 Hey everyone, massive welcome to today's video. My name is Ashley Neves, and I am the head coach here at the Avenue Tennis Club in Haven, Hampshire. And as well as being the head coach here, I also run the YouTube channel, The Tennis Mentor. Now in today's video, I'm gonna take you through a 30 minute fun tennis lesson, which is gonna help you to get a little bit more active and to learn some of the basics in tennis. Now this video is aimed at primary school aged kids, so if you're four to 11 years old, it's perfect for you. But if you've got siblings, if you've got brothers and sisters who are older or younger, or in fact, if your parents want to get involved too, then definitely give it a go. Now, although I'm stood on a tennis court here, this 30 minute lesson can be done anywhere in any small space. So whether you're at home, indoors, or in your garden, or even at school in the lunch hall, all you need is a small space. Now what I would suggest is if you are indoors at home, make sure you check with your parents or your grownups to make sure that they're happy with you doing this. And I would suggest not being too close to a window or a television just in case. Before we get started, I'm gonna show you a few of the things that you're gonna need, and I'm gonna give you a little bit of time to go hunting around the house for these things. Now I will be using a tennis racket and a tennis ball, but there are some substitute things that you can find around the house, which can be equally as good. So let's check out what I've got. One's escaped already. So first things first, if you don't have a tennis racket, then you can use any flat object that you can hold in your hand. Now I've got this lid, I don't know where it came from, I don't eat chocolate. But I've got this lid, I can hold it, it's flat. I'll be able to do some of the skills using this instead of my racket. Now something similar could be a hardback book that you could hold. I've seen some children doing this with a frying pan, although it does get a bit heavy. So your mission is to find something flat if you don't have a tennis racket. If you do, then definitely use that. As well as your tennis racket or your tennis racket substitute, you will need a ball. Now I've got a tennis ball here. So if you have a tennis ball, fantastic. It can be a bigger ball. So if you've got a lightweight football or a sponge ball or anything like that at home, that could be equally as good. If it bounces, it's gonna be even better. If you don't have a ball in your house, you can do what I'm gonna do. I've got a nice funky pair of tennis socks here and you can actually roll them into a ball. So if you've got a pair of socks, roll them up into a ball like this and you can use this for your skills instead. And finally, you're going to need two markers. Now the markers can be anything. I'm using shoes today. It could be a couple of t-shirts, couple of jumpers, but you're gonna need two markers that are gonna be put down on the floor to mark out your zone and a drinks bottle. Now, is this not the biggest drinks bottle you've ever seen? It doesn't need to be this big, although if it is big, it will help you in the end game that you'll see. So grab a drinks bottle just so that you've got something to have a drink with during the tough activities that you're gonna do in a second. So you've got 30 seconds to go on a hunt around the house. You need something to use instead of a tennis racket, something instead of a ball and two markers along with your drinks bottle. Your time starts now, off you go. Okay, you've got 10 seconds left. Make sure you've got yourself something, a racket or a substitute, something to substitute a tennis ball, two markers and a drinks bottle. Okay, hopefully you found some things. Don't panic too much, if not, you can use your imagination, I'm sure. The first thing we're gonna do in this lesson is to get ourselves warmed up. Now, warmups are crucial for tennis players and any sports players because you need to get your body ready for action but also your mind ready for action. So, as you can see, I've set up my two markers. Now, your two markers are gonna go either side of your body, one on your right, one on your left. Now, first of all, you don't need your ball, you don't need your racket, you just need your two markers and we're gonna stand right in the middle of the two of them. Now, we're gonna play a game called remote control. Now, you may have played this before but I'm gonna explain it anyway if you haven't. Now, you're watching me on either a TV screen, you might be watching on a tablet or a phone, okay, but I can also see you through my lens as well. So, you are like my TV screen and I'm going to use my remote control to press play. Now, if I press play, you're gonna be jogging on the spot and your job is to be moving all of the time. So, when you're jogging on the spot, you're gonna be moving your legs and your arms just like me. Now, if I press pause, you're gonna freeze and your job is to be as still as you possibly can and to freeze as soon as I say pause. If I shout play again, we'll be jogging on the spot. If I shout fast forwards, you're gonna run as fast as you can using your arms and your legs. You gotta see if you can go quicker than me and pause. You're gonna hold it still again. Finally, if I shout slow motion, you're going to go as slowly as you can, but remembering to keep your technique, keep those arms and legs moving like so. Okay, are we ready to play the game? Your job is to see if you can do the actions better than me and quicker than me. And play. Good, make sure you're pumping those arms as well, not just your legs. Pause. Play. Fast forward. Can you go faster than me? I'm an old man, come on, you can go quicker than that. Faster, faster, faster, slow mo. Well done. Looking good, everybody. Keep that slow motion. Can you go slower than me? This really tests your balance because you're standing on one leg and your coordination. Pause. Uh-oh, hopefully you're on one leg. Can you hold it? Who's wobbling? Play. Walking again. Pause. Okay, now we're gonna change the channel. Next, we're going to watch Olympic swimming. Play. So we're gonna go slowly to start off with, are we swimming, everybody? Excellent work. Fast forward. Right, we're gonna add another button now. Rewind. What stroke will we do for rewind? Backstroke. Be good idea to jog on the spot as well so we're keeping warm. Okay, fast forwards. Come on, can you go faster than me? Pause. We're gonna watch one more channel. The final channel that we're going to watch is going to be the Australian Open on the tennis channel. Play. Now let's see how much like a tennis player you can look with these shots. See if you know any of the shots that I'm hitting. If you've played tennis before, you might know that this is a forehand. Because I'm using my favorite hand to hit the ball over the net. You might see that this is my backhand because I'm using two hands on my weaker side. Looks a bit like a golf swing, this one, doesn't it? Excellent. If I throw the ball up above my head, does anybody know what that's called? Anybody know what this shot's called? Throw it up and hit it above your head. It's called a serve. And the serve is the shot that starts every single point when you play a tennis match. Excellent. Fast forwards, pause. Hold it still. Let me see who looks the most like a tennis player. Excellent positions there. Make sure you hold it. Be really, really still like a statue. And play. And stop there. Well done everybody, that was a fantastic warmup. Now, I'm out of breath already. Hopefully you're getting a little bit warmer. I'm sure you're not as out of breath as I am. You're super fit, so well done. That is your warmup complete. So, we're gonna move on to some tennis specific movement patterns, okay? Now, we're gonna make use of my two markers, okay? Your two markers might be different to mine. They might be jumpers, they might be something else. I'm using my trainers. Now, your mission during this movement pattern exercise is to make sure that you're always facing towards me. I want you to pretend that I am your opponent on the other side of the tennis court. So, we're always gonna be facing each other. If you turn your back to me in a tennis match, then the chances are you're going to miss your next shot because you're not gonna be able to see it. So, it's important that you're always facing me during these exercises. Now, for a practice, we're going to see if we can do a loop around our two markers, but without turning from the screen. So, let's give it a go. So, as you can see, I'm using my side steps to go all the way around my two markers. So, see if you can copy me now. Have a little practice. So, side steps, keeping our feet moving. If we do lots of small steps, they're gonna be even more accurate as well. Perfect. Right, let's have a practice going the other way around. So, still doing a loop, but we're gonna go in the other direction. So, make sure you're always facing me. I don't want to see you running because then your back's gonna be facing towards the screen. So, make sure it's always side steps. There we go. Change direction again. You can probably hear that I'm out of breath, which is a good thing. It means I'm getting warm. Pause. Okay, let's make this into a challenge. I want to see how many times you can loop around your two markers in 30 seconds, okay? And your job is to see if you can get a better score than me, okay? So, every time you get back to the front of your two markers, you're gonna count, okay? So, I'm gonna start my stopwatch. Your 30 seconds starts now. One for me. Two, make sure you're always facing forwards. I'm gonna stop counting mine now so that you can concentrate. Halfway. Five seconds. And stop there. Amazing. Now, I managed to get seven or eight. I actually lost count there, okay? I got seven or eight. Did you manage to beat my score? Now, if you didn't, it doesn't matter because I'm an expert at this. But if you did, I'm very disappointed. Only joking. Well done. So, that was level one. If you managed to get more than me, give yourselves a big pat on the back, okay? But if you didn't, you're gonna try even harder in this next one. Right. Version two of our tennis movements, okay? And this is the last one before we get to start using the ball and the racket, okay? Now, this is called number eights. Now, your job, still facing towards your screen, is to see if you can loop around your two markers, but you've gotta come back to the middle after each one. So, watch me, I'm gonna do a little demonstration. You can go in front, all the way around, back to the middle. All the way around, back to the middle. And you can see, if you look at where my feet are moving, they're doing a loop like a number eight. So, I'm gonna go around and around like so. Have a little practice, see if you can do that one. But your job is to always be facing the screen. Off you go, a little practice round first. Now, you'll see tennis players doing this. If you ever watch tennis on the television and you see the pros play, you'll see them moving with lots of small steps so that they're really, really accurate. And they're always facing towards their opponents so they can see the ball. Keep going. Don't know about you, but I'm very exhausted. Great stuff, looking good. Five more seconds. Good, keep that footwork going, always facing towards the screen, and stop there, well done. Okay, so final challenge then, before we get the ball and the racket out. We're going to try 30 seconds again to see if you can beat my score. Now, I think this is gonna be tougher than last time. So, if I got seven or eight last time, I would be really happy if I managed to get six this time. And you're gonna see if you can get anywhere near your last score. I'll be ready. I'm gonna set my stopwatch. Three, two, one, go. And stop there, amazing. Now, I actually beat my last score. I must have tried even harder than last time. How did you get on? Hopefully, you all managed to match your last score or even beat it, and if you did, give yourselves a massive pat on the back. Right, now I think it's a good time to have a quick drinks break. So, we're gonna have 30 seconds. I'm gonna get my massive drinks bottle. Here it is. Now, there's a lot of water in this because I need to drink a lot. And at the end, you'll see why I brought such a big drinks bottle. Good, so now's the chance to have a little rest. And while you're having your drink, you're going to pick up your tennis ball or your pair of socks. Okay, so you've got a tennis ball or a pair of socks. Now, I'm gonna show you with both just so that you can see what I'm doing, but it doesn't matter what you've got. You'll be able to practice the same skills. Okay, so, first ball skill. Now, tennis players need to be really, really good at watching the ball all of the time. Your mission is to see if you can keep your eyes watching that ball for every single second. What tennis players also need is something called hand-eye coordination, which means how your hands and your eyes work together. Now, hand-eye coordination in tennis is so important because tennis players need to use their eyes to watch the ball coming towards them, and they need to use their hands to control the ball. Now, they'll use a tennis racket, but it's their hands that are holding the racket. So we need good hand-eye coordination. So, first job with your ball or your socks or whatever you've got is just to simply throw the ball up and catch the ball with two hands. Throw the ball up and catch the ball. So you're just gonna have a little practice at this. Now, if it's tricky, you can do small throws, little ones like this, keeping your eye on the ball. If you're finding it a little bit too easy, you can see if you can use one hand only. But remember, if you're doing this at home or in any indoor space, just be careful of what's around you. So if you're really near to a television screen or a window, just be super careful. And also, if there's lights above your head, don't throw it very high at all. So little throws is fine, and if it's too easy, you can switch hands like this. So keep practicing. I'm gonna have a go with my socks. Oh, actually, it's a little bit tougher with socks because they're not perfectly round. So if you've got socks, I'm very impressed if you're able to do this. There we go. You can use one hand if you want to, or two hands. Perfect. Good job. So hopefully your hand-eye coordination is starting to get a bit warmer. Now, your next mission is to throw the ball up, catch it, put it behind your back, bring it back to the front, and throw it up again. And we're gonna see how many of these you can do in 30 seconds again. So have a little practice first, behind your back, throw catch behind your back, throw catch behind your back, throw catch. So keep practicing, ready for the challenge. You'll see if you can beat my score. Now, don't worry if you don't beat my score on this one because I am an expert at this, and I never lose this game. So I'll be very disappointed if I do lose. So go easy on me. Okay, we're ready for the challenge. So, 30 seconds. I'm gonna start my stop watching three, two, one, go. Make sure you're always watching that tennis ball when it's in front of you. It's not gonna be easy when it's behind your back. You're gonna use your feeling or hand coordination body. Keep going. Five seconds left. Stop. Amazing. Now, I think it must be my old age, but I lost count on that one. So tell me, shout through the screen, how many did you get? What? That's amazing. What a great score that was. Now, if you manage to do that one, this next one is gonna be even tougher, okay? This next exercise incorporates our around the world, where we were passing the ball around our body, but it also incorporates some of the tennis movements that we practiced before when we were doing the loop. Now, this one is called planets. Now, the reason it's called planets is because when I say I passed the ball around the world, I am the world. This is the moon. I'm gonna be passing the moon around the world because that's what happens, isn't it? The moon moves around the world. And what does the world move around? The sun. So your job is to see if you can do your around the worlds at the same time as moving around your two markers. Now, this exercise I do with my teenage players and some of them really struggle with this one. The reason I've asked you guys to do it is because I've seen how good your skills are. I've been very, very impressed with how good you were at passing the ball around your body and the footwork you did earlier was incredible. So don't worry if you can't do this one. This is your challenge. I want you to have a little practice, okay? We don't need to do any counting. Your aim is to do your around the world, always facing towards the screen and see if you can go around your markers. Have a go. Off you go. Excellent. This is real coordination. We're using all of our body parts. We're using our brain. This game is called Planets. You're doing fantastically well. Try a couple more rounds and stop there. Amazing effort. Give yourselves a pat on the back. That was incredible. And I'm gonna go and tell my teenagers next week that you guys were much better than they were. So big, well done. Now, we're gonna have a very quick drinks break again. So grab your water bottle. Ooh, it's hard work, isn't it? Hopefully you're having lots of fun. So this is the bit that you've been waiting for, I think, so we're now going to get our tennis racket and our tennis ball or whatever you have instead of your tennis racket. It could be a chocolate. I don't know where this came from. Obviously I don't eat chocolate because I'm so healthy. But if you've got this instead, that's fine. If you've got a book, if you've got a frying pan, you've got a pair of socks, whatever it might be. But you're gonna have a go at these exercises. Now, the first one, we're going to get familiar with the tennis racket. Now, remember, if you don't have one, it doesn't matter, but you'll still learn these things really, really well. This part of the racket is called the racket face and it's made up of strings, okay? But this is your racket face. If you don't have a racket, you probably won't have strings, but you'll still have a face. This part of the racket is called the neck. So we've got the face and the neck of the racket and we've got the handle or the grip and this is what we're gonna be holding. Now, like I said again, if you don't have a tennis racket, you might not have a neck, you might not have a grip. You can hold it in any way you like, but you can still do these activities. So, your first mission is to see if you can balance your ball on your racket face and you're gonna see if you can stop it from falling off. So have a go at that first, off you go. Keep it balanced. Don't let my words distract you. You gotta keep your eyes focused on that ball or your pair of socks. I'm gonna get my pair of socks and you gotta keep it balanced. Now, if you do have a pair of socks, it was trickier on the last game, but actually I think this might be a bit easier for you. Hold it there, keep it balanced. Good, five more seconds. Three, two, one and pick up your ball. Amazing effort, okay? Now, round two. I want you to see if you can make use of your two markers now and you're gonna keep your ball balanced on your racket face and you're going to see if you can loop around your markers without your ball falling off. So, what do we need to be looking at this time? You're right, the ball. We definitely need to keep our eyes on the ball. So, off you go. If it's tricky, you can do this super slowly to make sure it doesn't fall off. But if you're an older player or somebody with lots of experience, you might want to go super fast to see if you can go even faster than me, but you gotta keep your eyes on the ball and make sure you don't trip over your markers. Keep going. Give the figure of eight to go as well if you want to, keeping the ball balanced, always facing towards the screen. Amazing, really, really good. And pause. Well done. You guys are good. I wish I was as good as you when I started playing tennis. Now, I was actually eight years old when I first picked up a tennis racket. So, you might be older than me, you might be younger than me, but if you practice like this, you're gonna be super good tennis players. So, next exercise, you're gonna stand in between your two markers. If you have a ball or something that bounces, your job is to do what we call sandwich catches. Now, your racket and your hand are gonna be the pieces of bread. And the ball is going to be your filling. And you're gonna see if you can drop your filling, bounce and catch in between your slices of bread. One, two, you'll notice that I'm bending my knees so that I can get my bread low enough to catch the ball. So, if you've got something bouncy, have a go at that one now, get started. If you don't have something bouncy, if you have a pair of socks like me, it's gonna be a smelly sandwich, but you're going to see if you can throw your filling up and catch, up and catch. But we've still got to get our filling in between our slices of bread. This is really tricky. Excellent. So, keeping your eye on the ball or on your socks, making sure that we're bending our knees to throw up or if we're catching after a bounce, bending our knees to catch, keep it going. Eyes on the ball. Eyes on the prize. Five seconds left. Really good. And stop there. Awesome work. So, next step, because we always wanna make these things tougher, we're gonna do tap-ups. Now, tap-ups can be done with a ball or a sock, whatever you've got. It might be a bigger ball, that's fine as well. But just like we did when we were balancing, we're going to see if we can gently tap the ball up. Now, your job is to not let your ball go above your head height, especially if you're indoors, okay? Because we don't wanna hit the lights, we don't wanna hit the windows, we don't wanna hit the TVs, so we're gonna do tiny, tiny bounces. And if it's a pair of socks, you can do, oh, that's tough, you can do the same thing, okay? But we've got to see if we can do five bounces in a row. If it goes above your head, stop, pick up your ball and try again. Tiny bounces. See if you can beat five off you go. Your mission is to keep watching the ball all of the time, and you'll notice just like when I was balancing the ball, my racket face is always flat. If it's wonky, the ball will go in a different direction, so we've got to keep our racket face nice and flat. Keep it going. Amazing. Got 20 seconds left. If you want a real challenge, if this is too easy, you can try using both sides of the racket. One, two, three, four, flip. One, two, three, four, flip. And you've got to see if you can use both sides. But if it's too tricky, keep it gentle. Small, tiny little bounces with a flat racket. And stop there. Amazing work. Okay, so now it's time for a quick drinks break, so have a little swig of water. It's important to stay hydrated, so keep drinking, especially when you're doing physical activity like this. And you're now ready for the final game of the session. Now you're going to need to use your drinks bottle for this game. It's going to be a target. So hopefully your drinks bottle is plastic bottle or something that's not going to break. If you're using a glass or a mug, don't use that for this game. Use one of your markers instead. But if you've got a plastic drinks bottle, something that won't break, you're going to put it on the floor and you're going to find a space somewhere in the room that you're in, but not near to any television or windows. So I'm going to put my bottle all the way over here, okay? And my job is to use my ball or my socks to try to hit my target. Now, who's played golf before? If you've played golf before, it's going to be similar to that. Your job is to see how many shots or how many throws it takes you to hit your target, okay? Now, for the first round, we're going to use our hand skills. For the second round, we're going to use our racket skills. So from where you are, I'm going to go first and I'm going to throw my ball underarm to see if I can hit my target. Now, if I hit my target, I score one point and that's the best score that you can get because it's the lowest number. But if I miss my target, then I'm going to have to go, wait for my ball to stop rolling to pick it up and go do another throw. So here we go, aiming for the target. Okay, so I didn't hit the target. I've had one throw. So now I'm going to walk over to my ball, where it stopped. I'm not allowed to move from where it stopped. I'm going to pick it up and now I'm going to throw number two. I missed it. Okay, but it's very close now. So hopefully I'm going to be able to hit my target on shot number three. Yes, so I managed to hit my target within three shots. Okay, so now it's your turn. See if you can put your target down somewhere in your room, okay? And have a go and see if you can throw your ball towards it. My tip for you is to be very gentle with your throw because if you throw the ball past your target and it goes out of control, it's going to be an even tougher second throw. But if you do a gentle throw like me, it's going to help you to get a bit closer. So have a go. I'm going to give you one minute to see how many throws it takes you to get to your target. Off you go. Now I'm going to move on to the second version of this challenge now. So if you're still going, press pause and then you can press play once you've finished. Now round two, you're going to be using your racket or your substitute option here. And you're going to see if you can hit your ball to the target, okay? So I'm going to use, I don't know where this came from but I'm going to use this chocolate lid and my socks to see how close I can get it. And I'm going to see if I can do a forehand. Now if you do have a pair of socks, this is perfect for this because actually this isn't going to break anything. But we're going to see if we can hit your target. So let's see how many it takes me. Here we go. Oh, I'm happy with that one. That was pretty close. One, I'm going to try again. Two, three. So have a go with that one yourself. I managed to get three but like I said, I'm a professional at this. I've had years of practice. So if you don't beat my score, don't worry. You can have another go at this. But if you're still going, hit pause right now and press play once you're finished. You're doing a fantastic job. Amazing. So there you go. That is the end of your 30 minute tennis session. Hopefully you had loads of fun and hopefully you found some of those tasks challenging. In our next session, we're going to make these challenges even tougher because my job is to make you into a professional tennis player. So now that you've done it once, next week you'll know what to bring along to the session and I can't wait to see you then. See you soon.