only mention a new cue when the player has fully assimilated and feels comfortable with the previous cue you gave him/her.
What does this have to do with motivation? When the player is given a simple task by their coach, and they feel like they’re able to make progress in that area, their motivation increases. On the other hand, if they get overwhelmed/confused with all the different cues being thrown at them, they will get frustrated and even if an improvement is made, they may not be able to recognize it because they’re trying to keep track of so many other things.
Serving practice can and should be fun for kids if we incorporate some of these ideas. The more they enjoy it, the more motivated they’re going to be, and the more receptive and “coachable” they will become.
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