004 - Knowledge Does Not Equal Understanding

Knowledge is not Understanding.  What does this mean? I will tell you in today's episode.

The other night I forgot that I left our cars out in the street and I needed to bring them into the garage. 

It was late and dark outside.

So in my car, I opened the door, and in one motion I sat down took my key and swung my arm around the steering wheel with my keys in hand.

Now the cool thing was The key went exactly in the key slot not even a little hesitation front to front and side to side. It was a bullseye.

I mean it went right into the slot without touching anything else and I thought to myself what are the odds of that happening.

When I sat in my wifes car, I had to search around for the ignition.

Then it made sense to me that I have probably gotten into my car and done the same routine thousands of times if not more, so the algorithm was in my brain knowing e xactly where my hand had to go how hi how low whole close to me I’ll far away to go right in that little key slot and what’s funny, is when I think about it it doesn’t always work period.

So I guess that’s why they say let it happen instead of making happen.

After I got into the house I remembered a video that one of my colleagues sent me and I’ll give you the title of the video on YouTube and you can look it up it’s an amazing video and as matter fact if you’re on the PTM live list, I will send you a link.  Ill also put the video or url in the show notes.

Go to The Backwards Brain Bicycle on YouTube. Here is the Link:  https://youtu.be/MFzDaBzBlL0

This guy who is an engineer creates a bicycle that steers the opposite of what a normal bicycle would. Meaning, that when he turned the handlebars to the left there’s gears involved to make the wheel turn to the right and you would think that you could still ride this bike but you’ll see That he challenges a lot of people to do it and they can’t go more than a foot on the bike without falling over.

As a matter of fact, it took him eight months to learn how to ride the bike and the whole idea is that there’s an algorithm in your brain that can’t be overturned very easily because you’ve done it one way so many times. 

At the end of the video, he decides that he’s going to try to ride a regular bike after he learned how to ride this bike and it took him a while to learn how to ride a regular bike again because his brain algorithm was set to the new way.

The bottom line of the video is : KNOWLEDGE IS NOT UNDERSTANDING

It’s a great video because it teaches us how repetition is so crucial for our students when we’re teaching them. The more our students can repeat the same motion over and over the more automatic it becomes.

The root word of repetition is repeat so repetition isn’t me just sitting in my car and putting the key in the slot, It’s me sitting in my car and putting the key in the slot the same way over and over and over again creating that automatic habit. (Just like hitting a FH)

It’s the same way for students. It’s not going out and hitting a bunch of balls on the machine, this is where the machine can be your best friend or worst enemy but it’s hitting a bunch of balls on the machine the same way.

So what does this have to do with us as teachers. Well let me tell you in today’s quick tip

Just as it’s important for students to be hitting a bunch of balls, don’t you want your teaching to be effortless so you can focus on what’s important?  The person across the net from you?

I remember when training my summer staff of definitely greenhorn tennis teachers, I had them do a simple drill and feed one ball to the cone on the left side of the court and one ball to the cone on the right side of the court. This was fairly easy for them, except for using using the proper grip, which took some time. Most of them had to look down know at the ball and could not even look straight ahead.

Then I took the next step after they felt comfortable feeding from left to right I said tell me about your day in detail, like I woke up went to the bathroom took the toothbrush out of the drawer, squeezed toothpaste, brush my teeth from left to right, rinsed out my mouth, then went downstairs and had breakfast. I opened up the box of cereal and pour the cereal into the bowl, then I got the milk out and poured that on top of cereal and then I started to chew up and down with my mouth.

Guess what happened to their feeding skills?

Their ball feeding skills went down the tubes. Like the phone ringing on the video.

They knew what they had to do, but their body could not walk and chew gum at the same time…..YET

And pros make it look easy.

This is why you need to get out on the court and practice, no matter what your level is. Like I said in the very first episode, when I was a student, I would get out on the court with my friends and we would each teach a 30 minute lesson to each other so we felt comfortable teaching.

Another example was when I started teaching in Midland Michigan, where I grew up.

I was 17 and assisting in an adult beginner class.  I remember it vividly because of my serve.  It was called the midland Daily News tennis school and it was aimed at players who had never played before.

The goal was to introduce new players to the game in 6 weeks, have them play in a supervised league for 6-weeks and then I believe the club gave them a big discount to join after completion of the league.

Pretty cool format and you know what, I COPIED that as well in traverse City at my club and had 84 new players in the program.  We talked about how effective copying is in episode 003 but remember to give the credit when you can.

Back to my story, well I had a really good serve and the leader of the class wanted me to demonstrate the serve to the group since it was my best shot.

Here is how it went:

Serve one; Shank 

Serve 2: In the ceiling

Serve 3: Rimmed it and it landed three courts down

Embarrassing right?  And I WAS confident, but not in this pressure situation (If you call serving in front of people who have never served pressure)

So getting out there and practicing is key.

So what I am trying to say is that, You need to get out of court as much as you can and play, to work on your game, and teach, even if it is for free to kids in the community, or your friends, or anyone, just to work on your skills. 

There’s a lot more that goes with teaching, other than knowing how to teach the forehand.

You have to have good personal skills, good verbal and nonverbal communication. You need to feel comfortable out there so you can focus on what’s important, the student.

My son when he was probably six or seven years old used to stand by the court iand listen to me teach at the end of the day after his class was over. 

When he was in class, after he got older, I would ask the class a question and he knew every answer because he heard me say it over and over and over again, But, he could not execute it.

Even though we read all about it or heard all about it, we have to get out on court and repeat whatever we were working on over and over so it became automatic. 

This goes back to that video on the backwards brain bicycle, his main point was……… ”Knowledge IS NOT understanding”

The teaching, eventually, is the easy part, but it is all that surrounds your teaching, your philosophy, your verbal and non-verbal communication, how you speak and manage your class, that keeps bringing players back.I’m 

This takes practice, because it compliments your teaching, it defines your teaching character, but remember, they are still out there to learn, so you need to be able to teach and do it in a way that doesn’t seem like you are reading out of a book, but have your own natural style

Good luck and email with any questions,

Coach Mick, USPTA