Tips

This will be an extended tips edition to allow all the submitted summer camp tips to be included. Thanks to everyone that took time to contribute.

 

For many of us it is simply impossible to find enough instructors or volunteers to have one “instructor/volunteer” for every 2 quickstart students, allowing each pair of participants their own personal QS court and teacher. Court space and set up time may also prohibit you from being able to provide this.
 
If your quickstart numbers are blowing up fast, try combining the new quickstart teaching style with traditional tennis teaching ratios. Mark out 1 QS court per instructor and divide the class into smaller more manageable groups (1 to 4,5,6 etc.).
 
Students can learn to Rally, Serve, and Score in small groups (with an instructor or volunteer) until they are able to play on a QS court with less direct supervision. 
  
Chris Hinson     Greenville Recreation & Parks Department

 

Since tossing the ball is difficult for most, here is my tip: 
 
Rather than thinking in terms of "tossing," think "lifting" or "pushing" the ball and pretend that you are the Stature of Liberty with your ball release hand...EXTEND your arm!
 
Mary Anne Kendall  

 

Equipment Needed:  2 “kick ball” style balls and 2 five gallons buckets.
 
We have 4 teams of 6 players.  Team 1 X 2 & 3 X 4.  Winners play winners runners up play the consolation match.
 
Format:     5 players on one side of the net (1 team on deuce 1 on add) in single file line close to net.  1 player on opposite side holding a bucket.  When the whistle blows, the first player in the line of 5 will turn their back to the net and toss the ball over their head and the net in hopes of their team mate will catch the ball in the bucket and quickly return it to the next team mate who will also turn their back and toss the ball backwards into the bucket.  Every 30 seconds you switch catchers until everyone has had a turn.  (If numbers are uneven, simply have someone repeat).  After 3 minutes winning team has the most successful catches.
 
We had a sudden death playoff today due to a tie score in the championship game.  You can play 4 teams at once (with enough equipment) but this way encourages cheering from the other two teams and more excitement.

Jim Demos     Charlotte, NC

 

Use of High School Age Instructors for Summer Camp
Since you have so many kids out of school, take advantage of this time to "audition" instructors from your better players.  We make all of our potential instructors teach camp for free for one week.  During this week, we train them, offer advice on areas for improvement, and see who really "makes the grade" as a teacher.  If they do well, they can move up to being paid. 
We try to keep rotating the kids so we have 2 a week.  This way, we may have 2 free instructors per week for 6 straight weeks.  This saves an incredible amount of money and then you can pick who you want to use for the rest of the summer and the school year.
Remember, your best players are not your best instructors.  In addition, the better players usually are not as available during the school year because of their workout schedules combined with academic load.  We try not to use any of our high school instructors more than 2 hours a week during the school year.  If you have a succesful summer trying out and training new  youth instructors, you can easily rotate these helpers during the school year.

"Team Day" at Summer Camp
 We put 6-16 year olds together in our Summer Camps for Beginner-Intermediate level players.  Every Wednesday or Thursday we do team competitions.  We divide the players into two large teams.  Within the teams, we will have at least three, if not four different skill levels.
·         For Group 1, we will do cooperative skills.  If the players pass a bean bag back and forth on their racket seven times, they score a point for their team.  After a point is scored, they run to their scoring area and record a point for their team.  Less skilled players may pass the bag four times to score; whatever it takes to make them successful.
·         We may do four different skills for Group 1, with a time limit of two or three minutes for each skill.  Some of the skills will involve changing places with their partner every two or three minutes, so we might have up to eight different rotations that last a total of 20 minutes.
·         Group 2 might be the more experienced U10 kids who will be playing points on the 36' court.  They will play first to four points to score, and then rotate opponents.  We may have them play a little longer than Group 1, maybe 25 minutes. 
·         Group 3 might be all full court players who are playing doubles.  They will change opponents and partners each round and will generally play up to 30 minutes.
·         Once Group 1 is through, they will root for their teammates playing in Group 2.  When Group 2 is finished, the Group 1 and 2 kids will go watch the matches in Group 3 and cheer on their teammates.
At the end of the competition, we have all the assistants add up the points and have a giant ceremony.  We always have a type of bonus for the winning team that is in good fun.  Winners get first throw in water balloon fights, no ball pick-up, etc.
Kids of all ages love this format.  You will have a 6 year old cheering for a 16 year old, which they just don't have in any other sport experience.  Just because someone can't serve and rally yet doesn't mean they can not experience the feeling of winning for their team.

Craig S. Jones     Martinez, GA

 

One of the games that we like to run with the juniors in the summer program is a game  called "Basket Battle."  You divide the kids into two teams and let them place baskets or cones (5 min.) into one of the service boxes for the opposing team to try to hit. You then line both teams up for volleys hitting at the opponent's baskets.  Two pros feed the balls in for volleys.  One volley and move to the back of the line.  If they hit the basket then you remove it from the game.  The team that hits all the baskets first wins.  This game works great with beginners to the tournament players.

 

For the intermediate to advanced level we play a game called "Brain Damage." You have a line of players at the baseline in a single file line in the middle of the court and one player that is the champ on the other side.  You feed short balls to the challengers and they attack and come in and play out the point.  You need to win 3 points in a row or 5 total points to become the champ.  The key is once the point finishes you immediately feed the next ball in play and the champ must recover quickly.  If the champ beats all the challengers in a row the challengers do 10 push-ups or whatever you choose.

 

Both submitted by    Ian Thomson   Johns Creek, GA

 

I always assign ranking numbers after each lesson to all players in the group.  These rankings are competition for trophy's at the end of Camp.  Also, at the end of each session I have the top players listed in the local paper, sometimes with their picture.  The promise of recognition seems to stimulate incentive to do more.

 

 

Summer camps are fun when the camp is split up into “camp teams” according to age and level.  Have one counselor/pro be responsible for one team.  It makes organization and competition easy and fun.  Tons of water balloons are also make the camp fun.
  
Heather Silvia   Alpharetta, GA

 

12 shot drill which starts student at net. It is two series of six shots apiece. Pro feeds forehand volley, backhand volley, lob to get player to baseline; then a forehand and backhand groundstroke to return each crosscourt and lastly approach to bring  player back to net.  Repeat this sequence for total of 12 shots.

 45 seconds.  Each player is fed shots all over the court with no pattern-short, deep,wide groundstrokes, volleys, lobs.
The point is build endurance and teach each student to return to the middle of the court for next shot.  Each student will be tired from this drill.

 4 strikes. It is break the group into even teams for round the world hitting one shot and running to other side of court. This works on consistency, teamwork, and competition.  Each player gets 4 errors (strikes) , and then are out. Last player in wins  a gatorade, can of balls, or does not have to pick up balls as the prize.

 

 

We just finished a 5 day summer camp at Hammond School for rising 2nd-5th graders.  The camp was from 9-12 noon Mon-Fri.  Each day we had a theme of the day that was inserted at about 10:30 for about 45 minutes.  This theme was at a great time to break up the on court work.  The themes we used for this camp were:
Monday-Tennis History-I brought in a couple of old wood rackets (real old), a Jack Kramer, my old high school racket, a T2000, an original Prince and told a little story about each one.
Tuesday-Video Day-we showed the campers the Rick Macci video of the 5 year old hitting groundstrokes and that caused a lot of excitement.
Wednesday-Picture Day-we took action shots and still shots (with the 5 foot tennis rackets-1 wood and 1 Wilson) of all the campers to be printed and put in their folders for graduation as well as e-mailed to parents.
Thursday-USTA.com day-we went into a classroon with a large screen display and pulled up USTA.com and explained some of the different subjects that could be viewed.  We showed two things of high importance:
1) how to find tournaments-especially Rising Stars (Novice) and 2) video of the pro's strokes under game improvement.
Friday- Test Day-a simple 10 question test (multiple choice, true/false, and one fill in your favorite tennis professional-(Federer got most of the votes-I received 2)  see a copy of the Bernie's most recent test after the trivia questions.
 
The campers were given a folder that included: the test, pictures, certificate, a court diagram listing some shots and some of the subjects that were covered over the week.
 
Bernie McGuire    Columbia, SC
 

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