Grit and Deliberate Practice
Grit
Some may argue that momentum is not a real force in sports. I would disagree and actually have drills and games that train players to regain, maintain, and create momentum. No, this article is not about momentum and few would disagree with me that momentum is one of the strongest forces in sports, especially tennis where there is no clock, not time to help save your soul in a grueling match. But one thing that is clearly obvious, recognizable, and agreed upon by just about anyone who watches sports in general and tennis specifically—grit. I would say it is the most sought after trait in athletics, the professional business world and just about any area of life. It is the most sought after trait because it is the most highly associated trait with greatness, world class success in just about any endeavor (a professional tennis player, a concert pianist, a Nobel prize winning scientist, etc). Grit can manifest itself even in youth and be modeled and taught was well. Dr. Angela Duckworth has done extensive work on grit and her presentation is worth watching. She has outlined much of what I am noting in this blog but I am catering it to tennis specifically.
Grit, according to Duckworth’s research is sustained passion and perseverance or especially long term goals. A person with grit has the tendency not to abandon tasks from mere changeability. They do not seek something fresh because of novelty. Someone with grit does not look for change for change sake. They have a tendency not to abandon tasks in face of obstacles. Someone with grit displays perseverance, tenacity, doggedness. When I was coaching my son of 8-years old, when he wanted to switch to his one-handed backhand I use to refer to it as “stickity-tooity-hangity-in-there-ness.” He got the idea.
What does grit look like in tennis? How do we coach it or instill it?
Let me start with the second question first: How do we coach grit or instill it? Wayne Bryan always says “champions learn through their eyes” meaning they learn a ton and develop passion to get better by witnessing great tennis done the right way. Notice that the number one trait for great tennis players (athletes at the elite level) is grit, not a great forehand or unwavering fitness. Those are important but not the defining characteristic. Nor is winning. All those things come about because of a skill set but the grit is the key factor. So we must reinforce, encourage, and reward grit. How?
When a player is training do not constantly say “Great job out there. You were really hitting the ball well.” Rather say, “Great job out there. You ran everything down, you never quit, you fought for every point, played patiently and waited to strike at the right time and just refused to give free points. It is awesome to see grit like that in action.”
Why is this important? A player, your young son or daughter or your player on your team, or you as a matter of fact, can control your effort, your tenacity, your grit. You cannot control if you are going to be playing your best that day. It is fine to talk about the technical, tactical and strategic aspects of their play, how they executed and played great, but the main focus should be first and often the grit and effort they made. That can be replicated and easily monitored.
You can train this by modeling but especially by making the goal explicit and giving immediate feedback. For example. I have challenged my players to refuse to hit a ball in then net for long periods of time in a drill. The sole goal of this is the tenacity and refusal to miss in the net. They can miss long, miss wide, and even double bounce if it is a ball they cannot get too but the goal is never to stop and never hit it in the net. I remember one year (about 20 years ago) I was coaching my team at UC Irvine (then top 16 in the NCAA). I waned the guys to do a warm up routine that required various shots and no one could miss in the net for 5 minutes. It took 45 minutes. Needless to say the next time we did that, it took a lot less time. The goal was mental tenacity and grit.
To make it easier, I have had players for 5 minutes focus on constantly bouncing and hitting and cannot look away from their court (4 per court hitting 1 on one). Players get so easily distracted. Some have a very difficultly time doing this. Then I challenge them to go another 5 minutes, etc. Sometimes the focus is on making sure they go through their PRPR (our between point management time developed by good friend Jim Loehr many years ago). In all these times, I give them feedback when they are wondering, looking elsewhere, not bouncing, lose focus, etc.
Just the other day I was having two players play a game I developed about 25 years ago named after Wimbledon ( I have a game for each Slam). The game details I will save for another time but the point is to serve and volley every serve, every point, and the first one to advance from the round of 128 to the finals and hold serve is the winner. For players these days that are not at all comfortable serving and volleying, who do not have the nuances at net, etc., it is very draining and they easily waiver in grit. Serve and volley takes athleticism, tenacity and a refusal to get passed with explosive lunging at times and just an all out commitment and grind at net. His focus was rushed and reactionary most of the time but he actually did the best he had ever done. When I quipped that he served and volleyed more today than he ever has, he said “My entire live combined coach.” But I had to give him routine feedback as to what was not grit (he didn’t lunge for one ball, pushed another when he should have smacked it, and didn’t try for a lob over his head—that usually “pops my lid” but he was doing so well I just reminded him to run his “butt off” next time). I also had to give feedback as to what was grit (making sure he took time to know exactly what he was doing each point, to reach for every ball and let no ball go uncontested, etc). I was happy with his effort and told him so. He was upset he lost the last game but I told him he had done better than ever before and that was the goal. He had not idea the game was my sneaky way of getting him to step way out of his comfort zone.
Deliberate practice
This leads into the practice of great performers that have grit. They employ deliberate practice. This is key and something I have espoused for many years. Duckworth does a great job in simplifying all the research she had done into easy to do and remember steps. The above example of the game Wimbledon exemplifies deliberate practice.
- Stretch Goal
- 100% Focus
- Immediate Feedback
- Adjust and Repeat
Pretty simple right? The problem is most people do not do this, and that includes elite players like those in college.
1. Stretch Goal. Players must train a large portion of their time in areas of weakness. I have always said that the fastest way to improve your game is work on weaknesses. Too often people think they just need to focus on their strength etc., but this is just staying in their comfort zone, invariably having too many holes in their game. It is said that the fastest man alive, Usain Bolt, trains his weakness 70% of the time—his starts. In short, train your weaknesses and compete with your strengths. Eventually your weaknesses will diminish and your tool belt of strengths increases.
How might this look? I have found that if most players just go out and hit for an hour they will hit from the baseline, serve, hit a few obligatory vollies and then either play some groundstroke games or play a set or so. They will rarely if ever work on a weakness and rarely anything having to do with the net game. Instead they might say, lets hit some cross courts for a while, etc. There is no plan, no intentional effort to say and do the following: “Hey, I really need to work on my backhand volley, specially after coming forward on a short ball. Maybe we can practice where I come in on a slice or backhand approach and you try and pass me on my backhand side then we play the point out anywhere after that.” And do that for half of the time with some variations (work on serving out points and trying to get to net and have the first ball hit to his backhand volley, etc.). Then after that time, play a set or some tiebreakers if there is enough time. The stretch goal has been the focus.
Another example is most folks need work on a second serve. I have a saying that you are only as good as your second serve and first volley in doubles. Since most people play doubles (and why doubles in college should be longer than a sneeze of a 6 game set), players should work on playing games with only one serve, half court, and focus on having a much bigger second serve, then their practice partner can work on their return and the server can work on the first volley. The first three shots are cooperative, after that you play to win. This alone is a great stretch goal for people—hit at a pace and control such that the one serve, the return and the fist volley are all executed then it is “game on.”
2. 100% Focus. Again this is an area of difficulty for folks. Simply see if you can stay on task, without wavering, without losing the stretch goal for 5, 10, 15, or more minutes. Then see if you can go an entire 1.5 hour workout without losing focus. To have focus can take many shapes. Are you intent on the stretch goal the entire time? For thirty minutes the stretch goal may be that second serve. Another thirty minutes it might be chip returns off of a monster serve (have your friend stand in no-man’s-land and hit big serves and you work on your chips. Then alternate duties.). And for the last thirty minutes, work on patterns with your strengths and play out points doing that. But assess yourself (or your players if you are coaching), on a scale of 1-10, 10 being very focused and 1 being “your are thinking about what you had a breakfast.” Are you focused? I occasionally stop my player(s) and ask for a 1-10 focus or attitude check.
3. Immediate feedback. While your players (or you) are 100% focused on their stretch goal, you need to give them feedback often and as close to the event as possible. Are you using video? Have them look at it with you. Is the video of a match? Do not wait too long to look at it to see if they are in fact getting better at closing the net when the come forward. Are they working on positive attitude (or positive physical response)?Then let them know if they do it well or not right away. Ask them to give the feedback. I do this often by asking, “Why do you think you missed that?” or “What right have been a higher percentage shot based on where you were when you hit the ball?”
4. Adjust and Repeat. Lastly, the stretch goal, has to have not only the 100% focus and the immediate feedback but corrections, tweaks, and then getting right back up and trying it again: “Rinse and repeat.” Over and over.
Key: This entire process itself can be a stretch goal for most people! That alone is worth your time in reading this and working on the deliberate practice.
Let ‘er Rip
Steve