Spring 2024 Red Ball Pilot

1. Week #1 Lesson Plan
   • Related video, “Cooperative Partner Progressions (IRP: Instant Rally Progression)”
   • Informal Tip for Early Part of Instant Rally Progression (Hit Up! Lift!)
2. Week #2 Lesson Plan
   • Similar to Week #1, with addition of Serve and Volley skills
3. Week #3 Lesson Plan

All coaches should be familiar with the following documents and videos. More will be added later.

• Latest Video for Instant Rally Progression — All coaches, please watch. Parents who want to better understand our teaching method and practice with their children, this is for you!
• PTI Coaching Goals, Standards, Expectations
• Creating A Productive and Fun Learning Environment
• Basic Ball Feeding Tips Video (Created for Adaptive work, but generally applicable)

• “Regression” Activities: Need alternate activities to fall back to for children who have difficulty with any of our activities, but especially if they spend too much time on individual bounce-tap-ups.  We can’t afford to let them get stuck in a rut or frustrated.  Preferably alternate activities would be chosen which reinforce racquet head position/angle awareness and feel.  Balance a ball, exchange a ball to racquet of partner, roll a ball, etc.
• Nametags: We are learning how important nametags are, especially in Beaufort, where our coaching team changes (a bit) weekly with  volunteers and teen age coaches rotating in and out. 
• Rotating Partners and Groups: We are learning that  we need to rotate partners more quickly (every several minutes and not much longer), and we need to keep mixing skills of partners so that the skills of more advanced players benefit and lift their partners.
• Keeping Children Engaged: In diverse ability group settings, we expect players to be out of their level for a reasonable amount of time, and it’s great when those above the current activity level raise the level of partners and team-members.  But we need to find balance and keep each the players appropriately challenged and engaged as much of the time as possible – this may require expanding the coaching team or asking parents to help out on court (not necessarily with their own children!).
• Safety and Safe Play: Let’s be sure to periodically review and reinforce on court safety. Clearly, our regular adult coaches, whether paid or volunteer, must be Safe Play certified.  We’re checking but we believe we can involve parents (essential to verify that they are parents indeed) without Safe Play.
• Long-term goal — Youth Tennis League:  Our goal is to use clinics like this to create a base of youngsters who have enough skill for (modified) organized play, preferably supervised by volunteers (parents, hopefully, like Little League Baseball).  We need to define this further and get some reserved court time set aside for it on the Park & Rec/Island Rec court schedule.