The following is a transcript of the Introduction of the Game Changers Webinar.
Billy:
I was hoping you could take a few minutes and share some of the products, the history behind them, ideas, thoughts, or whatever comes to mind about these cool products you invented.
Joe:
Sure, thanks Billy, for organizing this.
And Kalindi, thank you for everything you’re doing.
You know, it comes down to something common in all sports. All coaches know that two things are usually done in excess: thinking and speaking.
I do a coaches workshop and, here, I go.
Joe goes off camera only to come back with a strip of tape across his mouth.
Coaches are often like, “what?!” when they see this. I think (in coaching) people talk too much.
And therefore, when someone is speaking, like in a coaching situation, the students or the people they are trying to guide to improve now have to listen too much.
When people are hearing and trying to understand what someone is saying, what naturally happens is that they start thinking.
And everyone in every sport talks about getting in the zone.
They don’t talk about how ‘the more you think, the better you’re going to perform.’
And this is the paradox of learning and performing any physical activity.
The students think too much, and the coaches speak too much.
With this in mind, I did a lot of research starting in the 70s and 80s and OnCourt OffCourt started in ’94 with the concept of “how to accelerate learning”.
And I knew already it shouldn’t involve thinking and it shouldn’t involve speaking. So we wanted, what we call guidance systems to more automatically – without the thinking, hearing, and computing – take place.
I coined the term automatic learning as part of this whole system.
For example, we did a clinical study on people on the court to see if they were visual, audio, or kinesthetic learners. Kinesthetic means through feeling.
And we found that 98% of people were a mix of both visual and kinesthetic learning, as opposed to auditory learning. That’s a huge percentage.
So here’s one example.
This is a volley arrow. It’s designed to help players improve their volley. Too many people, when volleying in tennis, swing out, follow through too much, use their wrists, etc.
What you want is a short, compact racquet motion. You don’t want a big backswing. Because the ball is already coming in with more speed, because it hasn’t bounced which would slow it down by up to 50%.
Out of the air, it’s coming faster. If you want to rebound, you don’t need a backswing. Or need one.
So the racquet should be pointing where you were aiming the ball. And the volley arrow is a visual and physical aid for forehand and backhand volleys.
This is an example of both a visual and kinesthetic training aid. And this particular one just slides into any racquet throat in seconds because it’s made out of foam.
So, it’s simple, inexpensive, and it accelerates learning. Promotes, what we call, automatic learning.
For more Tennis Game Changers, check out the rest of our Free Game Changers Webinar right here
Kalindi Dinoffer is trained in multiple aspects of mindfulness in life and in sports, sharing on her blog MindfulKalindi.com. She is also certified to teach yoga, fitness, reiki, and MFR. Kalindi also serves as VP marketing at OnCourtOffCourt.com, a leading supplier of tennis, pickleball, fitness and yoga training aids and equipment and has been published in Tennis industry Magazine and Pickleball Magazine, and has conducted workshops at conferences around the world. In her spare time, Kalindi plays tennis, pickleball and table tennis and enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking and biking and cross country skiing in the winter.
