This initial Blog entry is an attempt to strike the tone for my exploration into the attitudes to excellence project that I have undertaken. By speaking to those involved in the training of children to elite level from a variety of disciplines I want to look at the trends that are emerging in how we develop talent and where we take it. I also want to examine the way those who are already successful see the challenges facing the UK and what can be done to meet them.
Rhys Hanger is tennis performance director at the Brighton Esporta. I wanted to speak to Rhys because he has been training tennis players to international level for over 15 years and has witnessed significant changes in the way tennis is taught in that time. I initially wanted to know what where the cultural challenges facing someone who wanted to raise the level of tennis in the UK. In establishing what was holding us back I wanted to know what progress has been made to meet these challenges.
A 'child centered' approach to sport
The first thing that Rhys notes is the tendency to treat children as 'special' before they have demonstrated a talent for anything. This leads to giving a child a sense of success too early without having earned it. Interestingly, Rhys partly puts this down to a lack of appreciation of hard work and a further lack of willingness to undertake a disciplined approach to personal development. In fact if the child is already seen as special the mere suggestion that they need to work harder to develop can be seen as a criticism by parents and the child themselves.
Prematurely treating children as young adults is one consequence of the 'you're already special approach'. Coaches like Rhys have noticed that children have a habit of questioning what the coach is telling them all the time. "Why do I have to do that?" and " what is the point of doing this?" Parents will often be very open with children in front of the coach, rather than using their discretion to keep things from them that they may not need to know. This has the consequence of the child always being right and in difficult circumstances, where the child feels uncomfortable, the parent will tend to back the child over the coach.
Rhys thinks that having the raising of self esteem at the heart of children's socialisation is the cause of the above problem. Placing the emotions and in particular happiness above all else leads to a tendency to avoid difficult or taxing situations. If they are avoided then the child cannot be expected to deal with them.
One very interesting feature of today's sporting culture is the prevalence of the 'back up plan' or safety net in when preparing the child for a future in elite sport. In a particularly risk averse and safety conscious society as our own the back up plan appears very sensible and goes almost unquestioned if not unnoticed. Rhys is critical of this tendency and says that this is where some countries succeed where we fail in producing tennis players. In particular, the East Europeans and the Russian (or cannot permit themselves) the luxury of a back up plan. For this reason Rhys sees this as a potential barrier to success and highlights the fact that in the UK we are actually handicapped by the amount of choices children have. This leads to a tendency for children to dabble in everything rather than attempt to master one activity, literally spoiled for choice.
10,000 hours and 'putting money in the bank'
There is now an accepted wisdom that an individual needs 10,000 hours of practice to stand a chance at being a world beater at anything. This is as true for tennis as it is in ballet and playing the violin. Rhys says that the education system in the UK prevents this 10k from being completed as early as in other countries. Because of the the demands of the national curriculum and the sheer length of the school day. Although he clearly states that this need not be a problem in itself, we should adjust our expectations of our athlete's accordingly. This means expecting them to mature as athletes later than in other countries.
There is also a question over the tendency to produce schemes based on 'talent identification'. Rhys states that it is talent and work rate that determine success, talent is only part of the package.
Using a banking analogy, Rhys raises a further question to the British 'approach'. "In the UK the player tends to make 'withdrawals'. They don't train hard enough and put enough 'deposits in the bank'. They need to work harder to draw upon the deposits. What they tend to do is 'play for the weekend' where they practice a little during the week and then make withdrawals to play in matches. This means they are constantly running near or close to empty all the time.
This playing for the ranking approach is something that has only recently been addressed and has had interesting and generally negative consequences. By playing for the ranking, the individual tends to compete for competitions sake and for 'abstract' scoring systems that bear little relation to their actual talent. It also leads players to be more parochial and adopt a big fish in a small pond approach. According to Rhys it is preferable to have a system that emphasises not playing for the sake of competition but instead to become a better player.
What is the relationship between the elite and the recreational player?
Rhys has a very interesting position on the relationship between ‘elite’ and good recreational players. He puts this down to an interesting phenomena that has been encouraged by sporting organisations in the UK but has gone unnoticed by the public. Put simply, children are now taught to play to be professional, or to a professional level, rather than stumble into the game or play for fun. This has had several consequences. It has been evident for sometime that the general level of play within clubs has fallen. Put bluntly there are less good adult players in clubs than there were 15 years, by quite some margin. Rhys says that this is, in part, down to the way the game is taught to juniors. In the recent past there was a progression from club to county to regional to national competition and the player would rise up from these levels and be entitled to different levels of funding, coaching and competitive play. There was a progression that was external to the players existing playing experience and one that one could set one’s goals against. The individual could decide to aim for county level and settle for that or simply play in inter club county competitions each weekend. Conversely, one could set one’s sights on competing in the national competitions and move away from the club structure.
This structure no longer exists in this form. Each club is a ‘performance club’ in it’s own right. This means that it is supposed to offer the highest standards in training to juniors. Juniors are taught up to county, regional and national standard within their own club and these regional categories of organising talent have been removed. This has had the effect of raising the standard of junior tennis in general, so that the average junior player is considerably better technically than in the recent past. There has, however, been a marked decrease in the number of juniors playing with the more recreational players. This truncation has led to a concentration of talent and resources. There is a virtual absence of good juniors playing in the inter club leagues and competitions.
Rhys says that this had to happen if we wanted to raise the level of tennis and that the separation of club (recreational players) and strong juniors is only temporary. He states that this more elite orientated approach will benefit everyone in the long term including both recreational and elite players and be more beneficial to anyone who comes into contact with the game.
What are the positive moves?
Rhys is by no means negative about the cultural challenges that need to be addressed and the tennis establishment has gone along way in this direction. In particular, the end to accepting mediocrity and under performance and the reward of real efforts and results have boosted the game. There is a more transparent and open system to improve, compete and to receive funding and backing. The most significant positive improvement for Rhys is that the right people are doing the right jobs and that a lot more expertise has been brought into tennis in the UK.
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