After a busy Fall season featuring 8 USTA Junior Team Tennis teams (featuring weekly practices, matches, and an end of season banquet/awards ceremony), a junior clinic, an adult clinic, and an after school tennis program at Valley Forge Elementary School, we’ve officially started our winter programming. We’re currently operating out of Collegium Charter School and ACAC, but we have more exciting tennis opportunities to come starting in January.
Collegium Charter School – The Justin’s as well as Coach Steve and some great high school helpers started up the clinics at ACAC last Saturday, November 2. These clinics feature an 8 and under, 10 and under and 11-14 session. Since I had the New York Marathon on the first day of class, I wasn’t able to be there, but I ran the clinics this past Saturday.
For the 8 and under group (the biggest group), we featured a forehand court, a backhand court, a volley court as well as a hand eye coordination/fun game/relay race court and rotated every 15 minutes so we could all meet and instruct the kids. Looks like they’re having a good time!
The 10 and under group had a good time as well. We split up into 2 courts, reviewed strokes, had some live ball and quickness drills and reviewed the mechanics of the serve.
The 11-14 group (aside from getting a few balls stuck up in the curtain) got a lot of hitting in and we focused on trying to build consistency and construct points.
Next week, Coach Justin D, Coach Steve, and some other key players in the Just Tennis Crew will be there to run the show.
ACAC – We’ve been running a 3-4 year old class as well as 5-6 year olds, 7-8 year olds and 9-10 year old classes over the past few weeks. With the 3-4 year olds, we’ve been developing their hand eye coordination and racquet control through fun games, and with the other groups, we’re combining instruction and fun games/drills so that they have a good introduction to the game. Myself, Coach Justin D, Coach Steve and Coach Danny always enjoy the energy of these groups!
The new session starts up on November 16 (this coming Saturday). Justin D and myself will alternate sessions. If you’re interested, please take a look at their website.
Valley Forge After School: Myself as well as a few helpers from the Just Tennis 18 and Under Team and Conestoga High School have been instructing the extremely popular Tennis Club at Valley Forge Elementary. For these groups of 12, we like to keep them moving with fun games (jailbreak, king of the court, racquet quickness, etc) and of course, teach them the essentials of the game. They seem to enjoy our serving competitions where they compete to see who can finish their pile of tennis balls first.
These sessions will continue into the winter and spring and we’re looking forward to seeing these kids develop skills and develop a love for the game.
We’ll have some fun, busy weekends of tennis coming up at ACAC, Collegium, as well as a few other sites. More information to come this week on the other sites (which may feature Twin Valley and United Sports Training Center).
It’s a beautiful day. Go play some tennis!
